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

by Molly Peacock

“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 nineteenth 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 over 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.

Genres: Biography, Art, Nonfiction, Feminism, Canada, Memoir

428 pages, Hardcover

Published September 14, 2021

About the author

Molly Peacock is a widely anthologized poet, biographer, memoirist, and New Yorker transplanted to Toronto, her adopted city.

Her newest biography is FLOWER DIARY: IN WHICH MARY HIESTER REID PAINTS, TRAVELS, MARRIES & OPENS A DOOR (ECW Press). "In prose as subtle and enchanting as Mary Hiester Reid's own brushstrokes, FLOWER DIARY paints a compelling portrait of a talented and unjustly neglected paiter. Molly Peacock is unfailingly sensitive and intelligent, and at times deeply moving, as she shows how, despite the shade of domestic life and the unfavorable climate of the times, MHR brought forth her bright blossoms," writes Ross King.

Molly's latest book of poems is THE ANALYST (W.W. Norton & Company) where she takes up a unique task: telling the story of her psychotherapist who survived a stroke by reconnecting with her girlhood talent for painting. Peacock’s latest work of nonfiction is THE PAPER GARDEN: MRS. DELANY BEGINS HER LIFE'S WORK AT 72, a Canadian bestseller, named a Book of the Year by The Economist, The Globe and Mail, The Irish Times, The London Evening Standard and Booklist, published in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. “Like her glorious and multilayered collages, Delany is so vivid a character she almost jumps from the page,” Andrea Wulf wrote in The New York Times Book Review.

Molly ventured into short fiction with ALPHABETIQUE: 26 CHARACTERISTIC FICTIONS magically illustrated by Kara Kosaka, published by McClelland & Stewart. Her memoir, PARADISE, PIECE BY PIECE, about her choice not to have children, is now an e-book.

Molly is featured in MY SO-CALLED SELFISH LIFE, a documentary about choosing to be childfree by Trixifilms, and she is one of the subjects of Renee McCormick’s documentary, A LIFE WITHOUT CONVENTION, https://vimeo.com/178503153. As a New Yorker, she helped create Poetry in Motion on the subways and buses; in Toronto she founded THE BEST CANADIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH. Molly is the widow of Michael Groden, a James Joyce scholar.

Reviews

[Reta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is another brilliant, blended work from Molly Peacock that I truly enjoyed. Woven in a way beautifully suggestive of the The Marginalian by Maria Popova in its threading together of personal experience, detailed history, imaginative speculation, emotive critique, and painful memoir, this work brings painter Mary Heister Reid to vibrant life for today’s readers in the context of her complicated world. Many in the art world and in history have sidelined this talented woman for far too long; Peacock provides a reviving that MHR deserves in her own right even amidst the sometimes thin resources we possess on her personal life.

In addition to expounding on her gorgeous still-life paintings in detail, Peacock draws true art parallels between MHR’s life and work. She draws attention to MHR’s notoriety and skill as a traveler and writer. She also scoured correspondence, articles, period history, and personal accounts of contemporaries to bring Mary into focus in all the complexities of her world and times. All while struggling with the world crisis of 2020 and “living through a tragedy,” as she names her and her husband’s personal grappling with cancer and death.

The blurring of lines between the developing psychological and medical philosophies of the day, the lives of two Mary’s, the passing of Peacock’s husband, Peacock’s research and travels, and other art and cultural movements of Mary’s times creates a backdrop that is a sigh of relief in the realness of its own created genre. Peacock has formulated a new cocktail blend of literature in Flower Diary and in her prior work, The Paper Garden. Under the umbrella of “creative nonfiction,” Peacock should truly be named the mother of a sub genre - biographical memoir perhaps or concatenate biography?

Either verbal juxtaposition fits like a glove.

*I received an ARC of this nonfiction in exchange for an honest review at the close of reading.*

[johnny ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

molly peacock put so much love and effort into this biography. i knew nothing about mary hiester reid before reading this, and i quickly was enraptured with this woman’s story. her paintings are as evocative as peacock’s poetic prose. truly wonderful.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Molly Peacock’s book Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries, and Opens a Door, I now have an appreciation for an artist I had not heard of and have learned to love her art. Peacock combines biography, art appreciation, and memoir into a lovely read.

