Walter Sickert

Description

Walter Sickert (1860-1942) was a key figure in the artistic dialogue between Britain and France, linked with James McNeill Whistler and Edgar Degas in his lifetime and an influence on the work of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in the late twentieth century. Sickert developed a radical modern approach to historical genres such as narrative painting and the nude and transformed the representation of everyday life through his innovative approach to subject matter, radical compositional strategies and the evocation of the materiality of existence in paint. He was also a master of self-invention and theatricality both in the self-portraits he executed throughout his life and in his evocations of the bawdy world of music hall artists and performers. Sickert revived the British tradition of genre painting in his own provocative way. His methods derived from French modern painting (Impressionists, Nabis and Fauves) during the first part of his career to a pioneering use of photography in the 1930s. This beautifully illustrated book covers all aspects of Sickert's career and legacy.

EMMA CHAMBERS is Curator, Modern British Art, at Tate.

This hellishly brilliant exhibition takes you to a place beyond simple moral or political truth. Whatever Sickert was, he was the only British artist of his time who can be as powerful as Munch, Van Gogh or Otto Dix.--The Guardian