Former North Portal resident Ross King is on the shortlist for the RBC Taylor Prize, which is Canada’s most prestigious non-fiction award.
King, an acclaimed art historian and author who now resides in England, has been recognized for Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies. It’s the fourth time he has been on the Taylor Prize shortlist.
He has yet to win the award.
The shortlist for the award was released on Wednesday.
“Claude Monet's Water Lilies in the Orangerie des Tuileries rank among the greatest masterpieces of world art,” stated the jury for the Taylor Prize. “Their creation came late in Monet's life when cataracts marred his sight, death struck his wife and son, and war raged close to his lily ponds at Giverny.
“Ross King brilliantly captures the furies of Monet and the enormous challenges he overcame in painting the 22 panels of lilies that surround L'Orangerie. An exceptional art historian, King grasps the political tempests of wartime France and his portrait of Monet's close friend, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, will be essential reading for all who want to understand the intersection of politics, nationalism, and culture in France during the First World War.
“In this elegantly written and superbly researched book, Ross King illuminates Water Lilies and Monet as no one has before.”
The finalists are Matti Friedman for Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story; Marc Raboy for Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World; Diane Schoemperlen for This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications; and Max Eisen for By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz.
A total of 101 books were submitted for consideration this year, and 11 books cracked a long list that was revealed late last year.
The winner of the RBC Taylor Prize will receive $25,000. The recipient will be announced on March 6.
