I especially enjoy listening to audible books as I paint and if the subject matter is also about art, then that is even better!
Here is a list of novels that have an arty theme that I have enjoyed recently:
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Stone Virgin by Barry Unsworth
Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
Other fictional novels with an art theme on my list that I would like to read:
The Passion of Artemisia: A Novel bySusan Vreeland
This author has several along this theme, so she would be worth checking out.
The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears
This author also has several on an art history crime theme.
The Forger by Paul Watkins
I love a good book about art forgery!
The Painting by Nina Schuyler
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
Another author that works in a series, I understand.
I Am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto
I have been intending to read this since it was published.
The Portland Vase: The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure by Robin Brooks
I like me a bit of history too.
The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
The Painted Kiss: A Novel by Elizabeth Hickey
I Was Vermeer: The Forger Who Swindled the Nazis by Frank Wynne
Not strictly fiction - but another fascinating forgery story!
Loot: Inside the World of Stolen Art by
Thomas McShane & Dary Matera
This might be hard to find - or you could steal a copy!
The Painter by Will Davenport
The Serpent Garden by Judith Merkle Riley
Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex
She also has others along a historical theme
Stealing Athena by Karen Essex
The Chrysalis by Heather Terrell
Pale as the Dead: A Genalogical Mystery (Natasha Blake, Ancestor Detective, Book 1) by Fiona Mountain
Rembrandt's Whore by Sylvie Matton
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr
The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, translated by Margaret Jull Costa
The Tragic Muse by Henry James
The Art Fair by David Lipsky
Seek My Face by John Updike
The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato
Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick
Phew! That lot will keep me quiet for quite some time. I have left out a few obvious ones like Dan Brown as well as Oscar Wilde, but if you have any you would like to suggest, I would be most grateful to hear from you.
Happy reading (and painting, of course)!
