The Art of John Piper - Hardcover

Jenkins, David Fraser; Fowler-Wright, Hugh

5

13 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1910787051 ISBN 13: 9781910787052

Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2016

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A major artist of the twentieth century, John Piper (1903–92) was a pioneer of modern abstract art in Britain during the 1930s. Piper captured some of the most iconic moments of his time through his art, never letting himself be penned in by a single mode or method of expression. He painted the ruins of the Blitz in Coventry, London, and Bath; the beauty and loneliness of the summits and panoramas of Snowdonia; as well as quaint rural churches around Britain. He was also the designer of nine of the first productions of the operas and a ballet by Benjamin Britten, and a pioneer of lithography, screenprinting, and the use of color in ceramics. Finally, he was the designer of stained glass for the great cathedrals and churches of Coventry, Eton College, and Plymouth.

The first published survey of the whole of John Piper’s art throughout his long life, this volume offers a full account of his artistic ouevre with over three hundred beautiful images and supporting text written by two leading experts on Piper.

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About the Author:

David Fraser Jenkins was a curator at the National Museum of Wales, where he first met the artist. Hugh Fowler-Wright has written about John Piper’s diverse and extensive creativity in Piper in Print and Creative Partnerships.

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)

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