Simon Morley

A new concise history of modern painting, offering an indispensable reference to the complexities and characteristics of this medium. While acknowledging the legacy of Herbert Read's classic 1959 study A Concise History of Modern Painting in the World of Art series, academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundation of modern art much earlier than Read, at the emergence of...

The rose is bursting with meaning: over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown. Today the rose enjoys unrivalled popularity across the globe, ever present at life's seminal moments. Grown in the Middle East two thousand years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, it has attached itself to us,...

As artists push further and further beyond their, and our, comfort zones, this book aims to help decipher the bizarre and often intimidating aspects of modern and contemporary art by exploring twenty works of art in terms of seven 'keys'. History, biography, aesthetics, experience, theory, criticism and the market represent conventional 'modes of existence' for every artwork discussed, but in...

Exploring the deep-rooted links between British artists and France during the Modernist period The late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century was the "golden age" of British artists living and working in France. They were attracted to Paris, home to renowned art academies, galleries, modern masters, and a liberating bohemian lifestyle. But many also travelled widely in France, whether on painting holidays...