book

The Cult of Art

The Cult of Art

I found this book 25 years ago on the floor of a train going from Dublin to Limerick. I love the cigarette burn and old ticket from London to Southampton used as a bookmark. The author was born in Paris in 1918 and was the youngest son of René Gimpel, the well-known art dealer from that time. He had an exciting life and having read his book, I get the feeling he would rather be in a car crash than share a meal with an artist. If he had …

A Giacometti Portrait

A Giacometti Portrait

He describes Giacometti's' mood swings, his silence, his laughter and joking and how he "demolished with joy” the portrait at different stages only to begin again the next day. It's an in-depth record of what it was like to sit for Giacometti. There was a great line in it when Giacometti says to his irate sitter: ''The best way to obtain success is to run away from it. I was looking for old footage of...