Book picks similar to
Van Gogh by D.M. Field


art
art-and-artists
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The Lost Painting


Jonathan Harr - 2005
    Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn't alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others -- no one knows the precise number -- have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.Jonathan Harr embarks on a journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ -- its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

The Genevieve Lenard Connections


Estelle Ryan - 2013
    Genevieve Lenard, a brilliant investigator with high-functioning autism, faces her life's greatest challenge when a murder probe uncovers a web of unimaginable corruption. With great reluctance, she becomes part of a team in a race to stop more artists from being murdered.#2 The Dante Connection Despite her initial disbelief, Doctor Genevieve Lenard discovers that she is the key that connects stolen works of art, ciphers and sinister threats. Little does she know that she's about to embark on a journey through not one, but two twisted minds to discover the true target of their mysterious messages. It will take all her personal strength and knowledge as a nonverbal communications expert to overcome fears that could cost not only her life, but the lives of many others.#3 The Braque ConnectionDrugged and kidnapped, Doctor Genevieve wakes up to find that a psychopath has been framing one of her team members for senseless acts of violence. Something has triggered his unpredictable behaviour, something that might result in many more deaths, including those she cares for.

Peace on Earth (isn't what what we're good at)


Audrey Faye - 2018
    We're just two women who know what it is to need one." Jane has problems, and this December, keeping her assassin best friend from actually killing somebody isn't the biggest one. Her songwriting muse keeps trying to rise from the dead, they have a new sidekick they can't seem to dislodge from the back seat, and it's that time of year when the ghosts of Christmas shake their chains and make an unbearable season even worse. Peace on Earth isn't what they're good at - but it's coming for them anyhow. Which isn't anything a couple of assassins want for Christmas. (Previously published as Lesbian Assassins, which was a nod to how the story got started, and a terrible description of its contents. Heavily revised to become the tale of holiday redemption Carly & Jane apparently always intended to become!)

Perfect Love


Suvika - 2014
    Nothing matters to him except the company he and his friends had built from ground up. He works his Lethal Magic on women to get what he wants – be it their warm, eager bodies or corporate secrets. Until Sanjana enters his office and his life. Sanjana Sinha, a girl on the run from her past who is petrified at the word – Love. Her sole focus is not to draw anyone’s attention on herself while she painstakingly is rebuilding her life. Until Gaurav walks into her workspace and her life. What do fates have in store for these two scarred souls? What would happen when they meet? When the past that they are both trying to escape from comes to stand in front of them?

Starving to Successful | The Fine Artist's Guide to Getting Into Galleries and Selling More Art


J. Jason Horejs - 2009
    Written by J. Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, Starving to Successful will give you pragmatic advice and concrete, actionable steps you can begin implementing immediately to become more successful in marketing your work to galleries.Gain insight into what a gallery owner is thinking as he or she reviews your portfolio. Understand why the most common approaches artists make to galleries are largely ineffective. Learn what most artists fail to do in preparing their work for sale.Starving to Successful will change the way you look at the artist/gallery relationship, and will set your art career on a new path.About the AuthorArt flows through Xanadu Gallery owner J. Jason Horejs veins. Second generation in the art business, (Horejs father is a nationally recognized oil painter John Horejs) Horejs life has always been filled with art. Though not interested in pursuing a life as an artist, Horejs fell in love with the business side of art at an early age. At age 12, the future gallery owner was employed by his father building custom canvas stretchers.In 1991, at the age of 17, Horejs began working for Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, where he learned the gallery business from the ground up. Horejs handled logistics, shipping and installation, eventually working into a sales position at the western art gallery. Horejs worked in the gallery s Scottsdale and Jackson Hole, WY, locations.In 2001, Jason and his wife, Carrie, opened Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale. In spite of opening on September 11th into a completely changed art world, Horejs built the gallery into a successful venture, showing dozens of artists and selling to collectors from around the world, including major municipal and private collections.In 2008, Horejs developed a series of art marketing workshops designed to help artists better understand the gallery business and better prepare themselves to approach galleries. This series of workshops has helped hundreds of artists get organized to show and sell their work through galleries."I discovered," says Horejs, "there was very little information out there for the aspiring professional artist regarding the business side of art, especially in terms of the crucial relationship between the artists and the fine art gallery. Even artists who have graduated with master s degrees leave school having never heard a word about how to approach galleries."Horejs observes that artists approaching his gallery are making many of the same mistakes, not because their work isn t gallery-ready, but simply because they don t have a clear idea of how to proceed. Horejs designed his workshops working closely with his parents and other artists who have learned the ropes of working with galleries by trial and error. The clear-headed advice the gallery owner gives is designed to give the artists concrete steps they can take to prepare their work, research galleries and approach galleries for representation.

A Prodigal Return (An Irish Family Saga, #5)


Jean Reinhardt - 2016
    The couple who survived the Great Hunger have had to watch more than half their family leave the parish. The responsibility to care for one another extends beyond blood or marriage ties for the McGrother family in New York, when a young Irishman goes missing in America. Back in Ireland, at a time when James and Mary least expect it, a family member returns - but not everyone is pleased with the reunion.

