I don’t think that there is any doubt that we used to glorify authors much more in the past than in the present: while the written word is still alive and well (for now) its producers are not the focal points of our popular culture that Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and F. Scott Fitzgerald once were, except for those long-dead but seemingly eternal celebrity scribes like Will and Jane. There is so much material evidence of author adoration from a century and more ago : portraits, pilgrimages to literary “shrines”, biographies, the various Victorian “Authors” games–first produced right here in Salem— designed to develop literary familiarity and appreciation from an early age.But that is not the literary or the material culture that we live in now, so I was kind of surprised to encounter two “Odes to Authors” prints while I was browsing around the website of Anthropologie, of all places. These are the work of artist Valerie Suter, who is apparently a voracious reader of twentieth-century fiction.
Odes to Authors Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes by Valerie Suter, available here.
I went over to Suter’s website and found lots more authors: clearly they are her primary inspiration at this point in her life/career. She works in various mediums (including animation and clothing) and portrays her literary subjects in accessible and whimsical ways, occasionally doing something or in each other’s company, like the familiar subjects of A Moveable Feast and Mark Twain playing pool, below. Lots of color, patterned backgrounds, interesting scale, and an almost complete absence of any formality or pretense bring these authors to life. I really want Josephine Tey, author of one of my very favorite books, The Daughter of Time (1951).
Paintings by Valerie Suter: Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast; John Steinbeck among chrysanthemums, Mark Twain playing pool, E.B. White, Joan Didion & Josephine Tey; Penguin Classic cover of The Daughter of Time.
November 16th, 2016 at 12:15 pm
Some authors in the 20th century have gone quite the other way, and tried to elude celebrity, and that included being unavailable for portraits. B. Traven and J.D. Salinger come to mind.
November 16th, 2016 at 1:25 pm
I must admit I had to look up B. Traven!
November 16th, 2016 at 4:36 pm
See how well he refused the trappings of celebrity!
Back a few years ago, I went hunting female Victorian ghost story writers for my Halloween “moldy oldie.” My favorite in terms of images is Vernon Lee, the cross-dressing lesbian scholar of Italian music and fiction writer, who was portrayed by John Singer Sargeant both in a painting and a sketch that survive.
November 16th, 2016 at 5:35 pm
Wow!
November 16th, 2016 at 12:22 pm
Very refreshing and well-done portraits! And we get a glimpse of the relationship between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. So
that’s what Josephine Tey looks like!
November 16th, 2016 at 1:25 pm
Wonderful !!! Had to check out that picture of Woolf – fabulous!!
November 16th, 2016 at 1:26 pm
Yes, the Woolf pictures are really stunning.
November 16th, 2016 at 1:30 pm
I am a little in love with Virginia – it’s complicated – there are parts of her I don’t like, but I can’t help being astonished by her. I don’t think I could have a stronger relationship were she alive!! Odd how some souls seem to burn bright. I have more dialogue with her and Shakespeare than with most of the living!!
November 16th, 2016 at 2:04 pm
I love reading about her complicated relationship with her sister, and the Bloomsbury Group in general.