Colour Plate Books Series

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was not only a central figure in the Impressionist movement but a major influence on the development of modern art. He was the only artist to exhibit at all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, and his letters are a fascinating and invaluable source of information on the theoretical aspects and practical implications of Impressionism.

Pissarro's career touched that of an extraordinary number of his contemporaries, to whom he was often a teacher and always a friend. In his early years he worked with Monet; in the 1870s he painted in close friendship with Cezanne; he was a guide for Gauguin, whom he introduced to the Impressionist group; and in the 1880s he flirted with Neo-Impressionism with Seurat.

This book charts the evolution of his painting, and celebrates his compositional brilliance, technical skill and innovatory approach, forty-eight full-page colour plated, combined with Christopher Lloyd's illuminating text, constitute a superb introduction to the artist. His essay on Pissaro, first published in 1979, has been revised and updated, with the addition of commentaries to each plate written by Amanda Renshaw, and a wide selection of comparative illustrations.

Fra Angelico

by Christopher Lloyd and David V White

Published September 1979

Fra Angelico (c. 1400-55) is one of the most popular artists of the early Italian Renaissance. In his own lifetime churches and cathedrals competed for his work, and the style he evolved has come to be regarded as the natural language of religious painting. For more than a century the popular image of an angel has been that of an angel by Fra Angelico.

Perhaps his best known work is the series of fresco decorations in the convent of San Marco in Florence, where Angelico was a friar. These paintings tell the story of the life of Christ as vividly and movingly today as they must have done over five hundred years ago. The powerful simplicity of the forms, the treatment of light and the subtlety of colour testify both to Fra Angelico's personal religious conviction and to his awareness of recent developments in Florentine art.

This comprehensive survey of Angelico's work includes many panels from San Marco, and from his other important commission in the Vatican, and a superb selection of altarpieces and panels spanning his whole working life.

Christopher Lloyd's authoritative essay on Angelico was first published in 1979, with the forty-eight full page colour plates. For this revised edition, David White has added a full and clear commentary on each picture, and numerous black-and-white illustrations to compare with the paintings.