Farewell Brian Sewell.

I first heard of Brian Sewell via Ned Sherrin’s witty culture review, “Loose Ends” on Radio 4 back in the 1980s. This was a vehicle for rising media stars like Stephen Fry who contributed hilarious pastiches of various styles- and a lot of other movers and shakers whose names have been wiped from my memory. Then there was Sewell as resident art critic: his voice was the cause of much hilarity amongst the guests, and of course the audience out in Radioland. A sort of Noel Coward type voice, though not as extreme as that. “That’s a great accent, Brian.” “I bet the Queen has a laugh” and similar. The man himself with always synonymous with that voice which was really his trademark with the general public. Sewell would eventually migrate to TV where he would be in demand as a debunker of the latest piece of creative genius such as walls of chocolate and other marvels of modern civilisation.

My next Sewell spotting was when he successfully riled the London art history intelligentsia by trampling their modernist idols beneath the dust. A petition was drawn up by a number of eminent art historians protesting at his views. These comments and the various reviews were collected in a book called “The Reviews That Caused the Rumpus” which had the art critic perched naked on a bed in imitation of the disturbing, nocturnal imp in Fuseli’s “The Nightmare.” This compendium of reviews on everything from traditional art, art education to contemporary art, was hugely enjoyable and amusing; but at the same time there was the indisputable learnedness, perspicacity and evidence of a well-read man, though untainted by the academy and its doctrines. He had complete conviction in his judgements too; his dishing of Gilbert and George, the Chapman Brothers and others enfants terribles were against prevailing trends- but he was right.

Educated at the Courtauld Institute after turning down a place at Oxford, Sewell was a part of that generation of art historians, art critics, scholars who were taught by Poussin scholar Anthony Blunt. When Blunt was unmasked by Margaret Thatcher and hounded by the press Sewell befriended him, and shielded him from the glare of the media. The best account of Blunt and what was really the golden age of the Courtauld is Amanda Carter’s book on Blunt, though Sewell refused to be interviewed, a decision he later regretted.

I never actually met Brian Sewell- but on several occasions I watched him studying art in places like the British Museum when I chanced to be there. He was a picture of concentration and clearly was able to draw out certain hidden mysteries of the brush and pen that escaped many another “critical” eye. As art critic of the Evening Standard, Brian Sewell was always worth reading because of that unselfconsciously educated tone in his exhibition reviews: he believed that one should not dumb down to the public, but encourage them to rise up, go out, find out more about the artist, read books etc. Unfortunately, this educational philosophy is being abandoned at all points of the cultural compass, a trend which he deplored as in his protestations against the current anti-intellectualism of the BBC and Radio 3.

Wether Sewell was reviewing Leonardo at the National Gallery or Modern Art on the South Bank, he was invariably interesting, brilliant at putting an artist in their historical context, and unflinchingly relentless in hitting the critical nail on the head nearly all of the time. He also cared about language too: he was fond of the long, weighted sentence, and would protest if editors tried to browbeat him into short, punchy art sound bites. To me, Sewell was about the only art critic in the London press worth reading; more in the flâneur tradition of Baudelaire and Sickert, the discerning man on the spot who could see through falsity and pretention- but was willing to award the palm when it was due. He wasn’t hostile to all modern art.

With his disappearance from the Standard due to cancer and its complications, the newspaper art scene just wasn’t the same. Now he’s gone for good and the sane man weeps for the future of art journalism. In the words of the Evening Standard, “Simply, Brian was the nation’s best art critic, best columnist and the most brilliant and sharpest writer in recent times.”

RIP Brian Sewell. Thanks for all the insight , humanity and wit.

Comments

[Hels]

Isn't it interesting that as a very young man, Sewell specifically chose to be educated at the Courtauld Institute, rather than accepting a place at Oxford. Later in life, did he still think he made the correct decision? Did his detractors?

[AHT]

I don't know if BS says anything about that decision in his memoirs because I haven't read them. From what I've read and heard in his interviews he was happy at the Courtauld, especially under Blunt's directorship.