Graham Crowley (b. 1950) became a painter in the early 1970s out of conviction for the validity of painting, at a time when artists of the '1968 generation' were seeking to break the link with painting and its traditions. This book is the first to review the achievement of a highly regarded contemporary artist. In a deliberate reaction to British dependence on American models, Crowley looked initially to 'European Modernism', and the clamorous, bright, exciting, 'non-figurative' images he was making by the late 1970s were directly inspired by Leger. Quite quickly his visual language moved to the figurative, with the need to draw content into his images: with his conscious adoption of 'genre' painting, his subject became increasingly his own life and work experience. Following landscape paintings of housing estates focussed on urban decay, Crowley directed his attention to the genres of rural landscape and flower painting, the landscape of West Cork inspiring his most recent paintings since Crowley moved there in the mid-1990s. Martin Holman's engaging text surveys the artist's entire career to date and is accompanied by colour reproductions of key works.

Author Biography

Martin Holman is a freelance writer and arts management consultant. As writer and editor he has contributed to publications about Mark Gertler, Peter Lanyon, Kim Lim and Keith Wilson (among others) and has written for many periodicals, including Artscribe, Literary Review, Art World and the London Magazine.