WorldCat Identities

Spurling, Hilary

Overview
Works: 113 works in 292 publications in 7 languages and 13,039 library holdings
Roles: Author of introduction
Classifications: n6853.m33, 823.912
Publication Timeline
Key
Publications about Hilary Spurling Publications about Hilary Spurling
Publications by Hilary Spurling Publications by Hilary Spurling
Most widely held works about Hilary Spurling
 
Most widely held works by Hilary Spurling
by ( Book )
12 editions published between and 2007 in English and held by 1,843 libraries worldwide
It is hard to believe today that Matisse was once almost universally reviled and ridiculed. His response was neither to protest nor to retreat; he simply pushed on from one innovation to the next, and left the world to draw its own conclusions. Unfortunately, these were generally false and often damaging. Throughout his life and afterward people fantasized about his models and circulated baseless fabrications about his private life. Fifty years after his death, this biography shows us the painter as he saw himself. With unprecedented access to new material, Spurling documents a lifetime of desperation and self-doubt. Here for the first time is the truth about Matisse's models; but every woman who played a part in Matisse's life was remarkable in her own right, not least his beloved daughter Marguerite, whose honesty and courage surmounted all ordeals, including interrogation and torture by the Gestapo in the Second World War.--From publisher description.
by ( Book )
17 editions published between and 2008 in English and held by 1,624 libraries worldwide
The art, youth, early maturity and life of artist Henri Matisse are thoroughly examined in this biography that also includes 24 pages of color reproductions. Henri Matisse is one of the masters of twentieth-century art and a household word to millions of people who find joy and meaning in his light-filled, colorful images-yet, despite all the books devoted to his work, the man himself has remained a mystery. Now, in the hands of the superb biographer Hilary Spurling, the unknown Matisse becomes visible at last. Matisse was born into a family of shopkeepers in 1869, in a gloomy textile town in the north of France. His environment was brightened only by the sumptuous fabrics produced by the local weavers-magnificent brocades and silks that offered Matisse his first vision of light and color, and which later became a familiar motif in his paintings. He did not find his artistic vocation until after leaving school, when he struggled for years with his father, who wanted him to take over the family seed-store. Escaping to Paris, where he was scorned by the French art establishment, Matisse lived for fifteen years in great poverty, an ordeal he shared with other young artists and with Camille Joblaud, the mother of his daughter, Marguerite. But Matisse never gave up. Painting by painting, he struggled toward the revelation that beckoned to him, learning about color, light, and form from such mentors as Signac, Pissarro, and the Australian painter John Peter Russell, who ruled his own art colony on an island off the coast of Brittany. In 1898, after a dramatic parting from Joblaud, Matisse met and married Amele Parayre, who became his staunchest ally. She and their two sons, Jean and Pierre, formed with Marguerite his indispensable intimate circle. From the first day of his wedding trip to Ajaccio in Corsica, Matisse realized that he had found his spiritual home: the south, with its heat, color, and clear light. For years he worked unceasingly toward the style by which we know him now. But in 1902, just as he was on the point of achieving his goals as a painter, he suddenly left Paris with his family for the hometown he detested, and returned to the somber, muted palette he had so recently discarded. Why did this happen? Art historians have called this regression Matisse's "dark period," but none have ever guessed the reason for it. What Hilary Spurling has uncovered is nothing less than the involvement of Matisse's in-laws, the Parayres, in a monumental scandal which threatened to topple the banking system and government of France. The authorities, reeling from the divisive Dreyfus case, smoothed over the so-called Humbert Affair, and did it so well that the story of this twenty-year scam, and the humiliation and ruin its climax brought down on the unsuspecting Matisse and his family, have been erased from memory until now. It took many months for Matisse to come to terms with this disgrace, and nearly as long to return to the bold course he had been pursuing before the interruption. What lay ahead were the summers in St-Tropez and Collioure; the outpouring of "Fauve" paintings; Matisse's experiments with sculpture; and the beginnings of acceptance by dealers and collectors, which, by 1908, put his life on a more secure footing. Hilary Spurling's discovery of the Humbert Affair and its effects on Matisse's health and work is an extraordinary revelation, but it is only one aspect of her achievement. She