Mary Hiester Reid was born in Reading, PA in 1854. Her ancestors were prominent, including the Muhlenberg family which started the Lutheran church in America.

After their mother’s death, Mary studied art in Philadelphia while her sister joined a French convent. Mary met fellow artist George Reid, who grew up on an Ontario farm. George was seven years younger, but they married, determined to put their lives as artists first. For their honeymoon, they traveled to Europe to view art. Both developed their art and careers, but Mary was expected to handle domestic duties, even in their summer Catskill home without running water, electivity or gas.

I have always been interested in art and appreciate that Peacock has included color illustrations of Mary’s paintings at each chapter head. Peacock gives readers an art appreciation course, explaining the symbolism in Mary’s paintings. I stopped my reading and searched online for other works mentioned but not illustrated. I came to love the paintings, tutored in what to see by Peacock.

Peacock’s book is also a memoir with interspersed stories about her marriage and her husband’s illness and death. It is the basis of her insights into Mary and George’s lives and relationships.

The book was an emotional journey with a poet’s lovely, resonate writing. For a woman who left so little behind but her paintings, Peacock was able to resurrect Mary.

I received a free ebook from ECW Press in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Jennifer Mills Kerr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book! I love learning about female artist's lives anyway, but Molly Peacock, as a poet, brings this biography to another level. The structure's unique, the writing is vivid; she describes Mary Hiester Reid's life through her paintings. Peacock parallels her own life with Reid's--as artist, woman, wife--drawing on and sharing deeply personal experiences, which brought me deeper inside two lives rather than one. I LOVED this book, and from all the others' comments & ratings, see that I'm not alone. A unique, touching biography.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Molly Peacock's book, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72, so when I was offered an advanced reader's copy of her newest one, I readily accepted.

Her latest book, Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door, did not disappoint. The title serves as a wonderful map of all the paths and twists the subject took. Well researched, the book is rich with both expected and surprising information.

Like Paper Garden, this book is structured to not only reveal biographical details but also ones that relate to the author's own life. Once again, the author also displays her masterful skill with lyrical language as the phenomenal poet that she is as she describes the work, emotions, and environment around the biographical subject, Mary Hiester Reid, or MHR as the reader comes to know her.

What's different about Flower Diary is that the author evokes even more poignant emotions with her storytelling ability and the themes of talent, self-reckoning, marriage, societal views about women, and death. I found myself rooting not only for MHR but also for the author, even though I knew the inevitable ending in both cases.

This book stays with you and makes you want to read everything Molly Peacock has written.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been some time since I read a Biography and this one didn't disappoint. FLOWER DIARY recounts the life of Mary Heister Reid (1854-1921), an American born, Canadian artist. MHR is best known for painting floral still lifes and was looked at as one of Canada's most important flower painters.

Peacocks poetic writing captured me at once. Transporting me back to the time of MHR, an artist who I knew nothing about before this book but now know and appreciate her for her art and the time in which she created. She was the wife of a painter as well as herself being one, trying to find a place separately for her art in the world reminded me a bit of another artistic couple in history, Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera. How do two artists exist separately in work yet together in life?

I loved all the pictures and artwork included. How Peacock explains the paintings with a keen eye. I am no art expert but I do enjoy art and it was so fun to read about MHR's work. I will never look at a floral painting the same way again. I thought how Peacock structured this biography was brilliant, unfolding it with a piece of art for each chapter in her life. And how she wonderfully mixes biography with art appreciation and inserts her own life while also explores subjects of marriage, women, creating, society and death made for a very interesting biographical account of a Canadian, female artist!

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.

For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[Enchanted Prose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry in Art and Prose (Pennsylvania, Toronto, upstate New York, European cities; 1854 to 1921): I loved everything about this beautiful book that encourages us not to lose sight of our gifts.

“I’m a viewer captivated by a painted voice,” says Molly Peacock who spent ten-years studying and rediscovering a pioneering 19th century female American-Canadian artist she felt connected to. Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door is gorgeously written, illustrated, and groundbreaking as no one has written a biography on Mary Hiester Reid – MHR as she signed her work.

“We don’t always need words to convey the vitality of a life. An image can do the work,” Molly Peacock says and proves. Although MHR left behind 300 still life paintings of flowers (“objects and emotions”) and later landscapes when the women’s suffrage movement emerged, she essentially left no written diaries. Which is why she was warned against writing the book.

