Not Quite Straight: A Memoir

Description

Australian artist Jeffrey Smart's wicked and utterly engaging memoir. Born in respectable (read- dull) Adelaide in 1921, Jeffrey Smart made his first Grand Tour of Europe at age 4. By 5 he had discovered Sex (with a female classmate) and Crime. By 18 he d decided he was the only person in Australia who was not quite straight . The subsequent decades brought further enlightenment, more travel, study with Fernand Leger, artistic development, adventures high and low, international acclaim, friends famous and infamous and - fittingly for someone who refers to himself as a European who carries an Australian passport - a permanent return to the ancient, sun-soaked landscape of Tuscany. This is Jeffrey Smart's account of that very full life. He writes with a wicked wit of his family, friends and lovers, and of his jobs, including being the much-loved Phidias in ABC Radio s The Argonauts and the more lowly position of sink-scrubber on a slow boat to London, before finding fame as an artist. Throughout he is candid, funny and engaging. Like Smart s paintings, Not Quite Straight offers a singular perspective shaped by a unique life.

Jeffrey Smart is one of Australia s best-known and most-loved artists. He was born in Adelaide in 1921 and moved to Tuscany in the 1970s. Jeffrey passed away on the 20th June, aged 91.