B.A. Shapiro’s book “The Muralist” narrates the journeys of two women – Alizée Beniot and Danielle Abrams – and their discoveries about the importance of family, the transformation of art, and the turmoil of politics.
The novel opens describing a typical morning in an office at Christie’s Auction house in New York City in 2015. Danielle has given up her passion for painting and now works as an art researcher in this office. She unpacks a box of over a dozen paintings, possibly the works of the Abstract Expressionist painters Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Lee Krasner. Her research will help to validate the authenticity of the unsigned paintings. Danielle has a personal interest in Abstract Expressionism because her great-aunt Alizée’s painted during the height of this movement. Only two of Alizée’s paintings had survived since her disappearance in 1940, two murals titled “Lily Pads” and “Turned.”
When Danielle discovers three two-foot canvases in vellum envelopes in the back of the paintings, she notes that “the colors, the brushstrokes, the energy, and the mix of styles” look like her aunt’s work. Danielle wonders if the three squares are part of a larger mural painted by her aunt.
The chapters in the book go back and forth from the past life of Alizee to the present world of Danielle. The reader meets nineteen-year-old Alizée in a warehouse office of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in New York City in 1939. Alizée, along with fellow artists Lee, Jackson, and Mark, works on representational pieces contracted by the WPA. What she and her friends want to paint are abstract pieces, which later would become the Abstract Expressionist movement.
When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visits the WPA offices one day, Alizée asks her why the WPA could not include abstract murals in their assignments. Eleanor becomes interested in abstract painting and gets the WPA to commit to two abstract murals. Alizée’s relationship begins with Eleanor when Alizée is assigned to paint one of the abstract murals.
The political turmoil of Europe begins to have tragic consequences for Alizée’s personal life. Her family is Jewish, and her aunt pleads for Alizée’ help to secure visas for the Beniot family members remaining in France
Alizée is frantic to obtain visas for her family, but the State Department issues few visas for war refugees, especially Jewish refugees. She tries to bribe Immigration officials with money, she joins activist groups, she seeks favors from Eleanor, and she tries to make political statements with her artwork.
Being convinced that the small discovered canvases are the work of her aunt, Danielle painstakingly researches a backlog of files about art and politics, trying to find information about her aunt. With an inheritance from her grandmother, Danielle travels to France where she finally finds the answers to what happened to her aunt. And what did she find? You must read the novel to discover what Danielle finds out about her aunt’s family, what happened to her aunt, and if there are other missing squares to a larger mural.
The novel ends a year later in 2016. Danielle is standing in Christie’s Gallery 2. She has started to paint again because she wants to repaint a mural titled “Montage,” which was the last known mural that her aunt was working on before her disappearance.
Prepare a cup of hot tea, find a cozy chair, and get ready for a great read with “The Muralist.”