Scan barcode
charlottekm's review against another edition
5.0
Great to set the stage to read more individually about the artists within. Loved it.
marginaliant's review against another edition
4.0
I loved a lot of this book. I loved the subject matter, the writing, and the analysis. There are great points made in here that I think only someone with Gayford's background could make, like the differences between American pop-art and British pop-art. I don't think it's for someone to whom this would be a first introduction to the period, and here's why:
My primary criticism is the organization of the book. I've noticed on quite a few other reviews that people have found this book had too much going on. Essentially the book dances around the maypoles of Bacon, Freud, and Hockney's careers during the 1940s-1960s. However, it also introduces and then immediately drops biographies of lesser-known artists who brush up next to the "big three" (my words, not his) over the course of their careers. This can be very confusing, especially when an artist is discussed, say, during the period of the 1940s and then dropped again and re-introduced a decade later. It just jumps all over the place and can be hard to follow. While I feel that each of the artists was interesting, I had trouble keeping track of how each of them was supposed to be tying into the big picture.
That's where the problem really stands with me. The "big picture" is very ill-defined.
Gayford makes disclaimers at the front and back of the book that the idea of the "London painters" is difficult because post-war London was a period where artists scattered in dozens of different directions in terms of style, theme, and influences. However, I found this to be a very unsatisfying explanation. I thought that the reader would have benefitted from Gayford making an effort to address why he focused primarily on Bacon, Freud, and Hockney. What made him focus on their work and what about them justifies writing about them in the same book? This would have gone a long way towards helping contextualize the other artists who dip in and out of the story and help to answer the "so what?" that I thought the book lacked. I was missing something to bring it all together and I thought the book suffered from that loss.
My primary criticism is the organization of the book. I've noticed on quite a few other reviews that people have found this book had too much going on. Essentially the book dances around the maypoles of Bacon, Freud, and Hockney's careers during the 1940s-1960s. However, it also introduces and then immediately drops biographies of lesser-known artists who brush up next to the "big three" (my words, not his) over the course of their careers. This can be very confusing, especially when an artist is discussed, say, during the period of the 1940s and then dropped again and re-introduced a decade later. It just jumps all over the place and can be hard to follow. While I feel that each of the artists was interesting, I had trouble keeping track of how each of them was supposed to be tying into the big picture.
That's where the problem really stands with me. The "big picture" is very ill-defined.
Gayford makes disclaimers at the front and back of the book that the idea of the "London painters" is difficult because post-war London was a period where artists scattered in dozens of different directions in terms of style, theme, and influences. However, I found this to be a very unsatisfying explanation. I thought that the reader would have benefitted from Gayford making an effort to address why he focused primarily on Bacon, Freud, and Hockney. What made him focus on their work and what about them justifies writing about them in the same book? This would have gone a long way towards helping contextualize the other artists who dip in and out of the story and help to answer the "so what?" that I thought the book lacked. I was missing something to bring it all together and I thought the book suffered from that loss.
captainfez's review against another edition
5.0
So hey, here's an idea for a book: a history of artists from a certain place, and a certain time. Let's call them London Painters and bung them together, even though there's little to link them stylistically, or even philosophically.
Sounds like a hiding to nowhere, right?
Normally, it would be. But to my delight, Martin Gayford's Modernists & Mavericks manages the task well. It's true, there's little the artists in this tome have in common, except for the fact that their careers were rooted in postwar London, even if they soon decamped and worked elsewhere, primarily. But the text makes it clear that the metropolis, recovering from wartime devastation, is the ground that allowed the three artists of the title (and a lot of others, besides) to thrive, even as they eyed foreign climes.
Gayford has a leg-up in the history department – as well as being art critic for the Spectator, he has interviewed the subjects for decades, Freud and Hockney in particular. He's had his portrait painted by artists in the book, and moved (and, I assume, moves) in the same circles as the subjects of the work. So there's a distinct feeling of record in the text: there's little reason to doubt the veracity of his reports.
