Description
The Last Bohemians: The Two Roberts – Colquhoun and MacBryde
Roger Bristow
The fruit of over twenty years’ original research, The Last Bohemians is the first full-length biography of two charismatic, talented and ultimately tragic individuals. It dispels many of the negative myths which grew around the pair following their early deaths and re-establishes their reputations as highly significant figures of twentieth-century British art.
A rags-to-riches and back-to-rags-again story, The Last Bohemians is the account of the lives and time together of the artists who were known in the 1940s as ‘The Golden Boys of Bond Street’. To research this book, the author interviewed many of their friends and admirers – well-known names in the art and literary worlds.
Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde met at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s. They moved to London in 1941 and quickly became associated with the Neo-Romantic group of painters which included Keith Vaughan and John Minton. At a time when homosexuality was not only illegal but actively prosecuted, they made little attempt to disguise their relationship and they had a constant stream of admirers, both male and female. The circle of friends that grew around them included the painters Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Michael Ayrton, John Minton and the poets George Barker and Dylan Thomas, all attending the artists’ regular weekend soirées.
ISBN 978-1-906593-19-3
244 x 172mm
416 pages including catalogue raisonné
80 colour, 30 mono illustrations
hardback
