I Am You

Title: I am You

Author: Victoria Redel

Genre: Historical

n 1600s Amsterdam, two women–a painter and her assistant–defy the norms of their time as they take on the male-dominated art world and fall in love–from “fantastic prose writer” (Vulture) and “true master” (Guernica), Victoria Redel.At seven years old, Gerta’s hair is lopped off and she’s sent to work for the Oosterwijcks under the name Pieter because it’s a boy they need. As Pieter, she splits wood, minds the hens and rabbits, scrubs the wooden floors of the house, and tends the garden–all while the family’s teenage daughter, Maria, looks on, sketching Pieter’s every movement. A few years later at the dinner table Maria lays Gerta’s deception open alongside a demand that Gerta accompany her to Utrecht, where Maria will apprentice in the workshop of a famous painter. In Utrecht, Maria learns to paint skilled still lives–though she is the only woman in her workshop and because of her sex will never be accepted into the painters’ guild.