Great book!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access this book in exchange for my feedback.

I'd never heard of Maud Lewis before reading this book and that was a terrible shame, because I love her work. I thought this was a really interesting approach to her body of work and I learned a lot that not only made me appreciate Lewis' paintings but also made me think about how we generally understand paintings and start to question the dominant narrative that goes along with an artist's work. This is clearly a reasonably academic book, but as a non academic art appreciator I found it readable and interesting. I would have loved to have more of her Lewis' paintings to look at, but I appreciate that this is a short, extremely focused book and that maybe that wasn't possible. It has made me want to go and find out more about her though.

Nova Scotian artist Maud Lewis – an artist new to me – here explored sensitively and with insight in a detailed and comprehensive account of her life and work, beautifully illustrated, intelligently and clearly written, and a great delight. A book to treasure and a stepping stone to finding out more about her.

Painted worlds is a charmingly inspirational biography of Maud Lewis, including her life and art in Nova Scotia. This book is a perfect gift or coffee table book for lovers of Canadian art.

I want to thank NetGalley and Nimbus Publishing for the ARC of a scholarly study of Maud Lewis's paintings and its gorgeous, colourful illustrations. This is a knowledgeable examination of her artwork, rather than a book focusing on her impoverished life in rural Nova Scotia and her painful physical disabilities.

The author, Dr. Laurie Dalton, is a professor of art history in the Department of History and Classics at Acadia University. She is also the Director and Curator of its art gallery. The book gives a new critical perspective on the paintings of Maud Lewis. Her paintings have been dismissed as folk art by a quaint, naive, impoverished craftsperson churning out curiosities as souvenirs, rather than as an important figure in the general history of art. To dismiss her paintings as produced for the tourist market and to minimize them as repetitive and derivative does not diminish their role as artworks.

When Digby Pines hotel displayed a number of paintings in 1970, there were two reactions. A frequent response was, "My child could paint that!" Other viewers were transfixed on viewing, wanting to see the world through Maud Lewis's eyes. Recent articles online are still drawing such divisive comments.

A lengthy CBC article published on May 6, 2022, quotes Laurie Dalton's assessment of her view that in technique, subjects, and use of colour, Maud's artwork is reflected in the paintings of well-known
artists. On examination, they should be placed in the context of genuine works of art.

The same article goes on to discuss that in her lifetime, her paintings sold for $2 to $5. Her miserly husband hid most of the proceedings from these paintings. At the time of the May 6 article, one of her paintings had set a record at $67,250. An art dealer comments that her rarer paintings could reach the $100,000 mark in the coming years. Only one week later, one was sold for $350,000! It had originally been traded for a grilled cheese sandwich.

The 2016 Maudie, made the artist known to a much wider audience, but this does not explain that it was not until 2022 that their sales skyrocket in price. There has been mentioned that some owners love their paintings so much that they refuse to part with them for any amount of money.

I felt this was a literate, erudite, rational and important critique of Maud Lewis's paintings, and I will be ordering a copy of this beautifully illustrated book.

This was really interesting, and the pictures dotted throughout were so colourful and fun. I think it did need more pictures, especially of her art though.