Books by Fiona MacCarthy
Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860–1960
A beautifully illustrated portrayal of the life of the artist and writer who revolutionized Victorian society and whose legacy is still widely embraced today
William Morris (1834–1896) was an artist, craftsman, designer, poet, polymath, and visionary thinker. Well known for advocating that objects of beauty be accessible to all, Morris had a tremendous impact on the British Socialist movement, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Garden City movement, as well as on successive generations of artists and thinkers in Britain and beyond. In this fascinating book, Fiona MacCarthy examines Morris’s vision of a society in which art could flourish, and how this idea resonated over the ensuing century.
Anarchy and Beauty takes the reader through Morris’s fascinating career, from the establishment of his decorative arts shop (later Morris & Co.), to his radical sexual politics and libertarianism, and the publication in 1890 of his novel News from Nowhere, which envisions a utopian socialist society. MacCarthy then looks at the numerous artists and movements that bear the influence of Morris’s ideas: Arts and Crafts and the Garden City, which took hold in both Europe and the United States; artists’ communities that sprung up during the interwar years; and the 1951 Festival of Britain, whose mission was to bring the highest standards of design within the reach of everyone.
Published in association with the National Portrait Gallery, London
Exhibition Schedule:
National Portrait Gallery, London
(10/16/14–01/11/15)
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Byron: Life and Legend
Lord Byron in all his controversial splendor--the long-awaited, authoritative biography
With this brilliant book, Fiona MacCarthy has produced the most important work on Byron in nearly half a century. Granted unprecedented access to many documents and artifacts unexamined by previous scholars, the acclaimed biographer brings a fresh, engaging sensibility to a full appreciation of the poet's life and art.
Byron: Life and Legend explores heretofore unrevealed aspects of Byron's complex creative existence, reassessing his poetry, reinterpreting his incomparable letters, and reconsidering the voluminous record left by the poet's contemporaries: his friends and family, his critics and supporters.
MacCarthy's scope is comprehensive, giving due weight to each aspect of her subject's genius and covering the full range of his life, retracing his journeys through Italy, Turkey, and Greece and culminating in his heroic voyage to Missolonghi, where he died at the tragically early age of thirty-six. After his death, a pervasive Byronism swept Europe; presented here is the fascinating evolution of his posthumous reputation and its influence on literature, architecture, painting, music, manners, sex and psyche.
Full of energy and detail, subtlety and glamour, this vital new study reestablishes Byron as a charismatic figure in the forefront of European art.
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Picturing and Poeting
by Alan Fletcher, Fiona MacCarthy, Emily King
Follow-up volume to the best-selling The Art of Looking Sideways, Picturing and Poeting is the latest collection of mind-bending images and creative wordplay from Alan Fletcher, one of the most internationally influential figures in graphic design.
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Gropius: The Man Who Built the Bauhaus
“This is an absolute triumph―ideas, lives, and the dramas of the twentieth century are woven together in a feat of storytelling. A masterpiece.”
―Edmund de Waal, ceramic artist and author of The White Road
The impact of Walter Gropius can be measured in his buildings―Fagus Factory, Bauhaus Dessau, Pan Am―but no less in his students. I. M. Pei, Paul Rudolph, Anni Albers, Philip Johnson, Fumihiko Maki: countless masters were once disciples at the Bauhaus in Berlin and at Harvard. Between 1910 and 1930, Gropius was at the center of European modernism and avant-garde society glamor, only to be exiled to the antimodernist United Kingdom during the Nazi years. Later, under the democratizing influence of American universities, Gropius became an advocate of public art and cemented a starring role in twentieth-century architecture and design.
Fiona MacCarthy challenges the image of Gropius as a doctrinaire architectural rationalist, bringing out the visionary philosophy and courage that carried him through a politically hostile age. Pilloried by Tom Wolfe as inventor of the monolithic high-rise, Gropius is better remembered as inventor of a form of art education that influenced schools worldwide. He viewed argument as intrinsic to creativity. Unusually for one in his position, Gropius encouraged women’s artistic endeavors and sought equal romantic partners. Though a traveler in elite circles, he objected to the cloistering of beauty as “a special privilege for the aesthetically initiated.”
Gropius offers a poignant and personal story―and a fascinating reexamination of the urges that drove European and American modernism.
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