Gwen Raverat: Friends, Family and Affections - Couverture rigide

Spalding, Frances

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1860467466 ISBN 13 : 9781860467462

Editeur : Harvill Press, 2001

Synopsis

"The best of these Darwins is that they are cut out of rock - three taps is enough to convince one how immense is their solidarity." So wrote Virginia Woolf affectionately of Gwen Raverat, the granddaughter of Charles Darwin. In this biography, France Spalding creates a moving portrait of Gwen's character, her life and her art. It begins in late-Victorian Cambridge, which Gwen herself amusingly described in her childhood memoir "Period Piece". But Frances Spalding looks behind and beyond the pages of this much-loved book. She explores Gwen's Darwin inheritance, her conflicts when she moves beyond her home environment to enter the Slade School of Art, her encounter with Post-Impressionism, and her friendships with Stanley Spencer, Rupert Brooke, and members of the Bloomsbury set. Central to her life is her husband, the Frenchman Jacques Raverat, who emerges as a vivid, courageous personality. At each stage, Gwen's artistic creativity is interwoven with her relationships and circumstances. She helps revive the medium of wood-engraving and, with Jacques, celebrates the South of France in the art they produce while living in Venice. In the late 1920s her abiding love of Cambridge draws her back to a corner of England with which she is inextricably associated. Finally, her life comes full circle in old age when she moves into The Old Granary that once formed part of her childhood home. In this authorised biography Frances Spalding draws on a huge cache of unpublished papers to bring us a life lived with bravery, humour, realism and integrity, surrounded by a remarkable cast of relatives, friends and associates.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

"A sympathetic, fastidious and beautifully produced biography...a fascinating portrait of an unusual woman...exquisite" (Robert McCrum Observer)

"This stylishly produced biography is an objet d'art in its own right, while Spalding's prose adopts the economy of the illustrations: austere, pragmatic and wholly devoid of ostentation" (Guardian)

"Moving biography" (Sunday Telegraph)

"Fine study of Darwin's grand-daughter and her role in the Bloomsbury movement" (Observer)

Biographie de l'auteur

Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and biographer. Her books include acclaimed biographies of the painters Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Stevie Smith. She has written a history of the Tate Gallery and was the editor of Charleston magazine. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvill Press
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1860467466
• ISBN 13: 9781860467462
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 438
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Terminal Video; n.pederzini@terminaldistribuzione.com; ; Via Bruno Buozzi, 24/26,; Granarolo dell'Emilia BO,; Italie