The definitive biography of this brilliant polymath--director of the National Gallery, author, patron of the arts, social lion, and singular pioneer of television--that also tells the story of the arts in the twentieth century through his astonishing life. Kenneth Clark's thirteen-part 1969 television series, Civilisation, established him as a globally admired figure. Clark was prescient in making this series: the upheavals of the century, the Cold War among others, convinced him of the power of barbarism and the fragility of culture. He would burnish his image with two memoirs that artfully omitted the more complicated details of his life. Now, drawing on a vast, previously unseen archive, James Stourton reveals the formidable intellect and the private man behind the figure who effortlessly dominated the art world for more than half a century: his privileged upbringing, his interest in art history beginning at Oxford, his remarkable early successes. At 27 he was keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean in Oxford and at 29, the youngest director of The National Gallery. During the war he arranged for its entire collection to be hidden in slate mines in Wales and organized packed concerts of classical music at the Gallery to keep up the spirits of Londoners during the bombing. WWII helped shape his belief that art should be brought to the widest audience, a social and moral position that would inform the rest of his career. Television became a means for this message when he was appointed the first chairman of the Independent Television Authority. Stourton reveals the tortuous state of his marriage during and after the war, his wife's alcoholism, and the aspects of his own nature that he worked to keep hidden. A superb work of biography, Kenneth Clark is a revelation of its remarkable subject.

A portrait of two important black social scientists and a broader history of race relations, this important work captures the vitality and chaos of post-war politics in New York, recasting the story of the civil rights movement.

Describes how the ghetto separates Blacks not only from white people, but also from opportunities and resources.

Based on lectures given by the author to the University of Oxford.

In this richly illustrated book, Lord Clark traces the changes in the western ideal of feminine beauty from Egyptian art of the second millennium BC down to the movie screens of the present day.

"This book presents a series of insightful discussions centered around the concept of identity as the key to understanding how racial minorities define reality, experience changes in racial consciousness, and perceive themselves and the world around them. This volume brings together many influential thinkers, writers, scholars, and researchers who tell a story that is deeply embedded in American society and still unfolding. The chapters are concise, well written, and presented in a sequence that captures the power and vision of Clark's testimony, rationale, methodology, and subsequent discoveries, which have altered the landscape of psychology. This volume is a must read for laypeople, students and professionals from a range of disciplines including psychology, social work, law, theology, ethics, sociology, and American history who will be impressed by the power and scope of the deeply probing analyses. This volume examines the continuing reality of racism but takes us beyond conceptions of "damage" to illuminate the strengths and resilience of African American culture. In a fitting tribute to Kenneth B. Clark, the contributors treat the cultural and historical context of racial identity as essential for a psychological analysis"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

In February 1972 Henry Moores sculpture studios in the English countryside at Much Hadham were filled with the preparations for his retrospective exhibition in Florence. In search of peace and quiet, he went into a smaller room overlooking the fields where a local farmer grazed his sheep. The sheep came very close to the window, attracting his attention, and he began to draw them. Initially he saw them as nothing more than four-legged balls of wool, but his vision changed as he explored what they were really like the way they moved, the shape of their bodies under the fleece. They also developed strong human and biblical associations, and the sight of a ewe with her lamb evoked the mother-and-child theme a large form sheltering a small one which has been important to Henry Moore in all his work. He drew the sheep again that summer after they were shorn, when he could see the shapes of the bodies which had been covered by wool. Solid in form, sudden and vigorous in movement, Henry Moores sheep are created through a network of swirling and zigzagging lines in the rapid (and in Moores hands) sensitive medium of ballpoint pen. The effect is both familiar and monumental; as Lord Clark comments, We expect Henry Moore to give a certain nobility to everything he draws; but more surprising is the way in which these drawings express a feeling of real affection for their subject.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Discussion of five masters of humanistic architecture, painting and sculpture in fifteenth century Italy - Alberti, Donatello, Uccello, Mantegna and Botticelli.