Image: Georgia Museum of Art, Athens
The Georgia Museum of Art’s new publication, ‘Much Love from Paris: Letters to My Family (1928–30),’ hit the shelves in July. The volume features essays by Nelda Damiano, the Georgia Museum’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, and Robyn Asleson, curator of prints and drawings at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, alongside letters written by American artist Louise Heron Blair.
Damiano’s introductory essay focuses on the relationship between Blair and Daura, a romance that Damiano said affected her greatly. The curator described the letters as emotionally powerful, recalling days when she read them and then texted or emailed Martha to say, ‘OK, I cried again today.’ Damiano also said, ‘I can’t believe how much they loved each other. I can’t handle it.’
The letters place Blair and Daura within the artistic culture of late-1920s France, where they made frequent social calls, visited artists and invited other artists to their home. One of Blair’s landscape paintings was accepted into the Salon d’Automne in 1928, an annual art exhibition held in Paris. Damiano noted that Blair’s discussions of the salon and other artists extended the publication’s reach beyond her own work.
Blair’s self-portrait is also part of a focused installation of six works in the museum’s permanent collection, which opened in November 2025 after ‘Brilliant Exiles’ closed and remains on view. The painting shows Blair wearing a red beret and gazing solemnly at the viewer.
Martha Randolph Daura donated more than 600 works and archival materials related to Pierre Daura’s life to the Georgia Museum of Art in 2002. The Daura Collection and Study Center within the museum continues to paint a picture of Daura and Blair’s lives. A collection of works explored how American women found new forms of self-expression, freedom and creativity in early-20th-century France.
