About Modern Art

Critical Essays 1948-2000 (Revised Edition)

David Sylvester

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The revised edition of David Sylvester's highly acclaimed collection of essays on twentieth century artists, with a new final section of eight new essays.

About Modern Art is the long-awaited collection of David Sylvester's essays on twentieth-century artists. This is not dry, remote, academic criticism: it has an immediacy and passion which leave one with an inspiring sense of the relevance and importance of art to life.

Published: 15 February 2002
ISBN: 9780712605632
Imprint: Pimlico
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 544
RRP: $59.99

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About the author

David Sylvester

David Sylvester (1924-2001) was a critic of international standing, an authority on contemporary art, and author of key works on Magritte, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon, as well as the acclaimed essays About Modern Art, Interviews with American Artists and the short account of his early life, Memoirs of a Pet Lamb.

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Praise for About Modern Art

Sylvester's real achievement-consists of an almost unrivalled power to gaze, and to find language to express the rewards of intensive contemplation.
Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

Sylvester lists the qualities that make a painter great: "fearlessness; a profound originality, a total absorption in what obsesses him, and above all, a certain authority and gravity". All these apply in equal measure to himself, compounded with vast scholarship, wit and modesty.
Elspeth Barker, Sunday Times

David Sylvester is in many ways the most distinguished critical writer Britain has produced since Roger Fry.
Patrick Reyntiens, Tablet

Sylvester is not only the foremost writer on art: he is also a marvellous prose stylist and an outstanding mind. Original, erudite, witty and moving.
Cressida Connolly, Spectator