Gwen John was an artist with a singular vision, one whose intense gaze produced some of the most beguiling and atmospheric paintings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Often unfairly thought of as a recluse, this concise survey of her life and work places her at the artistic heart of London and Paris. A seminal figure within these groups, her work is reappraised in that context and explored in terms of the alliances and differences John had with her contemporaries. Gwen John's representation of the female nude, her paintings of interiors and the effect of her Catholic faith on her work are all discussed. The author also discusses the key relationship between Gwen John's position as a woman artist and her life-long fascination with the portrayal of the female sitter.
Stanley Spencer is best-known for two things: his immortalization of Cookham, the Berkshire village where he was born and lived for most of his life; and his celebration of sex both in his painted works and in his unconventional attitude to relationships. This book shows how Spencer's work grew out of places, experiences and social relations aiming to enrich his visionary imagination by illuminating the groundedness in landscapes, homes and human relationships that he felt so strongly.
Susan Hiller was born in the United States in 1940. Rather than attending art school she studied anthropology, moving to London in the early 1960s where she became an artist. Employing a wide variety of media, Hiller has done much in recent decades to redefine what a work of art can be. Much of her work is centred on the subconscious mind and ideas of the paranormal present in cultures around the world. Specific works have investigated auras, extra sensory perception, close encounters, dreams and automatic writing. Many are large-scale installations, variously employing film, audio, video and projection. She makes use of found material, ranging from overlooked aspects of popular culture like wallpaper and postcards, to audio interviews with members of the public. Comprehensive and extensively illustrated, this book will cover Hiller's entire career. It will include an introductory essay by Tate curator Ann Gallagher; a conversation between the critics Guy Brett, Yves-Alan Bois and the artist; and, fresh perspectives on her work from Jorg Heiser, Alexandra Kokoli and Jan Verwoert. Also reprinting key, previously published responses to Hiller by critics, this will be the most thorough and up to date survey of this extraordinary artist yet published.
Widely regarded as one of the leading sculptors of the last twenty years, Juan Munoz came to prominence in the mid-1980s, when he was at the vanguard of a return to the human form. Munoz's figures, however, are not the usual stuff of classical sculpture. Located in architectural settings, they may be seated on benches, on plinths or halfway up a wall. Very often they are figures from a circus, a theatre or a Valasquez painting - dwarves, midgets, theatre prompters, ballerinas, captured at a moment that implies a story that must be imagined by their audience, their faces frozen in expressions ranging from laughter to aggression. Moreover, although naturalistic in execution, they are less than life-size, so that when viewed from a distance they appear to scale but when viewed from close-up they appear to be still distanced from the viewer, a favourite optical device. Some of the installations in which these figures appear can be very complex. Munoz's largest commission, Double Bind at Tate Modern in 2001, incorporated a false storey and two elevators that rose and fell to the full height of the Turbine Hall, apparently carrying his silent figures on a never-ending journey. Accompanying the first ever full-scale retrospective of Munoz's work in the UK, this book will not concentrate solely on sculpture and installation but will also examine Munoz' drawings, performative and sound works, as well as including a selection from the writings for which he is renowned. Revelling in his description by one critic as a trickster and a showman and embracing his role as a story-teller (terminology traditionally despised in the art-world), Juan Munoz saw himself as embedded in the history of art, from Goya to de Chirico. If in his sadly curtailed career he succeeded in making the human figure once more of vital concern, he also relocated it, through his unique vision and what he called his sleight-of-hand, to a place at once familiar and strange.
