The Lost Mother, is part art history, part detective story and part narrative on the relations between mothers and daughters, particularly the turbulent relationship Anne Summers had with her mother during her teenage and early adult years.
Anne decides to search for the lost companion painting, in which she believes her mother was painted as the Madonna. Anne sets out on parallel quests to rescue the artist, Constance Stokes, from obscurity, to find the lost second painting of her mother as a ten year old called "Madonna" and to learn the fate of the mysterious Russian collector, Lydia and her husband William. These were well known Melbourne socialites and art collectors during the 1930’s. They originally bought the portrait. It is the story of a remarkable Australian artist Constance Stokes, who received both local and overseas recognition in the 1930-40’s but who strangely doesn’t seem to be that well known today.
REVIEW:
We unanimously felt that if she had stuck to the quest for the “Modonna/Saint” painting and a more detailed account of Constance Stokes’ artistic career and lack of recognition in most of the art gallery catalogues and books about Australian artists of her time, we would have enjoyed the book more. The story seemed to have too much padding and very little conclusion to her original quests.
| Anne inherited a portrait of her mother as a child. The painting had always been a part of Anne’s life as it had hung in the family home throughout her childhood. The portrait was by Melbourne artist Constance Stokes and was called “Alice”. The painting, the cover illustration on the book, is of a ten year old, Anne’s mother, wearing a red beret and holding a copy of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland. |  |
Anne decides to search for the lost companion painting, in which she believes her mother was painted as the Madonna. Anne sets out on parallel quests to rescue the artist, Constance Stokes, from obscurity, to find the lost second painting of her mother as a ten year old called "Madonna" and to learn the fate of the mysterious Russian collector, Lydia and her husband William. These were well known Melbourne socialites and art collectors during the 1930’s. They originally bought the portrait. It is the story of a remarkable Australian artist Constance Stokes, who received both local and overseas recognition in the 1930-40’s but who strangely doesn’t seem to be that well known today.
REVIEW:
| We had quite a long discussion about the merits of the book. Most of the Bookclub members agreed that they didn’t particularly like reading the book. At many times during the reading we found Anne Summer’s habit of going off on tangents, to describe the stories of the different people with connections to the painting, very tiresome. Eg Lydia and William’s rise to notoriety in the Melbourne art and social circles and then pre WW2 their quick exit from Melbourne and the quite lengthy story of them and their extended family in Latvia in 1939. |  |
Book review provided by Margaret Cassidy
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