During the twentieth century, people in Britain experienced an unprecedented pace of change – in culture and society, politics, technology and many other fields. Nowhere did these changes register more vividly than in the work of artists. This is Tomorrow is the first book to chart the entire course of the twentieth century through British art in a single, fast-paced narrative. It puts artists centre stage, as witnesses, participants, commentators and creators, giving us the defining images of recent history and our own times.
At its best Bird’s sinuous narrative calls up the texture of history, constructing art less as something shaped by events than as something that eddies its way through and around them …relevatory.
The first book on the life and work of the sculptor Matt Rugg (1935–2020), vividly charting Rugg’s parallel careers as a highly original artist and inspirational teacher. It covers the full range of his output, from his distinctive ‘painted drawings’ to large-scale metal constructions, and the unifying strands in his thought. Harriet Sutcliffe’s chapter on the groundbreaking Basic Course at King’s College, Newcastle, in the 1950s and 1960s, places Rugg’s early career in the context of formative developments in the practice and teaching of art in Britain.
A delightful book about a lovely man and great artist … It reveals how closely connected and deeply involved Matt was with almost all of the radical innovations in British art education of the 1960s.
A fascinating selection of letters by 94 masters of the written word – novelists, poets, essayists and playwrights, ranging from Jane Austen to Chinua Achebe, Erasmus to Angela Carter, spanning 500 years and covering every corner of the globe.
A treasure trove of 100 carefully selected letters, written by great artists, providing the reader with a unique insight into their characters and a glimpse into their lives.
A fascinating and highly engaging selection from thousands of hours of recordings from the Artists’ Lives oral history archive, based at the British Library. We eavesdrop on life-story interviews with more than 40 artists, ranging through childhood memories to creative practice, family life, and unexpected epiphanies of self-awareness. The diversity of voices and stories we encounter creates a unique picture of 20th-century Britain, seen through artists’ eyes.
Forty or so artists talk about making art the centre of a life: their different childhoods, different experiences of war and of love, of parenting, and of art institutions. With Michael Bird’s insightful commentary, Studio Voices is an exhilarating testimony to human creativity. A deeply pleasurable book.
Published by Gallery Pangolin in 2016, to coincide with the first full-scale retrospective of Fullard’s sculpture and drawings for almost twenty years. Fullard told his students at Chelsea School of Art to ‘think about Buster Keaton’s relationship to objects’. Fans of Keaton’s early film One Weekwill see an obvious connection to Fullard’s work, and also to that of his most famous student, Phyllida Barlow.
Lund Humphries, first published 2008, 2nd edn 2016, reissued 2023
Michael Bird’s The St Ives Artists: A Biography of Place and Time opens doors to a hidden past. His wit and readability make light of his meticulous research, and his narrative approach makes this a compelling story.
Helen Dunmore
It is some compliment to Michael Bird’s range and depth of research that this book really draws you in and keeps you reading – there is a lot in here I really didn’t know before.
Galleries Magazine
Most interestingly, Bird examines the emergence of the post-war British art scene … A most enjoyable read.
An excellent new monograph Alastair Sooke, Daily Telegraph
In this incisive, admirably even-handed and beautifully illustrated book, Michael Bird puts Chadwick in context. Daily Telegraph (read full review here)
The laurels must go to Michael Bird’s immensely readable and freshly researched hardback monograph — very much a volume for the shelves of all sculpture lovers Andrew Lambirth, Spectator
Lund Humphries, first published 2005, paperback 2011, reissued with new cover 2024
Bird’s lavishly illustrated retrospective text, the first devoted to Blow, finally gives the artist and her large-scale, vividly hued, obdurately abstract work their due … Highly recommended.’
With an unerring eye for an enlivening anecdote and a good grasp of Wynter’s life and work, it is a highly readable account of an artist about whom little has been published
