Member Gallery Book Club: The Last Painting of Sara de Dos by Dominic Smith

Join fellow Alliance members in the Main Gallery to explore literature – both fiction and non-fiction – revolving around art, artists, art history, and art appreciation.

Participate in thoughtful group discussions and expand your appreciation and knowledge of the world of art!

In 1631, Sara de Vos becomes the first woman to be admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke in Holland. Three hundred years later, At the Edge of a Wood, her haunting winter scene of a girl watching skaters at dusk, is her only surviving work. It hangs in the bedroom of a Park Avenue coop of a wealthy Manhattanite, a descendant of the original owner. Meanwhile, in the grungier reaches of Brooklyn, an Australian art history grad student struggling to stay afloat in New York agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape for a dubious art dealer. Half a century later, she’s a prominent curator back home in Sydney, mounting an exhibition of female Dutch painters of the Golden Age. Both versions of At the Edge of a Wood by Sara de Vos are en route to her museum, threatening to unravel her life and reputation.

As the three threads intersect, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos mesmerizes while it grapples with the demands of the artistic life, showing how the deceits of the past can forge the present.

The Member Gallery Book Club meets from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month. Club members must purchase their own copy of each book, but an active Alliance membership is all that’s required. To become a member, click here.