A famous painting by John Singer Sargent, one of the most beloved American artists of the nineteenth century, is the inspiration for a new children's book from Kids Can Press. Based on letters and other primary sources and illustrated in full-color with paintings and drawings by Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, by Hugh Brewster (ages 9-12), is a fictionalized account of the people and places behind one of this popular artist's greatest masterpieces. The luminous painting depicts two sisters lighting paper lanterns in a flower-filled garden at dusk.
Five-year-old Kate Millet is tickled pink when Sargent, a friend of her parents, asks her to pose for him in the summer of 1885. But it's hard to sit still in the garden, and when two older girls come to visit, Sargent decides to paint them instead. By telling this true story from Kate's point of view, Brewster draws young readers into a unique moment in art history. Kids will identify with Kate's disappointment and rejoice in its satisfying resolution while learning about Sargent's creative process. In addition, the author presents lively, believable portraits of the many artists and writers who visited the Millet home in the English countryside, including not only Sargent, but Henry James and Lawrence Alma Tadema.
This ideal gift book by an award-winning author will educate, entertain, and inform a whole new generation of readers and art lovers. Beautifully illustrated with over thirty-five Sargent paintings and drawings as well as archival photographs and artifacts, Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose, is the first trade book for children about the artist. American museums that own major works by Sargent include New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Author Hugh Brewster has brought history to life for kids with such books as Inside the Titanic, Anastasia's Album, and The Other Mozart. He has won a Silver Birch Award, a Red Cedar Award, and the Children's Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award.
