Susannah Carson

I believe in the power of story, and I believe in exploring inner landscapes, playing with the past, and looking at history and narrative with a fresh perspective. I work primarily in oils, incorporating antique gilt frames and antique china into my pieces, and I draw extensively on my academic background in art, history, and literature to create what I hope are timeless, romantic, intellectually thoughtful, and visually layered portraits of novelistic heroines and heroes.

My degrees include a Ph.D. in French literature from Yale University, where I studied with Harold Bloom and Peter Brooks, an M.Phil. from Paris IV, an M.A. from Lyon II, an M.A. in comparative literature from S.F.S.U., and graduate studies in the philosophy of language. I’m the author-editor of Living with Shakespeare (Penguin) and Why We Read Jane Austen (Random House).

My paintings have been acquired for private collections, exhibited at Bergdorf Goodman and the Liz Lidgett Gallery, made available as prints through Artfully Walls and Anthropologie, and featured in the forums “Colossal”, “My Modern Met”, and “Antiques & the Arts Weekly”, the magazines Tatler and Where Women Create, and the canonical reference books Lover’s Eyes: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection and Phaidon’s The Jewelry Book. View my c.v. here.

I’ve lived in Paris, Lyon, London, New Haven, San Francisco, and West Hollywood, and my art assistant-mini-shih-tzu Agatha and I currently live with my husband, his two dogs, and the little dog we’ve just inherited from my beloved late mother (which makes it, to be honest, a lot of dogs) in the hills of the Napa Valley, California.