Bacon and Sutherland: Patterns of Affinity in British Culture of the 1940s (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Bacon and Sutherland: Patterns of Affinity in British Culture of the 1940s (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) Details
About the Author Martin Hammer is senior lecturer in the history of art, University of Edinburgh. He is coauthor of Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo, published by Yale University Press, and curator of a major exhibition of Sutherland’s art that opens at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, in May 2005. Read more
Reviews
Martin Hammer has written a book that could easily be a textbook on how to create fascinating museum exhibitions based on finding cohesive similarities between two distinctive artists that serve to enlighten the reader and viewer on both sides of the artistic fence. Though not a novel concept, comparing and contrasting two artists, Hammer's work for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art is so well conceived and so beautifully written that it will serve as a must read book for those interested not only in the output of two of the UK's most brilliant twentieth century painters, but also in the amazing similarities the artists share.Graham Sutherland's work is perhaps best known for his portraits (the one of Somerset Maugham will probably go down in art history as one of the greats) while Francis Bacon is known primarily for his expressionistic distortion of figures pulled by forces that appear to come not only form the model's psyche but from external physical sources. What Martin has accomplished here is to isolate periods of each artist's output and show the rather dramatic similarities in both composition and execution of the works. For instance, Sutherland's early crucifixion painting is compared to the famous Bacon study of a crucifixion: where Sutherland places a man on the cross, Bacon places an filleted animal carcuss in the composition with a subtle figure in the foreground shielding the site with an umbrella. The examples go on and on and each becomes more uncannily mirrored.Were it not for the superb writing style of Hammer this book would plead for simply more examples of paintings and sketches rather than the extended writing. Hammer peppers his text with solid, meaningful illustrations that keep the reader involved in the quality dissertation this book so obviously is. Highly recommended for art students, curators, devotees of Bacon and Sutherland, and for those readers who love the intriguing influence of history and proximity on disparate artists. Grady Harp, July 06
