Woman Behind the Painter: The Diaries of Rosalie, Mrs. James Clarke Hook - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 088864437X ISBN 13: 9780888644374

Publisher: University of Alberta Press, 2002

Synopsis

The wife of the prominent Victorian painter of seascapes, James Clarke Hook (1819-1907), Rosalie was a trained artist and brought her artist’s sensibility, her humour, and her talent for relationships to the project of writing a diary of their travels to Italy in the two turbulent years of the Risorgimento leading up to 1848. Rosalie’s subsequent diary records a busy professional couple in the thick of running a country home with studio, annual trips to the bracing coastal sites where Hook painted, and their relations with famous contemporaries. Juliet McMaster, a descendant of the Hooks, provides a fascinating introduction on their professional and personal lives. The book is illustrated throughout by Hook’s vivid sketches and by many of James’s and Rosalie’s paintings.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Rosalie Hook's diaries of her activities at home and abroad with her painter husband, James Clarke Hook, provide a fascinating window on the Victorian art world. In her long marriage to Hook, Rosalie, herself an artist, recorded not only the striking events of their memorable two-year sojourn in Italy at the time of the Risorgimento, but kept a day-to-day record of their domestic and professional lives through five decades. Woman Behind the Painter comes richly illustrated with the Hooks' photographs, sketches, and splendid paintings. The Italy Diary is a full narrative, written with vivid details of their travel to the St. Bernard Pass and to Florence, Rome, Naples, Parma and Venice, and ending with the Hooks’ harrowing homeward journey in an ill-equipped vessel between Venice and Gibraltar. The Silverbeck Diary is a much slenderer document, but it covers many more years. In this diary, Rosalie recorded the movements and professional doings of the Hook family and their dealings with artist friends. Juliet McMaster's biographical and historical introduction and notes make for lively reading while she examines the Hooks' cultural experiences in the turbulent scene of excitement and revolution in Italy, their busy professional life among such contemporary artists as Samuel Palmer, F.G. Stephens, Millais, Holman Hunt, Alfred Hunt, Birket Foster, and others. Juliet McMaster is Professor Emerita in English at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. As a descendant of the Hook family, she has unique access to family archives, including paintings, sketchbooks, albums, and the manuscripts of these diaries.

About the Author:

Juliet McMaster is Professor Emerita in English at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Alberta Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 088864437X
• ISBN 13: 9780888644374
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: McMaster Juliet