7 Modern Masterpieces About The Art World

The world of art, galleries, museums and artists has always been a fertile ground for new literature, and there are many thousands of books that are set within it. To narrow them down is a difficult task, but in recent months we’ve found ourselves truly enthralled by some of these selections - novels or other kinds of works that explore the art world while also exploring the lives of those around it, books that are truly about the human condition but place a new lens on the art scene. 

Siri Hustvedt - What I Loved (2003)

American novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt is surprisingly underrated, and this novel in particular is a spectacular feat - a family saga, an exploration of grief, and a look at New York’s art world, which is as much ‘an idea as a real phenomenon’. Narrated by an art historian who is writing about his artist friend, as well as the tragic life of his friend’s son, it’s somehow a page turner and deeply literary, a book that explores fundamental humanity and ethics through the prism of art. 

Tom McCarthy - Men in Space (2007)

Set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of communism, Tom McCarthy follows a cast of bohemians, political refugees, football referees, assassins, and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon’s melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters’ journey through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional, and metaphysical. McCarthy himself has emerged as a figure who crosses over between the art and literary worlds with rare deftness, and this book shows why. 

Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch (2013)

Another book that crossed over from the literary to have enormous popular appeal, The Goldfinch is Donna Tartt’s novel about Theo, a 13 year old who tells the story retrospectively after losing his mother in a bombing at an art gallery. The novel moves at a propulsive pace and follows Theo’s obsession with the painting he was looking at when the explosion happened, a rare Dutch work that is small, captivating, and draws Theo into the art underworld and various other unexpected places. 

Rachel Kushner - The Flamethrowers (2013)

Flitting between the art scene and seventies Italy, this incomparable novel looks at the blurred lines between life and art through the eyes of its female narrator, who is at once motorcycle daredevil, aspiring artist and an impressionable young woman caught in between worlds. The book moves at a gripping pace and brings together various strands between New York, Italy and the art world, exploring the meaning of expression, the strange dynamics of a city in motion, and the ridiculousness and exhilaration of the art world.

Olivia Laing - The Lonely City (2016)

The only non-fiction book on this list is a poetic and powerful exploration of loneliness, which is framed through the lives of four artists in New York. After a breakup and alone in New York, Olivia Laing looks at the lives of Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Henry Darger and David Wojnarowicz, showcasing how their works were influenced or even defined by the loneliness of the city, and tying it into her own experience, the world of art, the AIDS crisis, and much more. 

Maria Gainza - Optic Nerve (2019)

An exceptional debut novel that straddles the lines between memoir, autofiction and art history, Maria Gainza’s Optic Nerve is as much as about art as about the viewer who perceives it. Taking various incidents in art history, from Rothko’s refusal to finish a work to a banquet thrown by Picasso, the narrator links them to incidents or moments in her own life in Buenos Aires to create a picture of a life impacted by interaction with art, told in a beautifully meditative and seductive style. 

Rachel Cusk - Second Place (2021)

Rachel Cusk has been one of the most influential writers of the past decade, and followed up her stunning Outline trilogy with Second Place - a fable of sorts in which a woman invites a famous artist to take up residence in the country at her family home. What seems a simple premise turns into a clever exploration of male privilege, marriage, art, evil and much more, examining the ways in which art can both save and destroy.