Cinnamon Press Presents
Sue Hubbard
Girl in White
Book Launch and Author Reading
Thursday, 11 Oct 2012, 7pm. Free Event
Please book your place below
Girl in White is the extraordinary and moving story of Paula Mendershohn-Becker told from the fictionalised perspective of her daughter Mathilde. Denounced as degenerate by the Nazis, after her death, Sue Hubbard has drawn on Becker’s diaries and paintings to bring to life the artist’s intense relationship with the poet Rilke and her struggle to find a balance between being a painter, wife and mother. Beautifully observed and evocative the novel is as satisfying as it is compelling.
“Imagine a chest of drawers – unopened for a hundred years. Inside small garments carefully folded. A woman today opens the drawers, unfolds what she finds and, as she does so, the garments become stories. The chest of drawers belonged to the painter, Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). … (and contain) the secrets of some exceptional, very lonely paintings, which had
a considerable influence on “modern” German art. …those intimate folds become interstices of History, beyond any notion of what is modern or not. I recommend this haunting book.”
- John Berger
"Beautifully written and wholly knowledgeable – Girl in White is a triumph of literary and artistic understanding, a tour du force: masterly, moving. ‘Hubbard goes where few dare go, and succeeds. You are the less for not reading it." - Fay Weldon
“Imagine a chest of drawers – unopened for a hundred years. Inside small garments carefully folded. A woman today opens the drawers, unfolds what she finds and, as she does so, the garments become stories. The chest of drawers belonged to the painter, Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). … (and contain) the secrets of some exceptional, very lonely paintings, which had
a considerable influence on “modern” German art. …those intimate folds become interstices of History, beyond any notion of what is modern or not. I recommend this haunting book.”
- John Berger
"Beautifully written and wholly knowledgeable – Girl in White is a triumph of literary and artistic understanding, a tour du force: masterly, moving. ‘Hubbard goes where few dare go, and succeeds. You are the less for not reading it." - Fay Weldon
About Sue Hubbard
Sue Hubbard is a freelance art critic, novelist and poet. Twice winner of the London Writers competition she was the Poetry Society’s first-ever Public Art Poet. She was also commissioned by the Arts Council and the BFI to create London’s biggest art poem that leads from Waterloo to the IMAX. Her latest collection Ghost Station was published by Salt Publishing in 2004. Depth of Field, her first novel, was published in 2000. John Berger called it a “remarkable first novel.” Sue is a regular contributor to The Independent and The New Statesman where she writes on contemporary art. In 2006 she was awarded a major Arts Council Literary Award.