Women in the Field, One and Two

- Blurb -

Set in London and Wellington of the early 1950s, Thomasin Sleigh's fascinating new novel, Women in the Field, One and Two, follows Ruth Bishops and Irina Durova, two very different women who are united by their professional and personal struggles within the patriarchal art world. Ruth Bishops, an assistant keeper at the highly regarded Fisher Gallery in London, is unexpectedly given the role of London representative to the National Art Gallery in New Zealand. Her job is to recommend European and British artworks to be purchased for New Zealand's national collection. When Ruth ventures into the basement of Irina Durova, a charismatic Russian painter three decades her senior, she discovers a solution that reconciles her idea of that far-away country and her own modernist sensibilities. Women in the Field, One and Two traverses both London and Wellington and explores broad themes such as post-war migration and reconstruction, how exhibitions and collections reflect a national consciousness, and the structural constraints that inhibit women's creativity and freedom.