Stravinsky's Lunch

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. xiv, 364 pages, [24] pages plates, illustrations (some colour); 24 cm. Near fine. Tight, clean copy. Lower right corners lightly bumped. Stated First American Edition. Dust jacket, with sticker residue/back cover, protected in a mylar cover. "A moving, deeply insightful study of two artists--both twentieth-century Australian women--who lived and worked in divergent realms. Drusilla Modjeska's title derives from an anecdote about the composer who, while creating a piece of music, ordered his family to remain silent while taking a meal with him--so Stravinsky could preserve his concentration on his work. Modjeska's book investigates the life patterns of women artists, most of whom have been unable to manage such a neat compartmentalization of daily life and creativity. Stravinsky's Lunch tells the stories of two extraordinary women, both born close to the turn of the century in Australia and both destined to make important contributions to Australian painting. Stella Bowen went to London to make her career, then became a bohemian and the longtime mistress of Ford Madox Ford. Grace Cossington Smith, a spinster who never strayed far from her childhood home on the outskirts of Sydney, became one of the first Australian modernists. Their distinctive stories speak volumes about how love, art, and life intersect. / Drusilla Modjeska is an Australian writer whose previous books include Poppy and The Orchard." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo.