The Invention of British Art (Signed first edition)

Bendor Grosvenor

ISBN 10: 1783968095 / ISBN 13: 9781783968091

Published by Elliott & Thompson Limited, London, GB, 2024

About this Item

Signed first edition (First edition, first printing, signed by the author) THE 10 BEST ART BOOKS OF 2024 – THE TIMESLONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 BERGER PRIZE‘Inventive, profound, fabulously quirky, Bendor Grosvenor’s journey to the heart of British art takes him in directions that have never previously been trodden … A triumph.’ Waldemar Januszczak‘An intellectually thrilling 400-page romp through 12,000 years of our often brutal history’ Daily TelegraphBritain has produced some of the world’s most famous artists and paintings. But what made British art ‘great’? Was it the individual genius of artists like Hogarth and Constable? Or were their careers shaped by a distinctly ‘British’ society, culture and history? And if so, why has that distinctiveness been overlooked, and why have we ignored so many of the characters who helped create the story of British art?In The Invention of British Art, Bendor Grosvenor embarks on a journey of discovery through an incredible array of artworks and artists from 10,000 BCE to the nineteenth century, revealing how the art from these isles was created, what made it distinctive, and why it took so long to emerge. From folk art to the role of female artists, from the influences of invaders to the colonised territories of the British Empire, the book embraces previously overlooked contributions to the story of British art and explores the cultural, political and economic factors that helped to shape it.Beautifully illustrated throughout, The Invention of British Art is a provocative and captivating survey of the glories of British art.

Seller Inventory # 9781783968091-SF

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Invention of British Art (Signed first edition)
• Publisher: Elliott & Thompson Limited, London, GB
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1783968095
• ISBN 13: 9781783968091
• Binding: hard
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

You have to try really hard, it seems, to like British art. Even its admirers appear to believe it has contributed little to world art history. In 1771 the art historian Horace Walpole wondered why, despite being a country ‘so profusely beautified with the amenities of nature’, Britain had ‘produced so few good painters of landscape’. Tate, the closest thing we have to a gallery of British art, assigns less than a quarter of its display space to works made before 1900. Outside Britain, only one gallery in the whole world is dedicated to British art, in Yale. Few people visit it. Why is British art so overlooked? Is it because Britain itself has never been enthusiastic about art, and indeed is still at ill at ease with it today? Is it, quite simply, bad? Or has British art suffered an injustice, its impact on the world unjustly disregarded? None of these questions can be answered without a frank reassessment of the history of British art, those who made it, and who it was made for. Leading art historian Bendor Grosvenor is taking on that challenge. Beautifully illustrated throughout, The Invention of British Art is a provocative and captivating survey of British art from c. 4000 BCE to the 19th century. Looking at key moments, objects, and individuals from each era, it explores how they were shaped by the world in which the artists lived, and why – above all – it took so long for the art from theses isles to actually become ‘British’. From folk art to the role of female artists, from the influences of invaders to the territories of the British Empire, the story of British art is just as much a story of Britain’s place in the world, and its impact upon it, as the art and artists themselves.