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Artist Spotlight focuses on interesting artists, upcoming exhibitions, and articles about art and those who love it or create it.

Discover new ways to stretch your imagination, be introduced to new artists, their exhibits, and books to read about them. Expect to excite your mind. Comments are very welcome! -- Rosemary Carstens

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist

This amazing book, just out, is written by Linda M. Waggoner, an independent scholar, who resides in the bay area and published by the University of Oklahoma Press. This is the first biography about Angel De Cora, an important artist, teacher, and Red Progressive, born in 1869 in Nebraska. Waggoner does an exceptional job of scholarship, digging deeply into archives and letters, following every lead to turn up more, and yet this is not a scholarly read. Waggoner shows herself to be an artist as she paints for us a vivid picture of a flesh and blood woman who became one of the first American Indians to be accepted within the mainstream art world, a woman who significantly influenced the American Arts and Crafts movement. The life story of Angel De Cora is embedded in the history of the times and reveals some startling facts about prevailing ideas of race and education, and about a woman’s place in both. The book features more than forty illustrations, including a reproduction of Fire Light, which Angel painted to depict nostalgic memories of her childhood.

-- Rosemary Carstens



Author’s website: http://www.angeldecora.com
Author, Linda M. Waggoner

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How wonderful to hear about this trail-blazing artist! This has piqued my interest, and if I get a chance, I'll try to look up this book.

I viewed some samples of De Cora's work on the author's website, and they're beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Rosemary,

Wow! Like many others (I'm sure), I have never heard of this artist. Thank you for your piece on this book. I will be searching it out.

Melanie