Sickert vs. Sargent - Britain's Masters of Modern Art

Available November 16, 2010!

Sickert vs. Sargent brings to life two of the biggest characters in modern British art; Walter Sickert - the gruff, aggressive man-of-the-people; and John Singer Sargent - the urbane and charming dandy.

The film focuses on some of the most beautiful and alarming paintings ever made in this country; pictures of aristocrats and prostitutes, coronations and killings, opera houses and music halls, and will evoke the long-lost atmosphere of Edwardian London. But above all it will show that from their two outposts in Chelsea and Camden, Sickert and Sargent were waging a war whose legacy still haunts us today.

These two larger-than-life immigrants were battling for nothing less than the future soul of British art.

Surveying the big names of recent British art - Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Paula Rego, Jenny Saville, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon - and their thick paint, ugly aesthetic and proletarian fleshiness, it is clear that it was the 'master of the kitchen' who was victorious.

A Film by Waldemar Januszczak.

Please visit http://www.kultur.com/Sickert-vs-Sargent-p/d4679.htm
for more information on this program

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Sickert
• Sargent
• Walter Sickert
• John Singer Sargent
• Edwardian London
• rank Auerbach
• Leon Kossoff
• Paula Rego
• Jenny Saville
• Lucien Freud
• Francis Bacon
• Waldemar Januszczak