Winter reading: Morris, Freud, Bacon & Co

• a review of The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story at Ditchling Museum of Art+Craft for the Times Literary Supplement blog. 
• a review of a number of new books on the art of letters, including Letter Writing Among Poets (ed. Jonathan Ellis) and The Letters Page (ed. Jon McGregor) in the Times Literary Supplement (print edition out 26 January and online).  
• an introduction to the National Original Print Exhibition catalogue, for the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), London. See illustration above, also accessible online.
• a pair of short catalogue essays on Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud for the exhibition Bacon / Freud: Selected Graphic Works at Marlborough Fine Art, London. Accessible online.
• an interview with artist Sue Ridge for a feature in Printmaking Today, looking at her prizewinning work Aphasia Wallpaper and its roots in the work and life of William Morris. (See illustration below.)
• a review of the catalogue for Degas: A Strange New Beauty, an exhibition of Degas' monotypes at MOMA, New York, in Printmaking Today.

Bacon / Freud at Marlborough Fine Art

It was a great pleasure to write about two titans of twentieth-century art for the catalogue to the current exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, London. The different approaches to printmaking demonstrated by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud creates high drama in the gallery. Bacon and Freud: Selected Graphic Works is at Marlborough Fine Art, 6 Albemarle Street, London until 25 February 2017. The catalogue (pictured below) can also be read online.

Reading with Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Oxford