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Critic, author and art pilgrim Martin Gayford recounts some of the many journeys he has made in the course of a lifetime in pursuit of art
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Overview
In the course of a career spent thinking and writing about art, the critic Martin Gayford has travelled all over the world in pursuit of first-hand encounters with art and artists. Gayford’s journeys, often to rather inaccessible places, involve frustrations and complications, but also serendipitous meetings and outcomes, which he makes as much part of each story as the final destination. Ever amusing, informative and self-deprecating, Gayford recounts trips to see Brancusi’s Endless Column in Romania, prehistoric cave art in France, the museum island of Naoshima in Japan, the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas, and an installation by Roni Horn in the far northwest of Iceland.
Other journeys are to meet artists – Robert Rauschenberg in New York, Marina Abramovic in Venice, Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris – or are made in the company of artists, such as a trip to Beijing with Gilbert & George. These encounters provide insights into the way artists approach and think about their art, and reveal the importance of their personal environment to their practice. They also affect Gayford’s own evolving ideas over a lifetime of passionate engagement with art. A perceptive and knowledgeable companion, Gayford shares the highs and lows of cultural travel, and makes a convincing case that, where art is concerned, only being there will do.
Reviews
'Gayford is a great travelling companion. Where art criticism can be pompous, wordy and jargon-filled, here he’s warm, honest, confiding, intelligent, yes, but never talking down to his reader'
Shiny New Books
'Martin Gayford is a perceptive and informed critic who has been writing about art for several decades and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject … Gayford’s light touch makes it a thumping good read'
The Artist
'An admirable book … one of [Gayford’s] talents is the ability to convey the essence of an artist’s work, a style or an art movement in clear, concise passages that contain no jargon'
Country Life
'A charming short book about [Gayford’s] peregrinations and how different contexts have affected his thinking about the art and the artists'
Michael Prodger’s Books of the Year, Sunday Times
'The experience of reading Gayford’s travelogue is buoyed along by his crisp, lucid prose … In its understated way, the book offers a kind of modern-day equivalent to Herodotus – with Gayford dutifully trudging the earth, reporting on things both incidental and profound'
Times Literary Supplement
'Engaging and entertaining ... A great storyteller, Gayford's writing is both chatty and informative and the book is a pleasure to read'
Amy Dempsey, Shepherd.com
Product Information
Book Details
Format: Hardback
Size: 21.6 x 13.5 cm
Extent: 192 pp
Illustrations: 54
Publication date: 19 September 2019
ISBN: 9780500094112
About the Author
Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He is the author of many books, including Man with a Blue Scarf, Rendez-vous with Art, (with Philippe de Montebello), A Bigger Message, Modernists & Mavericks, A History of Pictures (with David Hockney), The Pursuit of Art and Spring Cannot be Cancelled, all published by Thames & Hudson.
