John McEwen
Vigour and Pith
William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World
By Christopher Wood
Sutton Publishing 272pp £20 order from our bookshop
In his mid-Victorian heyday William Powell Frith (1819–1909), best remembered as the painter of Ramsgate Sands (1852–54), Derby Day (1856–58) and The Railway Station (1860–62), was the most highly priced artist in the world. Even as late as 1875 his period piece Before Dinner in Boswell’s Lodgings, first exhibited in 1868, fetched £4,500 at Christie’s, the record price for a work by a living artist – easily comparable with the million-plus equivalents currently paid for contemporary art.
Now, in apparent anticipation of his centenary, this biography by the Victorian art dealer and historian Christopher Wood coincides with the exhibition William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age at the Guildhall Art Gallery (until 4 March and then at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate), the artist’s first exhibition since
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'A publicist interviewed by Fairrie praises Collins and her heroines ... because these were "women who behaved like men". Is that supposed to be good, given how men behaved towards Collins?'
Peter Conrad reviews a new documentary about Jackie Collins.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/easy-writer
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine