A terrifically immersive read from art historian Jennifer Dasal about the American Girls Club in Belle Époque Paris.

The tone of this is delightfully conversational and the book reads like fiction, with an appropriate balance between facts and atmosphere.

Dasal does a lovely job of explaining the significance of the club as well as what it meant for an artist (especially a female artist) to be able to go to Paris to study at this time. It makes for an interesting blend of sociocontextual art history and philosophical discussion about the way America failed its female creatives at the time, and in some ways is failing all of its creatives now.

While we get plenty of specifics on some of the artists who spent time at the club, Dasal focuses more on slice of life and contextual significance rather than straight biography, which makes the book both more readable and able to demonstrate greater significance toward the evolution of art and the evolution of attitudes toward art and artists in general.

If you're not someone who can easily recognize names from the art world (either from not really being in that realm, or whatever reason) you may find that this drags, at times. Otherwise, though, it's quite informative! If you have even a passing interest in art from this time period, I'd seriously recommend it.