Mel Gooding

This beautifully illustrated book takes readers inside Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie's dynamic private collection of contemporary British art, an intended gift to the Yale Center for British Art. Spanning the past four decades, the collection includes major works by Ian Stephenson, Patrick Caulfield, and John Walker, as well as important prints by Howard Hodgkin and R. B. Kitaj. At its core are 52 paintings and drawings by John Hoyland, widely considered one of Britain's foremost abstract painters. The Independent Eye features an interview with the Luries, as well as essays by leading critics and writers, some of whom were and are personally acquainted with the artists represented. These experts assess individual artists and works, explore their inspirations and methods, and define their shared experiences and values. They also address subjects such as the overall importance of the collection and postwar art in Britain.Distributed for the Yale Center for British ArtExhibition Schedule:Yale Center for British Art(09/16/10-01/02/11)

Over the past decade, Frank Bowling has enjoyed belated attention and celebration, including a major Tate Britain retrospective in 2019. This comprehensive monograph, published in 2011, is now available in an updated and expanded edition. Born in British Guiana in 1934, Bowling arrived in England in his late teens, going on to study at the Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney and Derek Boshier. By the early 1960s he was recognised as an original force in the vibrant London art scene, with a style that brilliantly combined figurative, symbolic and abstract elements. Dividing his time between New York and London since the late 1960s, he has developed a unique and virtuosic abstract style that combines aspects of American painterly abstraction with a treatment of light and space that consciously recollects the great English landscape painters Gainsborough, Turner and Constable. In a compelling text the art writer, critic and curator Mel Gooding hails Bowling as one of the finest British artists of his generation.

Fractured Light focuses on a key body of work by the British artist Johnnie Cooper, which was instrumental in his transformation from sculptor to painter. Throughout the 1990s, with a renewed dedication Cooper embarked on an industrious and experimental trajectory with paint and collage. These works on paper, made by layering multiple strips of paintings, were directly inspired by a series of large assemblage works he constructed during the late 1980s, when the culmination of his work in art education brought a new found freedom. The view from a new studio in rural Worcestershire conjured fresh inspirations and instilled a fascination with the ever-changing colour, shape and light values that fractured through a nearby woodland over the course of a day. This book documents an important part of Cooper's oeuvre and is a must for enthusiasts of Johnnie's work or anyone who is into British Expressionism or abstract art. It accompanies an exhibition, also called Fractured Light, and follows Johnnie Cooper: Sunset Strip, a major monograph on the artist in 2019, also published by Black Dog Press.

Cradle of Magic brings together two giants of 20th-century British painting: John Bellany and Alan Davie Alan Davie (1920–2014) was one of the first British artists to explore abstract expressionist forms and techniques, and his gestural paintings, rich with symbolism, demonstrate an interest in tribal art, as well as Zen Buddhism. John Bellany (1942–2013), over a long and prolific career, came to be considered one of Britain's foremost figurative painters. His intimate works, often filled with ghoulish, hybridized creatures, balance the uncanny, joyful and violent in powerful and original ways. The book comes with two different covers—one by each artist—and includes an essay by the acclaimed art historian Mel Gooding exploring the connections between the artists and the themes underpinning their paintings. Also included are two newly transcribed interviews with the artists recorded as part of the Artists' Lives oral history project at the British Library.

monograph of Scottish-born artist Elsa Vaudrey

Frank Bowling started as a figurative painter but he quickly moved towards larger and ever more complex abstract pieces. Influenced by his interest in the principles of mathematics and symmetry as well as experiments with staining, pouring and layering, his ambitious paintings are known for their distinctive textured surfaces and their colourful, luminous quality. Bowlings paintings embody his ongoing pursuit of change, transformation and renewal. The exhibition this book accompanied takes its title from the painting Traingone (1996). Behind Bowlings titles there is often a story or piece of wordplay linking the artwork to people, places and memories. The story behind Traingone relates to a memory of growing up in Guyana. Near a remote railway station, deep in the forest, where the trains stopped only briefly, there was an isolated hospital for lepers. The resident patients often went to the station to peddle their goods, but frequently they didnt make it before the train was off again and the cry would go up, Train gone! The title also alludes to saxophonist John Coltrane, a.k.a. Trane (1926 1967), whose music was ever-present in Frank Bowlings studio. This book was published in conjunction with his exhibition at Spritmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden.

