Synopses & Reviews
This highly original, insightful, and beautifully illustrated book offers the first feminist analysis of the phenomenon of women art collectors in America. Dianne Sachko Macleod brings to light the surprising paradox that collecting itself not only provided wealthy women with a private sense of solace, it liberated them to venture out into the public sphere and make a lasting contribution to the emerging American culture. Beginning in the antebellum period, continuing through the Gilded Age, and reaching into the twentieth century, Macleod considers collectors such as Eliza Bowen Jumel, Mary Sexton Morgan, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Louisine Havemeyer, and Edith Rockefeller McCormick and shows how each left an indelible mark on the American scene. Emerging from their cloistered interiors, elite women learned to negotiate with dealers and museum officials and enlisted the objets d'art and avant-garde paintings in their collections in causes ranging from the founding of modern museums to the campaign for women's suffrage. Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects explores the previously undocumented role that art collecting played in fostering women's empowerment and elevating their vision beyond domestic enrichment to public involvement.
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and#8220;A valuable addition to our belated understanding of the crucial role that women played outside the studio and inside the museum.and#8221;
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and#8220;Brings to life the idea of the female collector and the limitless horizons that collecting embodied as . . . expression.and#8221;
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and#8220;Macleod deftly demonstrates that collecting art served these women as a catalyst for fostering self-awareness, independence, and engagement with the public sphere.and#8221;
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and#8220;An impressive piece of scholarship on the gendered and heterogeneous nature of collecting.and#8221;
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and#8220;The work is a welcome addition to the literature on collecting. It should prompt spirited discussion.and#8221;
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and#8220;Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects will captivate scholars in many fields.and#8221;
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“An impressive piece of scholarship on the gendered and heterogeneous nature of collecting.” Laura R. Prieto - CAA Reviews
Synopsis
This insightful and beautifully illustrated book offers the first feminist analysis of the phenomenon of women art collectors in America. Dianne Sachko Macleod brings a surprising paradox to light, showing that collecting, which provided wealthy women with a private sense of solace, also liberated them to venture into the public sphere and make a lasting contribution to the emerging American culture. Beginning in the antebellum period, continuing through the Gilded Age, and reaching well into the twentieth century, Macleod shows how elite women enlisted the objets d'art and avant-garde paintings in their collections in causes ranging from the founding of modern museums to the campaign for women's suffrage.
About the Author
Dianne Sachko Macleod is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity.