Richard Eurich (1903-1992): visionary artist

This monograph is based on the catalogue of an exhibition I curated in collaboration with Christine Clearkin, whose MA dissertation on Eurich I supervised. It was first shown at the Millais Gallery, Southampton Solent University, and subsequently at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, and the Fine Art Society, London, in 2003, in the centenary of the artist's birth. It included contributions by Peyton Skipwith, Alan Powers, James Hyman and David McCann and Eurich's daughters. Paintings and drawings were borrowed from Tony and Cherie Blair, Lord Chancellor, Richard Dorment, Peyton Skipwith, James Hyman, and other anonymous lenders. The exhibition and catalogue sought to promote both the work of an underestimated artist and the similarly underestimated genre of twentieth-century British figurative art. My own essay: 'Richard Eurich: The Complexity of Influence' highlighted both these themes and was reprinted in the London Magazine in 2003. I used Eurich's still unpublished autobiography (now on deposit in the Tate Gallery archives) in order to shed light on the development of this artist, his relation to modernism and the evolution of twentieth-century painting. By investigating the influence of Wyndham Lewis on the young Eurich I examined the latter's work and reputation in relation to the work and criticism of the former, as the modernist turned anti-modernist who eventually wrote The Demon of Progress in the Arts. Both exhibition and book were very widely and well reviewed; viz Richard Dorment in the Daily Telegraph; Laura Gascoine in the Spectator; Julia Freeman in the British Art Journal ('excellent show'), Sunday Times (26.6.03); Guardian (24.3.03); Independent on Sunday (29.6.03); Financial Times (30.7.03); significant number of his paintings were sold from both the Southampton and London venues.