This incisive book offers a revealing glimpse into the life and thought of a seminal art critic Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990) who was a key figure in the development of modern art in Europe and America from the 1950s to the 1980s. This volume illuminates how he often shaped the field and anticipated approaches such as social art history and visual and cultural studies. The book provides the first critical analysis of the multiple facets of Alloway's life and career, exploring his formative influence on the disciplines of art history, art criticism, and museum studies.The nine diverse essays presented here reveal new facets of Alloway's practice.
Expanding on other scholar's research on Alloway's colleagues at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and within the Independent Group (IG), Walsh turns her focus to the formation of Alloway's critical thinking in the late 1940s and early 1950s as the basis for the varied concerns that sustained his writing and teaching career. In her analysis, we glimpse Alloway, too young and perhaps also physically ineligible for military service, as a student under the tutelage of the British art historian Charles Johnson during WWII. At this time Alloway morphed into a leader of the IG and matured into his roles as teacher and writer.