When Art and Life Collide: The Story Behind My Novel

By Rue Matthiessen

My novel, Woman with Eyes Closed, was inspired by a theft at the Kunsthal museum in 2012. Seven masterworks were stolen. Among them was a painting by Lucian Freud called Woman with Eyes Closed.

Later, I read that evidence pointed to what would have been considered the worst outcome. That the mother of the criminals had put all of the works in her stove and burned them, trying to save her kids. People were talking about it a lot, and arguing. Some were angry about the loss of seven masterworks. Yet others had great sympathy for a mother whose children were in danger. They said that no matter the value or greatness of these works, the value of a human life was much greater, and they understood her actions completely. (In fact, the fate of the paintings was never definitively proven.)

Having grown up in an intense literary and artistic community on Long Island, where I still live, this debate resonated with me. I found myself coming down on both sides. An idea for a fictional work began to brew.

I found out that the woman in the painting, Woman with Eyes Closed, was a young friend of Freud’s, and that she was terminally ill, and had two small children. This opened up a sub plot that seemed custom made. My mother, Deborah Love Matthiessen, died in ’72, when I was thirteen. That story is part of my earlier book, a memoir, Castles & Ruins.

Because I know so well the great benefits art gives to the public, I mourned the (supposed) loss of the paintings. Because I grew up in a literary and artistic milieu where art and letters did often have a greater value than people, even the people who made it, the story behind this painting touched me deeply.

I love where I live, and am grateful that I was encouraged by my parents, in a benign way, to do this work. It can be extremely satisfying to capture something that is missed, a person, a painting, an atmosphere, an era. Our area is known as “the Hamptons.” It has undergone many changes, the original country-and-creatives vibe has been almost completely lost. That is another thing that I felt able to re-create. When I finished Woman with Eyes Closed I went to the beach, in front of the house that I used as a model for the home for my main female character, Perrin Clayton. No one was around, so I felt free to open my arms to the sky and shout I did it!

Rue Matthiessen is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals.  She is the author of three books: the novel Woman With Eyes Closed (2025), the memoir Castles & Ruins (2024) about growing up in Sagaponack, NY, among writers driven by fierce literary ambition, and Buttonwood Cottage, chronicling the renovation of a Caribbean house, scuba diving, and the natural beauty of Bonaire.  Recently she was featured in the Bridgehampton Museum’s Distinguished Lecturer Series and the Longhouse Talks series in East Hampton. She lives on the East End of Long Island.