Acknowledgements

Garb, Tamar

Save Cite Share

Free

Acknowledgements

Tamar Garb

The Painted Face: Portraits of Women in France, 1814–1914

~I have incurred many debts during the writing of this book. Without the support of family, friends, colleagues and students it would never have been written. To Moira Benigson and Myra Stern, my soul sisters, I am especially thankful for the irreplaceable pleasures of our daily contact. Thelma Koorland’s warmth and hospitality have supported and...

Author

Tamar Garb

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22343

Acknowledgements

I have incurred many debts during the writing of this book. Without the support of family, friends, colleagues and students it would never have been written. To Moira Benigson and Myra Stern, my soul sisters, I am especially thankful for the irreplaceable pleasures of our daily contact. Thelma Koorland’s warmth and hospitality have supported and nourished me over many years. Maureen Zetler and Karen Harber remain constant and supportive presences even though we are separated by continents. To Vivienne Koorland, a special friend, I am grateful for our ongoing conversations about painting, art and life. Adrian Rifkin and Briony Fer have sustained my intellectual endeavours by indulging my pursuit of the superficial at the same time as stretching my engagement with the difficult, not least the excruciating exigencies of writing. I cannot imagine having been able to complete this book without them. Linda Nochlin, has been an abiding presence in my intellectual and emotional life and provided encouragement and wise advice at crucial points. Kathy Adler, too, has been an interlocutor and friend for over two decades, sharing with me a love of nineteenth century painting in general and the problematics of portraiture in particular. Denis Echard made his cosy apartment in Paris available to me on numerous occasions during the research for this book and it became, for me, a home from home, infused with his warmth and friendship. I will miss it. In addition to those I have mentioned, I would like to acknowledge conversations, both public and private that have contributed to this project, in particular those with Molly Nesbit, Susan Siegfried, David Solkin, Carol Ockman, Caroline Arscott, Alexandra Wetlauffer, Abigail Solomon Godeau, Timothy Hyman, David Plante, Carol Armstrong, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Marni Kessler and Mignon Nixon.

My colleagues and students at University College London have provided a supportive and stimulating community in which to think creatively as well as offering me the time and space in which to work. In particular my research students Francesca Berry, Harriet Riches, Mark Godfrey, Amy Mechowski, Mary Hunter, Joanne Walker, and Phillipa Kaina have prompted, questioned and stretched me in ways that have fed into my own writing. I have received institutional support from a number of sources including, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown Mass. and the Deans Travel Fund, UCL. I have worked in archives and libraries in Paris, Nantes and London and have benefited from the help and guidance of librarians at the National Gallery, University College Library, Courtauld Institute Library, Centre du Documentation du Louvre, the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Bibliothèque Historique de la ville de Paris and the archives at the Museé des Beaux Arts in Nantes. Amy Mechowski provided invaluable help at a crucial stage of preparing the manuscript. Delia Gaze did an excellent job of copy-editing the manuscript and tidying up my sometimes over-elaborate prose. At Yale University Press I have found unstinting generosity and support as well as the pleasure and stimulation of working with Gillian Malpass whose professionalism and expertise have made this book possible. I am grateful too to Emily Angus for her expert picture research.

Throughout my academic life, I have enjoyed unstinting affirmation and encouragement from my mother, Cynthia Garb. She remains indispensable to me. During the course of writing this book, I lost my father, Ivor Garb, first to a devastating illness and then to death. He, always an admirer of portraiture, would have been very proud to see its outcome. On a daily basis, two people have lived with this project for more than five years, enduring its occasional high points but more often the grumpiness and irritability of its, sometimes despairing, producer. To Rasaad Jamie and Gabriel Jamie, I remain deeply indebted, for their patience, their endurance and their unfailing sense of humour. But one person, who is, sadly, not present to see its completion, was formative at this book’s inception. It was in conversation with Nikos Stangos that I first formulated the idea of a project that would take a long look at a few portraits, thinking about them as loci for an exploration of genre, gender and narrative. It was he who gave me the courage to base my selection on paintings that I love rather than conform to political, intellectual or historical criteria or pre-conceived notions of coverage. It is with great love, sadness and a deep debt of gratitude that I dedicate this book to his memory.

Previous chapter

Base text size -

Chapter images ()