Gail Tanzer

Having obtained my master’s degree from The University of Chicago, I eventually began teaching art history at two universities. I write historical fiction books to renew interest in artists who were once famous but are now not so well-known. Each of my subjects has complicated personal dilemmas to which most of us can relate. In addition, each struggles against external forces particular to his/her time in history to take art one step further than it’s been.

The year was 1500 and Dürer paints himself as looking almost Christ-like, because he wanted gifted artists to be recognized for their creativity rather than be regarded as mere craftsmen.  By foot and by horse, Dürer crossed the Alps to study art in Venice, but his life was forever changed by his introduction to a form of feminine beauty that was so unlike that of the stolid women in Nuremberg where he lived and worked.  How he resolves the tug of war in his heart between Beauty and Duty remains to be seen…