LONDON.- Gary Hume RA (b.1962) is one of the foremost British painters of the last 40 years. In this new book, Martin Gayford explores the evolution of the artist’s oeuvre and examines the opportunities and dilemmas that helped to shape Hume’s singular pathway. Profusely illustrated, the book underlines Hume’s important and unique contribution to British contemporary art and provides a fascinating window into the creation of a rich and varied body of work.

Hume came to prominence alongside other artists associated with the Young British Artists generation and his work, often completed using high-gloss industrial paint, fuses high-modernist abstract formalism with an enigmatic, sign-like quality. Although his early work was concerned with the representation of hospital doors, Hume’s restless spirit has led him to continue to probe and experiment with his chosen medium and expand his subject matter — from snowmen and wonky wheels to birds, flowers and people.

Martin Gayford is an art historian, writer and art critic. He is the author of critically acclaimed biographical studies on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo and has been art critic of The Spectator and The Sunday Telegraph. He has written extensively on contemporary art. His most recent book, How Painting Happens (2024), includes observations and work by Gary Hume.

“The most mysterious periods are the recent past and the present. That’s why it was fascinating — and fun — to explore the work of Gary Hume, one of the most brilliant painters alive. The more I looked at Gary’s pictures, and talked to him, the more I learnt. I hope the reader finds that too.” — Martin Gayford

Praise for Gary Hume: “Gary Hume recently told me, ‘The only way to escape is to escape time. To become a time traveller. To invent your own time.’ Gary has done that: he has invented his own time and his own world. And here are the images of that world. The Primordial Images. The truth of what it means to be human. Or should that be ‘Hume-an’?” — Jarvis Cocker

“Gary Hume’s beautiful, sui generis art, grows out of a complete understanding that what the eye sees affects the soul, and how when you make art as humanistic as Hume’s, colour, shape and form not only tell you a great deal about the artist, but their desire to connect and be in conversation with the viewer. Hume is an artist for the ages, living always in the now. I admire him greatly.” — Hilton Als

Gary Hume: Begging for It by Martin Gayford.



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