Richard Cork

Ann Christopher RA is a non-figurative sculptor who works primarily in cast bronze, stainless steel, silver and fabricated Corten steel; her output comprises both large and small sculptures and site-specific commissions. Christopher's elegant and understated works reveal connections with a vast spectrum of sources from across the globe, such as rock formations in Israel, fossils from the Cretaceous chalks of Hertfordshire, prehistoric standing stones in Avebury and early Aegean figurines. The marks Christopher makes on her works are suggestive both of natural processes, such as weathering, and the forms and tools of mechanised industry. Christopher has been exhibiting sculpture for over 45 years. During that period she has won many awards and prizes, including the Silver Medal for Sculpture of Outstanding Merit by the Royal Society of British Sculptors and the Otto Beit Medal of Sculpture of Outstanding Merit. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and was elected a Royal Academician in 1989. She lives and works near Bath.

A unique exploration of the close relationship between art and design, explored through the historic and contemporary fabric designs of Liberty, where avant-garde art has influenced the colourful, geometric collections for more than half a century. Liberty is renowned internationally for its fabrics, especially its floral patterns, but it also has a long history of developing bold, geometric designs. Many of these have been inspired by early 20th-century avant-garde art, notably by the Italian Futurists – by artists such as Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni – and their English contemporaries the Vorticists, including Christopher Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. In anticipation of Liberty’s 150th anniversary, esteemed couturier and interior designer Federico Forquet has curated a striking new range of fabrics – the FuturLiberty Collection – that carries Liberty’s creative heritage into our own age. The Futurist and Vorticist art that lies behind the new designs is explored by specialists Ester Coen and Richard Cork, while archivist Anna Buruma examines Liberty’s rich history of avant-garde designs. By illuminating the process by which the FuturLiberty Collection came into being, this highly visual study also reveals how art can inform design, making it contemporary, relevant and engaging.

"Everyone should own a Beezy Bailey" - David Bowie. Beezy Bailey aspires to create art as a balm for a mad world - a corrective for our most lamentable human qualities, including a planet brutalised by extremes of wealth and poverty, environmental ignorance and negligence. Often his works are accompanied by poems, such as 1000 Year Dance Cure, in which he exhorts the world to dance a new dance, to abandon that which does not serve us, and to embrace each other in our humanity, and the Earth in her service to us. The sources of his imagery are elusive. In his own words: "frozen dreams, images and legends enter from my subconscious, the realm of my imagination. I act as a conduit for visual messages greater than I am." This new monograph embraces the entire spectrum of Bailey's creative output over the past thirty-five years, from sculpture and ceramics to paintings, prints and drawings. Contents: Foreword by Brian Eno; Introduction by Richard Cork; Works; In Conversation with Roslyn Sulcas; Selected Exhibitions; Index; Credits.

Written by an international team of artists, art historians and curators, this absorbing and beautiful book gives readers unparalleled insights into the world’s most iconic artworks. Art: The Whole Story traces the development of art period by period, with the illustrated text covering every genre, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art and performance art. Cultural timelines are there too, to help to the reader with historical context. Masterpieces that epitomize each period or movement are highlighted and analysed in detail. Everything from use of colour and visual metaphors to technical innovations is explained, enabling you to interpret the meanings of world-famous masterpieces – Mughal miniatures; Japanese prints in the 19th century; the colour theories behind Seurat’s remarkable La Grande Jatte; and why Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was so shocking in its day.

Richard Cork is one of the most serious, most influential, and best-informed art critics in Britain today. These four volumes contain a selection of his articles from the seventies, eighties, nineties, and the year 2000. The result is a fascinating chronicle and invaluable record of a turbulent period that gives an overview and survey of British art and its reception over the past thirty years which is wholly unprecedented in its scope.

Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA (b. 1941) is an important figure in British conceptual art, and among the most influential artists and teachers of his generation. Since his rise to prominence in the late 1960s he has moved between sculpture, installation, painting, drawing and print, creating works that fuse elements of pop, minimalism and conceptual art. His work transforms everyday objects – from buckets and ladders to trainers, mobile phones and laptops – with bold colours and simple, uninflected lines. Renowned as an art educator, he has inspired generations of artists, including the YBAs. This handsome book, the catalogue of the largest exhibition of Craig-Martin’s work to have been mounted in the UK, contains thought-provoking texts by the critics Michael Bracewell and Richard Cork, and an illuminating conversation between the artist and the writer Carolina Grau.

