Fine Art Books

Our range of fine art books are available from the gallery or by mail order from June 2007.

Please see our "How To Buy" page and then go to our "Contact Us" page to place your order.

(Please add £6.00 to cover post, packing and insurance.  All books are sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery Next day)

Sandra Blow Michael Bird with a Foreword by Norman Rosenthal

270 x 228 mm 172 pages Includes 100 colour and 38 b&w illustrations Hardback August 2005 £30.00

Sandra Blow (b. 1925) is one of the most important British artists of the last 50 years. During this time of rapid change in the art world, her commitment to abstract painting has resulted in a large and diverse body of work of distinctive power and subtlety. Despite her high reputation, little has previously been published about Blow. This is the first full-length study of her life and art. Lavishly illustrated throughout, it provides the first fully representative selection of works spanning all stages of her career. Michael Bird has worked in close collaboration with the artist and has drawn on a wealth of unpublished material. He explores the crucial importance of abstraction to Blow, and looks in depth at her relationship to other artists including Alberto Burri and Roger Hilton. He also places Blow's work in the context of British and international art movements of the post-war period and late twentieth century. Through close attention to Blow's studio practice, this book provides wide-ranging insights into her creative process. It reveals the intensity of emotional engagement and technical experimentation that lie behind the apparent spontaneity of her vivid handling of materials, colour and form. Michael Bird is a freelance writer and editor based in St Ives, Cornwall, UK.   ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-921-4

Patrick Caulfield Paintings Marco Livingstone

297 x 259 mm 288 pages Includes 190 colour and 20 b&w illustrations Paperback February 2007 £25.00

Now available in paperback for the first time, this is the only major monograph to be published on the paintings of Patrick Caulfield whose work has enjoyed widespread popular appeal and critical acclaim over the past four decades. When Caulfield established his reputation in the early 1960s, his deadpan handling and his reliance on vivid, flat colours encased in uniform black outlines led to him being hailed as one of the originators of Pop Art in England. Caulfield himself consistently denied an interest in popular culture, preferring instead to make timeless pictures that subtly and with great originality reconfigured such traditional subjects as interiors and still-lives. Marked by a graphic elegance, a finely tuned colour sense and a sometimes melancholy air, these are among the most haunting paintings of the late twentieth century. Illustrating over 150 works, this book reproduces almost all the paintings made by Caulfield since 1961, when he was still studying at the Royal College of Art alongside such painters as David Hockney and R. B. Kitaj. In so doing, it comprehensively charts the evolution of one of the most thoughtful and engaging painters of our time. It weaves together analytical and interpretative texts published over the past quarter century by Marco Livingstone, the foremost authority on Caulfield’s work, with new material on different phases of the artist’s career. Individual key paintings are awarded separate, in-depth attention. The significant events in his life and career are charted in a comprehensive chronology compiled by Richard Riley. Patrick Caulfield: Paintings is a long overdue assessment of the work of one of Britain’s most important painters, whose work has continued to prove extremely influential on subsequent generations. It will be welcomed by art specialists and enthusiasts alike. Marco Livingstone is an art historian and independent curator who has written extensively on Pop Art and more widely on contemporary painting, sculpture and photography. The curator of Caulfield’s first retrospective in 1981, he is the author of the acclaimed Pop Art: A Continuing History and of monographs and major exhibition catalogues on numerous artists including David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj, Allen Jones, Peter Phillips, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal and Duane Michals. His most recent book, Hockney’s Portraits and People, was awarded the 2004 Sir Bannister Fletcher Award for best book on the arts. ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-929-0

Terry Frost David Lewis

280 x 270 mm 240 pages Includes 96 colour and 150 b&w illustrations Paperback 2000 £35.00