The Power of Art


Simon Schama - 2006
    "The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things; visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality. . . ."With the same disarming force, The Power of Art propels us on an eye-opening, breathtaking odyssey, zooming in on eight extraordinary masterpieces, from Caravaggio's David and Goliath to Picasso's Guernica. Jolting us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art forever.The embattled heroes—Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko—each in his own resolute way, faced crisis with steadfast defiance, pitting passion and conviction against scorn and short-sightedness. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness and changed the way we look at the world.With vivid storytelling and powerfully evocative descriptive passages, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of Civil War Spain.Most compelling of all, The Power of Art traces the extraordinary evolution of eight "eye-popping" world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such works "tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that, they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript . . . 'OK, OK, but what's art really for?'"

Secrets of the South


B.M. Hardin - 2018
    And for about fifteen years, she was right. Until her happy marriage goes down the drain and she's left with no one but herself to blame. On a quest to become the world's next best-selling author, to find her voice, Savannah makes a difficult choice.    She has to run—again.    She quits her job and packs a bag. And then she sets out to find the inspiration that she's never had. Only she finds herself in the one place she never expected to be. Home—in the South; reminded of pain and secrecy. A sin is still a sin, even if no one knows. And a secret is still a secret even if no one told. Bonds are broken, truths are spoken, and no one around her can be trusted.    Who killed her mother?     Who is her father?     Who knows the truth about the small-town barber?    Savannah discovers that 'Southern Charm' is just for show. What really matters in the South are the lies you tell and the secrets you know!

The Reluctant Millionaire


Joseph Birchall - 2017
    His job bores him and his love is unrequited. Very few people pay attention to Michael, and that suits him fine. Then one day, he finds himself the winner of the largest lottery in the history of Europe – €190,000,000! Under the weight of his new found wealth and fame, Michael’s life spirals out of control until he is forced to make a decision. A decision that will capture the imagination of the entire world…

Night School


Maeve Binchy
    story of an abandoned love, who after making her life in Italy, goes back to the UK to re-make her life there teaching Italian

Stuck On You (Stoneworths Series, #1)


Michelle Stimpson - 2016
    Yet when they returned to school in the fall, Braxton made a decision that drove Tiffany to transfer schools and never look back.Now, nearly a decade later, they meet again as business experts vying for the same contract at a prestigious school. In addition to their professional competition, tensions mount as Braxton and Tiffany discover that they have two different versions of what happened to their romance so long ago. Can they overcome hard feelings and pick up where they left off? Tiffany’s father passed away a few months ago, just as she was founding her new project management firm. She wonders if her leap of faith was a good move, and her doubts only increase when she learns that someone from the firm she left is trying to undermine her independent efforts…not to mention her possibilities with Braxton.Braxton thought he might follow his father’s footsteps into ministry. His wild fraternity days caught up with him, however, causing Braxton to give up the idea of teaching anyone to follow the faith he so obviously neglected. Can he win back his own self-respect and the heart of the woman he never forgot?Stuck On You is the first book in The Stoneworth Series by bestselling Christian Fiction author Michelle Stimpson. The family history is briefly established, and then readers are off to experience the Stoneworth family's rich legacy of faith and integrity within the context of contemporary romance. Come fall in love with the family!

Sunsets Never Wait


Jonathan Cullen - 2020
    The isolation is all but unbearable until a mysterious tenant moves into the house at the bottom of the hill. James Dunford has come from America but he won’t say why. He spends his days fixing up the old cottage and walking the beach with a stray dog that showed up on his doorstep.As the weeks pass, Tara tries to get to know James, but he resists her at every turn. And it's not until a local villager recognizes him from the news that she realizes his visit might be about more than just a vacation. On the night of a big storm, Tara finally confronts James about why he is there. But how can she expect him to be honest when she, too, is hiding her own dark secret?Set against the backdrop of the Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland, Sunsets Never Wait is a story about love, loss, and the risks of hanging on to the past. No matter how much the world has let you down, there’s always a possibility for second chances.

Never Say Goodbye


Linda Kavanagh - 2011
    But when her sister Claire inherits the family home she discovers her sister's secret diary, which tells a very different story.

ONE MISSION: Something you knew isn't something you know


Manith J. - 2016
    She went on this secret journey to pursue a nuclear weapon and it brought her to meet two good men who changed her life from bad to good and from good to bad at the same time.

The King's Mother


M.J. Porter
     The widowed Lady Elfrida has achieved the impossible. She’s ensured her twelve-year-old son has become king, despite the gruesome murder of his predecessor and half-brother. While many blame the king’s mother, she looks to two rival noblemen as the real perpetrators. Even with the reappearance of an unwelcome enemy on England’s shores, Viking warriors, who attack and threaten the safety and security of England, and specifically, the young king, the two noblemen are far from resigned to Lady Elfrida’s power. As her son takes the final steps to become king in actions as well as name, she’s increasingly isolated by the deaths of allies and the scheming ways of others, including the king. Resentful of her continuing influence, Lady Elfrida faces banishment from Court with both fierce determination and acquiescence. The King's Mother is the first part in a new trilogy. Suggested reading order: The Mercian Brexit (short story and prequel) The First Queen of England The First Queen of England Part 2 The First Queen of England Part 3 The King's Mother