Examines the century-old series of murders that terrorized London in the 1880s, drawing on research, state-of-the-art forensic science, and insights into the criminal mind to reveal the true identity of the infamous Jack the Ripper.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was a major European artist and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whose statements on art from the 1880s to the 1930s have been used by artists and writers for more than half a century. Containing over 400 entries, this collection offers new insight into Sickert as an artist and provides valuable information about other British artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

First major life of the British painter; it re-appraises his talent and demolishes Patricia Corwell's assertions that he was Jack the Ripper.

Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focus. In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End. Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her—and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer. In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert. It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Adding layer after layer of circumstantial evidence to the physical evidence discovered by modern forensic science and expert minds, Cornwell shows that Sickert, who died peacefully in his bed in 1942, at the age of 81, was not only one of Great Britain’s greatest painters but also a serial killer, a damaged diabolical man driven by megalomania and hate. She exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters that were written to the Metropolitan Police and the press. Her detailed analysis of his paintings shows that his art continually depicted his horrific mutilation of his victims, and her examination of this man’s birth defects, the consequent genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing present a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created. New information and startling revelations detailed in Portrait of a Killer include: - How a year-long battery of more than 100 DNA tests—on samples drawn by Cornwell’s forensics team in September 2001 from original Ripper letters and Sickert documents—yielded the first shadows of the 75- to 114 year-old genetic evid...

"Between 1870 and 1910 the burgeoning populations and hectic speed of life in London and Paris fascinated artists on both sides of the English Channel. French artists such as Edgar Degas and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec pioneered new ways of representing city life, profoundly influencing many British artists." "This publication examines the exciting and controversial exchange of pictorial and aesthetic ideas that took place as British art adapted to modernity, and explores the rich interplay between the making, exhibiting and collecting of new figurative art." "The pivotal figures in this cross-cultural dialogue are Degas, hailed in Britain as a genius; Sickert, whose Degas-inspired art explored the gritty, urban side of modern life; and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose largest one-man show was staged in Regent Street, London. Works by these and other key artists, including Vuillard, Bonnard, Tissot, Whistler, Steer and Rothenstein, involved society portraiture and posters, scenes of the street and public entertainment, creating evocative images of the decadence and spectacle of the fin-de-siecle metropolis."--BOOK JACKET.

As well as being one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Virginia Woolf was also a prolific essayist. In Walter Sickert: A Conversation (first published in 1934), Woolf argues for a close connection between the visual arts and literature and for Sickert's pre-eminence among living painters. The essay takes us behind the scenes at a dinner party among liiterary friends who have recently attended a Sickert exhibition. The language employed is vivid and quite unlike conventional art criticism. One, on entering the show, became all eye. I flew from colour to colour, from red to blue, from yellow to green. Colours went spirally through my body lighting a flare as if a rocket fell through the night... Another argues that Sickert's skills as a portraitist make him a great biographer...When he paints a portrait I read a life Another argues that He is more of a novelist than a biographer... He likes to set his characters in motion, to see them in action. On one thing they all agree: Sickert is probably the best painter now living in England. since its original publication, this new edition features the original cover artwork, a charming pen-and-ink drawing by Virginia Woolf's sister, the artist Vanessa Bell.

The hustle and bustle of London, its changing landscape and world-renowned sights have provided a rich subject for the many artists who have visited and inhabited the city. Drawing from Tate's superb collection and beyond, this stunning book presents 100 paintings from the 17th century to the present. Whether iconic or unusual, topographical or verging on the abstract, each work offers a special perspective. Contextualised by an insight into the chosen view or location, the artist, and their particular technique, the paintings are accompanied by revealing and memorable anecdotes which vividly bring the images to life. Featuring some of the world's most influential artists -Canaletto, Turner, Constable, Pissarro, Monet, Kossoff and Auerbach - as well as lesser-known contemporary artists, such as David Hepher and Lisa Milroy, London in Paint brings together a selection of artworks which portray the changing faces of London, and provide a fresh look - through artists' eyes - at this much-loved global city.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was an artist of prodigious creativity. For sixty years, in his roles as painter, teacher, and polemicist, he was a source of inspiration and influence to successive generations of British painters. With his roots in the Victorian era, Sickert broke all taboos. He was uncompromisingly truthful, revealing beauty in the squalid as in the sublime: in cockney music halls, the crumbling streets of Dieppe, the grand sites of Venice, and the low-life of Camden Town. Decades before Warhol, he exploited the potential of photo-based imagery and of studio production lines to create iconic portraits of the grandees of theatrical, social, and political life. This catalogue is divided into two parts: essay chapters describe Sickert's chronology in terms of stylistic and technical development, and a fully illustrated catalogue presents more than 2800 drawings and paintings, many of which have never been published before.