Many Royal Academicians will envy their former colleague Leonard Rosoman (1913–2012), as this posthumous publication will ensure the survival of his reputation. Fame and fortune are fleeting in today’s crowded art world, but this sumptuous, dignified tome will carry Rosoman’s name into the future. Handsomely designed and printed and generously illustrated, it offers an expert account of the painter’s long and fertile career, in prose mercifully free of hagiography, gush or promotional pressure. It is in fact a model book of its kind, though sadly monographs of this depth are becoming a rare phenomenon.

Rosoman was four years older than the painter John Minton but did not share the younger man’s swift rise to fame. He took longer over his art education, studying at King Edward VII School of Art in Newcastle (then part of Durham University), the Royal Academy Schools and Central