Mornists & Mavericks: Ban, Frd, Hockney and the London Paters by Mart Gayford – review | Bgraphy books | The Guardian

Contents:

• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD REVIEW – BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS
• MORNISTS & MAVERICKS: BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD — A MIRACULO MOMENT
• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD
• MART GAYFORD: MORNISTS & MAVERICKS REVIEW - PEOPLE, PLAC AND PAT

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD REVIEW – BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS

Mart Gayford has been talkg wh artists for 30 years. Gayford starts wh people, moments and meetgs, standg firm the belief that “pictur are affected not only by social and tellectual chang but also by dividual sensibily and character”. As for Auerbach and Frd, the nversatn went on for half a book’s span allows Gayford to plot several generatns relatn to each other, and ’s strikg how many of the most potent enunters volve forms of teachg.

MORNISTS & MAVERICKS: BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

Gayford attends particularly to the relatnship between long ncentratn and sudn achievement.

The picture has the wistful air of Watte’s Pierrot, Gayford observ; there’s Gasborough here, too, and Rose. The nversatns of Ayr and Hodgk were charged by the fact of their work fallg jt (but cisively) to eher si of the “visible ontier” between abstractn and is a vivid prence and Gayford giv a fe acunt of her vast, tumblg, ever metamorphosg Hampstead Mural. In 1942, which is roughly when Mart Gayford’s pac new survey of postwar art begs, London was partially s, many of s streets rced to pil of bble and buckled iron.

New energi were stirrg, their shoots takg hold jt like those of the pk willow herb that would shortly lonise the ad is the energi, darg, domable and eply ntradictory, that Gayford hop to pture Mornists & Mavericks – and as he begs, gamely scribg the strange hoe St John’s Wood that Lucian Frd and John Craxton began sharg the same year (the floors were vered, for whatever reason, wh broken glass, and the walls rated wh every possible kd of hat), you wonr how on earth he’ll do .

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD — A MIRACULO MOMENT

Gayford tak a chronologil path, fishg up at the back end of the 60s, wh Bridget Riley and David Hockney; his terts lie solely wh London, and wh pat.

Gayford knew Frd: he uld be said to have a particular nnectn wh the artist, havg famoly had his portra pated by him.

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD

Gayford ploys Ban’s voice to brilliant effect, and you hang on to every word, om his nvictn that he wanted his pictur to look as if a human beg had passed between them, leavg a trace of human prence “as a snail leav s slime”, to his sudn, hungry observatn, ma one sunny day Soho, that a horizontal shadow “eats to the figure, like a disease”. He wanted to be the sense of realy that uld be found the greatt pictur of Velázquez and Rembrandt wh the chance effects of, as Gayford puts , “cedg nsc ntrol”.

For his latt book, the Spectator cric Mart Gayford has synthized a lifetime’s worth of nversatns wh the greats of morn patg (Bridget Riley, Peter Blake, Frank Auerbach, Pla Rego, Victor Pasmore) to swift dividual chapters, wh Francis Ban and Lucian Frd havg nsistent recurrg narrativ. To Gayford the are paters uned solely by an obssn wh “what Gillian Ayr has fed as ‘what n be done wh patg”, and that they happened to be workg London.

MART GAYFORD: MORNISTS & MAVERICKS REVIEW - PEOPLE, PLAC AND PAT

) Artists were ngratulatg each other for “gog abstract”, a phrase ed by both Gayford and many of the artists he quot.

Yet the ma thg Gayford’s book do is illtrate how fluenc om this time are everywhere ways that aren’t rctive, cynil or jt pla nnibalistic: ways that only prove patg is alive. Gayford prents the artist as a sort of athetic anomaly that uldn’t be acunted for, and whose fluence revolutnized how proceedg artists would handle pat.