Natalie Dykstra
Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Natalie Dykstra
Meet the Author & Book Signing Hosted by Nathaniel Silver
Thursday, March 28, 2024
2 - 3:30 pm
Bertucci Education Studio
General admission for children 17 years and under is always free
Thursday, March 28, 2024
2 - 3:30 pm
Bertucci Education Studio
Isabella loyalists will have a front row seat to an afternoon with Natalie Dykstra, author of Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Nathaniel Silver, Associate Director and Chief Curator at the Gardner, will introduce the author —who will read passages from her book—and facilitate a Q&A and book signing. Copies of her book will be available for purchase at the event, or you can reserve your copy in advance and receive a free Gardner tote bag and book mark!*
This event does not include gallery admission. If you would like to visit the galleries, tickets are available here.
*This promotion is exclusive to those purchasing the book with their reservation to the event through the ticketing link above.
An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner illuminates the fascinating ways the Museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.
Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.
But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.
Reserve your copy of the book with your ticket and you'll receive a free Gardner tote bag and book mark! We will have your purchase ready for you to pick up from our Bertucci Education Studio when the event starts.