Published in 2018, The Masterpiece is a historical fiction novel by Fiona Davis, an author known for bestselling books set in iconic New York City landmarks, including The Dollhouse and The Lions of Fifth Avenue. The novel employs a braided narrative to connect the lives of two women to Grand Central Terminal. In 1928, Clara Darden is an ambitious female instructor at the Grand Central School of Art, navigating a male-dominated art world. Nearly 50 years later, in 1974, recently divorced Virginia Clay takes a job in the terminal’s information booth and stumbles upon a mysterious watercolor that links her fate to Clara’s forgotten history. The novel explores themes of The Erasure and Rediscovery of Female Legacy, Preservation of History Versus the Drive for Commercial Progress, and Judging Art on Its Own Terms.

The Masterpiece draws on rich historical detail to frame its fictional narrative. Virginia’s story unfolds during New York City’s fiscal crisis, a period of urban decay that fueled a real-world legal battle to save Grand Central Terminal from demolition. Clara’s timeline is set against the cultural backdrop of the Great Depression and the New York art scene, which privileged the “fine arts” of male painters over the commercial illustration at which women could excel. Davis has noted that Clara’s character was inspired by real-life female illustrators of the era, such as Helen Dryden, who created numerous covers for magazines like Vogue.

This guide is based on the 2019 Dutton trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of gender discrimination, sexual content, illness or death, mental illness, emotional abuse, bullying, and substance use.

Plot Summary

The novel alternates between two women whose lives intersect through their connections to Grand Central Terminal and its once-celebrated art school. For clarity, this summary will discuss the plot in chronological order.

In 1928, Clara Darden is the only female instructor at the Grand Central School of Art, a prestigious institution located within the terminal. The school’s officious director, Mr. Lorette, constantly undermines Clara, even threatening to drop her from the faculty. During the annual faculty exhibition, Clara discovers that her illustrations have been relegated to a back sales office where no one will see them. Levon Zakarian, Clara’s charismatic Armenian colleague, offers to swap one of his works for hers, but Clara storms out, unwilling to accept charity. That evening she meets Oliver Smith, a handsome poet who charms her.

Clara and Levon strike a wager: She will take his life drawing class while he takes her illustration class, each aiming to produce a better work in the other’s class. If Clara wins, Levon must convince Mr. Lorette to keep Clara on the faculty; if Levon wins, he gets to paint Clara. In Levon’s class, Oliver models nude, and Clara, though initially stunned, produces a figure painting that earns the room’s admiration. Levon’s attempt at Clara’s watercolor assignment produces a blurred disaster. Clara wins.

Oliver takes Clara to the May Ball, where she has a creative breakthrough: She realizes her illustrations must convey the feeling of wearing clothes, not just show how they look. Using this approach, she lands two cover illustrations at Vogue. Clara and Oliver soon become lovers; he helps advance her work, though his own poetry stalls. At a dinner party, Clara meets Mr. Bianchi, a Studebaker automobile executive, and proposes redesigning the car’s interior and leading the ad campaign. Though Clara gets the commission, Oliver grows jealous of her expanding ambitions.

During a summer program in Maine, Clara works on an experimental oil painting that Levon names The Siren. Oliver proposes marriage and Clara accepts, but on the beach, Levon kisses Clara. Oliver witnesses the kiss and retaliates by sleeping with Violet Foster, an actress. He tells Clara that he has destroyed her painting and soon ends the engagement.

The Great Depression devastates Clara’s career. She reunites with Levon, who experiences lead poisoning that affects his painting ability, and moves into his studio. Channeling Levon’s philosophy of instinctive painting, Clara produces bold expressionistic works. When Felix Hornsby, a prominent art dealer, shares his worry that no gallery will take a chance on a woman illustrator, regardless of her talent, Clara proposes exhibiting under the pseudonym “Clyde.”

Levon secretly sells his most treasured painting to fund the framing for Clara’s exhibition. The Clyde show opens to critical acclaim. On her way to Chicago, Clara runs into Oliver at Grand Central, who confesses he never destroyed The Siren but hid it away. Clara misses her train to Chicago, which crashes, killing Felix and Levon and destroying all the Clyde paintings.

