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Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais

Suzanne Fagence Cooper

3.88 · Rating details · 565 ratings · 93 reviews

The Scottish beauty Effie Gray is the heroine of a great Victorian love story. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, she found herself trapped in an unconsummated union. She would fall in love with her husband’s protégé, John Everett Millais, and inspire some of his most memorable art, but controversy and tragedy continued to stalk her.

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published June 21st 2011 by St. Martin's Press (first published May 1st 2010)

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Jun 10, 2012 Erin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, favorites, biography-autobiography-memoir, read-in-2012

A wonderfully written account of Effie Millais' life and a great depiction of what Victorian England must have been like.
Suzanne Fagence Cooper writes a story using Effie's Letters to and from her family and friends, her and her husbands diaries.

When I first picked up 'Effie' in Waterstones,I was expecting some great love affair-But it's more then that. It's the woman behind the two men she called husband. After finishing the book, I felt an acute sense that I knew Effie and I really felt for ...more

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May 23, 2017 ❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀ rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography

Wow.
I've always admired Pre-Raphaelite art and I'd heard a few things here and there about Effie Gray, the wife of painter John Everett Millais, but I had no idea that she'd been through so much grief with her first husband, the critic John Ruskin.

Ruskin never consummated his marriage to Effie; he had a taste for slender young girls in early adolescence. "John Ruskin loved young girls, innocents on the verge of womanhood. He became enchanted with twelve-year-old Effie when she visited Herne ...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, memoir-biography, read-2018, film-only

Just watched a movie based on this three characters, written by Emma Thompson.

A look at the scandalous love triangle between Victorian art critic John Ruskin, his teenage bride Effie Gray, and Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

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Oct 10, 2017 Lynn rated it it was amazing

This account is about three prominent people in Victorian England. Effie married a man who was abusive and refused to consummate their relationship. She sued for an annulment which was unheard of at the time. He was an up-and-coming art critic. She and one of her first husband's associates, a famous painter in his own right, fall in love, marry & have 8 children. The book explores these and other close relationships with a watchful eye.

The book is also about what it was like to live in ...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Maggie rated it really liked it

This is an excellent look into the life of Effie Grey, who is primarily known for her marriages in the world of Victorian art. Cooper had unprecedented access to Effie's letters, generously lent by the Millais family. For the most part, Cooper makes excellent use of them as she untangles Effie's first, and rather troubled, marriage to John Ruskin. Ruskin's voice is so powerful and so authoritative even all these years later that it is a joy to finally hear Effie, to get her side of the tale. ...more

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Jul 18, 2018 Brenda Clough rated it really liked it

Excellent, although possibly not organized in the best way. Flashbacks are confusing.

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Sep 08, 2014 Suzannah rated it liked it

Shelves: history, biography, non-fiction

Such a fascinating book about art and women in Victorian England. I would have liked to go more in depth in some areas, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Effie Gray, from her disastrous first marriage to her life as the wife, social secretary, and business advisor to the greatest painter of the Victorian age. Particularly valuable is Cooper's defence of Millais's development out of the PRB, though I could have done with much more depth.

A great book for any fan of Pre-Raphaelites, ...more

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Nov 28, 2016 John rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-and-memoir

This audiobook kept my attention throughout, but I felt the earlier, John Ruskin-centered passages were more interesting than the later parts about Effie's marriage to Millais and her children. However, with the audiobook, you don't get to see the pictures which I assume were in the book (it is in part about an artist and his models) and it is hard to judge whether the author is over-dramatizing incidents. I suspect, however, that much if not all of the description is supported by the parties' ...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Beeds rated it it was amazing

A fluent, easy-to-read biography of this strong, charismatic woman. There are interesting insights into the role of the Victorian wife too and the business-like manner in which Everett Millais was forced to live his life.

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Mar 25, 2016 Hannah rated it really liked it

This story would never have been told if a lifetime of correspondence had not been preserved. What a fascinating life Effie had compared to the women of her day.

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Oct 28, 2012 Girl with her Head in a Book rated it really liked it

Shelves: girls-are-awesome, victorian, non-fiction, love-will-set-you-free, love-story, 2012-challenge, cinderella-story

For my full review:

http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...

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Oct 05, 2013 Michelle Long rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography, english-aristocracy, art

Loved this book. Easy to read, engaging, not overly long, and well researched.

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Jan 30, 2014 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: bios, lauren_willig, that_summer

*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during "This" Summer: A Lauren Willig Theme Month for the release of That Summer (May 2014)

Effie Grey thought that in marrying the erudite author and art critic John Ruskin that she was entering a life of parties and soirees peopled by the elite of London. Instead this young Scotch girl entered a loveless marriage where she was repeatedly berated and belittled not just by her husband but by her in-laws as well. She suffered *Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during "This" Summer: A Lauren Willig Theme Month for the release of That Summer (May 2014)

Effie Grey thought that in marrying the erudite author and art critic John Ruskin that she was entering a life of parties and soirees peopled by the elite of London. Instead this young Scotch girl entered a loveless marriage where she was repeatedly berated and belittled not just by her husband but by her in-laws as well. She suffered through six years of daily horrors but was willing to accept her fate because it was the life she had chosen. But then John Everett Millais showed up in her life. They had once met at a dance years ago, before their lives took different paths, a meeting Millais remembered well. Those paths would converge when Ruskin took Millais under his wing. The two men working together and even vacationing together meant the young Effie and Everett where often thrown together, perhaps by Ruskin's doing, and love soon stirred in their hearts. Effie had the grounds to do something unheard of in Victorian England. Effie could leave Ruskin because their marriage was unconsummated and therefore was not a real marriage at all. With Everett's encouragement, she took this unheard of step to reclaim her life. But in trading one man for another, was Effie able to get what she wanted or was she stifled yet again?

There are two ways in which this biography could have worked. One would have been to write more in the style of Philippa Gregory and make it a fictionalized biography though as thoroughly based in fact as possible. The other would have been to go more scholarly and linger on details and events. Instead Effie is a book that leaves you wondering why you are reading a book obviously dumbed down for the masses. At times the writing style shifts into a conversational conspiratorial style only to be followed up with dull facts and figures. I just wanted to shake the author and tell her to pick a style, any style. This mishmash of styles gave me extreme dissatisfaction and at times annoyed me to the point of wanting to throw the book. I've read my fair share of art history books and biographies but I don't think I've ever been this bored and frustrated by a book that combines two passions of mine.

At a little over two hundred pages, minus all the appendices, Suzanne Fagence Cooper has written little more then a fleshed out outline for a book. I got no sense of the three people one who this book hinges. In fact, Ruskin, Millais, and Effie, seemed nothing more then cardboard cut outs that occasionally mimicked Victorian stereotypes, but usually remained two dimensional. I'm sorry but two dimensional characters can not, by definition, have passion, so right there the title of the book is wrong. There's a part of me that just wishes to rewrite this whole book. Cooper had unheard of access to documents that have never been seen and the soapy miniseries Desperate Romantics did a better job of making these people flesh and blood in their minimal screen time then a scholar whose life is the Pre-Raphaelites. The fact that the secondary family members and friends were far more interesting then the subjects of the book is a sign that your book isn't working, just so you know for future reference.

But it's not just the writing style that is irksome. The structure of the book is such that I have a feeling I plot out my book reviews more then the author did this book. She relied too much on the gimmickry of using Millais artwork as chapter headings, work that is not included in the book, but more on that later, then bothering to realize her timeline was fucked. There is no way to capture her structure then by saying it's wibbly wobbly timey wimey. I get why Cooper starts out with a little flash forward to Effie leaving Ruskin, because it gives the beginning of the book a thrust, an event, a crisis we are building to. We only cover twenty-seven years in the first eight chapters, most of those concentrating on the six to seven years of Ruskin and Effie together, leaving us five chapters to cover the remaining forty-two years of her life, of which two chapters don't even deal with Effie, the supposed topic of this book. And it's these remaining five chapters I have the most issue with. They jump around and go forwards and backwards over events from different points of view and at different times. I have no freakin' idea of a coherent timeline of events in Effie's life other then she had tons of children. If there was just some through line, some way to sort things out into order instead of writing in such a way that it feels like Cooper forgot to tell part of her story and instead of going back and adding it in in the appropriate spot, she just wrote it into the section of the book she was on even if it made no sense, then I might have at least come to grips with the book.

Adding to the issues of the book making no sense is the fact that Effie and Millais really had too many children, and Effie too many siblings, and couple that with the propensity for using the same names in different branches of the family and you are at sea. Not to mention all the children had nicknames and while Cooper claims she will use the same naming conventions throughout the book, she does not, not that this is a surprise given the grammatical errors and the abysmal mess that is the appendices. I hope she knows there are standards for appendices, you can't sight something differently each time... which ties back in with the naming issues. Effie's eldest daughter is Effie... yep, this wasn't fun, because Cooper would quite often forget to say Effie the younger and so, who knows which Effie was which. There reached a point pretty early on when I realized I didn't care. Also, the multiple Everetts, the eldest son's nickname being Evie, which, when you are reading fast, as you do with books you are growing more and more in hate with and longing for the time when you can write a scathing review, well, it too reads like Effie. But again, what does this all matter. All these people, all their lives, I couldn't care less about any of them as they are portrayed by Cooper.

Now I must finally vent on a personal pet peeve. Graphics! I'll first just state I hate this cover with a passion. You have one of the greatest painters of ALL TIME as your subject and he painted his wife quite often and you have a crappy stock photo of a girl with ill fitting gloves. If there's one thing I learned, Effie loved her clothes and those gloves wouldn't do. Are you trying to appeal to the common demographic who you might lure to see the upcoming movie by making it look not about art? Cause right there, you're pissing me off with underestimating me, but then again, the book was written at such a basic level, perhaps the people who this book appeals to will find it fascinating, ie, not me. Yet this little cover rant isn't my main issue. My main issue is that when you have a book about artwork you MUST include pictures of ALL THE WORK! Yes, there are some pieces featured, but Cooper goes into great detail annoyingly waxing her own views on Millais' work only to not have the work included in the book. You talk about it, we have the right to see it. You can't get printing rights or some other snafu that doesn't let you include the art, you omit that section wherein you tried to color my views of the work with yours. Here's an idea lady, you go off and write your bland pap for the unwashed masses who hope to seem educated in picking up this paltry tome, and I'll avoid you and read fascinating works by real scholars. ...more

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Feb 25, 2018 Voirrey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, history-non-fiction, read-2018

What a fascinating biography of someone who has interested me for some years.

Effie Gray, who found that John Ruskin's ideas of a wife and marriage were not hers; nor would they have been most people's. The author does try to be fair to Ruskin, but his choice to not consummate the marriage, and his preference for his parents' company over his wife's certainly did not make him an ideal husband. Poor Effie who was so embarrassed by her continued virginal state that she couldn't even bring herself What a fascinating biography of someone who has interested me for some years.

Effie Gray, who found that John Ruskin's ideas of a wife and marriage were not hers; nor would they have been most people's. The author does try to be fair to Ruskin, but his choice to not consummate the marriage, and his preference for his parents' company over his wife's certainly did not make him an ideal husband. Poor Effie who was so embarrassed by her continued virginal state that she couldn't even bring herself to tell her doctor when the subject of her childlessness came up.

And I think SFC is right in her conclusion, when reading the extensive letter collection that remains, that Ruskin actually began to go out of his way to besmirch her reputation - encouraging her to attend social events with other men and positively pushing her and J Everett Millais together. He seemed to want her to be shamed and forced to return to her parents so that he could return to life totally as a pampered son rather than an adult male without any blame falling on him.

I thought, too, how brave it was of Effie to insist on the annulment, once she realised it was possible, knowing how difficult it would be for her having to submit to full gynae examinations by more than one eminent gynaecologist of the day and discuss her body, and sex, in a church court.

The commonly held belief that Ruskin was horrified by her having pubic hair is challenged here - and I think the author's conclusion that constantly moving the date of the wedding to suit his parents' travel plans may have meant she was menstruating, is reasonable. But certainly no good reason for his subsequent behaviour!

Her long married life with Millais is covered, too - and the suggestion, often made, that she forced him to 'sell-out' to the establishment examined. On the whole I think this is very fair biography of Effie - she is shown as neither the perfect,wronged, woman, nor the villain; but a flesh and blood woman whose life was not easy, nor anything like she would have pictured it as a girl, and yet it was a life well lived. ...more

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Jun 15, 2018 Roryz rated it really liked it

I have known about the strange story of Effie Ruskin Millais, and I appreciated reading the details of Effie’s life from beginning to end.
Overall, a good read, but frustrating because there are no pictures!
The book alludes to Effie and her sisters acting as John Everett Millais muses, but I had to look up each work as it was mentioned. There’s a lot of discussion in the book about how Millais poured out his love for Effie onto his canvases as he fell more deeply in love with her. But, it was ...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Ginna Kaiser rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This was good at first, I then felt like it would never end.I felt like about 35% of the way in they should have put in what Everett & Effie's relationships was like, how their marriage & children fared, where they ended up, etc. & ended it about 5% later. There were way too many details & I am a details gal. Instead of describing photographs or paintings, couldn't the author have included them?

After around Chapter 8 I just got lost in the long-running details.

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Jun 09, 2019 Marcia rated it it was amazing

Couldn’t put this one down once I started it. So many of my “friends” were mentioned here...and I had no idea they had such Intimacies with Ruskin! I really enjoyed diving into some of the pairings of Millais as well as finding the geographical places included in the book.

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Feb 23, 2018 Lucy rated it it was ok

It’s a strange book in the second half, when events seem to bounce around quite a bit. It gets a little incoherent at times.

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Aug 01, 2019 Chantel rated it really liked it

REALLY enjoyed this book. It's been many years since I've read it, would gladly read again. :)

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Aug 10, 2018 Bronwyn rated it really liked it

Shelves: by-women, title-a-i, 2018-reads, non-fiction, do-not-own, about-women, audiobook, author-a-i, european, history

This was really interesting. I knew little about any of these people except for what was shown in "Desperate Romantics". What interesting lives they all lived. What a strong person Effie Gray was.

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Apr 22, 2018 Bobby rated it liked it

Some editing issues and bit of an odd timeline but really interesting and moving.

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Sep 22, 2019 Nigel Maskell rated it really liked it

Drawing largely on personal correspondence an informal telling of the life of Effie is something of a page turner.

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Oct 17, 2013 Rachel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-and-memoirs, audiobooks, nonfiction, art-and-film

I really enjoyed this book! The Pre-Raphaelites are one of my favorite periods of art, so I’m always glad to read a story related to them. Effie Gray was a beautiful educated young woman when she married art critic John Ruskin at age 19. Ruskin had become obsessed with her at age 12, but when he saw her on their wedding night, it was not what he had expected. I did some research on him after reading the book and it looks like he was not homosexual as some have suggested but may have been a I really enjoyed this book! The Pre-Raphaelites are one of my favorite periods of art, so I’m always glad to read a story related to them. Effie Gray was a beautiful educated young woman when she married art critic John Ruskin at age 19. Ruskin had become obsessed with her at age 12, but when he saw her on their wedding night, it was not what he had expected. I did some research on him after reading the book and it looks like he was not homosexual as some have suggested but may have been a pedophile, although looking at child pornography was not illegal or considered dangerous during the Victorian Age. It can be linked through several of his relationships with young girls that he usually fell in love with them at a very young age, but was less interested once they got older. In any case, he did not consummate his marriage to Effie, even though they were married for 6 or 7 years. Effie wanted to get out of the marriage, and so filed for annulment and Ruskin was pronounced impotent. While she was married to Ruskin, she fell in love with Ruskin’s young protégé, John Everett Millais, whom she later married.

This first half of the book was fascinating and very well-done. Although Ruskin is made to look like a crazy pervert and his parents come off rather creepy as well, I’m still very curious about his books as they sound fascinating. It seems that Effie did marry a very brilliant man, but one with almost no social skills. I rather think the author should’ve stopped the book at the halfway mark, but she decided to continue and talk about Effie and Millais’s (or Everett as he was known) marriage, their children, and Everett’s art career with and after the Pre-Raphaelites. There was a lot of talk calling Everett a sell-out after he left the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (or PRB), but I think he was ingenious. Unlike a lot of other artists of the period, he had to support himself and his wife and eight children, so he did whatever he had to do to survive and make money. So yes, his picture style naturally changes from the Medieval/detailed look of his earlier pictures to the more Aesthetic-looking pictures of his later career. Pretty much everyone knows who Millais is from one of his PRB paintings “Ophelia” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_...). I liked how much Effie and her family were and how much she depended on them to deal with her marriages and loss of children. I thought the chapter on Sophy Gray, Effie’s younger Gray, particularly interesting. As to whether or not Sophy and Everett had an affair, I cannot speculate on that. It is intriguing to note that there will be two movies out in 2014 about Effie Gray, though I think I will see the one written by Emma Thompson. 4 stars.
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Jun 30, 2014 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies, pre-raphaelites, reviewed

Suzanne Fagence Cooper's Effie Gray is a biography on one of the central figures of a Victorian scandal. Effie was married to John Ruskin in what seemed like a promising match but what soon became a stifling, abusive marriage. She managed to get an annulment of the grounds of non-consummation, but doing so damaged her own reputation, at a time when reputation and standing ere everything. The only consolation is that Ruskin's reputation was damaged as well and unhelped by his own behaviour. Effie Suzanne Fagence Cooper's Effie Gray is a biography on one of the central figures of a Victorian scandal. Effie was married to John Ruskin in what seemed like a promising match but what soon became a stifling, abusive marriage. She managed to get an annulment of the grounds of non-consummation, but doing so damaged her own reputation, at a time when reputation and standing ere everything. The only consolation is that Ruskin's reputation was damaged as well and unhelped by his own behaviour. Effie would later marry the Pre-Raphaelite painter, John Everett Millais, Ruskin's one-time protégé.

Fagence Cooper focuses very much on Effie's side of things and while background is given on Ruskin and Millais, they remain very much supporting players in this book. It's something I appreciated – Effie is fascinating enough on her without being overshadowed by her more-famous husbands.

The biography is thorough, tracing Effie's life from birth to death as far as it is possible, relying on a plethora of personal letters to do so. While Effie remains the heart of the narrative, Fagence Cooper provides enough contextual information to give a comprehensive background for everything that occurs.

This is a book I really enjoyed reading, even if at times the story was harrowing. However, there were some things I didn't find that likeable. Firstly – and probably the most petty – the ordering of illustrations seemed to be somewhat illogical as they did not match the order that Fagence Cooper mentioned them in her text. Secondly, there were parts of the books that made me feel like the author was perhaps speculating a bit too much when there was very little to go on, particularly in the chapter dedicated to Effie's sister, Sophy Gray.

Finally, I did not appreciate the "fictional" reconstructions that begun most chapters. Look, I don't mind a fictional prologue that's designed to entice readers in, especially if it's written well. And, to be perfectly fair, Fagence Cooper's fictional reconstructions are written well and somewhat engaging... but at to be at the start of every chapter? It's too much. I'm supposed to be reading non-fiction, not historical fiction. And it's not really signposted that well – Fagence Cooper claims that we can reconstruct Effie's life in detail due to her letters, but this much detail? I don't think so – but then, I don't have access to these letters to know for sure.

This is an enjoyable, readable biography that I do recommend, partly because Effie is a fascinating person and partly because her story is a comment on the status of the Victorian women. However, I do find a few issues with it and suggest care should be taken when taking Fagence Cooper's word as gospel. ...more

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Jun 05, 2013 Annemieke Windt rated it really liked it

It was one of the stories that stood out when I took a course in Victorian History at university, now twenty years ago. The story of John Ruskin and his wife Effie Graywho annuled their marriage because it was never consumated. At the time it seemed to sum up for me the strange relationship English Victorian society had with marriage and sexuality, together with the other story that a husband murdered his wife and afterwards wrote in his diary that she was 'with the Lord'.

Effie, the Passionate It was one of the stories that stood out when I took a course in Victorian History at university, now twenty years ago. The story of John Ruskin and his wife Effie Graywho annuled their marriage because it was never consumated. At the time it seemed to sum up for me the strange relationship English Victorian society had with marriage and sexuality, together with the other story that a husband murdered his wife and afterwards wrote in his diary that she was 'with the Lord'.

Effie, the Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, Ruskin and Millais by Suzanne Fagence Cooper tells the story of the failed marriage and the following relationship with painter John Everet Millais using an abundance of personal documents. The history reads like a romance novel in a way. Effie married art critic John Ruskin at the age of 19 and from the outset their relationship seems doomed. On the wedding night Ruskin turns away from his wife and never touches her, leaving Effie prone to nervous moodswings and insomnia. Their marriage was also hampered by the fact that although a brilliant mind, Ruskin never fully grew up and remained his parents little boy.

Now in the 19th century they could have had quietly separated, with Effie moving back with her parents in Scotland. But that's not what she deed, she choose to have the marriage annuled on the grounds that Ruskin suffered from incureable impotency. That way Effie could marry again, now to the painter John Everet Millais, a former protege of the art critic Ruskin.

Cooper delves deep in Effie's family history, describing not just her story, but also the unhappy life story of her sister Sophie and other children in the Gray household. Effie, who was a young socialite in the days of her marriage with Ruskin, became the woman behind Millais, organizing the household and studio and raising their many children.

The book offers in interesting inside in Victorian society and shows how much the lives of women have changed. Effie's step to ask for an annulment, may now seems a small thing, but in the Victorian age it was a bold step. It happened against a background of growing self awareness of women and their right to their own lives. That more than rereading to story of a Victorian scandal made the book a great read. ...more

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Feb 27, 2016 Becca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was really interesting. So much to think about - women's roles in Victorian England, the staggering size of families and surrounding issues, the marriage market, the social production of art, etc etc. Such a special time and a great choice of subject to get into it all: She was right in the thick of it, and an outsider simultaneously. Euphamia "Effie" Gray is a fascinating character, strong and quite sure of what she wants. Her first marriage could absolutely have destroyed a weaker woman. ...more

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Nov 13, 2014 Mirella rated it really liked it

In the novel, The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, author Suzanne Fagence Cooper takes us into Victorian England, Venice, Italy, Scotland, and into the heart of the scandal that haunted poor Effie her entire life.

Based upon a treasure of preserved letters, Cooper has recreated Effie’s life in great detail. The book is a comprehensive commentary on the life of this fascinating young woman who had been so shamed and berated because of her first husband’s neglect. I liked the fact that three ...more

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Mar 30, 2014 Bev rated it really liked it

A very readable and fascinating account of two marriages and the contrasts between them.
As one of the husbands is John Ruskin and the other is one of Britain's greatest painters, John Everett Millais, the fascination is more than doubled.
I've read much criticism of Effie Gray and her influence on Millais and I had been inclined to agree with it, but this book did much to make me take a far more sympathetic view of her and to revise my ideas on the development of Millais as an artist.
I had to ...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Helen rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, history, non-fiction

I always knew there was something strange about Ruskin's marriage but I'd no idea how strange it was. This tells all the convolutions of that marriage and the joy of her real marriage to John Everett Millais. Effie was the eldest child of her parents who had 14 more, although only about half grew to adulthood. Effie (Euphemia) had a eight herself and lost a son when he was 20 and a still born child. As is the case with any large family it is sometimes difficult to keep siblings & offspring ...more

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Jun 20, 2013 Kimberly Schlarman rated it liked it

Shelves: art, women-and-feminism, biography

Effie was what I had hoped American Bloomsbury could have been. Cooper successfully captured the spirit of the painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood while telling the story of an intriguing love triangle. I was already familiar with the story of Effie and her husband the writer and art critic John Ruskin. They never consummated their marriage and it was quite scandalous when Effie decided to divorce him. Cooper included some feminist analysis of the lives of early Victorian women and the ...more

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About Suzanne Fagence Cooper

Suzanne Fagence Cooper

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Dr. Suzanne Fagence Cooper was educated at Merton College, Oxford, Christie's Education and the Courtald Institute before becoming the Victoria & Albert Museum Research Fellow at Buckinghamshire New University in 1999. Her involvement with the V&A dates back to 1996, when she was appointed curator, and in 2001 she co-curated the V&A's major exhibition 'The Victorian Vision.'

Suzanne's ...more