Over 400 pages, Peacock demonstrates she’s not afraid of creative challenges and found plenty to write about. “Why try only one thing?” she asks on her artistically pleasing website. True to her words, she also answers by describing herself as a poet (see https://poets.org/poet/molly-peacock for her poetry collections, books, leadership), art biographer, memoirist, “art activist” (co-founder of Poetry in Motion on NYC subways and buses), “student of creativity,” and “word person.”

True to her words, her new female artist biography (follows Paper Garden: An Artist Begins her Life’s Work at 72) is not just one thing. It immerses our literary, visual, creative, emotional, and feminist senses.

You may never have heard of MHR but when Peacock calls her “a foremother of Georgia O’Keefe” she gets our attention. As does her marvelous poetic voice.

To give you a sense of the art infused in the book, below are three color reproductions. Printed on thick glossy paper, the Canadian publisher known for not publishing just one thing is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

True to her words, Molly Peacock segues from the main narrative to sharing parallels in her life with an artist from the past in sections titled Interludes. Printed on green-colored pages, brief as they may be (one to three pages) they move us. Most reflect on the story of her long love and marriage to “famed James Joyce Scholar” Michael Groden, distinguished university professor emeritus at Western University Canada who devoted forty years of scholarship to the Irish novelist. In dedicating the book to him we know how their love story sadly ends as he passed away in 2021 after a forty-year battle with melanoma (!), the same year this book came out. The inscription doesn’t spoil the Interludes. Instead, poignantly elevates the empathy theme.

Genre-wise, Flower Diary also encompasses art history spanning the Aesthetic movement, Impressionism, and the Arts and Crafts movement. As art criticism, Peacock’s descriptions of Mary’s flowers as “sensuous billowing roses,” “negligee-soft” petals, “the ache of tones,” “dreamy, psychological flowers” that are “constrained and free” open our eyes to an art form that conveys more than we may have thought. Against dark backgrounds, the shades or tones of the pink, yellow, and orange flowers jump off the page as the light catches them. The book also documents the importance of fellowship and friendships with other women artists when a culture prescribes how they should live their lives. How art connects, not just then but now. Aesthetically, MHR’s style is referred to as both Tonalism, “an approach that takes its impulses from music, or tones,” and Empathism as it “rarely fails to express the full range of emotions.” Collectively, a multi-layered reading experience to get lost in.

Fascinating are the connections between a 19th century female artist and a 21st century one. MHR was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, studied art in Philadelphia, made Toronto, Ontario, Canada her home, and summered in upstate New York with trailblazing artists like the legendary designer Candace Wheeler. Award-winning Peacock was born in upstate New York (Buffalo), lived in NYC and elsewhere in the US, and also made her home in Toronto, Canada. “I paced her ground.”

Another connection: author and subject are both childless. MHR not by choice, the author by choice.

However, the quality and depth of love between their two marriages is starkly different other than both spouses lifted up their wife’s art. For very different reasons.

George A. Reid was Mary’s art teacher, so she knew he’d overshadow her which he did. He became a leading Canadian painter of realistic Canadian society (economic, social, rural life), and highly influential in the establishment of Canada’s art museums. Perennially preoccupied, insensitive, and emotionally unfaithful, whereas Michael Groden is seen as wonderfully attentive, comforting, and loving. “Love is a medium, like air (like paint itself), a full, caring environment for body and for spirit,” the author who experienced that joy exclaims.

What kind of marriage did MHR have? A complicated, enigmatic one. Orphaned at a young age with her sister becoming a nun in Spain, she was “revolutionary” when she struck out on her own in Victorian society and in a marriage of two painters in which George didn’t restrict Mary’s art. He married her because of it. “Simply by painting, she affirmed what he knew was his essential self.” He a “paradoxical combination of gruff and gregarious”; she “a combination of somber and amused.” Together, a “shared core of ambition and artistry.” He left his mark loudly; she “quietly” with “gentle fortitude.”

Mary was George’s model for some of his paintings. There’s a disturbing one in the book where he paints her holding an infant. Unable to bear a child, Peacock explores whether she felt stigmatized like the era did? What about their physicality? Married thirty-six years, was it ever sensuous like their art? Below (not included in the book) George paints a lighter touch and appreciation for Mary:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

While we can’t begin to imagine how Peacock finished the book while Michael Groden’s life was nearing the end, at one low point she looks to her subject’s “inner strength” to lift her up. “Internal stamina that must connect to a conviction that something inside of you will perish if you don’t protect your gift.”

