David Sylvester

Bacon (1909-92) was raised in large country houses in rural Ireland by a family whose conventional expectations he rebelled against early on. As a young man he was introduced to the seamy side of life in London and Paris; but only after seeing a Picasso retrospective in 1928 did he become an artist. He sprang into prominence in 1944 with a triptych which shocked the art world with its sheer ferocity, and he soon emerged, with his friend Lucian Freud, as a leader of an informal "School of London," which favored figurative painting in an age dominated by abstraction. As retrospectives of Bacon's work in Paris, London, and New York made his reputation soar, his nighttime exploits grew wilder and wilder; charming and confident, with a strong sadomasochistic streak, he was drawn to "rough trade" in London clubs and pushed all situations to the edge. At the same time, he was a deeply cultivated and thoughtful artist who was obsessively guarded about the sources of his inspiration. Michael Peppiatt has unlocked many of the enigmas of Bacon's life and work. Bacon talked openly to Peppiatt about his early life, his sexuality, his fantasies, and his ambitions, aware that all was being recorded for publication. At the suggestion that some of his remarks would sound indiscreet, Bacon replied: "The more indiscreet, the more interesting it will be." Together with many new facts, unpublished documents, and penetrating analyses of key paintings, these conversations have been integrated into what is the most complete and riveting account of one of the greatest artists of our time.

The first publication devoted to the artist\'s works for twenty-five years.

"David Sylvester was one of the world's finest writers on modern art. From the decades after 1945, he proved himself to be a true and dedicated champion of new painting and sculpture. With his expertise, sympathy, and provocative style, Sylvester was unique in his ability to talk freely with influential artists. This book includes 21 interviews - recorded over the past forty years - with leading American artists. Together they chronicle and illuminate all the great developments in American art of the twentieth century. Here are the views of David Smith, Richard Serra, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, and more."--BOOK JACKET.

David Sylvester's writings about many of the century's major artists are exhibited here in a brilliant and witty retrospective that reveals the authors' personal involvement with painting and sculpture over a fifty-year period. Like modern art itself, the essays isolate experience, while also opening a window into the minds and methods of contemporary masters. David Sylvester, as curator and critic, wrote about many of the works as the artists were creating them, enabling us to observe the development of a perspective on modern art that is the result of an intense professional and personal involvement. His sustained investigations into the artists' social and intellectual lives offer piercing insights into the works and the artists themselves.

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was one of the century's greatest sculptors and painters. Famous in the 1930s for his surrealist works, he suddenly isolated himself in the mid-1940s and began obsessively to make and remake sculptures and paintings (sometimes entirely demolishing and rebuilding a sculpture several times in a day), wrestling with complex problems of perception and representation. By the mid-1950s he had established a reputation as one of the most startlingly original artists of the twentieth century. Written over a period of forty years - from David Sylvester's first visits to Giacometti's studio in the late 1940s to the author's prolonged sitting for Giacometti's portrait of him in 1960 to the meditations on the artist's completed oeuvre after his death - Looking at Giacometti is a profound response to Giacometti's art. A compelling mixture of biography and criticism, it casts a bright light on twentieth-century art and thought. An interview with Giacometti - published here in its entirety for the first time - rounds out this original and valuable book.