My painting, “The Song of the Lark,” inspired by Willa Cather’s novel, will be on exhibit at CAVA’s “Inspired Stories” at Dwell Studio.  The novel is the portrait of an artist as a young woman. My painting depicts the moment the young girl from the Nebraska prairie is awakened to her artist spirit as she gazes at the painting by Jules Breton at the Art Institute of Chicago.  It recreates the gallery as it appeared in  the 1890s.  Bart Ryckbosch, the Museum’s Institutional Archivist, shared images and information about the 1890s exhibit vital to my creation of this moment in the story.

Cather frequently traveled from Red Cloud, Nebraska to Greenwich Village New York, stopping in Chicago to visit friends and the Art Institute where she first saw the Jules Breton painting of the same title. She was struck by the painting just as her character is later transfixed by it.  My painting and her novel both borrow the title of French painter’s canvas.