JOCK MCFADYEN

The product of extensive interviews with the artist, this publication provides the definitive guide to the work of Jock McFadyen RA. The architecture critic Rowan Moore creates a fascinating portrait of the artist, weaving together stories from McFadyen s life - from burning an effigy of his principal and being thrown out of college to a residency at the National Gallery and election to the Royal Academy in 2012 - with an in-depth analysis of his art. McFadyen s story begins in 1950s Scotland, moving via squats in Chelsea during the punk era, to the East End of London, now the subject of many of his large-scale landscapes. Moore explores McFadyen s decision to believe in painting in the face of artists who appeared to seek financial reward before all else, and the inspiration he takes from a wide range of artists, including James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Walter Sickert (1860-1942). This publication celebrates an important contemporary painter, and is generously illustrated with a selection of McFadyen s works - including Tate Moss, a painting derived from an illicit kayak trip along the canal into London s future Olympic Park, and his recent depictions of a gargantuan moon hanging above Edinburgh.