Biographer Gabriella Kelly-Davies chats with biographers across the world about the myriad of choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. In every episode, she explores elements of narrative strategy such as structure, use of fiction techniques, facts and truth, beginnings and endings and to what extent the writer interpreted the evidence rather than providing clues and leaving it to readers to do the interpreting themselves. She also asks how they researched their books; how they balanced a subject’s public, personal and inner lives; and ethical issues, such as privacy and revealing secrets.
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Biographer Gabriella Kelly-Davies chats with biographers across the world about the myriad of choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. In every episode, she explores elements of narrative strategy such as structure, use of fiction techniques, facts and truth, beginnings and endings and to what extent the writer interpreted the evidence rather than providing clues and leaving it to readers to do the interpreting themselves. She also asks how they researched their books; how they balanced a subject’s public, personal and inner lives; and ethical issues, such as privacy and revealing secrets.
Sebastian Smee: "Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism"
Biographers in Conversation
1 hour 3 minutes
1 month ago
Sebastian Smee: "Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism"
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
How the chaos of war and revolution in 1870s Paris shaped the birth of Impressionism.
Why the relationship between Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot was central to the book and the Impressionist Movement.
How Impressionism’s quick brushwork and light fixation reflect trauma, urgency and impermanence.
Why Smee gives Berthe Morisot equal prominence and reinterprets her legacy in a male-dominated art world.
What it means to write empathetic, narrative-driven biography while honouring archival truth.
Why art made in crisis can speak across generations and offer hope, resistance and resilience.
Biographers in Conversation
Biographer Gabriella Kelly-Davies chats with biographers across the world about the myriad of choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. In every episode, she explores elements of narrative strategy such as structure, use of fiction techniques, facts and truth, beginnings and endings and to what extent the writer interpreted the evidence rather than providing clues and leaving it to readers to do the interpreting themselves. She also asks how they researched their books; how they balanced a subject’s public, personal and inner lives; and ethical issues, such as privacy and revealing secrets.