This book presents the life and work of the painter Terry Frost. It is a rich and diverse mixture of his own thoughts and writings about art and life, the history of his five decades of productive work as a painter, and reflections on the particular qualities of his art. The texts are woven together in a personal narrative by David Lewis, friend of the artist for many years and leading authority on the St Ives artists. They include Frost's own musings, letters and poems as well as essays by the painter Adrian Heath, by David Archer on the prints, Ronnie Duncan on the years in Leeds, and Linda Saunders on the Lorca portfolio. There is also a photo-essay by Roger Mayne. The art historian Elizabeth Knowles (formerly a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery) has edited the book, which not only documents his works but also presents a vivid picture of Terry Frost as a painter and teacher. Terry Frost captures something of the full vigour of Frost's personality, his trenchant views on art and abstraction, and its 'scrap-book' character both illustrates the development of his career and documents the essentials of being a painter. Terry Frost was born in Leamington Spa in 1915 and grew up in a working-class family in the 1920s. Serving in the Commandos in the War, he was captured and spent four years as a POW. Stalag 383 was his university. Building on a natural talent for likenesses, he began to draw and paint. Repatriated and demobbed, he could not settle and, on the advice of his friend Adrian Heath, set off for St Ives and a serious attempt at art. He went to the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in the late 1940s, dividing his time between the thriving art scenes of London and St Ives and rapidly gaining the respect and admiration of both. Terry Frost's first one-man exhibition in London was at the Leicester Galleries in 1952. By that time he was committed to abstraction. Many strands had come together as he shed both the academicism of Camberwell's 'Coldstream Guards' and the gentle pictorialism of seaside painting in favour of uncompromising new forms of art. Feeling the landscape from earth to sky with Peter Lanyon; feeling the form of rock and hollow by working with Barbara Hepworth; absorbing the lessons of Russian avant-garde art at Adrian Heath's kitchen table; absorbing Rubens at the National Gallery and Matisse in Cork Street; by the late 1950s Frost was established as a leading figure, showing consistently in London and in the major group exhibitions of the time. His first one-man show in New York was in 1960. In 1963 the artist moved back to the Midlands, settling in Banbury but always keeping in touch with Cornwall and London. At this time he was appointed Professor of Painting at Reading university and he taught several generations of students. From the early 1960s his position as a leading abstract painter was consolidated and his reputation as a tough but essentially sympathetic and inspiring teacher began to grow. Frost moved to Newlyn in 1974 but continued to teach at Reading. A retrospective exhibition was organised by the Arts Council in 1976 and the Mayor Gallery presented another in 1990. He has continued to show regularly and in 1992, with a wry smile, he accepted membership of the Royal Academy. ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-793-7

Mary Fedden Enigmas and Variations Christopher Andreae

290 x 240 mm 176 pages Includes 201 colour illustrations Hardback June 2007 £35.00

Mary Fedden (born 1915) is one of Britain's most popular living artists. The focus of this new book is the artist's creative process in various different media – oil, gouache, pencil and collage. While Fedden is often considered almost exclusively a still-life painter, still life is far from being her only preoccupation, as this book shows. Fantasy and imagination have always played a strong part, and this is particularly evident in her small gouaches. A quietly surreal, enigmatic streak runs through much of her work. Fedden's collages are a witty and affectionate homage to the work of her husband, Julian Trevelyan. They lived, worked and travelled together from 1949 to 1988. The book re-emphasizes her debt to him, but also her independence, even during their early life together when he stimulated her move into modernism. In an engaging text, which draws on numerous conversations with the artist, Christopher Andreae considers why Mary Fedden has such a popular following, looks at the English quality of her work, and talks about the commercialization of her art and her attitudes to the art market. Fedden is shown to be an original, serious and prolific artist, a draftsman of unusual sensitivity and prowess, and a colourist of power and subtlety. Profusely illustrated with works from private and public collections, this is a book for Mary Fedden's existing devotees as well as newcomers to her work. Christopher Andreae has written about art since the early 1960s. He is the author of Mary Newcomb (Lund Humphries 1996; revised reprint 2006) and A Word or Two, a collection of essays published in 2004.   ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-953-5

Ivon Hitchens Peter Khoroche

280 x 270 mm 208 pages Includes 110 colour and 40 b&w illustrations Hardback May 2007 £35.00

Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979) is widely regarded as the outstanding English landscape painter of the twentieth century. Immediately recognisable by its daring yet subtle use of colour and brushmark to evoke the spirit of place, his work is to be found in public and private collections throughout the world. In this, the definitive study of Hitchens' life and work now issued in a new, revised edition, Peter Khoroche draws on the painter's published writings, correspondence and conversation to create a critical reappraisal of Hitchens' theory and practice. He surveys the entire oeuvre (still-lifes, flower pieces, nudes, interiors and large-scale murals besides the landscapes), a huge legacy of work spanning sixty years, and charts the journey from conventional beginnings to 'figurative abstraction'. A new selection of over 100 colour images provide a retrospective exhibition covering Hitchens' whole career. These illustrations, examples of his best and most characteristic painting in all genres, demonstrate the artist's outstanding talents and reinforce his standing as a key figure in the history of British art. Peter Khoroche wrote the catalogue for an exhibition of Hitchens' paintings (Serpentine Gallery, London and tour 1989/90) and for an exhibition of Ben Nicholson's drawings and painted reliefs (Kettle's Yard, Cambridge and tour 2002/3). He is also the author of Ben Nicholson: Drawings and Painted Reliefs (Lund Humphries, 2002). ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-936-8

