S. B. Kennedy

William Crozier was born in Glasgow in 1930 and educated at the Glasgow School of Art. He spent time in Paris and Dublin before settling in London, where he quickly gained a reputation as the 1950s equivalent of a Young British Artist through the early success and notoriety of his exhibitions of assemblages and paintings. This is the first major monograph on his work. Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, throughout his life Crozier has allied himself and his work consciously with European art and thought. Early in his career he developed a highly personalized vision of nature, which in the 1960s and 1970s incorporated skeletal figures, making 'art that is as a razor slash' which ran counter to the prevailing tastes in abstraction and Pop-art imagery of the time. Crozier has exhibited widely in London, Glasgow, Dublin and Continental Europe. From the 1980s, when he set up studios in Ireland and the UK, his painting of the landscape has blossomed with an extraordinary radiance and confidence. Then, as now, his landscapes and still-lifes use sumptuous colour to engineer the emotional intensity of the paintings. He remains concerned with developing the language of figurative painting. This book is the first to give substantial critical attention to an artist well known within the UK and Irish art worlds, and gives new insights into the still under-written history of figurative painting in Britain. It provides a detailed survey of Crozier's wide-ranging work over the last fifty years, placing it within wider European traditions as well as relating it to developments in Irish, Scottish and English art. Crozier is a formidable colourist, and the critical texts are accompanied by extensive reproductions of the artist's work in colour. The book will be widely welcomed by collectors and devotees of the artist's work, students of modern art, and art lovers in general… (altro)

This is both a biography and a comprehensive catalogue of work, in excess of 340 pages and large in format. A ninety page illustrated biography traces Henry’s life and career from his childhood in Belfast and early training in art, to France and then London and his return to Ireland. It is illustrated with photographs of people and places and examples of the work of other artists that featured in his life, including several paintings by his wife of twenty six years Grace Henry. It is well researched and written and very accessible.

The catalogue of work occupies the rest of the book and is divided into three sections: Illustrations, Drawings and Paintings; in all totalling over 1100 entries. It is well illustrated (in total the book contains 470 illustrations, of which are 350 in black and white and 120 in colour) with many of the entries accompanied by observations or comments.

The book concludes with a comprehensive section of Notes; Pictures in Public Collections; Bibliography; an Index of Titles and a General Index.

This is a fine and informative publication providing a through coverage of Paul Henry’s oeuvre, including his drawings and illustration and graphic work in addition to his paintings. Many of the illustrations in the book are in black and white, and while these include the drawings unfortunately many of his paintings are also shown in black and white. The majority of the images are little more than thumbnails, but most of the colour images are postcard size or larger up to half-page, with a few full-page bleed images invariable of a detail from a painting

It is hard to fault this book on its text or its coverage, however it is a pity that so many of the paintings are reproduced so small and in black and white, but with so little available on the artist I suppose we should be grateful for this otherwise splendid offering.… (altro)