Louise Blair Daura: A Virginian in Paris

This book accompanies the exhibition of the same name, on view at the Georgia Museum of Art September 30 December 10, 2017. Louise Blair Daura is an understudied figure whose work and life provide a window into the artistic milieu of her time, especially the challenges faced by women artists. Her career as an exhibiting artist was short (roughly 1928 1932), and this exhibition and book are the first attempt by a museum to examine it. The daughter of banker and manufacturer Lewis Harvie Blair and Martha (Mattie) Ruffin Feild, Louise was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1905. In Paris in 1928, she married her art teacher, the Catalan painter Pierre Daura, who co-founded the abstractionist group Cercle et Carre. She was a keen and witty observer of her time, and her letters home to family offer insights on everything from the daily life of an American in Paris to the studio practice and personalities of many of her husband s colleagues. This exhibition catalogue features all of her known works of art (reproduced in color), her letters from France to her family between 1928 and 1930, and essays by curator Lynn Boland and Catherine Dossin, associate professor of art history at Purdue University.

Publishing Date: September 2017

364 pages

ISBN: 978-1-946657-02-2