Dennis Creffield: Art and Life

This is the first major monograph on the artist Dennis Creffield (1931-2018). It explores his life, work, and passions for the stories of England, the human body, and London. The book is praised by artists and writers such as Henri Cartier Bresson and Howard Jacobson.

Format: Hardback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 04 April 2022
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd

Hugely admired by artists and writers from Henri Cartier Bresson to the Booker prize winner Howard Jacobson, the extraordinary life and work of painter Dennis Creffield (1931-2018) are explored in this, the first major monograph on the artist. The narrative traces the artist's Dickensian upbringing, his formative experiences as a teenager under the tutelage of David Bomberg, his conversion to Catholicism and his award-winning years at the Slade. Focus is given to Creffield's passions for the stories of England, not only in the Cathedral drawings, but in his expressive work on Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, on Blake, and in his paintings and drawings of London, the great Petworth House, Cornish tin mines, and the eerie military buildings on Orford Ness. Complementing his work on England's sacred and profane identity is an equally audacious body of work on the human body, from tender paintings of mother and child to erotic paintings of women to his late paintings of men near death - Turner, Nelson, and Rimbaud. To quote his fellow artist R.B. Kitaj, Creffield's cover has been well and truly blown.

Dimension: 260 x 220 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781848224742