Author Description

Hunter was an intelligent, sensitive, driven man, who lived for his art to the exclusion of virtually everything else. He was much more attuned to what was happening in artistic circles in France in the first three decades of the twentieth century than the vast majority of his contemporaries in Britain. Colour was to become his guiding principle. In this major biography, the authors chart Hunter s exploration of Cezanne s theories on colour and form and their influence on his own painting, and the inspiration he gained later from the art of Matisse, whose work had profoundly shocked him some 15 years earlier. New light is shed on his early career in San Francisco and his initial work as an illustrator of magazines and books. Much of the research is based on letters written by Hunter to his friends. The text is supported by over 150 illustrations, almost two-thirds of which are of works in private collections.