About modern art

the long version

David Sylvester's writings about many of the century's major artists are exhibited here in a brilliant and witty retrospective that reveals the authors' personal involvement with painting and sculpture over a fifty-year period. Like modern art itself, the essays isolate experience, while also opening a window into the minds and methods of contemporary masters. David Sylvester, as curator and critic, wrote about many of the works as the artists were creating them, enabling us to observe the development of a perspective on modern art that is the result of an intense professional and personal involvement. His sustained investigations into the artists' social and intellectual lives offer piercing insights into the works and the artists themselves.