How and when do you know what your purpose in life is? That you have a special gift that you must protect or you will perish?

If you’re still wondering why we should care about MHR, this Canadian broadcast contributes to answering that:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/175269...

MHR and Peacock also love to travel. Mary going to greater lengths to do so, “crossing oceans five times,” finding inspiration and escape in Paris, London, Madrid, and Venice. Creativity and belongingness is also cultivated in the Catskill Mountains of New York where Mary found kinship and George a new calling: architecture.

Intriguing is Mary’s painting some of the vessels she strategically arranged her flowers in with Asian motifs, inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints. “The Japanese word ukiyo conveys the notion of the fleeting nature of life.” An iconic floating one is The Great Wave by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, who influenced James Whistler (also Van Gogh) who influenced MHR.

Mary also painted the interior of her homes, where she managed to carve out a space for her studio evoking Virginia Woolf’s a woman-needs-a-space-of-her-own. “Almost impossible-to-balance” as she juggled many roles. She too, not just one thing.

Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first heard about this book, a cursory description from the publisher, I thought it sounded interesting. Later, after receiving a print copy of the book I wasn’t so sure. What do I know about art and painting? Nothing.

I started reading just the beginning to see if I actually wanted to read the book, and I just kept going. The author started her writing career as a poet and it shows in this book’s writing style. Without knowing who these people are, nor anything about art, the writer drew me in and had me keep reading.

This book describes the life of an American-Canadian woman painter, Mary Hiester Reid (1854-1921). The author does a thorough job of researching her life and finding what little there is her through letters or from the biography of her perhaps more well known husband George Reid (1860-1947) who was also an artist, and a bit of an architect. (Knowing nothing about the art world, maybe both are equally well known?) She was a force for her time, breaking through the art world when it was male dominated.

The book includes images of Mary’s paintings, and a few from George. The print copy I have they are all in black and white, unfortunately. I did look a few up on the internet, but the author actually describes the paintings somewhat well, such as discussing the color and brush strokes. The paintings are analyzed, meaning is found and placed upon Mary (or George) and emotion, quite a lot of emotion. And it is using these paintings that give significant meaning to Mary’s life and this biography.

Between each chapter is an “Interlude”. The paper here is not white, but a light gray. Many times the interlude is about the author’s life, Molly Peacock, but sometimes it is tangential to the lives of the Reids. With this interlude we get a bit of autobiography, without this I would say the book tended towards the academic, even though it is fairly readable.

This turned out to be quite an enjoyable and interesting book, and just maybe I learned a tiny bit about art.

[Robin Pacific]

This evocative and thoughtful biography/memoir/reflection on art and creativity is an absorbing read. I knew of Mary Hiester Reid's work but author Molly Peacock situates her paintings in the context of a fascinating life full of the contradictions of being a woman artist in the late Edwardian era. Her discussions of the paintings made my viewing of them so much richer and pleasurable. Describing her floral still lifes as self portraits, for example.
Molly Peacock's poetic prose infuses this biography with contemplative wisdom.

Equally important to me as a visual artist is the physical heft and beauty of the book. The colour reporductions are sumptuous, the thick glossy pages a pleasure, and the graphic design aligns with the paintings and their prose descriptions. Frequent "Interlude" sections recount the author's own experience of tending to her dying husband during the pandemic, as well as telling the story of Mary Evelyn, the young student who lived in at least a spiritual and artistic menage a trois with Mary Reid and her husband, the painter George Reid. These sections are printed on pale green pages.
Big congratulations to Molly Peacock and to ECW Press. This book has had a real impact on my thinking as a writer and artist.

[Josée Sigouin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Heister Reid (1854 – 1920) led both a conventional life as wife to painter George Agnew Reid, and an unconventional life as a painter in her own right. Early on, the two artists studied in Paris and went on to visit art galleries in Spain and England before settling in Toronto, a very dull Canadian city at the time.