In November 1974, Virginia Clay, a recently divorced woman who also survived a traumatic radical mastectomy, signs with a temp agency. After a brief failed stint as secretary to Penn Central lawyer Dennis Huckle, Virginia is reassigned to Grand Central Terminal’s information booth. On her first day, Virginia accidentally opens a door to the abandoned art school and finds the studios frozen in time. A sketch of women in vintage suits, signed “Clara Darden,” catches her eye. She mimics the central figure’s confident pose and draws courage from it. She soon meets her coworkers at the terminal, including Totto, a sharp-tongued clerk.

Virginia begins dating Dennis, who reveals Penn Central’s plan to build a 55-story skyscraper atop Grand Central, pending the company’s attempt to defeat the terminal’s landmark designation in court. They explore the abandoned school after hours, and during an intimate encounter, Virginia finds a paper wedged behind a cabinet. On one side is a pencil sketch signed “Clara Darden”; on the other is a vivid watercolor resembling an image in a Sotheby Parke Bernet auction catalog.

Virginia visits Janice Russo, a curator at the Art Students League, who links the watercolor to a painting by the mysterious artist known as Clyde. Janice explains that the Clyde works were celebrated as a bridge between the European School of Paris and the abstract expressionism of the New York School, and were attributed to Levon Zakarian after his death. The distinctive curly “C” in Clara Darden’s signature matches the “C” in the Clyde signature, causing Virginia to speculate that Clara may have been Clyde all along.

Virginia receives threatening anonymous notes demanding she return the watercolor. En route to visit the Lorettes, Virginia is mugged by an assailant who demands her portfolio rather than her purse. Shaken, she leaves the watercolor with the Lorettes, who promise to have an expert examine it. Virginia’s daughter, Ruby, later discovers that the expert does not exist. When Virginia calls Dennis to seek advice on the threatening notes, his wife answers, revealing that he is still married. Virginia also eavesdrops on Dennis and a colleague discussing falsified Penn Central financial documents. She orchestrates a tryst with Dennis and takes the original balance sheet from his desk, which she delivers to the Municipal Art Society, a preservation advocacy group, to challenge Penn Central’s court case.

At a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit, Virginia notices the artist’s middle name: Totto. She connects this to her coworker with the same name and observes her resemblance to old photos of Clara Darden. When Virginia confronts Totto, Totto reveals that he has been the elderly Clara all along, disguised as a man. After losing Levon and the Clyde paintings, Clara fled to Arizona, where she taught art to children for decades. She returned to New York only after seeing The Siren listed in an auction catalog. Clara, furious to learn Virginia gave the watercolor to the Lorettes, reveals she was the one who sent the threatening notes and hired the mugger to reclaim the painting.

Virginia coaxes Clara to paint again. Clara asks Virginia to pose nude, and Virginia, for the first time, exposes her mastectomy scar to another person without shame. Later, while overlooking a massive rally to save Grand Central, Virginia conceives a plan.

When the Lorettes refuse to return the watercolor and dismiss Clara as a mere illustrator, Virginia and Janice gather the families of other artists whose works the Lorettes stole, piecing together a decades-long scheme of pilfering and auctioning artworks after the artists died. On the night of the Sotheby Parke Bernet auction in April 1975, Virginia stands and publicly accuses the Lorettes of stealing The Siren. Janice and the family members rise with poster-size images of other stolen works to expose the Lorettes’ crimes. Virginia announces that The Siren’s true artist is Clara Darden, who is alive and present at the auction.

By December 1975, a police investigation confirms the Lorettes’ theft ring, and the watercolor is recovered. The Museum of Modern Art mounts an exhibition of Clara’s work, featuring The Siren and a triptych of nudes Clara painted of Virginia, displaying her body as a subject of strength and beauty. The Appellate Division reinstates Grand Central’s landmark status. Virginia enrolls in NYU’s part-time master’s program in art history on a full scholarship. Clara, finally recognized as a seminal 20th-century artist, shares a triumphant moment with Virginia at the museum opening.