Description
Book SynopsisThis 1997 revised and updated biography of the celebrated artist, using the mass of new material which has come to light since Holroyd's two-volume first edition in the mid 1970s, reveals the complete story of John and his circle, from one of our great biographers.
John studied at the Slade with his sister Gwen before both of them went to Paris. He lived and worked at feverish speed and his drawings were astonishing for their fluid lyrical line, their vigor and spontaneity. His life became a complex tale of two cities, London and Paris, of two wives and many families. 'The age of Augustus John was dawning,' Virginia Woolf wrote of the year 1908, which saw many portraits of writers and artists and small glowing oil panels of figures in a landscape. His most striking work was done in the years before the First World War and when he died in 1961 his death was treated as a landmark signaling the end of a distant era.
Trade ReviewSuperb biography. . . . Holroyd has it all -- Robert Hughes * Time *
Vastly informative and hugely entertaining * Newsweek *
An entertaining, essentially comic story... Holroyd tells it with great skill and elegance * Sunday Telegraph *
Here is one of the most entertaining lives ever written... Holroyd depicts his subjects with great sympathy and understanding... Very funny... thought-provoking -- Philip Hensher * Mail on Sunday *
Both a celebration and a tragedy. The celebration of a man of enormous vitality, intermittent zest and remarkable magnetism, and of the most naturally gifted artist that the English-speaking world has produced in the last hundred years; and the tragedy of a man who never came to terms with himself... A wonderfully engrossing, entertaining and even moving book -- Allan Massie * Daily Telegraph *
