In his fiction Henry James wrote about artists, collectors, and galleries. He was fascinated by painters and paintings and his friends and associates included John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Duveneck and William Wetmore Story.
James’s letters vividly convey his response to visual culture and his work as a novelist was filled with the drama of watching and noticing: the most dramatic, intense and memorable moments in his fiction appear as though framed. Jean Strouse, biographer of Alice James, and Colm Tóibín, author of The Master, discuss Henry James’s relationship to the visual arts.
Held Wednesday, June 28, 2017.