Andrew Lambirth

An appealing picture book of cats depicted by John Craxton, one of the major figures of modern British painting, with an introduction and commentary by Andrew Lambirth, who knew Craxton well. By concentrating on a single subject very dear to John Craxton’s heart – cats – this book offers a much more accessible introduction to this popular artist (championed by David Attenborough and Andrew Marr among many others) than the recently published biography and monograph. Craxton's significance as the early artist companion of Lucian Freud, his time in Greece and his collaborations with Patrick Leigh Fermor have generated growing interest in his art. For John Craxton, cats were an index of moods and states of mind, and a splendidly apposite vehicle for his visual and verbal wit. Craxton loved cats and lived with them, on and off, for most of his life. The cat image came readily to mind and hand, whether he was planning a taverna scene in Crete, or doodling during a telephone conversation. Cats permeate his art, weaving their way through his paintings, drawings and prints, bringing humour and mischief to his images as they did to his daily existence. Affectionate and faithless, they were like so many casual lovers, no better than they should be, and gloriously on the make. In many ways, they are a fitting symbol or leitmotif for Craxton's own happy-go-lucky life. Containing new and original material, this widely accessible introduction to Craxton’s work will appeal to the devotee and the uninitiated alike.

Roger Hilton (1911–75) was one of the pioneers of British abstract art. This account of his life is lavishly illustrated with works from all stages of his career, in a visually stunning record of his oeuvre. It is further enlivened by numerous anecdotes and reminiscences recalling his sometimes outspoken relations with other artists such as Peter Lanyon, Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, and includes personal memories of his widow, Rose.

Euan Uglow (1932–2000) was one of the finest painters of his generation. For a long time appreciated only by fellow artists and a relatively small band of devoted collectors, his work is now reaching a wider audience, and its innovative nature is finally being recognised and properly understood. He belongs with the best of twentieth-century British artists: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Leon Kossoff. As a radical modern master, he is not out of place with Ben Nicholson and Bridget Riley.The Uglow Papers is a celebration of Uglow’s art, life, and teaching, recounted by those who knew him as friend, colleague, or mentor. The book brings together anecdotes and opinions relating to the various decades of his life, from his years as a student in the late 1940s and early 1950s to his development and maturity as an artist and to his tragically early death. His life was a full one, devoted primarily to painting and drawing but also to teaching (mainly at the Slade School of Art) and to spending time with an unexpectedly wide circle of friends. This is the first major monograph on Uglow. Profusely illustrated, it contains much new material about the artist, his teaching, and his friendships. Initiated and edited by Andrew Lambirth, who knew the artist well for the last decade of his life, and with contributions from Frank Auerbach, Sir Paul Smith, and Cherie Blair among others, this book sheds new light on Euan Uglow’s life and work and will be an invaluable source of reference for all those interested in modern art.

In a painting career spanning half a century, Helen Clapcott (b.1952) has remained consistent in both her choice of subject and her disregard of the art establishment's playbook. In this, the first major monograph on the artist, Andrew Lambirth charts Clapcott's unconventional path and presents a painter with an uncompromising vision. Clapcott is a painter pre-occupied with the destruction and regeneration of the landscape of her native North-West England. Depictions of the mutation and evolution of what was once Stockport’s industrial valley, now a commuter corridor, are expressions of our developing environments and the growth of vernacular townscapes. Based on numerous conversations with the artist, and an in-depth understanding of Clapcott's oeuvre, Andrew Lambirth's text provides a lively account of the artist's background, training and working methods, including her mastery of tempera. Above all, this is a study of an artist's very personal relationship with the evolving landscape of her childhood and her lifelong artistic engagement with the city that she loves.

Born in 1943 in Bristol, Nigel Hall RA studied at the West of England College of Art in Bristol and at the Royal College of Art in London before winning a Harkness Fellowship to study in America, where he travelled in California and the Mojave Desert. One of the foremost sculptors of his generation, Hall has created acclaimed works in steel, aluminium and polished wood. As a boy he watched and worked with his grandfather, a stonemason who restored churches and other buildings in the West of England: ‘Experience of carving has affected the way I make sculpture and drawings, which is very much to do with light and shade, and edge.’ In this appealing new volume, Hall’s skill as a draughtsman is revealed, as is the importance of drawing to his sculptural practice. Indeed, his abstract drawings in gouache and charcoal show the same preoccupation with space and balance as his sculptures. Some 80 of Hall’s beautiful works on paper are included, with an intriguing introduction to them by the renowned art writer Andrew Lambirth.

