maurice yacowar

Having long admired Andrew Lambirth for the intelligence and ubiquity of his writings on art, I was astonished that he would reject my John Bratby biography because it was not a study of his art. I clearly undertook to read the man out of his diaries and his semi- autobiographical fiction, including the unpublished.
It’s not surprising that Mr. Lambirth finds my book depressing. Bratby’s character so depressed Mr. Lambirth that he abandoned his own commissioned biography. I wrote the book he could not bear to – an examination of a fascinating, repulsive man. Mr. Lambirth might prefer to read a study of Bratby’s art, but that’s no argument against my biography. Now that I have done the heavy lifting and limned Bratby’s character, I look forward to Mr. Lambirth’s study of the art. He could pursue Bratby’s influences beyond the allusions to which a biography restricted me. I hope his reviewers will respect his genre choice and not require, say, a study of Bratby’s diaries.
From his bias against biography Mr. Lambirth declares "The book’s principle drawback is the lack of space given to art." One would think that the reproduction – with some discussion – of 47 Bratby paintings and 24 drawings was suitably respectful of the art in a biography. Indeed Mr. Lambirth’s greatest injustice is not to acknowledge the publisher, Middlesex University’s generous treatment of the art in the book’s production, choice of paper, and presentation of the images where they are discussed, rather than in a more economical grouping. The book’s sumptuousness is especially remarkable for a financially constrained university press.
Mr. Lambirth’s prejudice leads to some curious complaints. My report that Bratby contended he needed to masturbate and get drunk to make art he finds "neither substantiated nor developed." In fact, several chapters detail Bratby’s destructive compulsions. I would think my explicit 13-line quotation from a diary (p. 141) was sufficient proof of my claim.
On the issue of "substantiation" consider Mr. Lambirth’s unsupported claim I am "evidently not at home with analyzing paintings." He may be right but he gives no proof.
I daresay I made very few assertions without amassing evidence, as much as possible in Bratby’s own words. But the biographer’s – and the critic’s – responsibility to support his claims Lambirth dismisses as "a glorified scissors-and-paste job." So, too, when Lambirth disdains my reference to Bratby’s sometime "delicate precision" in drawing, he allows no variance from the more familiar "bold, tough, chain-link linearity." Several drawings in the book (eg., pp.68-9, 90, 97, 134-5) suggest Bratby used various nibs and leads. I allowed for Bratby’s range; Mr Lambirth does not.
Mr. Lambirth seems determined to disqualify me. He cites my books on Mel Brooks and The Sopranos (Ooh, such a vulgarian!) but not my 1977 study Hitchcock’s British Films. Despite my reflections on the British traditions of Realist art and of the celebrity artist – Reynolds to John to Bratby to Hockney to Hirst, and my coverage of Bratby’s adventures on the gallery and auction scenes -- Mr. Lambirth claims I have "little understanding of the English art world here." Perhaps Mr. Lambirth assumes British art is closed to anyone not raised on fried bread, mushy peas, freezing outdoor water pipes and those sixpence-fed leaky gas heaters. In fact, I remember them well.
Of course, I plead guilty on several of Mr. Lambirth’s charges. I am an academic, not an art historian, and a colonial. But these charges are hardly a discovery. I voluntarily confessed to those sins in my Introduction. And if I have made some small errors, haven’t any Brits? To err is human, to pounce the critic’s delight.
I hope Mr. Lambirth’s indignation that I would write the book he abandoned will not deter readers from at least sampling my exploration of an intriguingly nasty artist, who was troubled and remains troubling. In his often jaw-dropping saga I have tried to make even the gruesome stuff readable -- and the art is terrific.

John Regan

Funny, I always look to book reviews to do what they are supposed to do - review the book. This "review" merely seems to be about Andrew Lambirth and his relationship with Bratby, and how this is not the book that HE would have written.

Which might all be fascinating. But how about actually reviewing the book? That's what I wanted to know, not Lambirth's name-dropping.