This absolute gem is a comprehensive journey of discovery, and it is a totally beguiling, fascinating insight into the lives and work of over 50 iconic artists, each one a giant of creativity.
If I must pick my favourite, it would be Van Gogh’s studio in Arles. Indeed, how could I not, when The National Gallery is exhibiting his magnificent and somehow poignant (to me) works at the moment? ‘I have one big worry less now that I have found the little white studio,‘ he told his brother Theo, though of course in a very short time he was … No, no, read this book, and trust me, you will see not just the studio but in some measure, the soul of the owner’s vision and genius.
But it’s not just our exemplar ground breaking ‘artists’ that caught my fancy but do take a look at Posy Simmonds, the cartoonist and graphic artist. Having just reviewed Vincent: a graphic biography by Simon Elliott which I loved, I found I wanted a sense of where the graphic book is created by Posy. And also get a sense of how, because so often the place reflects the creative. James Oses illustrations encapsulates the studio and as I say, exposes to some extent – somehow – the working method.
Then Modigliani, the Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani who spent most of his working life in Paris, which of course, Vincent fled for Arles. Amedeo had several studios, reaching heights of mess. Yes, really. And strange candlesticks- You must buy and read this to learn more.
There are oodles of studios, oodles of revelations, each one adding to our understanding of the artist and the development of his works. But, and this probably sounds quite mad, but the book has that traditional smell to the pages. Yes, really. You pick it up, open it, and there it is, that scent of fine, heavy paper. So am I mad? Perhaps but I loved its content and its scent, in all its grandeur – so very there. (I write at the end of the dining room table, just saying, and my paperbacks do not have that odour of excellence and class.)
Christmas is coming. So bear this lovely book in mind. Studios of Their Own – Where Great Artists Work by Alex Johnson. Illustrations by James Oses. pub. Frances Lincoln. £19./99 Hardback and ebook/97807112293786
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