Diana Seave Greenwald – författare

A pathbreaking history of art that uses digital research and economic tools to reveal enduring inequities in the formation of the art historical canonPainting by Numbers presents a groundbreaking blend of art historical and social scientific methods to chart, for the first time, the sheer scale of nineteenth-century artistic production. With new quantitative evidence for more than five hundred thousand works of art, Diana Seave Greenwald provides fresh insights into the nineteenth century, and the extent to which art historians have focused on a limited—and potentially biased—sample of artwork from that time. She addresses long-standing questions about the effects of industrialization, gender, and empire on the art world, and she models more expansive approaches for studying art history in the age of the digital humanities.Examining art in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Greenwald features datasets created from indices and exhibition catalogs that—to date—have been used primarily as finding aids. From this body of information, she reveals the importance of access to the countryside for painters showing images of nature at the Paris Salon, the ways in which time-consuming domestic responsibilities pushed women artists in the United States to work in lower-prestige genres, and how images of empire were largely absent from the walls of London’s Royal Academy at the height of British imperial power. Ultimately, Greenwald considers how many works may have been excluded from art historical inquiry and shows how data can help reintegrate them into the history of art, even after such pieces have disappeared or faded into obscurity.Upending traditional perspectives on the art historical canon, Painting by Numbers offers an innovative look at the nineteenth-century art world and its legacy.

A groundbreaking and richly illustrated account of the importance of Manet’s family to his artAll families are complicated, but the family of Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was more complicated than most. The artist married a piano teacher who worked for his wealthy parents. Her son, born out of wedlock, may have been Édouard’s, his father’s, or another man’s. For all its complexities, Manet’s family fueled his creativity. They were his most frequent models, and supported him emotionally and financially. Manet: A Model Family is an innovative new exploration of the largely neglected story of the importance of Manet’s family to his art.Presenting new research on works in which Manet depicted family members, Manet: A Model Family shows how an understanding of the artist’s family sheds crucial light on his artistic career. Manet’s mother, wife, stepson, and other relatives—including his sister-in-law, the painter Berthe Morisot—are given long overdue recognition for their roles in Manet’s life and work. Leading scholars present technical and archival analysis, including redating Madame Auguste Manet, an important, newly conserved painting of Manet’s mother. In an essay inspired by that canvas, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Hilton Als reconsiders Manet’s formative relationship with his mother and his bourgeois Parisian roots.With its original account of Manet’s domestic relationships and personal life, Manet: A Model Family humanizes the artist and his contributions to the birth of modernism.Published in association with the Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumExhibition ScheduleIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, BostonOctober 10, 2024–January 20, 2025

A major new biography of legendary art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart GardnerIsabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) assembled an extraordinary collection of art from diverse cultures and eras—and built a Venetian-style palazzo in Boston to share these exquisite treasures with the world. But her life and work remains shrouded in myth. Separating fiction and fact, this book paints an unforgettable portrait of Gardner, drawing on her substantial personal archive and including previously unpublished findings to offer new perspectives on her life and her construction of identity.Nathaniel Silver and Diana Seave Greenwald shed new light on Gardner''s connections to minority communities in Boston, her views on suffrage and other issues of the day, the sources of her and her husband’s wealth, and her ties to politicians, writers, and artists. What emerges is a multifaceted portrait of a trailblazing collector and patron of the arts—from Italian Renaissance paintings to Chinese antiquities—who built a museum unprecedented in its curatorial vision.Beautifully illustrated, this book challenges any portrayal of Gardner as a straightforward feminist hero, revealing instead an exceptional, complex woman who created a legendary museum and played a vibrant and influential role in the art world.Distributed for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum