May 7: Leanne Shapton—Swimming Studies
Presented by 192 Books, Leanne Shapton in conversation with Cecily Brown to discuss her book Swimming Studies (Picador, 2025)
This event will take place in person at 192 Books at 192 10th Ave on Wednesday, May 7th at 7:00 PM ET. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. The discussion will also be streamed directly on this page. There is no login required. A recording will be archived.
Books will be available for sale after the conversation.
Leanne Shapton—Swimming Studies (Picador, 2025)
Back in print, a “fusion of cool, clear-eyed prose and watercolors, photographs and painted portraits” (Time Out New York) by celebrated author and artist Leanne Shapton, on a sport that has shaped her life. Intimate with chlorinated space; weightless yet limited; closed off to taste, sound, and most sight; acutely aware of the clock: this is a swimmer’s state. When ten-year-old Leanne joins an Ontario township swim team with her brother, she finds an affinity for its rhythms—and spends years training, making it to the Olympic trials twice. Swimming Studies reflects on her time immersed in a world of rigor and determination, routine and competition, pairing together contemplative essays and paintings.
Photo by Christine Coulson
Leanne Shapton is an author, artist, illustrator, and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at The New York Review of Books. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books. Shapton is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Shapton is the author of nine books, including Swimming Studies, which won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography and was long-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.
Photo by Ellie Clark
Cecily Brown is one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. Brown draws from the compositional structure, historical motifs, and virtuosic brushwork of master painters across a diverse range of genres. Recent notable one-person exhibitions include “Cecily Brown: The 5 Senses,” Paula Cooper Gallery (2024); “Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2023); and “The Triumph of Death,” Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples (2022). A survey of Brown’s work, Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations, is on view at the Barnes Foundation, which traveled from Dallas Museum of Art.