num_pages: 384
description: A moving, deeply insightful study of two artists-both twentieth-century Australian women-who lived and worked in divergent realmsDrusilla 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.Farrar, Straus and Giroux
language: English
title: Stravinsky's Lunch
titlecomplete: Stravinsky's Lunch
genres: History, Feminism, Womens, Biography, Australia, Art History, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Art
ratings_count: 157
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: New South Wales Premier's Literary Award
category: Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: ALS Gold Medal, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Nita B. Kibble Literary Award
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux