Patrick George (Hardcover)

The first monograph and only substantial publication on the work of Patrick George (born 1923), this book will reveal to a largely unsuspecting public the lyrical paintings of a rare and original talent. George is better known as a teacher; he taught for forty years at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London before eventually becoming Director there. He has only shown his work infrequently, yet perceptive commentators have identified him as a School of London painter, to be viewed in the same context as Lucian Freud (a friendly rival), Frank Auerbach (a strong supporter of George's work), and Euan Uglow (George's close friend and colleague). For too long dismissed as a follower of Coldstream, Patrick George is in fact very much his own man, a Northern European landscape and figure painter, working in the tradition of Gainsborough and Constable. In this book, his unique contribution to the development of contemporary landscape painting is for the first time examined and evaluated.