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This title was first published in 2002. 'Memory and Desire' is a lavishly illustrated account of the art world in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. It calls upon rich resources of contemporary diaries, letters and art criticism, as well as the analysis of works of art to answer questions about how and why new artistic tendencies emerged and tastes changed. Eschewing the familiar narrative of an inevitable progress towards modernism, Kenneth McConkey considers a broad range of art and critical thinking in the period. Discussing the market for old master paintings, which rivalled those for modern art, and the question of how and why certain genres of art were particularly successful at the time, McConkey explores the detail and significance of contemporary taste. He draws upon the work of commercially successful painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, George Clausen, Alfred East, John Lavery and Philip Wilson Steer, and their critic-supporters to throw light upon current arguments about training, aesthetics, visual memory and the creation of new art. 'Memory and Desire' is a major contribution to our knowledge of this important period in British art.
A comprehensive survey of the distinctly British version of Impressionism.
While there have been monographs on British artist-travellers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there has been no equivalent survey of what the writer, Henry Blackburn, described as ?artistic travel? a hundred years later. By 1900, the ?Grand Tourist? became a ?globe-trotter? equipped with a camera, and despite the development of ?knapsack photography?, visual recording by the old media of oil and watercolour on-the-spot sketching remained ever-popular.00Kenneth McConkey?s new book explores the complex reasons for this in a series of chapters that take the reader from southern Europe to north Africa, the Middle East, India and Japan revealing many artist-travellers whose live...
A collection of paintings by Irish artist John Lavery.
Late in his career, Claude Monet returned to London to paint the fog that had entranced him years before. The resulting sequence of pictures represents some of the fascination that French painters felt for Britain. Similarly, many British collectors and young painters embraced and were influenced by the work of the French Impressionists. This book describes the activities of the French Impressionist painters on their visits to Britain, considers the dissemination of Impressionist painting through British dealers and collectors, explores the response of artists from Britain and Ireland to the Impressionist movement, and sets all of these against the backdrop of late Victorian and Edwardian Br...
Published to accompany the exhibition held at the Scottish National Gallery, 10th October 2015-17th January 2016.
Records a wealthy society's desire to immortalise itself in fabulous self-portraits. It found artists who succeeded brilliantly and this book, the only one devoted to the subject, records both the sitters and the work of the artists.
In this incisive study, author Kenneth McConkey discusses for the first time the important position that the NEAC has held within the development of British art. He charts the ebb and flow of a society that to this day celebrates the richness of life in all its manifestations. This colourful book is a milestone in the study of British Art.
Recounting his life and achievements in old age, Sir John Lavery resorted to picaresque conventions - an orphan lad from Belfast, he discovered a talent for painting while working as a photographer's assistant.
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