Field of Knowledge: Art Criticism/ Philosophy/ Memoir/ Essay/ Art Writing

Following the death in January 2011 of my husband, the art critic Tom Lubbock I have been responsible for the production of the books listed above, as literary executor, writer and editor.

Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored is a fully illustrated collection of essays on individual paintings drawn from his Great Works column in The Independent that ran from 2005 - 2010.

English Graphic is a book of essays on the subject of illustration, with the focus entirely on English artists using graphic media; drawings, prints and watercolours. As editor, I built on a schedule Tom drew up. It contains essays drawn from a variety of sources: the Great Works column, reviews, catalogue essays, and previously unpublished material. The historical span of the book is broad – from the Winchester Psalter Hellmouth to Harry Beck’s London Underground Map and Dom Sylvester Houédard’s typestracts. The high point of English Graphic art in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century makes up the heart of the book, with Fuseli, Blake, Bewick and Palmer all the subject of extended essays. The images range from the visionary to the empirical, from folk art to caricature. Connecting and overlapping ideas on line and shape run through the book; maps, islands, clouds, swarms, wombs, skins, dots, contours and boundaries.

Until Further Notice, I am Alive, is a memoir: a record of two years following diagnosis of a brain tumour. It is a meditation on language and mortality and was published by Granta in 2012 to great acclaim. I wrote the 2200 word introduction, giving the text the contextual framework of an experience both of us lived through.

• Coutts, Marion and Lubbock, Tom. 2012. Introduction. In: Marion Coutts, ed. Until Further Notice, I am Alive. London: Granta, pp. 1-9. ISBN 978-1-84708-531-3 [Book Section]
• Coutts, Marion and Lubbock, Tom. 2011. Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored. Frances Lincoln, London. [Other]
• Coutts, Marion, ed. 2012. English Graphic. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-71123-370-6 [Edited Book]

Impact:

Reviews for Until Further Notice, I am Alive:

Independent extract 31/3/12
Guardian review by Julian Bell 24/3/12 (with Great Works)
Evening Standard review by David Sexton 29/3/12 (syndicated in The Scotsman 28/4/12)
Sunday Times review by Lynn Barber 1/4/12
Literary Review review by Kevin Jackson 1/4/12
Observer review by Alex Linklater 8/4/12 (with Great Works)
Sunday Telegraph by Jane Shilling 8/4/12
Independent review by Michael Bywater 20/4/12
Independent on Sunday review by Charles Darwent 29/4/12
Metro review by Fisun Guner 18/4/12
Art (Royal West of England Academy) Spring 2012
Art Review review by J. J. Charlesworth 1/4/12
Ham and High review (syndicated in the Wood and Vale)
BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves – essay by Kevin Jackson about the book

Reviews for Great Works:

Sunday Times review by Waldemar Januszczak 25/9/11
Independent four extracts 30/9/11
Evening Standard review by Bryan Sewell 6/10/11 (syndicated in The Scotsman 22/10/11)
Sunday Times review by Lynn Barber 1/4/12
Independent on Sunday review by Charles Darwent 9/10/11
The Tablet 12/11/11
Architects Journal review by James Pallister 17/11/11
Independent review by Michael Glover 25/11/11
Sunday Telegraph review by Andrew Graham-Dixon 27/11/11
Art Review 1/12/11
TLS review by Ruth Scurr 2/12/11
London Magazine review by Peter Robinson 1/1/12
Art Newspaper 1/2/12
Good Book Guide 1/3/12

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7153