Tuesday | July 15 | 5:30 PM
Season 7 of the AMA Art Lovers Book Club open on July 15 with a discussion of Sally Mann’s Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs.
The bimonthly club meets at 5:30 pm in the Willson Auditorium at the Albany Museum of Art. The meetings are free and open to everyone. There is no formal membership, just a love for art, books, and good conversation.
Registration is free for everyone and helps us ensure adequate seating is ready when you arrive. You may also contact AMA Director of Education and Public Programming Annie Vanoteghem by calling
229.439.8400. RSVP online
HERE.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This groundbreaking 2016 book, a National Book Award finalist, has a unique interplay of narrative and image. Mann’s preoccupations with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.
Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: “deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder.”
In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts an original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.
SEASON 7 DATES & BOOKS
July 15
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
by Sally Mann
Sept 16
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
by Edmund de Waal
This memoir traces the journey of a collection of netsuke figurines through generations of the author’s family, exploring art, history, and identity.
Nov 18
Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See
by Bianca Bosker
This is A sharp, funny, and insightful nonfiction book about the contemporary art world and how we see.
Jan 20
St. EOM in the Land of Pasaquan: The Life and Times and Art of Eddie Owens Martin
by Jonathan Williams
A biography of eccentric Southern visionary artist Eddie Owens Martin, creator of Pasaquan.
March 17
Ninth Street Women
by Mary Gabriel
This is a sweeping group biography of five women artists (Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler) who transformed American art in the 20th century.
May 19
The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World
by Paul Fisher
This is a rich, beautifully written biography that places Sargent in the broader cultural, aesthetic, and social world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
SEASON 8
The title for the opening meeting of the 2026-27 season has also been set. The remainder will be determined by club members next spring.
July 21
A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue
by Dean Jobb
This is a true crime caper set in the art and jewel theft world of the Jazz Age.
