20th Century
British and Irish Art

Art Commentator and Historian
Adrian Clark

To contact me, e-mail adrian@britishandirishart.co.uk

Henry Lamb

To the Salisbury Museum to see a good show of Henry Lamb’s work. The Gallery isn’t big enough for a major retrospective, but it was a good effort. The challenge with someone like Lamb is to persuade people to come and see pictures by a painter few can [Read More…]

Sir Denis Mahon

At Westport House in the West of Ireland this week, I saw a portrait of Mahon as a young man. He wears a suit and his OE tie. Turns out that his mother was a Browne, the family name of the Marquess of Sligo, owner of the house [Read More…]

Anthony Fry at the Holburne, Bath

Chris Stephens from Tate Britain took over at the Holburne last year and this exciting show is an example of how he intends to develop aspects of this Bath gallery, which is situated  at the end of the extraordinary Great Pulteney Street. It is not easy to see [Read More…]

Bawden at the Fry Art Gallery

The private view yesterday was full of an enthusiastic local crowd. Edward Bawden is the poster boy of the Fry Art Gallery; something close to their raison d’etre. The Gallery always has plenty of his work on show and they busy themselves in the London art market from [Read More…]

Books

Fighting on All Fronts – John Rothenstein in the Art World, published by Unicorn Press on April 11th 2018, is my third book. It follows Queer Saint: The Cultured Life of Peter Watson, written with Jeremy Dronfield and published by John Blake in 2015, and British and Irish Art 1945-1951 From War to Festival, published in 2010.

Queer Saint: The Cultured Life of Peter Watson

Peter Watson (1908-1956) supported a whole range of British artists financially and in other ways. He funded the creation of the cultural journal, Horizon, and helped to create the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He also built up an extremely wide ranging collection of art, by many of the great 20th century masters, and also the leading British artists of the time.

Full List of Contents

Without Peter Watson’s patronage, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud might have failed before they ever began. His tastes shaped and changed the course of twentieth century art, and he was a founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Whilst Watson gets frequent mentions in surveys of the cultural scene, there has been no book about him. Co-authored with Jeremy Dronfield, my purpose in writing a full biography is to seek to place his varied life and achievements into their proper context.

It also details his relationships with many of the leading artists of his day, as well as exploring his sophisticated personality.

The premier doyen of the gay scene, Watson cut a dash through the 30s Berlin cabaret, pre-war Paris, English high society and the golden boulevards of Hollywood before his mysterious and tragic death. Read More…

⋅ Jankel Adler ⋅ Eileen Agar ⋅ John Aldridge ⋅ Adrian Allinson ⋅ Michael Andrews ⋅ Edward Ardizzone ⋅ Arthur Armstrong ⋅ Frank Auerbach ⋅ Michael Ayrton ⋅ Francis Bacon ⋅ Wilhelmina Barns-Graham ⋅ Edward Bawden ⋅ Adrian Berg ⋅ Basil Blackshaw ⋅ David Bomberg ⋅ Louis le Brocquy ⋅ Jean Bullock ⋅ Edward Burra ⋅ George Campbell ⋅ Prunella Clough ⋅ Geoffrey Clarke ⋅ William Coldstream ⋅ Cecil Collins ⋅ Robert Colquhoun ⋅ John Craxton ⋅ Alfred Daniels ⋅ Alan Davie ⋅ Gerard Dillon ⋅ William Gear ⋅ Wilfred Dudeney ⋅ Richard Eurich ⋅ Hans Feibusch ⋅ Lucian Freud ⋅ William Gear ⋅ Mark Gertler ⋅ William Gillies ⋅ Beatrice, Lady Glenavy ⋅ Duncan Grant ⋅ Richard Hamilton ⋅ John Hayward ⋅ Thomas Hennell ⋅ Patrick Hennessy ⋅ Paul Henry ⋅ Barbara Hepworth ⋅ Josef Herman ⋅ Patrick Heron ⋅ Derek Hill ⋅ Tristram Hillier ⋅ Roger Hilton ⋅ Ivon Hitchens ⋅ David Hockney ⋅ Frances Hodgkins ⋅ Robin Ironside ⋅ Augustus John ⋅ David Jones ⋅ Karin Jonzen ⋅ Eric Kennington ⋅ Laura Knight ⋅ Peter Lanyon ⋅ Wyndham Lewis ⋅ Laurence Lowry ⋅ John Luke ⋅ Robert MacBryde ⋅ Sine Mackinnon ⋅ Norah McGuinness ⋅ William McTaggart ⋅ FE McWilliam ⋅ Bernard Meninsky ⋅ Oliver Messel ⋅ Colin Middleton ⋅ John Minton ⋅ Henry Moore ⋅ Cedric Morris ⋅ Rodrigo Moynihan ⋅ John Nash ⋅ Paul Nash ⋅ Christopher Nevinson ⋅ Algernon Newton ⋅ Ben Nicholson ⋅ Sir William Nicholson ⋅ Winifred Nicholson ⋅ Daniel O’Neill ⋅ Eduardo Paolozzi ⋅ Victor Pasmore ⋅ John Piper ⋅ Eric Ravilious ⋅ Alan Reynolds ⋅ Ceri Richards ⋅ William Roberts ⋅ Michael Rothenstein ⋅ Kenneth Rowntree ⋅ William Scott ⋅ Matthew Smith ⋅ Stanley Spencer ⋅ Gilbert Spencer ⋅ Rowland Suddaby ⋅ Graham Sutherland ⋅ Julian Trevelyan ⋅ Fred Uhlman ⋅ Leon Underwood ⋅ Keith Vaughan ⋅ Edward Wadsworth ⋅ Alfred Wallis ⋅ Evan Walters ⋅ John Ward ⋅ Carel Weight ⋅ Gerald Wilde ⋅ Kyffin Williams ⋅ Edward Wolfe ⋅ Bryan Wynter ⋅ Jack Yeats ⋅