Art and Artists in Historical Fiction

Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, inspired by her dabblings in séances and the occult, produces the world’s first abstract paintings — but it’s men who get all the credit. As Hilma brings together a group of remarkable women known as the Friday Night Club, their contributions to the world of art and writing cannot be understated. But they’re cast into obscurity — until now.

If you’re familiar with the work of Edgar Degas then you have almost certainly seen one of the young protagonists of this novel: a ballerina named Marie, forever immortalized in his statue, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. After the sudden death of their father, Marie is sent to the Paris Opera to earn a scant 17 shillings a week, while her sister finds work as an extra on the stage. But lascivious patrons and the Paris demimonde lurk at the edges of the work they’ve taken up, and even as the girls are swept up in the rich world of Paris’s art scene, they must make painful choices to stay off the street.

A fictional artist in imperial Japan is shaped by the country’s growing militarism in the days leading up to WWII. As the country tries to rebuild after the war, he should be enjoying time with his children and grandchildren in his retirement, but he can’t seem to let go of the past.