Welcome to Robert Cumming’s Website
Here you can find
- Robert’s Biography
- Details of Robert's Best selling books on art.
- Brief Descriptions of the illustrated lectures he currently has to offer.
- How to Contact Robert.
Click on the links above to take you to the relevant page.
"Robert Cumming makes art more accessible....he shows you all you need to know
that might otherwise have gone unnoticed..."
New York Times
Robert’s professional career has been in the art world: art critic, art historian, author, TV presenter, and consultant, he has also worked for many public and charitable bodies. A particular interest has been to engage with works of art directly at first hand, and to try to make them come alive to the widest possible audience.
Country Life commented: “… …Mr Cumming sets out in an easily understandable form the experience it would take a dealer or a collector a lifetime to accumulate… … .”
Robert studied Law and Art History at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His first job was at the Tate Gallery. In 1978 he joined Christie’s to set up and lead the team that created Christie’s Education which soon became the foremost international programme of courses on the fine and decorative arts, and the training ground for many of the future art world professionals.
Robert is currently a Professor of Art History at Boston University, based at their Campus in South Kensington, London. When time allows he diverts himself with bee keeping, the family wine business, travel and writing.
Robert and Carolyn have lived in North Buckinghamshire for over 30 years. Carolyn was High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 2012/13, is a landscape garden designer and Chair of The Film Place (Buckingham’s Community Cinema). Their elder daughter Chloe is a practising equine Vet, and their younger daughter Phoebe is a PA to the Chairman of a property company in Knightsbridge.
Robert Cumming's Lectures:
Here are some of the lectures I can offer. Each lecture lasts about 60 minutes. My style is relatively informal, and is aimed at a general audience rather than art specialists. I am happy to talk to 6 or 600 (or more). The important thing in each case is to help the audience see with their own eyes, think and look twice, get excited and enjoy art.
I come with my own laptop and digital projector. This ensures only the highest quality images, and it means I can zoom in on details and produce some modest special effects. All I need from the lecture organisers is a screen, a table and a reading light, (and a microphone where necessary).
Desert Island Pictures:- Which eight pictures would you take to your desert island?
This Lecture is a variation on the famous Radio Programme Desert Island Discs. Rather than 8 musical recordings, which eight pictures you would take with you? My number one choice is Velásquez's Las Meninas, and I hope to surprise with my other seven. Finally: which musical recording would you take; which book (other than the Bible and Shakespeare); and what luxury item?
Legends In Their Own Lifetimes :- How the lives of Kenneth Clark, Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen were intertwined, for better or worse?
Bernard Berenson – the “Sage of Settignano” was the world expert in Italian Renaissance paintings; Jo Duveen was the King of the commercial art world. Neither of them was born to riches or surrounded by art, yet both of them became legendary figures, and the art world could not move without their say so. This illustrated lectures traces the story of their rise to power and prominence and goes on to describe how Kenneth Clark – "Lord Clark of Civilisation" – who was born into riches and surrounded by art- became connected with them at an early age, so that he too would become as influential and as legendary as they had been.
The Art Of Decoding Art:- Why the art of unravelling the mysteries of an Old Master Painting is not so dissimilar from the challenges undertaken by the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park?
Old master paintings are rich in coded and symbolic messages, and they need to be decoded just as the code breakers at Bletchley Park had to break the Enigma code in World War II. This talk takes a close look at one of the most famous paintings of the Renaissance, Botticelli's Primavera, explains why and how it, and many other Renaissance masterpieces, brilliantly exploited and developed this rich coded language, and how, decoded, it still has much to say to us today.
Faces Fame And Flattery:- The high wire act of portrait painting in the grand manner
If you could ask any artist from any period to paint your portrait whom would you choose, and why? By taking a number of famous portraits across the centuries, and exploring the relationship between artist and sitter, this talk examines this question, takes an in depth look at the whole tradition of portraiture in the grand manner, and asks what has happened to portraiture today.
Treasure Island:- How and why Britain became the great art treasure house of the world?
I first developed this lecture to celebrate the centenary of the National Art Collection Fund (The Art Fund) in 2004. Starting with Holbein's Famous portrait of Christina of Denmark, which was saved for the nation in 1909 after a public outcry, I explore how and why we became the world's art Treasure Island, and how and why it began to slip away.
Well Met By Moonlight:- The Story of the Birmingham Lunar Society (1765 - 1813) and the birth of the Industrial Revolution
The Lunar Society was a Dining Club which met on the first full moon of every month and literally changed the world. It included such luminaries as Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt, and Joseph Priestley. As well as dining they talked, conducted scientific experiments, planned and initiated the Industrial Revolution, corresponded with the Founding Fathers in the USA, and sought to better the condition of human society. They all deserve to be better known.
Canaletto's London:- How and why he came to England and what he achieved when he was here?
Is Canaletto a great master, or a mere scene painter? This lecture caused me to change my mind, and to understand what a brilliantly inventive painter he is. It takes a fresh look at Canaletto, especially the time he spent in London, reappraises his work, exploares the impact on him of English taste and society, and traces his rise from humble origins to fame and riches, and back to poverty and obscurity.
