blynndav@wellesley.edu
(781) 283-2055
Art
B.A., Brown University; M.A., Williams College; Ph.D., Princeton University
Lecturer in Art
Research focuses on the city of Venice, Renaissance to the eighteenth-century.
After graduating from college with a degree in art history, I worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and embarked on a life-long love affair with the lagoon city. In particular, I am interested in the ways that Venetians—given their unusual environment built on water—experienced, represented, and imagined the natural world. My pleasure is using the beauty and meanings of art, architecture and gardens as jumping off points for writing.
My passion for writing eventually lured me into the world of historical fiction. I am the author of a novel set in eighteenth-century Venice, Casanova’s Secret Wife (Kensington Press, 2017). The story is based on an actual account by Giacomo Casanova, the world's most infamous chronicler of seduction: but I tell it from the woman's point of view. I am currently at work on Searching for Raphael. The novel is based on the true story of a painting by the Renaissance artist that was stolen from the Czartoryski Collection in Poland by the Nazis, and never found.
At Wellesley, I have been able to unite these two intellectual threads—art, and writing—to bring out the best in students’ ideas. I am most proud that one of my students has won the college-wide Three Generations Prize for First-Year Writing every year since 2014!