Early Works
-
A Painter of Our Time
Book 1958
Books, Early Works, Migrants, Novels, Painting, UK
A Painter of our Time, first novel written by John Berger in 1958.
A Painter of Our Time is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to Berger’s great works of art criticism. The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London, an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant on…
READ MORE -
Permanent Red
Book 1960
Art, Books, Early Works, Essays, Painting, Politics
Permanent Red, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1960.
Why should an artist’s way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Any artwork reflects the artist’s intentions, but also its times: therefore all art is political.
In Permanent Red, John Berger argues that the contemporary artist should strive for a realism that aims for hope, to transform the world. Surveying the work of histor…
READ MORE -
The Foot of Clive
Book 1962
Books, Early Works, Novels, UK
The Foot of Clive, novel by John Berger, first edition in 1962.
In the centre of a 1960s hospital ward sits a curtained-off bed, guarded by a policeman. In it lies a murderer, hidden from view and likely to die before he can be hanged for his crime. In the closed, regimented society of the ward, his invisible presence fractures and rebuilds the way the other patients see the world. In the face of someone who …
READ MORE -
Corker’s Freedom
Book 1964
Books, Early Works, Novels, UK
Corker’s Freedom, novel by John Berger, first edition in 1964.
A powerfully unsettling, mordantly witty story about the pitfalls of free will. In the course of a day, the ageing owner of an employment agency is propelled into a fantasy world through his romantic yearnings and inarticulate dreams, seeking an illusory freedom from the bonds of responsibility.
…
READ MORE -
The Success and Failure of Picasso
Book 1965
Art, Books, Early Works, Essays, France, Painting, Spain
The Success and Failure of Picasso, essay by John Berger, first edition in 1965.
At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.
In this stunning critical asses…
READ MORE -
Poems on the Theatre
Book 1961
Books, Early Works, Poetry, Politics, Theater, Translations by JB
Poems on the Theatre, poetry by Bertolt Brecht, translated in english by Anna Bostock and John Berger, first edition in 1961.
…
READ MORE
JOHN BERGER
Storyteller, essayist, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, painter and critic, John Berger (1926-2017) is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. Solo or in collaboration with Jean Mohr for example, he published more than 30 titles, the Booker Prize winning novel G and the best-seller Ways of Seeing. He has also published articles in the most important newspapers around the world.
He used to work and live in Quincy, a small French peasant community, the setting for his trilogy Into their Labours.
Painters, cineasts, writers, dancers, curators have been and are still inspired by his work, this website is a window on these TODAY creations.