Art Inspired Fiction
From the classics to contemporary fiction, the art world provides a dramatic backdrop for these novels.
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel's difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success comes doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership.
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers.
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Elaine Risley, a controversial painter, returns to the city of her youth for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, an artist, and a woman—but above all she must seek release from her haunting memories.
The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Holland in the 1660s comes to dazzling life in this richly imagined portrait of Griet, a sixteen year old whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius as she is immortalized in one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings. History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother, and is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
Conceived while his artist father, Bear, cavorted around Rome in the 1950s, Pinch learns quickly that Bear's genius trumps all. After Bear abandons his family, Pinch strives to make himself worthy of his father's attention—first trying to be a painter himself; then resolving to write his father's biography; eventually settling, disillusioned, into a job as an Italian teacher in London. But when Bear dies, Pinch hatches a scheme to secure his father's legacy—and make his own mark on the world.
The Muse by Jessie Burton
A captivating and brilliantly realized story of two young women and the powerful mystery that ties them together. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean immigrant trying to make her way in 1960s London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
The Paris Secret by Karen Swan
When high-powered fine art agent Flora Sykes is called in to assess objets d'art in a Paris apartment that has been abandoned since WWII, she discovers that the treasure trove of paintings is myriad...and priceless. The powerful Vermeil family to whom they belong is eager to learn more and asks Flora to trace the history of each painting. But she soon realizes there is more to this project than first appears. As she researches the provenance of their prize Renoir, she uncovers a scandal surrounding the painting—and a secret that goes to the very heart of the family. The fallout will place Flora in the eye of a storm that carries her from London to Vienna to the glittering coast of Provence.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.
Still Lives by Maria Hummel
Kim Lord is an avant-garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition "Still Lives" is comprised of self-portraits depicting herself as famous, murdered women. The works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women. As the city's richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum's opening night, all the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be enough to save the historic institution's flailing finances. Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own gala. Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. As Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord's disappearance, she'll come to suspect all of those closest to her.
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.
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