goallin.org.uk

We are supporting the National Year of Reading 2026.
For Ruskin, reading required discipline, humility and care. To read well was to submit oneself patiently to truth, not to skim or consume. Reading, like art, was a means of forming the self.
goallin.org.uk #JohnRuskin #Reading #RuskinBookPrize

Shortlisted for the Ruskin Society Book Prize 2025. The winner will be announced at the Society’s AGM on 7 Feb 2026. The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, the first full study of the Boston born artist admired by Ruskin. This book offers the first full study of the life and work of the American-born artist Francesca Alexander (1837–1917). After moving with her family to Florence in the mid-nineteenth century, she became part of an international cultural circle and developed a largely self-taught artistic practice focused on Italian life and landscape. Her drawings, translations, and writings attracted wide admiration, including from John Ruskin, who published several of her manuscripts and championed her work. Alexander used the income from her art and publications to support charitable causes, and contemporaries often connected her reputation for selflessness with idealised views of Italy. Despite her prominence during her lifetime, her work later slipped from view. Drawing on artworks, letters, diaries, and a range of contemporary sources, this book reconstructs Alexander’s career and restores her to her place within nineteenth-century art and cultural history.

Shortlisted for the Ruskin Society Book Prize 2025. The winner will be announced at the Society’s AGM on 7 Feb 2026. The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, the first full study of the Boston born artist admired by Ruskin @lhartbooks @wellesleycollege
#RuskinBookPrize