Poet and biographer Molly Peacock paints for us how MHR made the best of her situation, producing works charged with emotions, composing still lifes of flowers that the author interprets as diary entries, the roses lolling out of vases sensuously, groups of three – trinities – explored in various configurations, and a life-long interest in art from Japan. The author acquaints us with the painter’s husband, George, for whom MHR occasionally modeled, and their talented pupil, Mary Evelyn Grinch, who became George’s wife after the first Mary died. Molly Peacock also offers us slices of her own life as a poet married to a scholar, providing modern-day insights into spending time alone together, coping with travel restrictions (the Great War and the Spanish flu pandemic for MRH, the COVID-19 pandemic for MP) and carrying on regardless. Under the lush fields and overflowing flower vases of Flower Diary lies many a bittersweet story. Molly Peacock renders them in self-effacing prose that brims with empathy for her subject, Mary Heister Reid.

I was given a copy of Flower Diary by publisher ECW Press in exchange for posting an honest review online. I am thrilled that this book has come into my hands. The illustrations alone are well worth the price of admission. They will provide vivid signposts for selective re-readings over the years.

If you create art of any kind or if a piece of art has ever moved you, you will enjoy this book immensely. Like Molly Peacock’s earlier work, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72, this biography of Mary Heister Reid is destined to make many Book of the Year lists. #FlowerDiary, #MaryHiesterReid, #womenartist.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for two reasons: First, because I was given an advanced copy to read and publish a fair review of the book prior to its release in September 2021. Second, it is a book I read for the 2021 ATY Reading Challenge Week 40: a book with flowers and greenery on the cover.

Molly Peacock, the author of this book, is also a poet. This book is the second biography I have read by her. I think that most biographies should be written by poets. Why? The depth of their written vocabulary, the beauty of their expressive vocabulary, and the ability to convey deep, rich ideas with a minimum of words make for a very enjoyable read, indeed. When I read things like this: She painted blowsy, sensuous, billowing roses trapped at the necks in vases as if they were silk-gowned beauties grabbed by their corsets. I wanted to find a big, comfy chair in which to curl, as I savored the word pictures Molly Peacock painted of Mary Hiester Reid's life.

Also, I think Molly only writes about Marys(tongue in cheek), because she can really relate to them. With this book, she has now written about Mary Delany, Mary Hiester Reid, and Mary Evelyn Wrinch... That serves her well because she is able to not only extensively research the life and times of her subjects, but also to crawl into their skins. MHR is ephemeral, but due to the many parallels in their lives, Molly "knows" her inside out. Such a life was led by MHR...a life without too many boundaries, a life of freedoms. A life that allowed her creativity to flourish. A life in which she was an artist, a wife, a muse, an explorer, a traveler, a learner, a teacher, and a manager. As an artist, she paints her passions and is constantly growing and developing. She paints her life and her world; her marriage and her health. It is an exciting life, in which she tears down barriers that the society of men have erected to control women. And, George, her husband, helped her; raising her up and supporting her growth. But, as in all marriages, their relationship was not always easy and then, there was that other Mary.

Find a cozy corner, curl up, and read. You'll love it.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful biography of an artist with whom I was not familiar as well as a bit of a memoir. Mary Hiester Reid was both a dynamic artist and constrained by her sex and marriage to George, also an artist. Despite a commitment to idea the they wold live large as artists, the housekeeping fell to Mary. And when she dies, George, who was seven years younger, remarries to Mary Evelyn Grinch, one of their students. Peacock, generally known a a poet, was married to Michael Groden, a Joyce scholar who struggled with cancer over their life together; she brings echoes of their relationship to this. There are some interesting details on the making of art and I did find myself looking for more info not only on these people but also on their art. I think this would be best appreciated in hard copy as ebooks do not allow the reader to see the color and definition of the illustrations. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A thoughtful and informative read.

[Patrícia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I love reading artist biographies so I picked this up out of sheer curiosity. I did not previously know Mary Heister Reid or any of her works and it was very interesting to read about her life and her connection with art. I appreciate the way the author made connections between her own life and what could've also been a part of the life of MHR.
I have since searched more her works and I'm glad I was given the chance to read this copy. Would recommend to anyone interested in reading biographies of female artists.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

