Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over

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Filled with deep self-analysis, dozens of illustrations, and delightful humor, Old in Art School tells the story of Nell Painter who, ten years ago (at age 64) retired from her teaching duties as a major American historian and writer and decided to go back to school. She attended Rhode Island School of Design to learn to be a painter, and this is her memoir of her time at school and of her work as a visual artist Nell Painter is the New York Times best-selling author of The History of White People, among other popular social histories The book's dozens of illustrations by the author will be integrated into the text Old in Art School explores how women, and women artists are seen and judged by their age, race, and looks? And it asks how this "seeing" changes, depending upon what is asked of the viewer? Painter also asks, "what does it mean when someone states (as one teacher does) that 'you will never be an artist'-who defines 'an Artist, ' and all that goes with such an identity, from their fashion sense to the form of their work, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference?" Author is exceptionally well-connected and is represented by a retained, prestigious lecture agency, we are confident this book will garner widespread attention and ample critical praise Praise from Librarians and Booksellers "What a delightful turn by Nell Painter. One would read anything she wrote, having written what she has, but this chronicle of going to undergraduate and then graduate art school in her sixties is an especially fascinating, lively work of storytelling, replete with twists and surprises. For all its offhand manner-more or less bidding academia as she's known it adieu and having made art her real passion-the stories here of a new life taken on have depth, vulnerability, and grit in them. What she writes about her parents in their older age, the struggles with her father are alone worth reading. A woman and scholar who has looked at race and gender in her work adds age to the equation, and casts a revealing eye on the nature of how artists emerge from art schools. Underlying all is her passion and devotion to the doing. Good for all of it." -Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, WA) "Old In Art School offers a rich, disarming, generous Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man-the twist here being that The Artist is not young, nor is she a man. Rather, Nell Painter embarks on her latent but fervent passion for learning and mastering the visual arts in her early sixties, working through undergraduate and graduate programs while the rest of the components of her full life continue knocking. Told in charming, conversational language, Painter covers an incredible amount of thought-provoking ground in telling of her journey from 'Sunday Painter' to becoming An Artist. As an older black woman with a long, distinguished career in academia (she was a professor emeritus of history at Princeton before she began art school), Painter faced many challenges from the teachers, peers, and the market-driven art world who often failed to understand her presence, drive, or offerings, not to mention the additional obstacles of ailing parents, responsibilities from her life as a historian, and the typical growing pains for any artist working to find and improve her voice. Always lurking is the question-what distinguishes art as Art? Everything about this book is nuanced, with all the difficult emotions, insecurities, prejudices, and experiences she came up against identified, honestly described, rigorously examined, and ultimately worked through. Reading through her process was an enlightening, deeply rewarding joy." -Molly Moore, BookPeople (Austin, TX)