Stepping Stones: A Life of Art and Adventure

(Hardback)

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These memoirs reflect the momentous changes that have taken place over the last century through the prism of Flavia Ormonds experiences: first as an evacuee in Canada during the Second World War, then as a returned exile travelling and working in unusual circumstances in Egypt and Italy, where she lived for many years; and finally her love affair with art which led to a rewarding career as an art dealer in London, New York and Paris, moving amongst leading collectors and museums. Early chapters are profiles of Flavia Ormonds forebears, John Lubbock, an acolyte of Charles Darwin, Augustus Pitt Rivers, founder of the eponymous museum in Oxford, George Agnew of the notable art dealing firm in Bond Street, and the Grant Duffs, her immediate family. The author pursued her passion for cultural history and travel during a long marriage to John Ormond, great nephew of John Singer Sargent.

Author Bio

Born in London in 1936, Flavia Ormond was taken to Canada when her father went missing in northern France in 1940. Returning to England in 1959, she explored Europe and the Near East before attending The Courtauld Institute of Art and embracing her life-long passion for Italian Renaissance painting. She and her husband brought their children up in Rome in the 1970s, and later established a company dealing in Old Master Drawings, exhibiting in London, Paris and New York.