How have I managed not to discover such a wonderful artist until now? Thank goodness for this fascinating biography of Mary Hiester Reid, which introduced me both to her life and work. I was captivated by both. The book is a work of meticulous research and great insight, and being also a personal memoir by the author, was enhanced by offering yet another layer to an already multi-layered exploration of one woman’s life and art. Beautifully written, in a lyrical yet always accessible way, this is essential reading not only for art enthusiasts but for anyone interested in women’s lives and experiences. Many well-chosen illustrations only add to the reading pleasure.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful book interleaved with art by and about Mary Hiester Reid is lush with description, invitations to curiosity and to question what we think we know or imagine about others, their relationships, their creativity, their art, whether poetry or painting, or something more mundane in how they live their daily lives. Peacock skillfully draws in closely studying details and then changes perspective, sharing some of her own context of consideration, of questions, of dreaming about and constructing this artistic biography. Recommended for book clubs, library acquisitions, artists, and those who care about relationships -- their own and others.

[mib6475654 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of art and artists, I really enjoyed reading Flower Diary by Molly Peacock. Flower Diary really explores the life of Mary Heister Reid and portrays her in a way that it both relatable and empowering. I love reading stories like this and not enough are told about women. Men often take centre stage in the art world and from a Canadian and artistic perspective, the story of Mary Heister Reid is extremely important. I really enjoyed how Molly wrote this book, I only wish that I could read it again for the first time.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! As someone interested in this time era, natural science, and women's history, I am so happy with this book. I never knew about Mary and really enjoyed getting to know her and her works. This book includes many details about the time era, what a woman would be like, her daily habits, packing lists, and thoughts on many subjects. Her marriage was unlike any marriage of the time: a companionship. I liked that she embraced the fact she was a woman but fought for the cause of equal rights. Well done read!

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was fortunate to receive a request to read and review an ARC copy of this amazing story.

Molly Peacock’s latest exploration of a creative journey is an extraordinary glimpse into the world of Mary Hiester Reid and Molly’s own life too. There is a thread that connects the two women across history and is an inspiration for all who dare to live their creative aspirations and forge a personal life as well.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The catalogue from an exhibit at the AGO prompted my interest in this artist. I have never understood why MHR's paintings appeal to me. Peacock explains with careful understanding.

The book has its flaws. I found it rather stale. I do not doubt the events recounted, but I have the feeling that the artist left very little of her emotional life to guide the writer in her task.

I will have to dig that catalogue out again.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way the timelines weave together in this extremely well researched and beautifully written book work to mutual benefit in the story telling. (Some very curious details with respect to 'the Marys'!)

Mary H Reid and George Reid were extremely well travelled, especially for the times and were significant players on the art scene in Toronto. Incredible bodies of work. OCAD? AGO? Arts and Crafts movement? Wychwood? Wow. M.E. Wrinch was also a powerhouse of a painter. Painted outside before some other Canadians made that more famous.

What is made clear by M Peacock is that MHR's work would likely have been forgotten unless it had been championed by others after her death, as so often happens to female artists, especially with famous artist husbands. How sad if her only note of fame had been a model in one of her husband's paintings.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5 stars*

In-depth, engaging biography…

Given the author’s admission that there was reportedly limited information about Mary Hiester Reid readily available, I was thrilled to see the wealth and depth of this biography. I had no idea who Mary was before picking up this book but now I feel I almost know her personally…

Mary was born and grew up in a time where women were more vocal but still had an established part to play. The United States, Canada, Europe, she lived life as a balancing act, or so it felt like as she balanced expectations and her own desires and ambitions. How she reached, and attained, her goals, navigating the norms of her day, made for fascinating reading as this (new to me) author led me through a life well-lived. While navigating the extraordinary and the mundane, Mary’s world – and her life – became vividly real with the simple daily tasks mingled with an entirely un-simple, artist’s experience. I loved the glimpses into another time and the beautiful artwork I never knew existed…

Mary’s relationships, the paths she took, the good and the bad that her life contained, made for a highly entertaining, and informative, read.

*I happily reviewed this book
**Thank you to NetGalley

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having already read The Paper Garden, I had fully expected to fall in love with Mary Hiester Reid. And, indeed, Molly Peacock very quietly--and very capably--introduced me to a woman I could love. But it was also a rare delight to see my city, the City of Toronto, through both Molly's and Mary's eyes, at the remove of a century. MHR's studio at Yonge and Temperance, the Saint Lawrence Market, still-arty Wychwood Park came alive to me through Molly's prose and clear-eyed attention to place. (Very quickly, Peacock lets us know that "answering a calling occurs in a place," as true for MHR as it is for the long-itinerant Peacock.) Like my favourite books of Toronto--Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Redhill's Consolation--I tried to read Flower Diary by a busy window, so that I could marvel at a changing landscape and the remarkable people (fictional and real) who shaped it, and were shaped by it.

[Suzanne Rhodenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't think I would be greatly interested in the life of a painter I'd never heard of, but once I
started Flower Diary, I kept going back to it, fascinated. I finished reading the book in less than a
week, which is unusual for me, because usually I'm reading several books simultaneously, and
frankly seldom find one of them compelling.

This book is extraordinary! Peacock's devotion to her subject is amazing, especially combined with
the measured, thoughtful way she responds to the arc of Mary Hiester Reid's life. The work is
scholarly without being a test of patience, and enthusiastic without being a cheer. And the way
Peacock works in, subtly and gently, her life with her husband is also amazing. At first I thought
she shouldn't have done that, but as I read on I admired it.

I'm proud to say too that even before, late in the book, Peacock calls "A Study in Greys" Reid's
most accomplished work, I had decided that I liked it best of those reproduced in the book.

[Margot Fedoruk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very thorough account of the overlooked life of an early 20th-century female painter. Peacock elegantly pieces together her subject’s past, finding underlying meaning in her vibrant paintings, and uncovers some surprising secrets along the way. The author compares her own life as a modern-day female artist as brief informative and often heart-breaking interludes. This book should be required reading for all aspiring female artists!

[Vicki Nemeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished it because it has enough good qualities to make DNFing seem wrong. I feel a mild case of finisher's regret. Some of the factors that caused me to pause are not safe to talk about. Anywho, it's not a good introduction to the artist biography genre. The amount of art in the book seems a bit low, but at least the actual length of the body is way shorter than the 389 pages imply.

I find the cadence fluent and readable, which is what caused me to bring it home in the first place. But there is too much of the author's personal input. This is an ode more than a biography. Where the source material is ambiguous, Peacock seems to fill in too many blanks without being clear as to what is her input. Peacock seems to emphasize parts of Hiester Reid's experience that suit Peacock more than Hiester Reid. Too much of it takes the form of sexy boomer writing that is just bad.

Perhaps in the world of poetry, the author is Molly Fucking Peacock. But not only is that a tiny world that poets and publishers have made inaccessible. It's not the genre of this book. People who aren't aware of Peacock's poetry are going to pick up this historical biography. Even people who are familiar with Peacock may not be expecting this kind of writing (it's actually by assumption that I surmise her poetry must be like this). It's projection and shows consent issues.

People who didn't have as much access to safe sex were not thinking about it as much as postmodern Americans. "Yet by avoiding sex, you are interacting with it. Curious! I am very intelligent." No. They find things to do with themselves. I thought women had too much nonvaluated work back then. Why would they be constantly thinking about sex?

And Peacock inserts too many badly researched corset comments, as if she is unaware of audiences who know about women's living history. Maybe you need someone to ask you before you have the realization, but do you really think that every woman wore her corsets as tightly as Scarlett O'Hara?

Anywho, once I realized it was almost time to return the book to the library, the I got through the second half quickly due to the readable cadence, my off-time digesting the first half of the book having readied me for any more awkward commentary in the second.

I like to tell myself I'll read Peacock's other woman artist biography, "The Paper Garden." Both of these cover women artists without other available books about them. My feelings may stop me from actually doing it. While I did find enough value in a few paragraphs to commonplace them, I'm emotionally tired and uncomfortable. Healthy boundaries may come up. Maybe I'll just read the hundreds of other biographies available and accidentally forget that one.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flower Diary, Molly Peacock

Not something I would normally pick up but this was an absolutely fascinating read which I found in a Little Free Library in PH. There are readers in this town. This is a memorable book for many, many reasons but won't be everyone's cup of tea. Still...

What a creative and imaginative biography-memoir — now I need to read her earlier book in the same genre, The Paper Garden. Maybe I should also read Peacock’s poetry.

What a mix of: Art history (impressive deconstruction of works);
Imagination (how might one manage menstrual cloths?);
Projection (my relationship was thus, how might another’s be?);
Feminism (how to manage a house and create?);
History (the creation of Withrow Park in Toronto);
Icon adjacent- ism (I learned about Candace Wheeler, an icon I should have known);
Mindfulness (how to observe a still life and find something new);
And —


Mentioned is a book I recall reading as a young girl - What Katy Did. Likely purchased for me given the protagonist and I shared a name. Apparently an iconic book (p. 183).

The way that Peacock describes Reid’s paintings is incredible. I know the way I stand before a still life — there isn’t typically a “narrative” that I can define so I admire the piece and move on. Again and again, Peacock finds depth and meaning and significance in these paintings. Three Roses, for example, she describes as one of Reid’s “most anguished still lifes.” (203)

The sadness of the lost painting: At Close of Day which, despite being recorded in the Toronto Saturday Night review of the Chicago exhibition, remains “whereabouts unknown.” (205)

The threesome of George, Mary and the other Mary (Mary Evelyn a.k.a. The British Mary) is endlessly interesting.. The elder Mary with some money and a patrician pedigree, the younger with a Bishop Strachan education, and George, the principal of the Ontario College of Art and a builder of Arts and Crafts houses and a failed (?) painter: fascinating.

Gaston Bachelard I’m glad to know you: to understand interior space and our place in it was something. “...we are at the origin of all real action that we are not obliged to perform.” (347)
And again, it’s remarkable all the thinking Peacock has brought to bear.

And the Levertov poem at the end is gold.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful book like The Paper Garden. This one delves into the life of Canadian painter Mary Hiester Reid (1854-1921) and includes colour reproductions of her paintings, as well as photographs. Molly Peacock researches her topics thoroughly. She finds herself in front of a mirror , the frame which was painted by Reid with peacock feathers as if to suggest the viewer is preening. Peacock adds elements of her own life in various Interludes, light green pages to suggest a break from the chronology. Part of these deal with Peacock's grief at the illness and death of her husband. Interestingly enough after Reid's death, her husband, also a well-known painter, married a younger Mary, also a painter, who for a time was his first wife's student. Together they champion Mary Hiester's work. After her death, some of her friends bought and donated two paintings to the AGO. A valuable addition to Canadian art history and an understanding of a remarkable artist.
(Unfortunately, this edition goes from page 237 to 271 in a strange jump that does not show pages missing...)

[Hilde Weisert · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sumptuous book, visually and intellectually, combining the fascinating story of an artist whose life has much to offer us today, with gorgeous reproductions of her art. Peacock’s perspective manages to be both personal and where appropriate scholarly, but never stuffy. You come to know Mary Hiester Reid as a living person, in a circle of artists that almost rivals Bloomsbury. (Who knew?)
This is an ideal book to curl up with while the snows are still blowing (it’s early February as I write)… a sure fire source of revelations your book club members will delight in sharing… I read it straight through but an artist friend is savoring it a chapter or so at a time.
After Mrs. Delaney, now this, what fascinating, forgotten woman will Peacock bring to us next?
Though if she doffs her biographer hat for a full return to poetry, we’ll have plenty to return to time and again in this book.

[Stephen Newell]

Got about 30% of the way through. I can appreciate what she’s trying to do, but Peacock seems abjectly opposed to actually writing the biography that this is branded as. The curse of your subject being someone with limited writings themselves/limited previous biographical research means you can either a) write a short book, or b) take some kind of artistic liberty. Being a lingual artist herself, Peacock takes the latter route, and I just could not get into the abstract and meandering style of attempting to combine biography, memoir, and art criticism. It was hitting its stride by the time I gave up, but that also showed me I didn’t have any particular care for the direction we were striding.

That being said, Mary Hiester Reid sounds incredibly interesting from what I was able to gather. I’ll look for something more on her down the line I’m sure (maybe even this book again…who knows).

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautifully written if a little technical at times. I loved that the pages are interspersed with paintings by and of Mary Hiester Reid, among other images; I liked also that Molly Peacock weaved in bits of her own story here and there.

Unlike many other reviewers of this book, I am not a connoisseur of, nor a dabbler in, visual art, fine or otherwise, and so must admit I found those sections of the book dealing with details pertaining to the technicalities and intricacies of the art world a little dry. My own failings aside though, I thought that Molly Peacock did an exquisite job relating Mary’s story through Mary’s art and of 'painting her own picture' of the time and place.

This is my honest review of Molly Peacock’s “Flower Diary - In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries and Opens a Door”, in exchange for a copy, provided by ECW Press.