Tartarus Press

publishers

Denton Welch

Writer & Artist

by

James Methuen-Campbell

 

Foreword by Alan Bennett

 

Alan Bennett contributes a perceptive and very personal Foreword to this stunning biography of the cult 1930s & 40s writer and artist, Denton Welch.

 

The work of this exquisite writer, much admired by such disparate fellow authors as Edith Sitwell and William Burroughs, is at once seemingly artless and incredibly precious. There really is no one quite like him.

 

James Methuen-Campbell has researched the tragically short life of his fascinating subject thoroughly . . . conducting countless interviews with those who knew Welch best. For the first time Welch’s work as a painter is also properly considered.

 

James Methuen-Campbell has written on classical music, specialising in the history of piano playing: his book, Chopin Playing (Gollancz, 1981) has appeared in three editions. In recent years he has developed his interest in art, ranging from the Old Masters to Modern British painters. It is from his

researches into the latter that this book derives.

 

Reviews:

"James Methuen-Campbell ... wrote a biography of Welch in 2002 which did much to establish his reputation as an artist" - Ian Irvine, Independent on Sunday, November 27th 2005

"[Methuen-Campbell's] engrossing, careful and incisive book is a testament to Welch's strange attraction, and is to be cherished, not least for its sensitivity to a character who, as Alan Bennett observes, was 'tough, single-minded and often difficult to live with'." - Robert Hoare, Independent on Sunday, 17th March, 2002.

"Methuen-Campbell's attention to detail exceeds that of Welch's previous biographer... surpasses its predecessor ... in the greater attention it gives to Welch's paintings and drawings, generously illustrated in both black-and-white and colour." - Frances Spalding, Times Literary Supplement, 14th March 2002

"The allure of Welch's writing, and of the personality that Methuen-Campbell so skilfully reveals, is rooted in a childlike delight in the small pleasures of life, expressed from the vantage point of someone who has suffered and enjoyed the challenge of the survival. " - Patrick O'Connor, The Literary Review, May 2002.

"One of the joys of this immaculately presented book is the number of black-and-white and colour reproductions of Welch's paintings and drawings. Further, this new biography seems more carefully researched, more thoughtfully constructed." - Peter Burton, Gay Times, May 2002.

"As this new study is limited to 500 copies, I predict that it will end up as one more Welch curio, feverishly hunted in Hay-on-Wye bookshops at £200 a copy." - Michael de-la-Noy, The Independent, 22nd April, 2002.

"Diligently researched." - Selina Hastings, The Spectator.

"Now, this very sound biography by James Methuen-Campbell should help to consolidate a more enduring reputation. It redresses the neglect of his largely overlooked career as an artist, as well as narrating a life that was by any standards lived in adversity." - Phil Baker, Guardian

"Among the bonnes bouches on offer in this elegantly produced book, which would have delighted the Welchian fastidiousness, are the first publication of three previously uncollected short pieces of his, a full bibliography of his writings, 61 plates, fifteen of them in colour, and a catalogue of all his known pictures -- except two in my possession -- and illustrations." - Richard Whittington-Egan, Contemporary Review