Laura Cumming

Destined to become a new classic Chris KrausA dazzlingly original reassessment of women s stories bodies and art and how we think about them For decades feminist artists have confronted the problem of how to tell the truth about their experiences as bodies Queer bodies sick bodies racialised bodies female bodies what is their language what are the materials we need to transcribe it Exploring the ways in which feminist artists have taken up this challenge Art Monsters is a landmark intervention in how we think about art and the body Weaving daring links between disparate artists and writers from Julia Margaret Cameron s photography to Kara Walker s silhouettes Vanessa Bell s portraits to Eva Hesse s rope sculptures Lauren Elkin shows that their work offers a potent celebration of beauty and excess sentiment and touch the personal and the political The Susan Sontag of her generation Deborah Levy

WINNER OF THE WRITERS PRIZE NON FICTION CATEGORY SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN S PRIZE FOR NON FICTION 2024 A wonderful read or a great present for anyone who loves stories and art Nina Stibbe author of Love NinaA beautifully illustrated new memoir of a life in art a father and daughter and what a shared love of a painting can come to mean We see with everything that we are On the morning of 12 October 1654 a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft The thunderclap was heard over seventy miles away Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius dead at thirty two leaving only his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch and barely a dozen known paintings The explosion that killed him also buried his reputation along with answers to the mysteries of his life and career What happened to Fabritius before and after this disaster is just one of the discoveries in a book that explores the relationship between art and life interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming her Scottish painter father who also died too young and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age This is a book about what a picture may come to mean how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap A SUNDAY TIMES DAILY EXPRESS AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE

En Trueno, Laura Cumming revela su pasión por el arte del Siglo de Oro holandes y su determinación por reivindicar al pintor Carel Fabritius. Este es un libro sobre lo que un cuadro puede llegar a significar: como puede entrar en tu vida y cambiar tu forma de pensar con la inmediatez de un trueno. Tambien es un libro sobre la precariedad de la vida humana, sobre como puede arrebatarsenos en un instante. ¿Que puede hacer el arte para sostenernos? Las obras que sobreviven cuentan su propia historia en estas paginas.

Velázquez desaparecido, una emocionante indagación en el complejo significado de la autenticidad, rastrea la inquebrantable determinación que impulsa a artistas y coleccionistas, y viaja de la extravagante corte española de la decada de 1700 a las despiadadas casas de subastas de Londres y Nueva York en el siglo XIX. En 1845, el librero ingles John Snare se topo con el retrato ennegrecido de un principe. Al sospechar que podia tratarse de un Velazquez perdido mucho tiempo atras, compro el cuadro y se propuso averiguar su extraña historia. Cuando Laura Cumming tropezo a su vez con la historia de John Snare, emprendio su propia busqueda, cuyo objeto incluia tanto la vida del librero como la vida y obra de Velazquez, un pintor tan maravilloso como escurridizo. Velazquez desaparecido recoge esta enigmatica historia y, ademas, constituye un magnifico acercamiento a la figura del pintor español que cambiara para siempre nuestra apreciacion de su obra. Reseñas:"Velazquez desaparecido no solo es una apasionante historia detectivesca y una brillante reconstruccion de una controversia artistica, sino que tambien es un homenaje a la obra de Velazquez, escrito poruna critica absolutamente hechizada por su genio, del mi