Tasting The Grand Tour:- The British on the Grand Tour of Europe
This lecture is a richly illustrated, amusing and anecdotal account of the men and women who went on the Grand Tour of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, motivated by a passion for aesthetic experience and life at large, and who turned us into a nation of collectors and country house builders.
Capital Impressions:- Turner, Whistler, Monet and the changing face of London
The Exhibition at the Tate Britain in Spring 2005 was an unexpected success and drew record crowds. In this talk I reflect on the art of Turner, Whistler and Monet, their love of London and its once legendary foggy atmosphere, and explore with maps and photographs how Turner's London was a very different place from that of Whistler's and Monet's.
John Constable And Jackson Pollock:- A case of Chinese Whispers
All art builds on other art, and artists are unashamed thieves of each other's ideas and styles. This lecture examines the seemingly unlikely chain of influences, artists and personalities that links one of England's greatest painters, born in 1776 with one of America's, born in 1912.
Books
Here are details of some of the books I have written. Collectively they have been translated into over 20 languages and have sold well over 1 million copies worldwide.
The older books are now out of print, but copies are still available from Amazon or through www.bookfinder.com
My Dear BB ... The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Kenneth Clark, 1925--1959
Yale University Press, 2015
Hardcover
583 pages
Yale University Press
ISBN 978-0-300-20737-8
In 1925, the 22-year-old Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) and the legendary art critic and historian Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) met in Italy. From that moment, they began a correspondence that lasted until Berenson's death at age 94. This book makes available, for the first time, the complete correspondence between two of the most influential figures in the 20th-century art world, and gives a new and unique insight into their lives and motivations. The letters are arranged into ten chronological sections, each accompanied by biographical details and providing the context for the events and personalities referred to. They were both talented letter writers: informative, spontaneous, humorous, gossipy, and in their frequent letters they exchanged news and views about art and politics, friends and family life, collectors, connoisseurship, discoveries, books read and written, and travel. Berenson advised Clark on his blossoming career, warning against the museum and commercial art worlds while encouraging his promise as a writer and interpreter of the arts. Above all, these letters trace the development of a deep and intimate friendship.
‘Robert Cumming's informative and shrewd linking commentaries, footnoted glosses and lively biographical appendix all enhance and illuminate the letters. There a skittish touches that are thoroughly endearing. He lets the correspondence's ‘evolving continuity’ stand as an ‘authentic testimony’.’-Richard Davenport-Hines, Literary Review.
‘Both men are blessed on this occasion in having Robert Cumming as editor. His apparatus is superbly thorough and the footnotes salvage many a dull reference. In giving us rather more than we need, Cumming confers amplitude and completeness upon his project.’-Duncan Fallowell, the Spectator.
‘...Cumming is a perceptive and diligent editor; his annotations and notes a mine of information’-Robert Carver, the Tablet.
"Superbly edited and annotated... Cumming’s introductions to the various chapters form a deft narrative of the two lives"-Patrick McCaughey, Australian Book Review.
"The letters have been edited and annotated to superlative effect by Robert Cumming... How do I love this book? Let me count the ways. First there are the letters themselves, richissime in information and observations on art, people and the world at large... a steady stream of historical context engages the reader and leads him on... This is a real contribution to the study of art history."-Eliot Rowlands, Art Newspaper.
Art: A Visual History
Dorling Kindersley, 2015
Hardcover with slip case
416 pages
Dorling Kindersley
ISBN-10: 0241186102
This beautifully illustrated book offers a comprehensive guide to western artists, themes, paintings, techniques and stories. Packed full of large, full-colour images of iconic works and lesser-known gems, Art: A Visual History covers over six-hundred and fifty artists, providing an expansive view of art history.
Covering every era, from early art in 3000 BCE to contemporary work, with chronological features on the major schools and movements and close-up critical appraisals of twenty-two masterpieces, this book is a broad but thorough introduction to art history. A firm foundation in the subject is ensured by an exhaustive glossary of art terms which reinforces technical knowledge such as an ability to identify impressionism from expressionism.
Art: A Visual History addresses the question 'what makes great art?' With detailed referencing, crisp reproductions and a fresh new look, this book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in art history.
"One of my best ever Christmas presents. This is a Dorling Kindersley (DK) book in hard cover. It's 416 pages and measures 20cm wide by 24 cm high. It's brilliant! The book is encased in a very solid slip cover, which I love, and takes the reader through the ages chronologically from 30,000BC to "1970 Onwards". Like all DK books the quality is excellent and the colour photographs are beyond brilliant. The book covers eight periods from "Early Art" to "Modernism" and has a good glossary section and a detailed index. The index covers mainly artists and to find a particular painting you have to look under the artist's name. It's a great reference and a book I shall really treasure and refer to often".
Art (Eyewitness Companions)
Dorling Kindersley 2006
Soft cover
512 pages
Dorling Kindersley
ISBN: 1 4053 1054 5
"This gem of a book an ideal companion when walking round galleries. It is everything one would look for in such a companion - lucid, witty, provocative and thoughtful. Robert Cumming has a unique ability to relate art, its artists and its subjects to the real world".
