John Hoyland (born 1934) is the leading British painter of his
generation. He gained early critical acclaim, exhibiting with both the
influential Situation group in 1960-1 and the New Generation artists
at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1964. In 1967 he had his first solo
museum show at Whitechapel and two years later represented Great Britain
at the Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil, with Anthony Caro. His work has been
the subject of retrospectives at the Serpentine Gallery (1979-80) and
the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1999).

This book concentrates on Hoyland's most recent work since the late
1990s. By means of interview, anecdote and quotation, it reveals the
imaginative thinking and development of a painter who, refusing to be
cast in the role of 'abstract' artist-a label he deplores- is constantly
reinventing his art and pushing himself to his technical and poetic
limits. Like an Elizabethan buccaneer out to win new territory, it's
very much do or die doe Hoyland. And in this age of sensation-overload,
he still manages to shock the eye; to challenge the collective pulse, to
make us see and feel.

ISBN: 798 1 906509 07 1