A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire
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In this wonderfully digressive blend of art history and autobiography, Eunice Lipton chronicles her search for Victorine Meurent, the model for two of Edouard Manet's most famous paintings, “Olympia” and “Dejeuner sur l'Herbe.” ...[M]uch to the reader's delight, Ms. Lipton has done what she set out to do: rescue Victorine Meurent from history. It's a marvelous recovery.
The New York Times Book Review
Think of ALlAS OLYMPIA as a Canterbury Tale; a life-story told on a pilgrimage. It is an exploration in a dizzying variety of senses, from [Lipton's] laborious attempt to unearth the real life of her subject to reflections on her own childhood and career to the igniting effect of the feminist movement...its humanity is entire.
Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times
A clever, unorthodox, enthralling book which combines criticism and fiction in elegant symbiosis.... It is cultural history at once learned, provocative, original and unstuffy.
Financial Times (London)
Beautifully written -- brisk, poignant and humorous....a witty critique of the art historical profession and a sexy, sad memoir with a happy ending.
Lucy R. Lippard, The Women's Review of Books
The elegance and clarity of Lipton's prose make ALlAS OLYMPIA a joy to read. Significantly advances our knowledge about lesbians in the visual arts.
Lambda Book Report
ALlAS OLYMPIA is the record of a process by which one woman gave herself permission to seize the tools of language and, rather than add another tome to the shelves of academic feminism, to use them to make herself into the kind of writer she always wanted to be: to focus on the search; not the found truth; on the woman not the credentials; and on the child, yearning still, behind the adult.
The Nation
Looking Into Degas:
Uneasy Images of Women and Modern Life
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