Told in his own words, in response to questions from the writer and art critic Andrew Lambirth, this book chronicles Andrew Logan's life and work through expressive anecdote and factual recollection. Reflections is a look back, but also a look at the present and a look forward: it is about the meaning of Andrew's world and the sculpture he has made to fill it, and about his approach to art, to friendship and to living in London and Wales. The Alternative Miss World, founded by Andrew in 1972, is at the heart of his philosophy, not just the world's greatest drag act (though it is this too), but an exhilarating celebration of the transformative power of the imagination. Andrew's work, which is all about joy and beauty, is inspiring and uplifting. This book, based upon discursive interviews dealing with all periods of his career, explains and contextualises it fully for the first time.

A centennial celebration of the contemporary British painter Diana Armfield. Diana Armfield has a highly personal attachment to subject and a subtly distinctive affinity with the rhythms of form and tone. These qualities have made her an important, influential figure in modern British art—and a very popular one. She has received her widest acclaim for her flower paintings, but her work is much broader than that. This book—created to mark her one-hundredth birthday—is also a rich representation of the painter's feeling for landscape and place. Featuring two hundred illustrations, including a number of more recent works, this book is a fascinating exploration of her life and work to date. An interview with Armfield by Andrew Lambirth and an essay on her work round out the volume.

John Nash (1893–1977) is the quintessential twentieth-century painter of the English countryside. Nash began as a watercolour painter, and the medium remained his mainstay throughout a long career. He also worked regularly in oil paint and was an immensely skilled draughtsman and wood engraver. A dedicated gardener and plantsman, his botanical studies are of real quality. This is the first full-length monograph to deal with all aspects of his career.

This is the first book to present a comprehensive overview of the entire career of British artist Richard Eurich (1903-1992), a figurative painter of compelling power and often visionary intensity who brought rare imaginative reserves to his depiction of the world around him, as well as to his apprehension of the mysterious and unseen. Eurich was a private man, not much given to self-promotion, and as such has not received the widespread attention he deserves.The Art of Richard Eurich locates the artist within the context of 20th-century British art, demonstrating his relevance in all quarters of the art world of the period. Eurich was draughtsman, landscape painter, teacher, War Artist, autobiographer, marine painter extraordinaire, portrait painter, figure painter, satirist, genre painter, visual poet of the beach, and occasional sculptor. His many creative talents are brought together in a compelling analysis of how these various parts refer to each other and to the man who was responsible for them. Featuring a wide selection of his artworks, from the topographical to the visionary, from the drawn to the painted, this book unspools the narrative of Eurich's life through expertly chosen examples of his paintings and drawings and places him in relation to his fellow-artists, friends and contemporaries.

An updated version of the first edition. An additional 16 pages and new commentary on this artist.

Bryan Robertson (1925-2002) was the greatest director the Tate Gallery never had. In 1952, at the age of 27, and against formidable competition (which included David Sylvester and Lawrence Gowing), he became Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, a post he held until 1969. While there he effected a revolution in the British museum world, bringing the more innovative and radical American and European contemporary artists to the UK, as well as programming a series of exhibitions devoted to British artists in mid-career. He was the first to show Pollock, Rothco, Rauschenberg and Johns in England, matching this with historical re-evaluations of Turner, Stubbs, Bellotto and Rowlandson. Among Europeans he showed Mondrian, de Stäel, Malevich and Poliakoff , and the English artists included Barbara Hepworth, Alan Davie, Ceri Richards and Keith Vaughan. Among younger painters and sculptors he identified the New Generation of Caro, Hoyland, Riley, Jones and Caulfield, and stage-managed a flow of exhibitions which transformed the Whitechapel and made it the gallery to visit. Robertson was a man of vision and flair, and this book celebrates his lasting infl uence over the way we look at and think about art, as witnessed through the words of his friends and contemporaries and in excerpts from his own written works.

Learning to read is an exciting and vital part of every child’s development. The new edition of this book continues to provide trainees and teachers with a broad understanding of teaching reading and phonics, and equip them with the skills necessary to face the reality of the early years classroom in order to meet the needs of individual children. With vital information on constructing relationships with young readers, and how to plan phonics within a rich, interactive and playful literacy pedagogy, the second edition now includes: A brand new chapter on babies and early readingMore information on language acquisition and how children learnA discussion of children with SENAn appreciation for the rise of digital technologies in relation to reading Whether you're training to become a teacher, or already working in the classroom this book is ideal for those who wish to embed the teaching of phonics into carefully selected high quality materials - particularly in children's literature.

Learning to read is an exciting and vital part of every child’s development. The new edition of this book continues to provide trainees and teachers with a broad understanding of teaching reading and phonics, and equip them with the skills necessary to face the reality of the early years classroom in order to meet the needs of individual children. With vital information on constructing relationships with young readers, and how to plan phonics within a rich, interactive and playful literacy pedagogy, the second edition now includes: A brand new chapter on babies and early readingMore information on language acquisition and how children learnA discussion of children with SENAn appreciation for the rise of digital technologies in relation to reading Whether you're training to become a teacher, or already working in the classroom this book is ideal for those who wish to embed the teaching of phonics into carefully selected high quality materials - particularly in children's literature.

