Early on I was a constant reader who wanted to write books. Loving school as I did, I earned graduate degrees in English and American literature.
Somehow I thought that writing a dissertation on the novelistic techniques of Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf would prepare me to write novels of my own. I did publish one novel with St. Martin’s Press, The Dancers of Sycamore Street (1983), but foundered on my second effort and gave up the writing of fiction.
In time I realized that my greatest pleasure came from travel–specifically, going to museums to look at art. So it was back to school for degrees in art history. For seventeen years I taught art history in St. Paul at the College of Visual Arts. I was an active schoolar, publishing six books on Minnesota artists with Afton Press, giving public lectures, and writing articles and reviews.
But now I’ve returned to my first love, fiction. Dancers of Sycamore Street was reissued by Calumet Editions in 2019. I also rewrote that earlier manuscript, A Prospect of London, which was published in 20by Trebuchet Press. My next fiction project will be revision of my first novel (unpublished), which I titled The Girl Who Loved Glenn Gould. I am also now a freelance editor of both fiction and nonfiction.
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
Ph.D., art history, University of Minnesota, 1996
M.A., art history, Louisiana State University, 1991
Ph.D., British and American literature, Louisiana State University, 1974
M.A., English literature, University of New Orleans, 1968
B.A., pre-law, Louisiana State University, magna cum laude and with College Honors, 1965
TEACHING
College of Visual Arts, St. Paul, Minnesota, spring 1997-2013
Retired May, 2013, as Professor and Chair, Liberal Arts
Courses taught: art history survey courses (early medieval-modern); Art Since 1945; Art and Culture of Minnesota; History of Photography; Japonisme; and Study Abroad in London, Italy, and Paris
PUBLICATIONS: FICTION
A Prospect of London, Trebuchet Press, 2022.
Dancers of Sycamore Street. Calumet Editions, 2019. First edition, St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
“The Relic,” Southern Review (Winter 1977): 178-195 (short story).
PUBLICATIONS: NON-FICTION
Hazel Belvo: A Matriarch of Art, Afton Press, 2020.
Nicholas R. Brewer: His Art and Family, Afton Press, 2019. Softcover edition, 2020.
Persistence of Vision: The Art of Bettye Olson (with Jaden Hansen), Afton Press, 2017.
Other Realities: The Art of Paul S. Kramer, Afton Press, 2013.
Pioneer Modernists: Minnesota’s First Generation of Women Artists, Afton Historical Society Press, 2011.
*Winner of a 2011 Minnesota Book Award
The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America, Afton Historical Society Press, 2011.
*Winner of a 2002 Minnesota Book Award
William Rossetti’s Art Criticism: The Search for Truth in Victorian Art, University Press of America, 1999.
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS (SELECTED):
“New Introduction,” Trails of a Paintbrush, by Nicholas R. Brewer. First edition, Christopher Publishing House, 1938. First softcover edition, Afton Press, 2021.
“Patterns of Silence”: The Prints of Lowell S. Bobleter.” Minnesota History 64/6(Summer 2015): 234-247.
“Frances Cranmer Greenman,” entry in Our Treasures: Highlights from the Minnesota Museum of American Art, ed. Kristin Makholm. Minnesota Museum of American Art, 2011.
“Dora Maar and the Art of Mystery.” Woman’s Art Journal 17:2 (Fall 1996/Winter 1997): 15-20.
Julie L'Enfant Books 