SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2017

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017

A ART BOOK OF THE YEARSUNDAY TIMES

A BOOK OF THE YEARSPECTATOR

AN BOOK OF THE YEARECONOMIST

A ART BOOK OF THE YEARNEW YORK TIMES

From his time as Bernard Berenson’s protégé to being the Keeper of the Western Art at 27 and his appointment as the youngest-ever director of the National Gallery, Kenneth Clark displayed precocious genius. No voice has exercised so much power and influence over the arts in Britain as Clark’s. A formidable aesthete, his coterie included John Betjeman, Winston Churchill, Margot Fonteyn, E.M. Forster, Vivien Leigh, the Queen Mother and Henry Moore. Hidden from view, however, was his wife Jane’s alcoholism and his own philandering. In James Stourton’s dazzling biography, Clark is shown as a man who conveyed the profound beauty and importance of art, architecture and civilisation for generations to come.