Glyn Philpot:
Flesh and Spirit

Client: Pallant House Gallery, 2022
Authors: Simon Martin, Alan Hollinghurst
Hardback | 224pp | 223 x 280 mm

This is the first colour monograph to explore the work of British artist Glyn Philpot R.A. (1884-1937), the sought-after society portraitist who shook off convention to embrace modernism.

It was published in conjunction with a major exhibition in 2022 at Pallant House Gallery, the first in almost 40 years. Bringing together over 80 paintings, drawings and sculptures, many unseen in public for decades, the exhibition charted the artist’s development from Edwardian society portraits to his shift to a radically modernist style in the 1930s.

The book includes his portraits of actors, dancers, poets, society hostesses, male lovers and friends, examining his important contribution to the sensitive representation of Black sitters from the 1910s to 1930s, and his exploration of both queer and religious subjects.