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About
In 1903, the artist Gwendolen Mary John travels from London to France with her companion Dorelia. Surviving on their wits and Gwen's raw talent, the young women walk from Calais to Paris. In the new century, the world is full of promise: it is time for Gwen to step out from the shadow of her overbearing brother Augustus and seek out the great painter and sculptor Auguste Rodin. It is time to be brave and visible, to love and be loved – and time perhaps to become a hero as the stain of anti-Semitism spreads across Europe.
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Reviews
"'Goldie Goldbloom takes her readers on an exciting journey into the early twentieth century and introduces them to an extraordinary group of artists in London and Paris. Her story is full of surprises, inspired sexual conjectures, moments of pathos and romance, all illuminated by her vivid imagination.'"
Michael Holroyd, author of Augustus John: The New Biography
"'Erotically and intellectually charged, this is a story of artistic becoming, of life's swirling waters of desire, ambition and the search for aesthetic truth. Gwen is a ravishing achievement, a dazzling work of art in its own right.'"
Dominic Smith, author of New York Times bestseller The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
"'This is a masterful book: Gwen is brilliant and strange, compassionate and wild. Goldie Goldbloom has done the difficult thing, she has written a book about a very private artist's relationship to her art, her struggles with men and family, her unconventional sexuality and the fusion of these things that Gwen John achieved in her work. This book is startling and beautiful, it is a powerful tribute to a great painter and in the end it brings us back to Gwen John's art, to see it with different eyes.'"
Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife