UNLIKELY PARADISE - THE LIFE OF FRANCES GAGE

Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009, First Edition, First Printing.  ISBN 978-1-55488-423-0.  Hard cover, 263 pages including Bibliography and Index.  Very good; red boards with gilt lettering on spine; very light edge wear.  Binding sound with headbands and a slight lean.  Priced dust jacket shows light edge wear, a bit of crimping at spine head; front and rear panels have some scratches, impressions and light rubs.  Interior clean and unmarked, pages white and bright; black & white photo plates.  FLAT SIGNED by author on title page beneath his name; by SUBJECT above title on title page "To a GOOD painter from Frances".   'Artist Frances Gage, born in 1924 in Windsor, Ontario, experienced both artistic recognition and acute despair in her life, yet she flourished in her work and as part of the contemporary Toronto art scene.  A friend of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, she developed a greater connection with the Group of Seven, working closely with Frederick Varley and producing reliefs of both him and A. Y. Jackson while working in Tom Thomson’s shack.  … she discovered that the Dante-like Paradise she had sought and gained was instead the poet’s Inferno in disguise.  Her correspondence, as referenced in this remarkable biography, bears out this insight in a life often marked by unsatisfying triumph over tragedy.  It presents a candid view of one of Canada's most fascinating artists of the twentieth century.' (from front flap)