Though I've been interested in the artists the book focuses on (well, not so much Hockney, but that's changing after this, I suspect), I learned a lot from this book. Where Gayford excels is his ability to tease out the changes – political and social, as well as cultural – that led to a Britain that facilitated the greater importance of art. I knew that art schools were more of a thing around this time, but didn't know why – and this is just as important as the raconteur's tales of Bacon's largesse which are the stock-in-trade of other books about the period. Sure, learning about hijinks at Wheelers is important, but knowing the wider milieu is much more so, and I feel my knowledge of the time is broadened, here.
The book discusses influence, education, and the transition of a nation shaking off rationing and styles of the past, embarking on a journey into the future, envious of transatlantic developments, and eager to make it new. The struggles of varying painting styles are presented with verve, rather than the bone-dry verbiage that dusts other tomes. There's plenty of levity, and enough bitchy quotes salted throughout to ensure interest is never lost.
A caution: though the book is fulsomely illustrated, and there's several colour sections to boost the number of black-and-white reproductions scattered through the text, you'll probably want to have a browser open nearby so you can view artworks while you read. I found it very helpful to have that reference at hand while working my way through the text, as my curiosity would often sidetrack my attention until I'd satisfied myself as to exactly what something looked like.
If you've an interest in the art of this period – and frankly you should if only for Francis Bacon alone, because the man was as horrible and entertaining as the art he created – this is the book for you. It made me wish I were in a gallery, peering at brushstrokes in the calm of an afternoon, searching for that moment when something new makes itself known.
Sounds like a hiding to nowhere, right?
Normally, it would be. But to my delight, Martin Gayford's Modernists & Mavericks manages the task well. It's true, there's little the artists in this tome have in common, except for the fact that their careers were rooted in postwar London, even if they soon decamped and worked elsewhere, primarily. But the text makes it clear that the metropolis, recovering from wartime devastation, is the ground that allowed the three artists of the title (and a lot of others, besides) to thrive, even as they eyed foreign climes.
Gayford has a leg-up in the history department – as well as being art critic for the Spectator, he has interviewed the subjects for decades, Freud and Hockney in particular. He's had his portrait painted by artists in the book, and moved (and, I assume, moves) in the same circles as the subjects of the work. So there's a distinct feeling of record in the text: there's little reason to doubt the veracity of his reports.
Though I've been interested in the artists the book focuses on (well, not so much Hockney, but that's changing after this, I suspect), I learned a lot from this book. Where Gayford excels is his ability to tease out the changes – political and social, as well as cultural – that led to a Britain that facilitated the greater importance of art. I knew that art schools were more of a thing around this time, but didn't know why – and this is just as important as the raconteur's tales of Bacon's largesse which are the stock-in-trade of other books about the period. Sure, learning about hijinks at Wheelers is important, but knowing the wider milieu is much more so, and I feel my knowledge of the time is broadened, here.
The book discusses influence, education, and the transition of a nation shaking off rationing and styles of the past, embarking on a journey into the future, envious of transatlantic developments, and eager to make it new. The struggles of varying painting styles are presented with verve, rather than the bone-dry verbiage that dusts other tomes. There's plenty of levity, and enough bitchy quotes salted throughout to ensure interest is never lost.
A caution: though the book is fulsomely illustrated, and there's several colour sections to boost the number of black-and-white reproductions scattered through the text, you'll probably want to have a browser open nearby so you can view artworks while you read. I found it very helpful to have that reference at hand while working my way through the text, as my curiosity would often sidetrack my attention until I'd satisfied myself as to exactly what something looked like.
If you've an interest in the art of this period – and frankly you should if only for Francis Bacon alone, because the man was as horrible and entertaining as the art he created – this is the book for you. It made me wish I were in a gallery, peering at brushstrokes in the calm of an afternoon, searching for that moment when something new makes itself known.
abimartin's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely adored this book. It gives the artists context within their time and in relation to others practicing at the same time and world events
More...