Destroying personal papers and posing as Portuguese to hide her African American roots, Belle de Costa Greene never made it easy for any biographer to tell her life story. Despite this, Heidi Ardizzone teases out the secret life of this trailblazer's success in a man's world, to becoming director of the Pierpont Morgan Library for 25 years. Her story is set against nineteenth and twentieth century art history, the world of scholarship, as well as class, race, and gender politics.
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