Oh, to Be a Painter! by Virginia Woolf
The 20th title in the acclaimed ekphrasis series
David Zwirner Books is pleased to publish Oh, to Be a Painter!, the 20th volume in the renowned ekphrasis series. This collection of Virginia Woolf’s writings on the visual arts offers a whole new perspective on the revolutionary author.
Despite wide interest in Woolf’s writings, and in the artists and art critics in her Bloomsbury circle, there has been no accessible edition or selection of essays dedicated to her writings on art until now. This volume collects her longest essay on painting, “Walter Sickert: A Conversation” (1934), alongside shorter essays and reviews, including “Pictures and Portraits” (1920) and “Pictures” (1925).
These formally inventive texts reveal the centrality of the visual arts to Woolf’s writing and vision. They show her engaging with contemporary debates about modern art and are innovative in their treatment of ideas about color and form, including in response to the work of her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, who designed many of her book covers and jackets. In these essays and reviews, Woolf illuminates the complex and interdependent relationship between the artist and society and reveals her own shifting perspectives during decades of social and political change. She also provides sharp and astute commentary on specific works of art and on the relationship between art and writing. An introduction by Claudia Tobin situates the essays within their cultural contexts.
Oh, to Be a Painter! joins titles ranging from late-in-life musings on art criticism by French painter Paul Gauguin, to an idiosyncratic history of urinating figures in art by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, to visceral firsthand accounts of great works of art by radical feminist aesthetician Vernon Lee.
Since its launch in 2016, the ekphrasis series has become the cornerstone of David Zwirner Books and is dedicated to publishing rare, out-of-print, and newly commissioned texts as accessible paperback volumes. Acclaimed as “a vivifying approach to art criticism,” it is part of David Zwirner Books’s ongoing effort to publish new and surprising pieces of writing on visual culture. The word “ekphrasis” refers to one art form, whether it be writing, visual art, music, or film, to define and describe another art form, in order to bring to an audience the experiential and visceral impact of the subject.
Preorder Oh, to Be a Painter! and explore the ekphrasis series now.
Available November 30, 2021.
