Diane Boucher – författare

The beautiful Anglo-Italian artist Maria Cosway was one of the most talented and dynamic women active in Regency England, but one whose achievements have been largely overlooked. Born in Florence in 1760, she was acclaimed at an early age as both a painter and a musician. She exhibited forty-one paintings at the Royal Academy summer exhibition between 1781 and 1801, and hosted regular musical soirées at the Pall Mall house she shared with her husband, Richard Cosway. They were attended by the political and cultural elite of London.Maria’s extraordinary network of connections to the great and the good of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, included friendships with, among others, Thomas Jefferson, the Prince of Wales, Pasquale Paoli, the artist Jacques-Louis David, the opera singer Luigi Marchesi, the Duchess of Devonshire, the actress and writer Mary Robinson, and members of the Bonaparte family. Estranged from her husband by 1801, Maria Cosway largely gave up painting and reinvented herself as a progressive educator, founding schools for young women: first in Lyon, later in Lodi, Italy. In recognition of her achievements at Lodi, the Emperor of Austria made her a baroness.

Modern living began with the homes of the 1950s. Casting aside the privations of the Second World War, American architects embraced the must-have mod-cons: they wrapped fitted kitchens around fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and electric ovens, gave televisions pride of place in the living room, and built integrated garages for enormous space-age cars. So why was this change so radical? In what ways did life change for people moving into these swanky new homes, and why has the legacy of the 1950s home endured for so long? Diane Boucher answers these questions and more in this colorful introduction to the homes that embody the golden age of modern design.

Modern living began with the homes of the 1950s. Casting aside the privations of the Second World War, American architects embraced the must-have mod-cons: they wrapped fitted kitchens around fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and electric ovens, gave televisions pride of place in the living room, and built integrated garages for enormous space-age cars. So why was this change so radical? In what ways did life change for people moving into these swanky new homes, and why has the legacy of the 1950s home endured for so long? Diane Boucher answers these questions and more in this colorful introduction to the homes that embody the golden age of modern design.