Mark Gertler [Hardcover]

Sarah Macdougall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004

This biography of Mark Gertler reappraises an extraordinary artist, a figure who fascinated his contemporaries. He is the sinister sculptor of D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love", the dashing Byronic hero of Aldous Huxley's "Chrome Yellow", and the egotistical painter of Katherine Mansfield's "Je ne parle pas Francais". Gertler was admired and encouraged by Walter Sickert, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Henry Moore. He was championed by the flamboyant Lady Ottoline Morrell, and his magnificent haunting pictures were keenly collected. Yet despite his seeming ease in London's society, he himself felt his Jewishness and his working-class background as insuperable barriers, and his artistic ambition gradually alienated him even from the people among whom he'd grown up. He found no happiness and at the age of 48 killed himself. A few weeks before his death he had dinner with Virginia Woolf and impressed her with his "fanatical devotion to his art". Hearing of his death she wondered if he had been "perhaps too rigid, too self-centred, too honest and too narrow" to be happy. But with this "intellect and interest" she asked "why did the personal life become too painful?" This is one of the questions Sarah MacDougall explores in her life of this complex man, whose powerful images, like the "Merry-go-round" or the "Creation of Eve" have lost none of their disturbing eloquence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Gertler is by birth an absolute East End Jew... He is rather beautiful... his mind is deep and simple, and I think he's got the feu sacre.' Edward Marsh, writing to Rupert Brooke; 'By my own ambitions I am cut off from my family and class and by them I have been raised to equal a class I hate! They do not understand me, nor I them, so I am an outcast.' Mark Gertler to Carrington

From the Publisher

For his contemporaries, artist Mark Gertler was a figure of intense fascination. He was the inspiration for the sinister sculptor of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love; the dashing Byronic hero of Aldous Huxley’s Chrome Yellow; and the egotistical painter of Katherine Mansfield’s Je ne parle pas Français. Gertler was admired by the leading artists of the day and championed by Henry Moore and the flamboyant Lady Ottoline Morrell. His haunting paintings were keenly collected. Yet, despite his seeming ease in London society, he felt his Jewishness and his working–class background as insuperable barriers, and his artistic ambition gradually alienated him even from the people with whom he had grown up. finding no happiness, he killed himself at the age of 48. Art historian Sarah MacDougall explores the life of this complex man, whose paintings have lost none of their disturbing eloquence.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 398 pages
• Publisher: John Murray Publishers (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719557992
• ISBN-13: 978-0719557996
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new survey of an artist who served as a creative figure, July 9, 2004

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Gertler (Hardcover)

MARK GERTLER is the first biography of the artist to be published in thirty years, and Sarah MacDougall provides a new survey of an artist who served as a creative figure for contemporaries D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. His haunting pictures were collected during his time and he was a part of London society; yet his ongoing lack of happiness led to his eventual alienation and suicide.