Leading art critic and writer Richard Cork tells the stories of his personal encounters with some of the world’s most influential modern and contemporary artists. Richard Cork draws on his impeccable skills as a critic and writer to tell the story of his encounters with some of the world’s most influential artists. Through a series of frank interviews, some scheduled, others serendipitous, he uncovers artists’ inner thoughts, anxieties and creative ambitions, to reveal the personalities behind the art. From individuals who are able to look back over a lifetime’s work, such as Louise Bourgeois, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns, to young artists encountered at the beginning of their careers, including Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, from a drive through the Yorkshire countryside with David Hockney to a tour of Soho drinking establishments with Francis Bacon, alongside remarkably insightful encounters with artists as varied as Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo, Sonia Boyce, Luc Tuymans and Steve McQueen, Richard Cork has found that ‘talking to artists can in my experience be surprising, revealing, salutary, testing, provocative, stimulating and at times capable of overturning all my preconceptions about the individuals I encounter.’ Cork has played a significant role in popularizing late modern and contemporary art. In the words of art critic Louisa Buck, his ‘lucid, even-handed and at times trenchantly critical judgement has been invaluable in helping to create the multiplicity of approach and vigorous debates of today’s artistic climate’.

Hugely admired by artists and writers from Henri Cartier Bresson to the Booker prize winner Howard Jacobson, the extraordinary life and work of painter Dennis Creffield (1931-2018) are explored in this, the first major monograph on the artist. The narrative traces the artist's 'Dickensian' upbringing, his formative experiences as a teenager under the tutelage of David Bomberg, his conversion to Catholicism and his award-winning years at the Slade. Focus is given to Creffield's passions for the stories of England, not only in the Cathedral drawings, but in his expressive work on Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, on Blake and in his paintings and drawings of London, the great Petworth House, Cornish tin mines and the eerie military buildings on Orford Ness. Complementing his work on England's sacred and profane identity is an equally audacious body of work on the human body, from tender paintings of mother and child to erotic paintings of women to his late paintings of men near death - Turner, Nelson and Rimbaud. To quote his fellow artist R.B. Kitaj, Creffield's cover has been 'well and truly blown.'

Reflecting on the vitality of the past, through the works of one of Britain’s most audacious 20th-century painters The British painter David Bomberg (1890–1957) was among the most precociously talented artists of his generation, and the influence of his legacy continues to be felt. This catalogue is the first to explore Bomberg’s early work in relation to the collection of London’s National Gallery, demonstrating the importance of painterly tradition for this deeply innovative artist. As a teenager Bomberg intensively copied old master paintings; Botticelli’s Portrait of a Young Man (c. 1480–85) was reportedly one of his favorites. But after joining the Slade School of Art, he embraced the idea of a new, increasingly abstract art that would reflect the drama of the world around him. By placing Bomberg’s rebellious, youthful works alongside those he most admired in the National Gallery, this book explores the true extent of the young artist’s engagement with history, and how it shaped his contribution to the language of early 20th-century modernist art.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:National Gallery, London (November 27, 2019–March 1, 2020)

'Talking to artists is like embarking on voyages of discovery - ' Award-winning art critic and curator Richard Cork was 18 when he chanced upon Picasso, drew his portrait and talked to him. This meeting sparked a life-long enthusiasm for talking to artists which has continued throughout Cork's distinguished career as an art writer and broadcaster. This collection of revealing conversations brings together for the first time interviews first recorded for BBC radio and as live events and takes in the pantheon of contemporary British artists, from Richard Hamilton and David Hockney to Grayson Perry and Tacita Dean. Whether drawing out Francis Bacon's musings on the afterlife, or the story behind Tracy Emin's My Bed, Cork is an insightful and sympathetic interviewer.

Richard Cork is one of the most serious, most influential, and best-informed art critics in Britain today. These four volumes contain a selection of his articles from the seventies, eighties, nineties, and the year 2000. The result is a fascinating chronicle and invaluable record of a turbulent period that gives an overview and survey of British art and its reception over the past thirty years which is wholly unprecedented in its scope.