British author, Lucy Steeds finds inspiration and creative freedom in Amsterdam’s rich cultural heritage.
A suppressed female artist, a controlling uncle who is also a world famous French artist, and a penniless English journalist searching for new meaning. The three characters in Lucy Steeds’ debut novel The Artist and the Feast set in one gloriously hot Provencal summer in the decadent 1920s. But how did this young British celebrated author set about writing one of the most lauded debut novels of the year? And where did she find inspiration?
Patrick Sullivan designed the cover for the US edition of The Artist and the Feast. He used food from paintings in the Rijksmuseum, the exact paintings used by Steeds.
Finding inspiration in Amsterdam
I had read that Steeds was confident and articulate but meeting her for the first time in Amsterdam’s H’Art Museum café, I was struck by her genuine warmth. She speaks fondly of her time at the Faber Academy; how receiving invaluable feedback from fellow students, toughened her up in a very helpful way. And how giving feedback to others helped her adapt her own writing and ‘make my own characters’ motivations clearer’. Why for instance is Ettie not allowed to read in the house? And does the reader fully understand the enormity of Ettie’s admission that she cannot remember her mother’s face, one of the things which pains me the most.
Steeds has clearly taken her newly adopted city of Amsterdam to heart and finds the ‘very visible history’ inspiring. And whilst the subject matter of The Artist focuses on just that, the art world, it seems that music too, played a part in her writing process.
She talks effusively about attending free organ recitals at the Moses and Aaron Church (round the corner from Dutch National Opera) where she ‘just sat in this beautiful church and wrote for hours… It felt so invigorating because you’re in danger of living behind your desk.’ Steeds is aware of the need to ‘fill the creative well… If I just lived in my room and approached my laptop every morning, I would have nothing except my own thoughts.’ In the same vein, visits to the museums scattered all over Amsterdam proved inspiring. She would just look at the same picture for up to half an hour and still see something new.
Art as a soother
I wondered if she had been channelling her inner Claudia Winkleman (presenter of the UK series The Traitors) whose father would take her to the National Gallery each weekend as a child. They only looked at one painting. Winkleman now sees art as a ‘soother’. Steeds similarly uses art as a means of ‘slowing down… letting the art completely fill your brain’. She cites a book by T J Clark, The Sight of Death where the author spent an entire year looking at just ONE painting, yet after all this time, could still see something new.
Beautiful buildings are not a prerequisite for this technique of free-writing, which simply requires an author to sit for a period of time and write whatever comes into their head. No editing, no refinement. A useful tool when the matter at hand is a historical novel and you need to condense months of meticulous research into a narrative whilst keeping the text alive. An example of this technique sees Steed pack her writing with detail in a way that feels fresh and vibrant. Instead of labelling Tata’s artistic style as Cubist (‘because that is a wasted word’) we learn instead that the orange is no more than four broad stokes with a brush. Simple, yet highly evocative.
Food
With a feast as the centrepiece of the novel, food is found in abundance in The Artist and is used to gain a deeper understanding of the characters. Who buys and cooks the food? How do they eat? Do they share the food? Steeds elaborates, ‘You can do so much with food because it can be delicious or repulsive. It can be enticing or horrible. It can be a feast or a crumb.’
However, one nagging question remains. Why the proliferation of insects? Steeds is surprised by my observation but admits that while their inclusion was not deliberate, crickets and mosquitoes ‘are emblematic of life and decay’. I learnt that one of her favourite museum exhibitions was the 2023 Crawly Creatures at the Rijksmuseum which featured Dutch still life paintings, each with insects hidden like little momento mori. A reminder that ‘death is here’ and a theme explored at length in Tata’s feast, full of half-eaten and slowly-rotting delicacies. ‘I find insects creepy, always a little innerving but also a constant presence. The noise of the natural world in this very isolated, silent place.’
The Artist and the Feast is available in the US from May 6th. It features a Dutch still life, complete with insects. The UK edition The Artist was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025, the subject of an intense bidding war, and Hatchard’s Book of the Month (February 2025). Steeds was one of The Bookseller’s four New Faces, 2025.
Further reading
Read my other interview with Lucy Steeds for DutchNews where she talks about how she ended up living in Amsterdam, and how cycling through the city until 11pm when it is still light is one of the things she loves most about the city.
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