The Art of John Piper - Hardcover

Jenkins, David Fraser; Fowler-Wright, Hugh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1910787051 ISBN 13: 9781910787052

Publisher: Unicorn, 2016

Synopsis

The first published survey of the whole of John Piper's art throughout his long life; the book includes not just his painting and printmaking, but his stained glass and opera designs. It was begun in collaboration with the artist and his wife Myfanwy and has continued with the encouragement of the Piper family.Piper was a major artist of the twentieth century. He was a pioneer of modern abstract art in Britain in the 1930s, the painter of the ruins of the Blitz in Coventry, London and Bath, of the Ruskinian beauty and loneliness of the summits and panoramas of Snowdonia,the designer of nine of the first productions of the operas and a ballet by Benjamin Britten. Piper was also a great landscape painter of rural churches in Britain, a pioneer of lithography and screenprinting and of colour in ceramics. Finally, he was the designer of the stained glass the great cathedrals and churches of Coventry, Eton College and Plymouth and of smaller commemorative glass in country churches.Piper is described here as committed to sharing his art, taking on the technical challenge of introducing modern painting to traditional craft practice and to a generous acceptance of continuous change.Fully endorsed and supported by the John Piper Estate, with unprecedented access to the family archive and a foreword by Piper's grandson, Luke Piper.

About this title

Review

"Fraiser Jenkins sets out his facts clearly and constructively. Each opinion is backed up by evidence and linked to the next, a linkage that is usually intuitive and revealing. This densely researched book leaves us with a much greater sense of the artist's singularity and his limitations, the dogged certitude he showed in developing his art in isolation from the mainstream."--Times Literary Supplement

"Generously illustrated, with more than 300 images, most in color, this coffee-table-size volume will be valued for its comprehensive overview of Piper's art-making career and for its range of images, including not just Piper's celebrated prints and paintings but also his stage designs, stained glass, mosaics, and ceramics. The full range of Piper's distinctive imagery is on display here, notably the still lifes, landscapes, renderings of rural churches and historic buildings, and depictions of picturesque ruins that earned him a key place amid the modern romantic painters of the 1930s and 1940s. The book is biographical in approach, and of particular interest to historians will be the chapter that explores the abstract works Piper created during production of the modernist periodical Axis, edited by his soon-to-be wife, Myfanwy Evans. The book's 41-page, richly illustrated 'gazetteer' includes a selection of Piper's public commissions (1955-79), among them an ambitious program of stained glass for Coventry Cathedral. Highly recommended."--Choice

About the Author

David Fraser Jenkins has selected numerous exhibitions of John Piper's work, including the retrospective for the artist's eightieth birthday at the Tate (now Tate Britain) in 1983. He was a curator at the National Museum of Wales, where he first met the artist. He has written extensively about Piper's photographs, his paintings of the 1930s and 1940s, his paintings of Snowdonia and his work for the stage.Hugh Fowler-Wright began collecting and researching John Piper's art in 1993. This has led to him assisting with loans and catalogue entries for many exhibitions from Grey College, Durham in 1999 to the Portland Gallery in 2013. He has written about John Piper's diverse and extensive creativity in Piper in Print (2010) and Creative Partnerships (2011).

About this edition

• Publisher: Unicorn
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1910787051
• ISBN 13: 9781910787052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 500