Michael Bracewell approaches visual art through its cultural context, the lens of the recent past and prolonged looking. He focuses on detailed descriptions of artworks, expanding their interpretation to include media, politics, music, poetry and other areas of cultural production. Together, the texts read as a history of the UK and British art from 1959 to the present day, featuring artists such as Richard Hamilton, Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George and Damien Hirst. Each essay is accompanied by an illustration selected by Bracewell himself. The collection concludes with a body of recent...

This beautifully illustrated book constitutes a comprehensive survey of Damien Hirst's Psalm paintings. The 150 works in the series are made up of iridescent butterfly wings and paint on canvas, which combine to form kaleidoscopic patterns reminiscent of Gothic stained glass windows. Dating from 2008, the paintings address some of Hirst's most enduring and important themes: beauty, art, belief, life and death. Each of the fully illustrated paintings is accompanied by the Old Testament prayer from which its title is derived, the text rendered on images of individually selected marble...

Gilbert and George met at St Martin's School of Art in September 1967. 50 years later, Michael Bracewell has worked with them on this beautifully designed primer, posing the question What Is Gilbert and George? Over the course of 37 short chapters, Bracewell--who has written extensively about Gilbert and George over many years--has created an accessible handbook to their work.
Accompanied by illustrations selected by the artists, the book provides candid insights into their working practice, East London, sex, Victorian art, nationalism and maleness, among many other subjects. We may never...