Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civilisation
About this audiobook
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2017
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017
A SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR
From his time as Bernard Berenson’s protégé to being the Keeper of the Western Art at 27 and his appointment as the youngest-ever director of the National Gallery, Kenneth Clark displayed precocious genius. No voice has exercised so much power and influence over the arts in Britain as Clark’s. A formidable aesthete, his coterie included John Betjeman, Winston Churchill, Margot Fonteyn, E.M. Forster, Vivien Leigh, the Queen Mother and Henry Moore. Hidden from view, however, was his wife Jane’s alcoholism and his own philandering. In James Stourton’s dazzling biography, Clark is shown as a man who conveyed the profound beauty and importance of art, architecture and civilisation for generations to come.
About the author
James Stourton graduated from Cambridge Art History Faculty in 1979 and joined Sotheby’s Old Master paintings department. Over the next thirty years he organised many famous sales and became Chairman of Sotheby’s UK in 2007.
Alongside his Sotheby’s career James developed an academic interest in Patronage and Collecting, publishing many articles for Apollo, Country Life, the Independent, the Spectator and The Times as well as lecturing to The Art Fund, Cambridge Art History Faculty and Sotheby’s Institute. He has published five books including ‘Great Collectors of Our Time: Art Collecting since 1945’; ‘The British as Art Collectors’ (with Charles Sebag-Montefiore) and ‘Great Houses of London’.
Today he sits on the Panel of the Heritage Memorial Fund and also the Acceptance in Lieu Panel.