This book builds on the guidance given by the Primary Strategy for Literacy. By 'filling in the gaps' that the planning documentation leaves, the book provides teachers with the structures and ideas to plan creatively and effectively for their children whilst following and enhancing the recommendations of the strategy. It includes:clear and practical ways to plan units of work that embrace reading, writing, speaking and listening, in exciting and active waysexamples of effective practice using children's work that highlight the effects of creative planningsuggestions for texts and resources that can be included in half-termly and termly planning.Written by a team of leading educationalists and teacher educators in the primary literacy field, this edited collection is a must-have for primary teachers wishing to inject creativity into the planning of their literacy lessons.

Irish-born designer Eileen Gray (1878-1976) is widely known today as a pioneer of both Art Deco and Modernism. In a career spanning nearly 80 years she produced innovative designs for furniture, lighting, carpets, interiors and architecture. Much less well known is that throughout her life as a designer and an architect she never stopped producing small paintings and drawings. This book is the first to focus on Eileen Gray's important but essentially private work as a painter.Eileen Gray considered herself a designer and an architect, not a painter: she viewed her work as a painter with great modesty, treating it as a private occupation and a vehicle for artistic expression during periods when she could not design furniture. Much of her artwork has disappeared, either lost in the Second World War or destroyed by the artist herself. But a body of works on paper, produced between the 1920s and the 1950s, has survived: elegant, geometric drawings and gouaches of muted tonality and subtle power.This book, which reproduces unseen material from the Eileen Gray archive and draws on Gray's correspondence with her niece Prunella Clough on the nature of painting, will be a revelation to her many followers and admirers.

This engaging text explores discourses involved in the teaching of literacy which can be conceptualised as deriving from the political ‘left’. The concept of a ‘left’ and a ‘right’ in politics are fully defined and a unique analytical framework is introduced to examine and categorise perspectives for teaching literacy. The book creates a language of critique for methods advocated from liberal, ‘left-leaning’ sources within the field of education and connects them to left political agendas that aspire to either reform or revolution to change and improve society. These left approaches are then contrasted with politically ‘right’ agendas.Methods for the teaching of literacy have for many years been seen to be politically motivated by commentators on the left and the right of politics. This book considers the ideological sources of educational practice in literacy. Methods advocated from more liberal perspective are rarely critiqued and examined for their ideological and political roots.

This engaging text explores discourses involved in the teaching of literacy which can be conceptualised as deriving from the political left. The concept of a left and a right in politics are fully defined and a unique analytical framework is introduced to examine and categorise perspectives for teaching literacy. The book creates a language of critique for methods advocated from liberal, left-leaning sources within the field of education and connects them to left political agendas that aspire to either reform or revolution to change and improve society. These left approaches are then contrasted with politically right agendas. Methods for the teaching of literacy have for many years been seen to be politically motivated by commentators on the left and the right of politics. This book considers the ideological sources of educational practice in literacy. Methods advocated from more liberal perspective are rarely critiqued and examined for their ideological and political roots.

Margaret Mellis (1914-2009) was an artist of diverse skills: a painter, a maker of collages and reliefs and a sculptor. She was a key figure in British Modernism and with her first husband, the author and critic Adrian Stokes, was pivotal in establishing the influential artists' colony in St Ives. Surprisingly, relatively little has been written about Mellis. This book, which incorporates groundbreaking new research, is the first comprehensive monograph on this important artist. After first meeting Adrian Stokes in Paris, Mellis moved to London to be near him and studied, with Stokes, at the Euston Road School. The pair married in 1938 and moved to Cornwall in 1939 where they set up house in Carbis Bay. Here they entertained some of the leading literary and artistic luminaries of the day. During her St Ives period, Mellis' work developed from painting to collage and relief under the tutelage of Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. She returned to a more realistic form of painting when her marriage came to an end and she left Cornwall in 1946. Following a period in France with the artist Francis Davison, whom she married in 1948, the couple settled in Suffolk in 1950. Here Mellis continued her exploration into colour and form. The shifts and developments within her oeuvre brought in large-scale abstract paintings in the 1960s, and culminated in an extended series of dynamic and original constructions made from driftwood which first began to appear in 1980. Skillfully unravelling the complexities of Mellis' oeuvre in the context of her fascinating life, Andrew Lambirth presents an unrivalled account of a truly remarkable artist and woman. Including a wealth of visual material, which illustrates Mellis' unique vision, Margaret Mellis combines insightful analysis with outstanding imagery and as such is essential reading for anyone interested in Modern British Art.