enters into Matisse's struggle for expression and his tenacious progress from his northern origins to the life-giving light of the Mediterranean with rare sensitivity. She brings to her task an astonishing breadth of knowledge about his family, about fin-de-siecle Paris, the conventional Salon painters who shut their doors on him, his artistic comrades, his early patrons, and his incipient rivalry with Picasso. In Hilary Spurling, Matisse has found a biographer with a detective's ability to unearth crucial facts, the narrative power of a novelist, and profound empathy for her subject. Oxford-educated journalist Spurling uncovers the involvement of Matisse's in-laws in a monumental financial scandal, describing how it affected his health and how it led to his "dark period". Her examination of Matisse's artistic and career progression is informed by an astonishing breadth of knowledge about his family, fin-de- siecle Paris, the conventional Salon painters who shut their doors on him, his artistic comrades, his early patrons, and his rivalry with Picasso.
by ( Book )
6 editions published in in English and held by 1,396 libraries worldwide
An engrossing biography of Buck, a woman whose fascinating life gave her a unique outlook on the plight of women and the suffering of China's rural poor.
by ( Book )
26 editions published between and 2009 in English and Undetermined and held by 1,138 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
4 editions published between and 1991 in English and held by 686 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
15 editions published between and 2004 in English and French and held by 651 libraries worldwide
The negative portrait of George Orwell's second wife drawn by his biographers is a travesty. Determined to set the record straight, her friend, Hilary Spurling, herself an acclaimed biographer, reveals the whole story of Sonia Orwell's sad and splendid life. - Jacket flap.
by ( Book )
4 editions published between and 2001 in English and held by 509 libraries worldwide
Thérèse Humbert was the "assumed illegitimate daughter of an American billioniare," but when her hoax was revealed, she spent five years at hard labor. "When she was released from prison, she vanished, and the fantastic story of her life was mostly hushed up, because it had disgraced so many wealthy and important people."--Jacket.
by ( Book )
4 editions published between and 1978 in English and held by 506 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
7 editions published between and 1985 in English and Undetermined and held by 368 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
7 editions published between and 1977 in English and held by 324 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
11 editions published between and 2000 in English and held by 313 libraries worldwide
Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet series, actually had very little experience in India. This is the engaging story of a man with a lively imagination and a sense of history and place. It chronicles his youth in North London, his war years in India and the Far East, and the development of his craft as a writer.
by ( Book )
6 editions published in in English and held by 259 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
6 editions published between and 2011 in English and Undetermined and held by 248 libraries worldwide
Pearl Buck foresaw China's future as a superpower long before anyone else. She witnessed the first stirrings of Chinese revolution as a teenager, and narrowly esacped being killed herself in the subsequent battles between Communists and Nationalists. Pearl grew up in an imperial China unchanged for thousands of years. She was the child of American missionaries but she spoke Chinese before she learnt English, and her friends were the children of Chinese farmers. She took it for granted she was Chinese herself until she was eight years old, when the Boxers' terrorist uprising forced her family to flee for their lives.
by ( Book )
2 editions published in in English and held by 226 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
9 editions published in in English and held by 168 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
1 edition published in in English and held by 123 libraries worldwide
by ( Recording )
1 edition published in in English and held by 104 libraries worldwide
A thrilling portrait of the extraordinary childhood of Pearl Buck, the now-forgotten bestselling Nobel Prize winning novelist and author of The Good Earth.
by ( Book )
10 editions published between and 2007 in 3 languages and held by 102 libraries worldwide
by ( Book )
1 edition published in in English and held by 96 libraries worldwide
 
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Matisse the master : a life of Henri Matisse, the conquest of colour, 1909-1954
Alternative Names
Сперлинг, Хилари
Languages
English (242)
German (20)
French (19)
Undetermined (6)
Spanish (6)
Swedish (1)
Russian (1)
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