Author Description

Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories is your invitation to explore Reynolda House Museum of American Art, North Carolina's nationally acclaimed art museum showcasing paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts in the restored 1917 home of tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds and his wife, Katharine. Their sixty-four-room bungalow sits at the center of an estate that beckons thousands of visitors each year to its formal gardens, meadows, woodlands, shops, and restaurants. In this volume, David Park Curry has captured the essence of Reynolda House Museum of American Art through a lavishly illustrated essay that blends Reynolda's fifty years as a beloved family home with her second life as a museum of American art. Using the lenses of time, landscape, home, social context, history, and memory, Curry connects you to the remarkable place called Reynolda. Highlighting the fascinating--and often surprising--stories of the myriad ways signature works of art came into this stellar collection, Martha R. Severns offers insights about the artists, writers, donors, and, most importantly, the museum's founder, Barbara Babcock Millhouse. Each of the eighty concise essays is afforded a generous two-page layout that includes a full-page color image. This beautifully illustrated book takes you through an American place and an American collection. Consider it your personal tour with behind-the-scenes access to all the stories you might wish to learn, but cannot, in the limited span of a single visit to this Museum.