Engaging encounters, personal anecdotes and jargon-free critical insights into some of the liveliest creative minds in modern art, by an international art world insider. Praised by the
Art Newspaper as 'the best art writer of his generation', Michael Peppiatt has encountered many European modern artists over more than fifty years. This selection of some of his best biographical writing covers a wide spectrum of modern art, from Van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard, to personal conversations with painter Sonia Delaunay, artist Dora Maar, who was Picasso's lover in the 1930s and 1940s, and Francis Bacon, perhaps the most famous of the many artists with whom Peppiatt has formed personal friendships.
Michael Peppiatt's lively, engaging writing takes us into the company of many notable art-world personalities, such as the Catalan painter Antoni Tàpies, whom he visits in his studio, and moments of disillusion, such as his meeting with the self-mythologizing artist Balthus. Art criticism blends with anecdote: riding with Lucian Freud in his Bentley, drinking with Bacon in Soho, discussing Picasso's trousers with David Hockney...
This collection of Peppiatt's most perceptive texts includes under-recognized artists, such as Dachau survivor Zoran Music, or Montenegrin artist Dado, whose retrospective Peppiatt curated at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Remarkably varied in their scope and lucidly written for a general reader, these selected essays not only provide us with perceptive commentary and acute critical judgment, they also give a unique personal insight into some of the greatest creative minds of the modern era.
Engaging encounters, personal anecdotes and jargon-free critical insights into some of the liveliest creative minds in modern art, by an international art world insider. Michael Peppiatt has been studying, meeting and writing about artists for almost sixty years. In this brilliant selection of his biographical writing, he introduces us to some of the best-known artists of the modern age, from Vincent van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. We follow the writer into the studios of some of these individuals, observing their creative process at close quarters, and gaining insight into the way their personal histories have shaped and directed their work, bringing both the art and its maker alive. Peppiatt meets an elderly but spirited Sonia Delaunay in Paris to hear her revive long-forgotten worlds; visits Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, 'the alchemist', and joins him on late-night walks around Barcelona; interviews poet Jacques Dupin, in his pyjamas, on his memories of Giacometti; makes the life-changing acquaintance of Bacon in the bars and clubs of Soho; and gives us a considered opinion on Picasso's trousers. These essays are essential reading for anyone wanting to find out more about the lives of some of the great creative figures of modern times, from a writer who is not only an authority on art, but also one of the liveliest and most entertaining observers of artists and their worlds.
