New Kenneth Clark biography
June 18 2012
Picture: Sotheby's
Delighted to read in The Art Newspaper that a new biography of Kenneth Clark is being written. Clark, most famous for his epic television series, Civilisation, is one of my heroes (despite the fact that it contains not one mention of my other hero, Van Dyck). The biography, by Sotheby's UK Chairman James Stourton, will be Clark's first. More details here.
Update - a reader writes:
Surprised to see YOU make a mistake in your blog today.
The Sotheby's/publisher bumph may be claiming the biography of Lord Clark is the first, but actually Meryle Secrest published 'Kenneth Clark: A Biography' in September 1983 in hardback.
Another reader writes:
An example of how Clark remains under appreciated: last week I attended the Warburg Institute's very important conference on Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin, which was a great success, but where Clark's name was not mentioned once in spite of the fact that he was one of the first English art historians to popularize Warburg's methods in this country (notably in the book on the nude).
