Portraits: John Berger on Artists

By J. Allyn Rosser

A major new book from one of the world’s leading writers and art critics

John Berger, one of the world’s most celebrated art writers, takes us through centuries of drawing and painting, revealing his lifelong fascination with a diverse cast of artists. In Portraits, Berger grounds the artists in their historical milieu in revolutionary ways, whether enlarging on the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves or Cy Twombly’s linguistic and pictorial play.

In penetrating and singular prose, Berger presents entirely new ways of thinking about artists both canonized and obscure, from Rembrandt to Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock to Picasso. Throughout, Berger maintains the essential connection between politics, art and the wider study of culture. The result is an illuminating walk through many centuries of visual culture, from one of the contemporary world’s most incisive critical voices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verso
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784781781

J. Allyn Rosser

John Berger was born in London in 1926. His many books, innovative in form and far-reaching in their historical and political insight, include To the Wedding, King, and the Booker Prize-winning novel, G. Amongst his outstanding studies of art and photography are Another Way of Telling, The Success and Failure of Picasso, Titian: Nymph and Shepherd (with Katya Berger), and the internationally acclaimed Ways of Seeing. He lived and worked in a small village in the French Alps, the setting for his trilogy Into Their Labours (Pig Earth, Once in Europa and Lilac and Flag). His collection of essays The Shape of a Pocket was published in 2001. His latest novel, From A to X, was published in 2008. The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, produced by Complicite and based on a story by Berger, toured for three years between 1994 and 1997. About Looking, published by Bloomsbury in April 2009, was the follow-up to the seminal Ways of Seeing, one of the most influential books on art in the 20th century. He died in early 2017.