Derrick Greaves From Kitchen Sink to Shangri-La James Hyman

290 x 246 mm 172 pages Includes 86 colour and 62 b&w illustrations Hardback March 2007 ISBN: 0 85331 957 X £35.00

Derrick Greaves (b.1927) initially gained acclaim in the 1950s, when he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale along with the other 'Kitchen Sink' painters with whom he was associated: John Bratby, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith. This is the first book to trace Greaves's entire career to date, providing insight into how his work developed from the social realism of the 1950s to a more heraldic style informed by 1960s Pop Art. James Hyman provides a broadly chronological account of the artist's life and work, tracing his years in Sheffield, London, Italy, Woburn and Norwich, and exploring the development of his imagery. He places the artist in the context of his contemporaries: from the realists of the 1950s to the Pop artists of the 1960s, from Jack Smith to Prunella Clough. Published to coincide with the artist's 80th birthday celebrations, this book will be welcomed by art historians, curators, collectors, dealers and all those with an interest in the recent history of British art. James Hyman is a London-based art historian who has worked internationally as a writer, lecturer, broadcaster, curator and dealer. He writes regularly for art journals and exhibition catalogues, and his book The Battle for Realism: Figurative Art in Britain during the Cold War 1945-60 was published in 2001.   ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-957-3

Celebrating Moore Works from the Collection of The Henry Moore Foundation David Mitchinson

305 x 265 mm 360 pages Includes 346 colour illustrations Paperback July 2006 ISBN: 0 85331 944 8 £25.00

Celebrating Moore is the biggest and most comprehensive single volume to be produced on the artist's oeuvre, reproducing in colour over 250 of Henry Moore's most important sculptural works. Originally published to celebrate the centenary of Moore's birth in 1998, it is now available for the first time in paperback. David Mitchinson’s introductory essay traces the formation of the Henry Moore Foundation’s Collection, the most important and comprehensive single group of Moore's work in all media - drawings, graphics and sculpture. He explains the history of the Foundation since its formation in 1977, Moore’s somewhat haphazard way of working, the confused ownership between the Foundation and its trading company, the strengths and weaknesses of the Collection itself, and the evolution of the Foundation’s property at Perry Green. The core of the book consists of a selection of 278 works from the Foundation's Collection, illustrated in colour and with full catalogue information. Extended captions have been contributed by a range of distinguished artists, art critics and art historians – those who knew Moore or have previously written about him. Their detailed analysis of so many of Moore's sculptures and drawings adds significantly to the understanding of his work. Celebrating Moore makes an essential contribution to the study and appreciation of Moore’s work - for scholars, art professionals and enthusiasts alike. David Mitchinson is Head of Collections and Exhibitions at The Henry Moore Foundation. Published in association with The Henry Moore Foundation ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-944-3

Surrealism in Britain Michel Remy

234 x 156 mm 404 pages Includes 70 colour and 100 b&w illustrations Paperback 2001 ISBN: 0 85331 825 5 £25.00

Since the rediscovery of British Surrealism at the Children of Alice exhibition at Marcel Fleiss's Galerie 1900-2000 in Paris in 1982, there has been a major revival of interest in Surrealism outside France. Surrealism in Britain is the first comprehensive study of the British Surrealist movement and its achievements. Lavishly illustrated, the book provides a year-by-year narrative of the development of Surrealism among artists, writers, critics and theorists in Britain, from the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London right through to the present day. Michel Remy has conducted personal interviews with many of the artists involved and the book includes an examination of the work of, among others, Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Eileen Agar, Len Lye, Humphrey Jennings, David Gascoyne, Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff, Roland Penrose, F. E. McWilliam, Conroy Maddox, Emmy Bridgwater, Edith Rimmington, Desmond Morris, Lee Miller, Julian Trevelyan and John Tunnard. Poetry, prose, painting, sculpture, photography and artists' texts all have their place in this fascinating and attractive book. Michel Remy is Professor of English Literature and Art History at the University of Nice and the leading authority on British Surrealism. ISBN-13: 978-0-85331-825-5

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