The Quiet Life of Lydia Radda Born in 1891 in Corbeil-Essonnes, the woman known to the art world as Lydia Radda lived a life of quiet, focused devotion to her craft. Though she was born Julie Florent, she chose a different name to navigate the creative circles of Paris. She was a self-taught painter who found her calling not in formal academies, but through the light filtering through the stained glass windows of churches. This early fascination with how light interacts with color would linger in her work for decades. She lived a modest existence in a small studio on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Ch…