Author Dr. Heidi Ardizzone and "An Illuminated Life: Belle Da Costa Greene from Prejudice to Privilege"

Please join us for this One Book One Community program featuring Dr. Heidi Ardizzone, author of "An Illuminated Life: Belle Da Costa Greene from Prejudice to Privilege".

Dr. Ardizzone's book explores  the secret life of the sensational woman behind the Morgan masterpieces, who lit up New York society. What would you give up to achieve your dream? When J. P. Morgan hired Belle da Costa Greene in 1905 to organize his rare book and manuscript collection, she had only her personality and a few years of experience to recommend her. Ten years later, she had shaped the famous Pierpont Morgan Library collection and was a proto-celebrity in New York and the art world, renowned for her self-made expertise, her acerbic wit, and her flirtatious relationships. Born to a family of free people of color, Greene changed her name and invented a Portuguese grandmother to enter white society. In her new world, she dined both at the tables of the highest society and with bohemian artists and activists. She also engaged in a decades-long affair with art critic Bernard Berenson. Greene is pure fascination, the buyer of illuminated manuscripts who attracted others to her like moths to a flame.

Dr. Heidi Ardizzone is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University, where she teaches courses on civil rights, gender, race and citizenship, St. Louis and the Midwest, African American history and experience, visual studies, media and politics, and social movements.  Her talk extends from her 2007 biography: An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege, W.W. Norton & Co. Dr. Ardizzone is also the author of a forthcoming book on racial mixing and portrayals of Blackness in abolition and early civil rights movements and co-author with Earl Lewis of Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White, W.W. Norton, 2001.  

This is part of our One Book One Community programming, whose 2023 selection is “The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Read the Book, Join the Discussion, Share the Story. Learn more at scgov.net/onebook