David Sylvester

Anthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, ( born September 21, 1924 in London, † June 19, 2001 ibid ) was an English author, art critic and curator. He was a pioneer of modern art in Britain and promoted the artist Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Sylvester coined the term Kitchen Sink Realism (sink - realism).

Life

David Sylvester was born into a wealthy Jewish family from the north of London. After difficulties at the University College School he was driven out of the parental home. He initially wrote for the democratic socialist weekly newspaper The Tribune. In 1947 he went to Paris, where he met Alberto Giacometti, who had a great influence on him. In the aftermath Sylvester wrote for various publications, including the Observer and the weekly New Statesman. A constant focus of his art-critical writings was the direct response to works of art. 1954 Sylvester coined the term Kitchen Sink Realism (sink - realism) in a same article about the trends of modern English art and was referring primarily to an expressionist painting by John Bratby, showing a sink. Although Sylvester had used the term in a negative context, he was nevertheless adopted by other artists, writers and theater makers. During the 1950s, Sylvester worked as an exhibition organizer with Henry Moore, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon together, and he also assisted Richard Hamilton and other representatives of the emerging British Pop Art but He especially admired the modern English died in 1957 David Bomberg. In the 1960s, Sylvester was a prominent person in the British art scene; He held important advisory positions at the Arts Council of Great Britain and in many committees of the British art scene. In 1969 he curated together with Nicholas Serota, the Renoir exhibition at the newly founded Hayward Gallery in London.

Sylvester wrote Artist monographs and exhibition catalogs, which are often maintained in interviews, and has designed numerous exhibitions. In 1993 he was awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale he curated for the Francis Bacon retrospective.

David Sylvester was married in first marriage to Pamela Briddon, from the compound emerged three daughters. He was also the father of the artist Cecily Brown ( b. 1969, from the relationship with the Scottish novelist Shena Mackay ).

Books (selection)

  • DS ( eds ): René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vols IV, The Menil Foundation, Mercator Fund, Antwerp, 1992-1997.
  • Willem de Kooning - Paintings; with Richard Shiff, and Marla Prather, Yale University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-300-06011-4. (English)
  • About Modern Art: Critical Essays, 1948-96. Chatto & Windus 1996, ISBN 0-7011-6268-6. (English)
  • Conversations with Francis Bacon; German translation by Prestel, 1997, ISBN 3-7913-1795-4.
  • Weight and Measure, Richard Serra; Stephan Erfurt, Alexander v. Berswordt (ed.), Richter Verlag, Dusseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-933807-16-6. ( German / English)
  • Interviews with American Artists. Pimlico, 2002, ISBN 0-7126-6835-7. (English)
  • Magritte. Parkland, 2003, ISBN 3-89340-034-6.
Art criticism Democratic socialism Expressionism Integrated Authority File
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