Artful Readers Book Club

Join fellow art and book lovers for casual, engaging literary discussion at the Artful Readers Book Club. Each month, we’ll gather in the Michael Victor II Art Library at the Springfield Art Association to discuss an art-related book. Light refreshments will be provided by the members of the SAA Library Committee.

​The Artful Readers Book Club is free and open to anyone age 21 or older, but registration is requested. To sign up, please contact the SAA by phone at 217-523-2631, by email : office@springfieldart.org or on the Facebook event page.

September 27, 2017
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany, by Susan Vreeland

"It’s 1893, and at the Chicago World’s Fair, Louis Comfort Tiffany makes his debut with a luminous exhibition of innovative stained-glass windows, which he hopes will honor his family business and earn him a place on the international artistic stage. But behind the scenes in his New York studio is the freethinking Clara Driscoll, head of his women’s division. Publicly unrecognized by Tiffany, Clara conceives of and designs nearly all of the iconic leaded-glass lamps for which he is long remembered.

Clara struggles with her desire for artistic recognition and the seemingly insurmountable challenges that she faces as a professional woman, which ultimately force her to protest against the company she has worked so hard to cultivate. She also yearns for love and companionship, and is devoted in different ways to five men, including Tiffany, who enforces to a strict policy: he does not hire married women, and any who do marry while under his employ must resign immediately. Eventually, like many women, Clara must decide what makes her happiest—the professional world of her hands or the personal world of her heart." -goodreads.com

October 25, 2017
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo, by Stephanie Storey

“From 1501—1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome fifty year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-twenties, desperate to make a name for himself. Oil and Marble is the story of their nearly forgotten rivalry. Storey brings early 16th-century Florence alive, and has entered with extraordinary empathy into the minds and souls of two Renaissance masters. The book is an art history thriller." -goodreads.com









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November 29, 2017
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe, by Dawn Tripp

"A novel about the life of American master painter Georgia O’Keeffe, her love story with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and her quest to come of age as a woman. In this novel of a couple, and of passion, betrayal, and art, Georgia comes alive as never before. By the writer whose work Edna O’Brien called "shimmering, audacious." - goodreads.com