"Nearly every major figure of his era," writes his biographer Adrian Frazier, "worked with Moore, tangled with Moore, took his impression from, or left it on, George Moore." The Anglo-Irish novelist George Moore (1852-1933) espoused multiple identities. An agent provocateur whether as an art critic, novelist, short fiction writer or memoirist, always probing and provocative, often deliberately controversial, the personality at the core of this book invented himself as he reinvented his contemporary world. Moore's key role-as observer-participant and as satirist-within many literary and aesthetic movements at the end of the Victorian period and into the twentieth century owed considerably to the structures and manners of collaboration that he embraced. This book throws into relief the multiple ways in which Moore's work can serve as a counterbalance to established understandings of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century literary aesthetics both through innovative scholarly readings of Moore's work and through illustrative case studies of Moore's collaborative practice by making available, for the first time, two manuscript plays he co-authored with Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) in 1894. It is this collaborative practice in conjunction with his cosmopolitan outlook that turned Moore into a key player in the fin-de-siecle formation of an international aesthetic community. This book explores the full range of Moore's collaborations and cultural encounters: from 1870s Paris art exhibitions to turn-of-the-century Dublin and London; from gossip to the culture of the barmaid; from the worship of Balzac to the fraught engagement with Yeats; from music to Celtic cultural translation. Moore's reputation as a collaborator with the most significant artistic individuals of his time in Britain, Ireland and France in particular, but also in Europe more widely, provides a rich exposition of modes of exchange and influence in the period, and a unique and distinctive perspective on Moore himself.

Degas was a celebrity in Britain in his lifetime, thanks originally to George Moore's pioneering essay, The Painter of Modern Life. When Degas died Moore reprised the essay with some further recollections, in part as a riposte to the memoir published by Degas's great admirer and follower, Walter Sickert. Sickert's essay, sparkling, engaged, witty and occasionally combative, is amongst the best of his writings. Together these memoirs represent some of the most vivid responses to Impressionism in English - as well as painting an intimate picture of arguably the most important and most influential - and the most humane - of the painters of the later 19th century. Hitherto difficult to find, these essays are reprinted here with an introduction by Anna Gruetzner Robins and are illustrated with 30 pages of colour plates covering the span of Degas's dazzling career.

A fresh perspective on British landscape drawing in the Victorian and Modern eras. The attempts by artists of the Victorian and early Modern period to convey not merely the physical properties of a landscape but also its emotional and spiritual impact – landscape as ‘places of the mind’, as the critic Geoffrey Grigson put it – is the focus of this fascinating new study of British watercolours produced between 1850 and 1950. Drawing on the British Museum’s impressive collection, this book explores artists’ spiritual quests to capture the essence of landscape and convey a sense of place. Artists of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew on earlier traditions but developed and extended the genre through their imaginative, personal responses to the artistic, cultural and social upheavals of the time. The book includes works by Victorian artists Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Poynter and by many well known twentieth-century artists, such as John and Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore, some of which have never previously been published.

Nearly every major figure of his era, writes his biographer Adrian Frazier, worked with Moore, tangled with Moore, took his impression from, or left it on, George Moore. The Anglo-Irish novelist George Moore (1852 1933) espoused multiple identities. An agent provocateur whether as an art critic, novelist, short fiction writer or memoirist, always probing and provocative, often deliberately controversial, the personality at the core of this book invented himself as he reinvented his contemporary world. Moore s key role3/4as observer-participant and as satirist3/4within many literary and aesthetic movements at the end of the Victorian period and into the twentieth century owed considerably to the structures and manners of collaboration that he embraced. This book throws into relief the multiple ways in which Moore s work can serve as a counterbalance to established understandings of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century literary aesthetics both through innovative scholarly readings of Moore s work and through illustrative case studies of Moore s collaborative practice by making available, for the first time, two manuscript plays he co-authored with Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) in 1894 and 1904 through 1906. It is this collaborative practice in conjunction with his cosmopolitan outlook that turned Moore into a key player in the fin-de-siecle formation of an international aesthetic community. This book explores the full range of Moore s collaborations and cultural encounters: from 1870s Paris art exhibitions to turn-of-the-century Dublin and London; from gossip to the culture of the barmaid; from the worship of Balzac to the fraught engagement with Yeats; from music to Celtic cultural translation. Moore s reputation as a collaborator with the most significant artistic individuals of his time in Britain, Ireland and France in particular, but also in Europe more widely, provides a rich exposition of modes of exchange and influence in the period, and a unique and distinctive perspective on Moore himself."

Walter Sickert was one of the most influential artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An apprentice of Whistler and close associate of Degas, he engaged with the work of French artists of the time. Sickert in turn influenced many British painters up to the present day. This book will show how Sickert transformed the representation of everyday life, with his innovative approach to subject matter, radical compositions and the evocation of the materiality of existence in paint. It will explore the changing nature of his work - from an impressionistic approach in the 1880s to a pioneering use of photography in the 1930s - and how he returned over and over to locations and subjects, including his penetrating self-portraits. Sickert's imagination was fuelled by news and current events such as the Camden Town Murders and newspaper photography, but also by popular culture - music halls, the stage, the rise of cinema and celebrity. Featuring over 200 images from the exhibition and a wide range of essays by scholars, as well as reflections on Sickert's relevance and influence by a selection of contemporary painters including Kaye Donachie and Somaya Critchlow.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was a major European artist and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whose statements on art from the 1880s to the 1930s have been used by artists and writers on art for more than half a century. His criticism is provocative and penetrating, his style brilliant and entertaining. This is the most comprehensive selection of his writings to date.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was a major European artist and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whose statements on art from the 1880s to the 1930s have been used by artists and writers on art for more than half a century. His criticism is provocative and penetrating, his writing style brilliant and entertaining. The need for a comprehensive edition of Sickert's art-critical writings is overwhelming, and the texts gathered together by Anna Gruetzner Robins, a leading expert on the subject, prove that his contribution as an art-writer was a major one in its own right. The texts are presented chronologically and supported by notes which give the information necessary to situate the figures and events to which Sickert refers.

Whistler embarked on a new project in the 1880s, working on a small scale in oil, pastel and watercolour, representing new London subjects and painting portraits of new urban types. This book is the first critical study of Whistler and his Impressionist followers and offers an in-depth analysis of Whistler's art as well as new insights into his modernist project. Anna Gruetzner Robins shows how Whistler formed an avant-garde group around himself and sought out followers who included Elizabeth Armstrong Forbes, Mortimer Menpes, Theodore Roussel, Walter Sickert and Sidney Starr to emulate his art and proselytise on his behalf. Their reminiscences and writings provide new information about Whistler's art, while their own little-known work, much of which is published here for the first time, is a testimony to its persuasive effect. Using a wealth of primary material, Robins tracks the history of Whistler and his group and shows through testimony and practice that they were formulating an identity as avant-garde artists. This is the first critical study of these Impressionist artists and throws new light on this neglected aspect of British art.