Reading · The Rose Period

Happy 2026, my incredible art fam! Want to deepen your art knowledge but don’t know where to start? Today’s newsletter is solving exactly that. We’re talking 18 books, podcasts, and newsletters that will start your new year’s art education. PLUS! I’m piloting a new perk for paid subscribers (art pen pals! yes!).

We’re coming up on one year of The Rose Period and - wow!! What a year!! I’m so grateful for every single one of you. We’ve somehow built this little community that stretches across the world - Istanbul, Australia, Poland, Belgium, New Zealand, Kampala, Turkey, London, Paris, New York, even my OG home state, Minnesota. <3

We’ve done an endless amount of learning together. Over the past year, I’ve shared the work of 263+ women artists, 12 newsletters, 252 current obsessions, 2,160+ works of art - and so many of them I discovered through you. How great is that?!

Henri Matisse’s *The Reader* (1906) aka me learning about art every day. This painting is pretty early in Matisse’s career - he was just 36 and def not famous. He was reworking paintings constantly, scrapping, repainting, trying to figure out his style. A lesson everyone - keep going!

Learning together is exactly the point. My goal in starting The Rose Period was simple: art should feel accessible. No art history degree required. (Especially because…I don’t have one either.)

So if you’ve ever felt behind, you’re in good company. I get this a lot: “I want to learn more about art, but I don’t know where to start.”

Here’s our little Rose Period secret: be curious🌹

Read. Listen. Visit museums. Talk to people who love art. Start with one artist and go down the rabbit hole. Build your own mental museum. Screenshot the things you love. Make folders on your phone. Skip around! You don’t have to go in order. You don’t have to take it so seriously. It’s just art - learn however you want. A little at a time (or whenever it feels good). Learning about art shouldn’t be a chore. Let’s make it fun!

And to get you going, I gathered everything in one place.

P.S. keep scrolling for a new art pen pals program (!) and a list of everything I’m loving rn.

Guess what! Even if you don’t have the full novel in you, you’ll learn a little something from my summary.

Karyn Lyons’ *The Obsession,* 2025 aka me reading all of these books below. If you don’t know **Karyn Lyons**, you should. Her paintings are all about the quieter side of coming-of-age girlhood - dim rooms, lots of thinking, reading, lounging. They remind me of an Emily Dickinson novel with great outfits - which tracks bc Karyn is a former fashion art director based in NYC.

Buzzwords: underrecognized women artists, Abstract Expressionism, American modern art, post-war NYC

If you only read ONE book on this list, make it this one. Ninth Street Women follows five women artists over 25+ years as they fight their way into (and then shape) New York’s Abstract Expressionist scene in post-war NYC. Think: the original cool downtown girls crashing the boys’ club.

The storylines are so rich you’ll leave with wildly specific opinions about people you’ve never met. How could Elaine stay married to Willem de Kooning?! Joan Mitchell - icon, but exhausting. Jackson Pollock would be NOTHING without Lee Krasner. Helen Frankenthaler was the og influencer. Obsessed with the fact that Grace Hartigan started signing her paintings “George” so the collectors would take her seriously.

P.S. it is also the book that started my passion for women artists - and it has a cult following for a reason.

One of the characters mentioned in the book - Mary Abbott, who I wrote about here:

Your 2026 Art Education Starts Here

Comments