A Conversation with Jean Strouse & Colm Tóibín
In his fiction Henry James wrote about artists, collectors, and galleries. He was fascinated by painters and paintings and his friends and associates included John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Duveneck and William Wetmore Story. James’s letters vividly convey his response to visual culture and his work as a novelist was filled with the drama of watching and noticing: the most dramatic, intense and memorable moments in his fiction appear as though framed. Jean Strouse, biographer of Alice James, and Colm Toibin, author of The Master, will discuss Henry James’s relationship to the visual arts.
The exhibition Henry James and American Painting will be open at 5:30 pm for program attendees.
Alice Boughton (1865–1943), Henry James, 1906, gelatin silver print. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Allan M. Price. NPG.72.118.