Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door

(Hardback)

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How do you find time to paint when you need to get to the market to buy a chicken for dinner How do you manage a marriage when your art student becomes your rival From the author of The Paper Garden, another revealing look at the life of a ground-breaking female artist.

Molly Peacock uncovers the history of neglected painter Mary Hiester Reid, a trailblazing artist who refused to choose between marriage and a career. Molly Peacock looks at the balancing act of female creativity and domesticity in the life of Mary Hiester Reid, a painter who produced over three hundred stunning, emotive floral still lifes and landscapes.

Born in the U.S. in 1854, trained by libertine Thomas Eakins, Mary trailblased in a life where she fought for her place as a professional artist without having to live as a tragic heroine. She married George A. Reid, a prominent Canadian painter, and moved with him to Toronto, though she kept a studio in the Catskill Mountains. But it was the Edwardian age, and while their relationship was more equal than most, it was Marys place to manage the domestic scene. So, how do you find the time to paint when you need to get to the market to buy a chicken for dinner And how do you manage a marriage when your art student becomes your rival

Reviews

"Flower Diary is written with the lingering observations and lyrical touch of an established poet, yet with an easygoing, conversational tone often lacking in didactic art biographies." -- Quill & Quire
"Flower Diary, published by ECW Press, with its carefully reproduced paintings, gorgeous endpapers and glossy paper stock, puts it in the running as the most stunning book to come out of Canadian publishing this year." -- Toronto Star
"In Flower Diary, Molly Peacock has produced an exquisitely unique work. A meticulous biography that's also an eloquent, sophisticated portrait of intimate relationships, this book is about many things: the discipline required to make fine art, the emotional resilience required to sustain a marriage, the emotional turbulence hiding inside 'simple' floral paintings. Most of all, though, it's a clear-eyed, unsentimental tribute to those who have the luck and fortitude to carry out their lives on their own terms. I devoured every detail, and was both moved and inspired." -- Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects Of Discussion
"In prose as subtle and enchanting as Mary Hiester Reid's own brushstrokes, Flower Diary paints a compelling portrait of a talented and unjustly neglected painter. Molly Peacock is unfailingly sensitive and intelligent, and at times deeply moving, as she shows how, despite the shade of domestic life and the unfavourable climate of the times, MHR brought forth her bright blossoms." -- Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
"Part memoir, part biography, this is a beautifully written and layered volume that opens its arms wide and encompasses art, domesticity, the intimacy of marriage and of death. Lush and beautifully produced." -- Toronto Star

Author Bio

Biographer and distinguished poet Molly Peacock is the author of The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72, as well as seven volumes of poetry, including The Analyst: Poems. She is an arts activist and, with a friend, started what became a cultural institution in New York City: Poetry in Motion on the subways and buses. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow and a dual American/Canadian citizen, Molly divides her time between Toronto and New York City.