Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Fresh and intimate letters that tell the story of the unusual married life between the acclaimed painter Augustus John and his first wife, Ida.
By the time of his death in 1961, Augustus John was widely considered among the greatest British portraitists and compared to such artists as Gauguin and Matisse. But when Ida Nettleship married him on the foggy morning of Saturday, January 12, 1901, he was simply an eccentric, flamboyant artist of great promise, and a man her parents were entirely against her marrying. Ida defied her parents and built a life with the man who would become one of the great artists of his time.
Ida's letters--to friends, to family, and to Augustus--reveal a young woman of passion and wit to match that of her famously charismatic husband. They tell of tensions between parents disobeyed and siblings who endured the consequences; of hurt and betrayal as the marriage evolved into a three-way affair when Augustus fell in love with another woman; of Ida's remarkable acceptance of Dorelia, their shared domesticity, and rival pregnancies; of self-doubt, happiness, and despair; and of finding the strength and courage to compromise and navigate her unorthodox marriage.
Ida was a naturally gifted writer, and with candor, intimacy, and extraordinary social intelligence her correspondence opens up her world. Ida John died at the age of thirty, but in these letters she is alive on the page, a young woman ahead of her time, living a complex and compelling drama.