Roger Fry, Clive Bell and American Modernism

Having studied Fine Art at Bristol and then Goldsmith’s College, David Maddock taught art while continuing to practice as a painter. In 1989, he enrolled on the Art History master’s course at the University of Leeds, where he catalogued the works of George Clausen in the Sam Wilson Bequest at the City Art Gallery, before submitting a thesis on English modernist theory between 1910 and 1914. He returned to the topic, expanding upon it, some years later when he undertook his PhD at Leicester University. He is currently Head of Art and Art History at Leicester Grammar School where, in addition to normal teaching duties, he co-ordinates a programme of exhibitions and visits to cities of cultural interest, finding time, when he can, to paint.

• List of Illustrations - Preface - Acknowledgements - Introduction - An Anglo-American Aesthetic - A Sort of Social-Historical Vividness - Schopenhauer’s Contemplative Aesthetic - The Genius as Artist and Modern Master - Post-Impressionism as Cultural Discourse - Aesthetic Theory as Cultural Cause - Talk of Post-Impressionism - Clive Bell: Middlebrow Conversations - Mr Bell’s Aesthetical Joy-Ride - An Ancient Deity: Significant Form in America - ‘An Intimation of How to Look’: Form Encounters Pragmatism - Roger Fry: Towards a Formalist Orthodoxy - I. A. Richards, the New Criticism and Charles Mauron - Parallel Narratives: Fry’s Cézanne and Barr’s Picasso - Conclusion - Bibliography – Index.

«For some twenty-five years, Roger Fry and Clive Bell had a significant, if now largely overlooked, influence upon the aesthetics of visual Modernism. David Maddock’s deeply researched book skillfully argues for Fry and Bell’s philosophical and institutional importance to an intriguing ‹backstory› that goes beyond ‹Bloomsbury› to cast new light on the key artists, movements and critical debates of Anglo-American Modernism.» (Douglas Tallack, Emeritus Professor of American Studies, University of Leicester, UK)«A superb study that reveals the close connections between the aesthetic thought of Roger Fry and Clive Bell and its long-reaching impact on American modernism that makes an important contribution to our understanding of the transnational networks that defined modern art and the ideas and institutions that supported it.» (Anna Gruetzner Robins, Professor Emeritus in History of Art, University of Reading)