Overview

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was a major European artist and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whose statements on art from the 1880s to the 1930s have been used by artists and writers on art for more than half a century. His criticism is provocative and penetrating, his writing style brilliant and entertaining. The need for a comprehensive edition of Sickert's art-critical writings is overwhelming, and the texts gathered together here for the first time in one volume by Anna Gruetzner-Robins, a leading expert on the subject, prove that his contribution as an art-writer was a major one in its own right. The texts are presented chronologically and supported by notes which give the information necessary to situate the figures and events to which Sickert refers. Containing over 400 entries this collection offers much new insight into Sickert as an artist and provides valuable information about other British artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sickert was as much at home in Paris and Venice as in London: his record of conversations with Degas and meetings with other French artists, and the new provenances and exhibition histories he gives of many well-known works of art, make this book indispensable also for the historian of French art.

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9780198172253

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Reviews

The Complete Writings on Art constitutes the most comprehensive selection of Sickert's criticism to date, including much previously unpublished material Simon Grant, Times Literary Supplement a real labour of love ... offering a great deal of new insight into Sickert as artist, polemicist and man-about-town. Brilliantly annotated, it's also great fun Andy Barclay, Irish Times

`The collection is a most valuable reminder of Sickert's influence, elegance and originality.' Henry Hitchings, The Art Newspaper (Readers' Books of the Year) `The Complete Writings on Art constitutes the most comprehensive selection of Sickert's criticism to date, including much previously unpublished material' Simon Grant, Times Literary Supplement `Sickert's writings are immensely enjoyable. Reading them, one reflects on how little has changed in the art world' Simon Grant, Times Literary Supplement `a real labour of love ... offering a great deal of new insight into Sickert as artist, polemicist and man-about-town. Brilliantly annotated, it's also great fun' Andy Barclay, Irish Times `a tremendous achievement' James Beechey, The Charleston Magazine `historians and general readers alike will be grateful for the wealth of fascinating information, not just on obscure nineteenth-century artists, but about music-hall characters, popular culture and contemporary slang too, buried in her footnotes' James Beechey, The Charleston Magazine `With great diligence, she has retrieved a cache of early journalism mostly written between 1889 and 1897.' Richard Shone, Spectator `One of the continuously engrossing themes of this book is ... long and painful emancipation from Whistler's excessive tastefulness as an artist and febrile egotism as a man.' Richard Shone, Spectator `Robins's edition is of permanent value' Richard Shone, Spectator

`The collection is a most valuable reminder of Sickert's influence, elegance and originality.' Henry Hitchings, The Art Newspaper (Readers' Books of the Year) `The Complete Writings on Art constitutes the most comprehensive selection of Sickert's criticism to date, including much previously unpublished material' Simon Grant, Times Literary Supplement `Sickert's writings are immensely enjoyable. Reading them, one reflects on how little has changed in the art world' Simon Grant, Times Literary Supplement `a real labour of love ... offering a great deal of new insight into Sickert as artist, polemicist and man-about-town. Brilliantly annotated, it's also great fun' Andy Barclay, Irish Times `a tremendous achievement' James Beechey, The Charleston Magazine `historians and general readers alike will be grateful for the wealth of fascinating information, not just on obscure nineteenth-century artists, but about music-hall characters, popular culture and contemporary slang too, buried in her footnotes' James Beechey, The Charleston Magazine `With great diligence, she has retrieved a cache of early journalism mostly written between 1889 and 1897.' Richard Shone, Spectator `One of the continuously engrossing themes of this book is ... long and painful emancipation from Whistler's excessive tastefulness as an artist and febrile egotism as a man.' Richard Shone, Spectator `Robins's edition is of permanent value' Richard Shone, Spectator

Author Information

Anna Gruetzner Robins is a leading Sickert scholar, and contributed to the catalogue of the Royal Academy's Sickert exhibition held in 1992/3.

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