"It is the insight and the remarkably deft choice of words to convey this insight which marks out Robert Cumming's work as unique amongst all of the books on art I have ever come across. He says it as he sees it, and he sees it through crystal clear eyes. It is a wonderful "gift".
A.R.T: A no-nonsense guide to art and artists
Everyman, 2001
Paperback
480 pages
Everyman
ISBN 1 84159 044 4
How do you get inside a Rothko? What should you look for in a Rembrandt? Will Damien Hirst last? Is Canaletto overrated? Why was Edward Hicks called Peaceable? What are the different labours of Hercules? What is special about Ursula? What does a crow represent? Was St Lawrence shot to death or clubbed to death? How do you recognise Abraham? What is: decalcomania, marouflage, ruperstain, gender surfing? How does poppy oil differ from linseed oil? What does post-humanism mean? Who were the Hudson River School? Can you give a clear crisp explanation, or a thought provoking answer for the above? A.R.T can. A.R.T is a lively, concise but authoritative guide to the creators, the stories, and the techniques that have made the art of painting one of the glories of Western civilisation. The book is divided into 3 main sections: Section One Explores over 700 artists from Abbate to Zubaran, Explains their characteristics, Locates the principal collections, Identifies the price ranges and records for each artist. Section Two Interprets over 700 stories and subjects from Aaron to Zeus, Decodes the essential signs, symbols and characters. Section Three Defines over 650 words and concepts from Abstract Art to Zinc White, Explains the principal technical, critical and historical terms, Demystifies the language that surrounds art. Plus An evaluative list of the best art sites available on the Internet. Robert Cumming's witty, enlightening comments accompany each entry. Thorough but never dry, lavishly illustrated with the work of hundreds of artists; A.R.T is an essential guide to the subject.
Annotated Art (Annotated Guides)
Dorling Kindersley, 1995, 2007
Hard cover
104 pages
Dorling Kindersley
ISBN: 0751301582
This fascinating book takes a stunning, visual approach to exploring and deconstructing everything you could want to know about 45 of the world's favourite paintings. Introductory text sets the scene for each picture, then captions and numerous annotations guide the reader all around the work, detailing the painter's techniques and intentions and explaining the picture's meaning and symbolism. A short biography of each artist places the work in its appropriate personal and historical context. The book's generous size and accurate colour reproductions display every detail of each painting, allowing the reader to study and understand the outstanding qualities of each painting.
"Extraordinary ... all you need to know that might otherwise have gone unnoticed" -- New York Times.
Great Artists (Annotate Guides)
Hard cover
104 pages
Dorling Kindersley
ISBN: 0751330965
Dorling Kindersley, 1998, 2007
"A benchmark for intelligent, engaging nonfiction, this superbly designed book is written and illustrated with a lushness that takes the breath away. Robert Cumming is chairman of Christie's education department: he knows his art history. But he also knows how to seduce you with the sheer beauty of the material, and the well-placed pointer to telling details. Fifty double-page spreads cover artists from da Vinci and Rubens to Monet, Picasso, and Pollock. Each spread is a concentrated master-class on the life, the style, and the influence. Check out the luminous full-color reproductions of "Bacchus" and "The Conversion of St. Paul," then read the opening sentence above them--"One of the few great artists to have a criminal record, Caravaggio was violent, loutish, and frequently under arrest"--and see if you can resist the temptation to read on. Great Artists is a dream of a book that adults and their older children will fight over. (Ages 12 to adult)"
Just Look....A Book about Paintings
Viking Kestrel 1979
Hard cover
60 pages
Kestrel
ISBN: 07226 5676 9
This excellent introduction to looking at pictures is written in an approachable and inviting style, showing its readers how to observe and understand the ways in which different artists paint. Suitable for readers aged 8 to 80.
Robert Cumming has chosen about paintings to illustrate how artists such as Breughel, da Vinci, Hogarth, Mondrian, Picasso, Matisse and many others use colour, light and various techniques to achieve specific effects. Cumming is clear and down-to-earth in his approach, drawing on many years of experience lecturing at the Tate Gallery in London to both young and older audiences.
Published in ten languages, Just Look won the prestigious Silver Pencil Award for Children's Literature in Holland.
Just Imagine
Kestrel Books, 1982
Hard cover
60 pages
Kestrel
ISBN: ISBN-10: 0722658230
Understanding a painting comes out of the meeting of two people's imaginations: the spectator's and the artist's. ‘If you are going to get into a painting and see what it is really about,’ explains Robert Cumming, ‘you will need to know what to look for and be prepared to use your imagination. Becoming involved in this way is what makes great art such a continual excitement - a voyage of discovery.’
Robert Cumming's second book, is a lively guide to 'reading' the intellectual/emotional content of paintings: the use of symbols and the depiction of biblical/mythological events; the appeal to the sense of pattern, texture and colour; the expression of emotion through distortions of colour and shape; indications of social and cultural attitudes.
Translated into six languages, JUST IMAGINE won The Times Senior Information Book Award and the Premio Pier Paolo Vergerio European Prize for Children's Literature from Padua University.
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