Michael Bracewell

Bracewell published four works of fiction in 1988-89, of which this was the third. I don't know what order they were written in, but this feels very much like a debut novel compared with the other two I've read, 1992's brilliant "The Conclave" and the later "Perfect Tense". It's about well-off/stinking rich young Home Counties types making their way in and out of London in the 70's and 80's. There is one workng class character who meets a ludicrous end at the halfway point, and one other, an unpleasant sponger, whose story never adds up to much. The central couple comprises titled Miles and model Stella, whose TV career takes her to (the horror!) the West Midlands, thus dooming the relationship.

Bracewell is a phenomenal stylist and that's in evidence here, although the prose is sometimes finical. I'm looking forward to reading his latest, just out after a 20-year hiatus from fiction.… (mere)

For decades the most continually provocative of British artists, Richard Hamilton (1922–2011, right) was long concerned with the great themes of Western painting. At the time of his death, he was completing plans for an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, to include the first public showing of what turned out to be his final work. Based on Balzac's short story, The Unknown Masterpiece, it depicts three masters of painting—Poussin, Courbet, and Titian—contemplating a reclining female nude and reflecting on the meaning of art. As with much of Hamilton's late work, the image was generated by computer but over-painted by hand. Knowing he would not complete it, Hamilton decided to show three preparatory versions simultaneously. In addition, he selected thirty paintings tracing the development of his art, featuring single-point perspective and the depiction of interior spaces, the sacred imagery of the Italian Renaissance, and allusions to the art of Marcel Duchamp. (National Gallery of London)… (mere)