Modernists & Mavericks’: public lecture by prominent art critic

Martin Gayford, a prominent art critic.The prominent art critic Martin Gayford will be discussing Bacon, Freud, Hockney and the London painters at Bangor University on Wednesday, 12 June at 6.30pm, in the Eric Sunderland Lecture Theatre of the Main Arts Building.  Entry is free, and all are welcome to attend the lecture, entitled `Modernists & Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the London Painters’.  

Martin Gayford said:
“In this lecture, I shall examine the way in which the post-war painters of London thrived against the backdrop of the bohemian Soho of the 1940s and 1950s and the ‘Swinging London’ of the 1960s, and explored the possibilities of paint.  The development of painting in London during this period is the story of interlinking friendships, shared experiences, rivalries, and artistic concerns among a number of acclaimed artists, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney, and others.  Drawing on extensive first-hand interviews spanning thirty years with important witnesses and participants, I will tease out the thread connecting these individual lives.  All passionately believed that even in the age of new media, an ancient form could do fresh and marvellous things.”

Martin Gayford is the art critic for The Spectator, and a distinguished writer.  He has studied Britain's leading post-war painters in depth, and came to know many of them personally.  He has the distinction of having had his portrait painted by both Lucian Freud (he was famously the Man with a Blue Scarf) and David Hockney. 

He has published several major books, including Constable in Love and The Yellow House (about Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles), and his latest book, entitled Modernists & Mavericks, was published in 2018.  He is co-author with David Hockney of A History of Pictures.

The T. Rowland Hughes lecture is presented in conjunction with the North West Wales Art Fund.

Publication date: 28 May 2019