Flower Diary

In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door

By: Molly Peacock

Narrated by: Alicia Payne

“Graceful yet precise, poetic yet deeply rooted in research, this exploration of an overlooked painter is gorgeous - a joy to read. Molly Peacock’s insights and empathy with her subject bring to life both Mary Hiester Reid and her luscious flower paintings.” (Charlotte Gray, author of The Massey Murder)

Molly Peacock uncovers the history of neglected painter Mary Hiester Reid, a trailblazing artist who refused to choose between marriage and a career.

Born into a patrician American family in the middle of the 19th century, Mary Hiester Reid was determined to be a painter and left behind women’s design schools to enter the art world of men. After she married fellow artist George Reid, she returned with him to his home country of Canada. There she set about creating more than 300 stunning still-life and landscape paintings, inhabiting a rich, if sometimes difficult, marriage, coping with a younger rival, exhibiting internationally, and becoming well-reviewed. She studied in Paris, traveled in Spain, and divided her time between Canada and the United States where she lived among America’s Arts and Crafts movement titans. She left slender written records; rather, her art became her diary, and Flower Diary unfolds with an artwork for each episode of her life.

In this sumptuous and precisely researched biography, celebrated poet and biographer Molly Peacock brings Mary Hiester Reid, foremother of painters such as Georgia O’Keefe, out of the shadows, revealing a fascinating, complex woman who insisted on her right to live as a married artist, not as a tragic heroine. Peacock uses her poet’s skill to create a structurally inventive portrait of this extraordinary woman whom modernism almost swept aside, weaving threads of her own marriage with Hiester Reid’s, following the history of empathy and examining how women manage the demands of creativity and domesticity, coping with relationships, stoves, and steamships, too. How do you make room for art when you must go to the market to buy a chicken for dinner? Hiester Reid had her answers, as Peacock gloriously discovers.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Molly Peacock (P)2022 ECW Press

Critic reviews

“Part memoir, part biography, this is a beautifully written and layered volume that opens its arms wide and encompasses art, domesticity, the intimacy of marriage and of death. Lush and beautifully produced.” (Toronto Star)

“Flower Diary is written with the lingering observations and lyrical touch of an established poet, yet with an easygoing, conversational tone often lacking in didactic art biographies.” (Quill & Quire)

“Flower Diary, published by ECW Press, with its carefully reproduced paintings, gorgeous endpapers and glossy paper stock, puts it in the running as the most stunning book to come out of Canadian publishing this year.” (Toronto Star)

A Brilliant Biography Read Beutifully

I truly enjoyed listening to “Flower Diary,” by Molly Peacock—which explores the life of Canadian/American artist, Mary Hiester Reid. The book is a biographical masterpiece, and I learned so very much about the art world listening to this extremely well written book. Peacock’s research and details are phenomenal. I listen to many audio books, and the actress reading the book, Alicia Payne, is a joy to the ears. She paces the book in her mellifluous voice with a natural tempo—unlike.so many audio books that rush in a clipped manner. Peacock’s poetic prose shines with Payne’s interpretation. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to expand their horizons into the world of art. You will be delighted.

Davidson Garrett