Out of Oblivion: Documenting Ukrainian Modernism – Clare Finn
The publication accompanying the exhibition currently at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, has toured Europe, In the Eye of the Storm…
23 July 2024
Book Review
Book Review: The Christo Interviews – Hans Ulrich Obrist
“The Christo Interviews” combines a compelling collection of dialogues between the renowned environmental artist Christo…
18 July 2024
George Rickey A Life In Balance – Clare Henry
George Rickey was a lone star who created new, mesmerising, enthralling sculptures defined by movement.
3 January 2022
Architectural Envelopes: The Modern Art Museum – Charles Saumarez Smith
The underlying momentum of this remarkable and provocatively thoughtful book, The Art Museum in Modern Times by Charles Saumarez Smith
28 March 2021
Antony Gormley and Martin Gayford Present Visual Culture Throughout History – Edward Lucie-Smith
The big new Thames & Hudson book Shaping the World, by Antony Gormley and Martin Gayford, turns out to be a good deal better than the truly appalling plug for it recently published in The Sunday Times’ Culture Magazines, but it still exhibits a few problems.
25 November 2020
Joseph Wright of Derby A New Book By Matthew Craske – Edward Lucie-Smith
The new book on Joseph Wright of Derby by Matthew Craske is a massive tome. Published by the Paul Mellon Center for British Art, it is entirely worthy of the artist’s high reputation.
19 November 2020
Guston, Riley And Matisse Essential Autumn Book Releases
Three very colourful large format art books on Philip Guston, Bridget Riley and Henri Matisse have arrived this week.
1 September 2020
Vincent Van Gogh A Durable Art Legend – Two New Books – Edward Lucie-Smith
Two books from Thames & Hudson about Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most durable legends in art. One offers his life-story, as told in letters written by himself, most of them to his brother Theo, who became a moderately successful art dealer. The other, by Mariella Guzzoni, is entitled Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him.
17 June 2020
Bryan Robertson Promoter Of New Art – Edward Lucie-Smith
Andrew Lambirth’s The Life of Bryan, recently published by Unicorn, describes itself rather demurely as a celebration, rather than as a biography.
11 June 2020
The Last Leonardo Art Porn For Millennials – Edward Lucie-Smith
Ben Lewis’s book The Last Leonardo, subtitled ‘A Masterpiece, A Mystery and the Dirty World of Art’, has now appeared in paperback after its publication in hardcover last year.
6 May 2020
London’s New Art Scene Creative Britain 1962-68 – Edward Lucie-Smith
Here’s a handsome new volume, well-illustrated, but more social history than art book, which tells of the emergence of London as an international art scene, during the years that followed World War II.
30 April 2020
Infamous Colony Room Relived In New Book – Edward Lucie-Smith
Darren Coffield’s well-presented Tales from the Colony Room, Soho’s Lost Bohemia, memorialises an epoch in the London world of the arts that now seems very far away, even though the once-famous Colony Room closed its doors as recently as December 2008.
23 April 2020
Piranesi Drawings – Neoclassical Visions – Edward Lucie-Smith
This handsome soft-cover catalogue published by Thames & Hudson for the British Museum was intended to commemorate an exhibition that hasn’t in fact taken place, due to the coronavirus.
9 April 2020
Blockbuster Rego, Freud And Murillo Books Released Autumn 2019 – Edward Lucie-Smith
A short time ago, it seemed as if making and publishing books about art – contemporary art, in particular, was a doomed enterprise.
18 September 2019
Company Curiosities: A Clash of Cultural Objects – Edward Lucie-Smith
I have personal reasons to be interested in this book – Company Curiosities, by Arthur Macgregor. A direct ancestor of mine, not however mentioned in the text, was Chairman of the British East India Company in some of its glory days at the end of the 18th century.
31 July 2019
Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity – Rev Jonathan Evens
Two recent publications explore the place that religious Art occupied in 20th century Britain. Paul Liss writes in ‘Art, Faith… Read More
25 July 2019
Jonathan Jones Sensations – Book Review – Edward Lucie-Smith
Jonathan Jones’ new book from Laurence King Publishing is a quality job. Entitled Sensations, it bears on its back cover a recommendation from none other than Tracey Emin, which reads as follows:“I never loved Jonathan’s writing when he slagged my work off! He is a true thinker: a brilliant art historian who can back up his opinion with more than just criticism.”
5 May 2019
Global Art And The Cold War – John J Curley – Book Review – Edward Lucie-Smith
It is not often that one comes across a book on contemporary, or near contemporary, art that shifts one’s view of what it is, how it has developed, and that direction those developments are likely to take in future.
8 April 2019
Josef Albers Life And Work – A New Book – Review Edward Lucie-Smith
Once you struggle through the fairly formidable Introduction to this biography – a chapter devoted to orientating the reader concerning Josef Albers’ major achievement, the long Homage to the Square series of paintings
20 November 2018
A Rogues Gallery Of Art Dealers And Bureaucrats By Edward Lucie-Smith
There’s a fascinating new book just out. The candid title is ‘Rogues’ Gallery: A History of Art and Its Dealers. The author, Philip Hook, is extremely well qualified to deal with his chosen subject since he has spent many years as an auctioneer, working first for Christie’s, then as a senior director at Sotheby’s, where he is currently a board member.
31 January 2017