Julie L'Enfant

Julie L’Enfant, former professor of art history at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an art historian and writer.

Julie earned a BA, MA, and PhD in literature from state universities in Louisiana. For some years she was a free-lance writer in Baton Rouge. Her novel The Dancers of Sycamore Street was published by St. Martin’s Press in 1983.

A growing interest in art history led Julie to return to graduate school. She earned a second PhD at the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation became a book, William Michael Rossetti’s Art Criticism: The Search for Truth in Victorian Art (University Press of America, 1999).

Julie has written several books on Minnesota art: The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America (2002), Pioneer Modernists: Minnesota’s First Generation of Women Artists (2011), Other Realities: The Art of Paul S. Kramer (2013), Persistence of Vision: The Art of Bettye Olson, with Jaden Hanson (2017), Nicholas R. Brewer: His Art and Family (2018), and Hazel Belvo: Matriarch of Art (2020)--all published by Afton Press. The Gag Family and Pioneer Modernists received Minnesota Book Awards. She has now returned to the writing of fiction with the re-publishing of Dancers of Sycamore Street (2019) and the publication of A Prospect of London (2022).

Julie lives in a suburb of Minneapolis.