Augustus John
The New Biography
1st Edition
Published on 1. July 2015
752 pages
978-1-78497-139-7 (ISBN)
Description
This 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 vigour 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 signalling the end of a distant era.
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 vigour 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 signalling the end of a distant era.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
ISBN-13
978-1-78497-139-7 (9781784971397)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Besides the biographies of Augustus John, Bernard Shaw and Lytton Strachey, Michael Holroyd has written two volumes of memoirs, Basil Street Blues and Mosaic. He was president of the Royal Society of Literature from 2003 - 2008 and is the only non-fiction writer to have been awarded the British Literature Prize. He lives in London and Somerset with his wife, the novelist Margaret Drabble.
Content
- Intro
- Welcome Page
- Contents
- Epigraph
- Preface
- PART I: The Years of Innocence
- CHAPTER I: LITTLE ENGLAND BEYOND WALES
- 1. 'Mama's dead!'
- 2. The Responsible Parties
- 3. Life with Father
- 4. A Crisis of Identity
- CHAPTER II: 'SLADE SCHOOL INGENIOUS'
- 1. New Students - Old Masters
- 2. Water-legend
- 3.·A Singular Group
- 4. Flammondism
- 5. From among the Living...
- 6. .Into 'Moral Living'
- CHAPTER III: LOVE FOR ART'S SAKE
- 1. Evil at Work
- 2. Liverpool Sheds and Romany Flotsam
- 3. What Comes Naturally
- 4. Team Spirit
- 5. Candid White and Matching Green
- CHAPTER IV: MEN MUST PLAY AND WOMEN WEEP
- 1. Keeping up the Game
- 2. At the Crossroads
- 3. From a View to a Birth
- 4. Channel Crossing
- 5. A Seaside Change
- 6. 'Here's to Love!'
- CHAPTER V: BUFFETED BY FATE
- 1. The Battle of the Babies
- 2. Images of Yeats
- 3. All Boys Brave and Beautiful
- 4. Or Something
- 5. Ethics and Rainbows
- 6. Inlaws and Outlaws
- 7. In the Roving Line
- 8. Fatal Initiations
- 9. Italian Style, French Found
- CHAPTER VI: REVOLUTION 1910
- 1. What They Said at the Time
- 2. What He Said
- 3. What He Said about Them
- 4. What Happened
- 5. What Next?
- PART II: The Years of Experience
- CHAPTER VII: BEFORE THE DELUGE
- 1. A Summer of Poetry
- 2. The Second Mrs Strindberg
- 3. Cavaliers and Eggheads
- 4. Chronic Potential
- CHAPTER VIII: HOW HE GOT ON
- 1. Marking Time
- 2. The Virgin's Prayer
- 3. Corrupt Coteries
- 4. Augustus Does His Bit
- CHAPTER IX: ARTIST OF THE PORTRAITS
- 1. Everybody's Doing It
- 2. Surviving Friends, Women and Children: an A to Z
- 3. Faces and Tales
- 4. Methods and Places
- 5. Undiscovered Countries
- CHAPTER X: THE WAY THEY LIVED THEN
- 1. Fryern Court
- 2. A Long Love Affair with Drink
- 3. In Spite of Everything or Because of It
- 4. His Fifties, Their Thirties
- 5. Children of the Great
- 6. Barren Our Lives
- CHAPTER XI: THINGS PAST
- 1. Black Out
- 2. Fragments
- 3. The Morning After
- 4. A Way Out
- Preview
- Appendices
- One. Desecration of Saint Paul's
- Two. John's Pictures at the New English Art Club
- Three. The Chelsea Art School Prospectus
- Four. 'To Iris Tree': A parody of Arthur Symons
- Five. The John Beauty Chorus
- Six. John's Pictures at the Royal Academy
- Seven. Augustus John: Chronology and Intinerary
- Eight. Locations of John Manuscripts
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Index
- About Augustus John
- Reviews
- About Michael Holroyd
- Biographies by Michael Holroyd
- Michael Holroyd's Memoirs
- An Invitation from the Publisher
- Copyright