Julian Trevelyan: Picture Language follows the trail of a painter's visual language and motivation. The working life of Julian Trevelyan (1910-88) spanned more than 65 years. In that time he exhibited alongside Picasso, Miro and Dali, was a member of the British Surrealist group, an active participant in the Mass Observation Movement, taught both at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and wrote a number of books. After the Second World War his work was mainly concerned with depicting scenes around his Hammersmith home and the River Thames, where he lived with his wife Mary Fedden, as well as his travels around the world. Julian Trevelyan produced work with a broad appeal which was easily understood and yet gave his public a chance to interpret it as they wished. His paintings and prints are spread throughout Europe and many of them are reproduced here for the first time. From the selection gathered here, it is obvious that he left us with a bright and positive view of our place in our world. He was a realist, sceptical, fully aware of his failures, and yet he allowed his dreams and enjoyment of life to continue to flow and enrich ours.Philip Trevelyan, Julian's son, set out to discover more about his father's life as an artist. A documentary filmmaker, Philip takes us on a pictorial journey through Julian's life and presents here his personal view, offering insights from his researches and first-hand knowledge of life in Trevelyan's studio at Durham Wharf in London.

For 35 years Audio Arts has been a unique project, offering its audience direct access to artists via a quarterly audio magazine. Speaking of Art collects the 43 top interviews from Audio Arts' remarkable history. These never-before-published transcripts include illuminating conversations with such figures as Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Marina Abramovic and Damien Hirst.

This is the first full-scale monograph of the life and work of the remarkable British artist Merlyn Evans (1910–73). Deeply affected by the poverty and violence that he witnessed in Glasgow during the depressed years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Evans developed a highly personal abstract style, combining plant, crustacean and mechanical forms. His work was fundamentally shaped by his conviction that art should be an engagement with life, reflecting psychological, ethical and political concerns. Surrealism became a major influence, but Evans’s subject matter became increasingly social and political, reflecting his growing concern over economic distress at home and political disaster in Europe. Living in South Africa at the end of the 1930s, he remained preoccupied by the European crisis, and his paintings made explicit reference to economic depression, atrocity and war. In London afterWorldWar II, he took up etching and aquatint and embarked on a distinguished printmaking career in parallel to his painting. He was deeply read in psychology, philosophy, politics, mechanics, optics, and the history and techniques of art, as well as in modernist literature and contemporary poetry. All these aspects of his thought found expression in his work as an artist and as a writer and teacher.

Sylvia Edwards, when describing her technique for beginning a new abstract watercolour, begins with the application of colour which seems to start the whole mystical process of what will eventually become a satisfactory image. ‘I carefully place on a fresh palette as many colours as can possibly fit, rather than selecting a limited palette. The full range of colours is more of a challenge, especially with watercolours. Colours are like a celestial banquet. The more vivid and varied they are, the happier I am.’ Sylvia Edwards’s work has achieved huge commercial success and is known, and respected, around the world. She has had over 30 solo exhibitions in America, Europe, the Far and Middle East since her first commercial, one-woman exhibition, at the Iran American Society in Tehran in 1975. Nearly 50 group exhibitions have included her work since her first group show, in 1962 at Abadan, in Iran. Her reproductions on unicef greetings cards are amongst the most popular and sell in their millions. Her poster prints for highly succesful art publishers such as the Art Group (London) and Bruce McGaw Graphics (New York) were amongst the top-selling images in their respective ranges. Yet Sylvia Edwards has chosen to work within that most difficult of artistic genres – the abstract. An ability to satisfy the toughest aesthetic critique alongside success within the extraordinarily competitive ­– and largely non-abstract – commercial art world is rare, and especially so for a woman. This beautifully illustrated monograph is the first time a comprehensive account of her work has been made available. The distinguished art critic, Mel Gooding, has contributed an illuminating essay on Edward’s artistic achievement and David Elliott has collaborated with the artist to add a biographical account of her much-varied life. The whole book adds up to a celebration of one of our most interesting, yet commercially succesful, abstract painters. Each copy comes with a signed limited edition full colour lithograph, making this beautiful book a true collector’s item.

This delightful collection allows everyone to enjoy firsthand the provocative methods used by the artists and poets of the Surrealist school to break through conventional thought and behavior to a deeper truth. Invented and played by such artists as Andr Breton, Rene Magritte, and Max Ernst, these gems still produce results ranging from the hilarious to the mysterious and profound.