Samuel Beckett: a Passion for Painting

Celebrating the Beckett Centenary. Awarded third prize by The Art Newspaper/Axa Art Prize for best catalogue of the year published in the UK - "admiired for the quantity of new material it presented about Beckett himself and the worlds of literature and visual arts". The National Gallery was one of Samuel Beckett's favourite haunts. He whiled away many hours there among the Old Masters. He was particularly drawn to works by Perugino, Poussin, Rembrandt and Rubens. Encouraged by his friend Thomas Macgreevy, who later became Director of the Gallery (1950-63), Beckett developed a life-long passion for art. Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Samuel Beckett: a passion for Paintings', this catalogue traces Beckett's interest in art from its origins in the National Gallery, through his admiration for the work of Jack B. Yeats, to his art criticism and associations with contemporary artists including Bram van Velde, Alberton Giacometti and Avigdor Arikha. The catalogue contains four essays examining aspects of Beckett's interest in the visual arts, plus an introduction to the exhibition and the proceedings of 'Samuel Beckett and the Visual Arts: A Round Table Discussion' held in the National Gallery of Ireland on April 9th 2006. 265 x 225 mm, paperback 128 pages, 50 colour illustrations