Kenneth McConkey

Anna Gruetzner Robins

Late in his career, Claude Monet returned to London to paint the fog that had entranced him years before. The resulting sequence of pictures represents some of the fascination that French painters felt for Britain. Similarly, many British collectors and young painters embraced and were influenced by the work of the French Impressionists. This book describes the activities of the French Impressionist painters on their visits to Britain, considers the dissemination of Impressionist painting through British dealers and collectors, explores the response of artists from Britain and Ireland to the Impressionist movement, and sets all of these against the backdrop of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. McConkey and Robins describe the work of Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and other Impressionists working in London, showing how this art influenced the community of young British painters disenchanted with British art schools and art exhibiting standards. The authors investigate the role played by two innovative painters who were American expatriates, James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. And they explain how such artists as William Orpen, George Clausen, Stanhope Forbes, Henry La Thangue, Walter Sickert, and Philip Wilson Steer sought out new and radical approaches to picture making, formed new secessionist art societies, and articulated new concepts of the role of art, rejecting historical pageants and fashionable aestheticism and focusing on modern rural and urban conditions. The book is the catalogue of an exhibition that will be at the Barbican Art Gallery in London from January to March 1995, and then move to Dublin.

Impressionism in Britain

Study of the history and development of the visual arts in Ireland during this period, including details of some 52 artists with examples of their work.

Irish Art, 1860-1960

A Free Spirit

In this incisive study, author Kenneth McConkey discusses for the first time the important position that the NEAC has held within the development of British art. He charts the ebb and flow of a society that to this day celebrates the richness of life in all its manifestations. This colourful book is a milestone in the study of British Art.

A History of the New English Art Club

The New English

This title was first published in 2002. 'Memory and Desire' is a lavishly illustrated account of the art world in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. It calls upon rich resources of contemporary diaries, letters and art criticism, as well as the analysis of works of art to answer questions about how and why new artistic tendencies emerged and tastes changed. Eschewing the familiar narrative of an inevitable progress towards modernism, Kenneth McConkey considers a broad range of art and critical thinking in the period. Discussing the market for old master paintings, which rivalled those for modern art, and the question of how and why certain genres of art were particularly successful at the time, McConkey explores the detail and significance of contemporary taste. He draws upon the work of commercially successful painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, George Clausen, Alfred East, John Lavery and Philip Wilson Steer, and their critic-supporters to throw light upon current arguments about training, aesthetics, visual memory and the creation of new art. 'Memory and Desire' is a major contribution to our knowledge of this important period in British art.

Painting in Britain and Ireland at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Memory and Desire

Memory and Desire is a lavishly illustrated account of the art world in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. It calls upon rich resources of contemporary diaries, letters and art criticism, as well as the analysis of works of art to answer questions about how and why new artistic tendencies emerged and tastes changed. Eschewing the familiar narrative of an inevitable progress towards modernism, Kenneth McConkey considers a broad range of art and critical thinking in the period. Discussing the market for old master paintings, which rivalled those for modern art, and the question of how and why certain genres of art were particularly successful at the time, McConkey explores the detail and significance of contemporary taste. He draws upon the work of commercially successful painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, George Clausen, Alfred East, John Lavery and Philip Wilson Steer, and their critic-supporters to throw light upon current arguments about training, aesthetics, visual memory and the creation of new art. Memory and Desire is a major contribution to our knowledge of this important period in British art.

A collection of paintings by Irish artist John Lavery.

Sir John Lavery

Charlotte Topsfield

Arthur Melville was arguably the most innovative and modernist Scottish artist of his generation and one of the finest British watercolourists of the nineteenth century, yet he avoided categorization. In 1943 that the Scottish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson could confess that although they never met, "his work opened up to me the way to free painting - not merely freedom in the use of paint, but freedom of outlook." This book offers a comprehensive survey of Arthur Melville's (1855-1904) rich and varied career as artist-adventurer, Orientalist, forerunner of The Glasgow Boys, painter of modern life and re-interpreter of the landscape of Scotland. His travels inspired spectacular watercolors and paintings. This book illustrates around sixty of his works, each with a catalogue entry, and an essay by Kenneth McConkey, which discusses Melville's art and career.

Arthur Melville

Professor Kenneth McConkey's monograph is the first major publication, incorporating many years of research, on one of the most important British artists of his generation.

Kenneth McConkey

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