One Woman's Work: The Visual Art of Celia Laighton Thaxter

One Woman's Work: The Visual Art of Celia Laighton Thaxter by Stephan, Sharon Paiva. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780914339953.

Author, independent researcher, and Thaxter enthusiast Sharon Paiva Stephan presents a visual feast of full-color images highlighting the art of Celia Thaxter. Much attention has been focused on this celebrated authors poetry and on her life as a literary figures and artist whose family maintained a resort hotel on the Isles of Shoals. One Womans Work focuses on a relatively unexplored facet of Thaxters gifts: her hand-illustrated books, watercolors, and painted china. The Appledore Island hotel became an artists retreat in the summer. Celias own artistic inspiration was drawn from the natural objects that surrounded her on the remote islands off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Her hand-painted china, illustrated poems, and paintings helped earn much-needed financial support for her family, and also provide the backdrop for Stephans theory that "art was Celias passion." This impressive collection of 188 previously unpublished full-color photographs of Celias art, and new scholarly essays by Norma Mandel, Dennis Robinson, Jane Valiier, and Nancy Wetzel introduce readers to a more wholistic side of this noted woman.