Black Artists in British Art


Book Description

Black artists have been making major contributions to the British art scene for decades, since at least the mid-twentieth century. Sometimes these artists were regarded and embraced as practitioners of note. At other times they faced challenges of visibility - and in response they collaborated and made their own exhibitions and gallery spaces. In this book, Eddie Chambers tells the story of these artists from the 1950s onwards, including recent developments and successes. Black Artists in British Art makes a major contribution to British art history. Beginning with discussions of the pioneering generation of artists such as Ronald Moody, Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling, Chambers candidly discusses the problems and progression of several generations, including contemporary artists such as Steve McQueen, Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare. Meticulously researched, this important book tells the fascinating story of practitioners who have frequently been overlooked in the dominant history of twentieth-century British art.




Contemporary Botanical Artists


Book Description

Presents a collection of botanical paintings along with descriptions of the artists' techniques and backgrounds.




A Short Book about Drawing


Book Description

Like millions of others, Andrew Marr draws. He hasn't had lessons, yet since childhood, the journalist and TV presenter has been at his happiest with a pen or brush in his hand. One way or another he draws most days, even if it's just a doodle on the edge of a newspaper. But why does he do it? Does it have a point? And in what way, if any, does this activity of his relate to what we think of as 'art'? In this intriguing new book, Andrew Marr explores the subject of drawing and painting through his own experience. He considers the mechanics of the drawing process - the act of making and its importance for a happy life - along with the ways in which good drawing or painting can make us think harder and see the world differently. He also investigates the tensions between drawing as concentrated work and drawing as an expression of freedom or play, and looks at the historical differences between drawing and fine art as well as how drawing fits into today's art world.










Arts and Minds


Book Description

"For almost 300 years, an organisation has quietly tried to change almost every aspect of life in Britain. That organisation is the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, often known simply as the Royal Society of Arts. It has acted as Britain's private national improvement agency, in every way imaginable - essentially, a society for the improvement of everything and anything. This book is its history. From its beginnings in a coffee house in the mid-eighteenth century, the Society has tried to change Britain's art, industry, laws, music, environment, education, and even culture. It has sometimes even succeeded. It has been a prize-fund for innovations, a platform for Victorian utilitarian reformers, a convenor of disparate interest groups, and the focal point for social movements. There has never been an organisation quite like it, constantly having to reinvent itself to find something new to improve. The book rewrites many of the old official histories of the Society and updates them to the present day, incorporating over half a century of further research into the periods they covered, along with new insights into the organisation's evolution. The book reveals the hidden and often surprising history of how a few public-spirited people tried to make their country better, offering lessons from their triumphs and their failures for all would-be reformers today"--







The Dictionary of British Women Artists


Book Description

The most comprehensive volume of its kind, Gray's Dictionary of British Women Artists offers extensively-researched biographies of some of the most significant female contributors to British art.This volume will make a valuable contribution to the study of art history. It will also provide readers with significant insight into a long-neglected aspect of history - the lives and achievements of women artists. Each entry provides key biographical information, as well as (where possible) commentaryon the artist's studies, lifestyle, travels and family. Entries also detail significant works, exhibitions and membership of societies. Gray's introduction provides a useful context to the biographies.




The King's Artists : The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture 1760-1840


Book Description

This is the story of the forging of a national cultural institution in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. The Royal Academy of Arts was the dominant art school and exhibition society in London and a model for art societies across the British Isles and North America. This is the first study of its early years, re-evaluating the Academy's significance in national cultural life and its profile in an international context. Holger Hoock reassesses royal and state patronage of the arts and explores the concepts and practices of cultural patriotism and the politicization of art during the American and French Revolutions. By demonstrating how the Academy shaped the notions of an English and British school of art and influenced the emergence of the British cultural state, he illuminates the politics of national culture and the character of British public life in an age of war, revolution, and reform.




Patronage of British Art


Book Description

In the autumn of 1846 a correspondence was opened in 'The Times' on the subject of the cleaning and restoration of the national pictures. The Keeper of the Gallery, Mr. Charles Eastlake, was accused of restoring good pictures and purchasing bad ones. The attack was led by the picture-dealer and former artist, Mr. Morris Moore, writing first under the pseudonym of "Verax" and later his own name.--Cf. Ruskin.