'Paris, 2020. A writer is confined to her hotel room during the early days of the pandemic, struggling to finish a novel about Hortense Cezanne, wife and sometime muse of the famous painter. Dead for more than a century, Hortense has been reawakened by this creative endeavour, and now shadows the writer through the locked-down city. But Hortense, subject to the gaze of others, increasingly intrigued by the woman before her. Who is she and what event hides in her past?
'Heartbreaking and perfectly formed, The Sitter explores the tension between artist and subject, and between the stories told about us and the stories we choose to tell.' (Publication summary)
Epigraph:
'Shade, too, can be inhabited.'
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Dedication:
For Caroline and Frida
Loved always
'A multilayered novel about the wife of French artist Paul Cezanne becomes a dual portrait of two women a century apart.'
Angela O'Keeffe in Conversation
Nico Callaghan
(interviewer),
2023
26809553
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'In this episode, a discussion with author Angela O’Keeffe about her new novel, The Sitter.'
'The relationship between artists and their sitters has long been a topic of fascination and enquiry – not least for artists themselves. The study of portraiture is often informed by investigations of this relationship as well as that with a third party: the viewer.' (Introduction)
'The narrator of Angela O’Keeffe’s first novel, Night Blue (2021), wants to tell the reader their “inner story”. A story of being made, exhibited and judged, it is narrated by Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting known as Number 11, 1952. Later named Blue Poles, the painting was purchased in 1973 by the National Gallery of Australia for $1.3 million. Because this sum was beyond the gallery director’s budget, it was controversially authorised by then prime minister Gough Whitlam.' (Introduction)
'The narrator of Angela O’Keeffe’s first novel, Night Blue (2021), wants to tell the reader their “inner story”. A story of being made, exhibited and judged, it is narrated by Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting known as Number 11, 1952. Later named Blue Poles, the painting was purchased in 1973 by the National Gallery of Australia for $1.3 million. Because this sum was beyond the gallery director’s budget, it was controversially authorised by then prime minister Gough Whitlam.' (Introduction)
'The relationship between artists and their sitters has long been a topic of fascination and enquiry – not least for artists themselves. The study of portraiture is often informed by investigations of this relationship as well as that with a third party: the viewer.' (Introduction)
'A multilayered novel about the wife of French artist Paul Cezanne becomes a dual portrait of two women a century apart.'
Angela O'Keeffe in Conversation
Nico Callaghan
(interviewer),
2023
26809553
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'In this episode, a discussion with author Angela O’Keeffe about her new novel, The Sitter.'
