LONDON.- Ever since the dawn of the sound era, Hollywood has made a series of elaborate feature films about the lives of the great visual artists: including (among many others) Charles Laughton as Rembrandt; George Sanders as Gauguin; José Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec; Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh; Charlton Heston as Michelangelo–and, more recently on a smaller scale, Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat; Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon; Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock; Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo (at last a female artist!); and many others, pitched at more niche audiences.

There has never before been a full-length book devoted to the fascinating story of The Hollywood History of Art, in all its glory. This profusely illustrated volume will fill this surprising gap.

These films have represented the lives of artists in ways that ‘chime’ with public expectations and public attitudes. Although often dismissed out of hand by art historians and curators, these films can tell us a great deal about how art and artists have entered the cultural bloodstream of modern Western societies. What can they reveal about the changing public image of the visual artist? What assumptions did Hollywood screenwriters and filmmakers make about awareness of the history of art in society at large? And what assumptions did they reflect/ promote about the artists’ private lives–as well as their gender and ethnicity? What was the background to the making of these films? And what impact have they had on the real art world – its exhibitions, auctions, collections, and artists?

The Hollywood History of Art is based on many years of archive research, as well as on interviews with participants and the author’s long experience of teaching art history. It will appeal to readers interested in the history of art and of film, film buffs, collectors, viewers of TV miniseries and films about artists, museum and gallery-goers–and, of course, those with fond memories of José Ferrer wandering the streets of Montmartre on his knees, Kirk Douglas gritting his teeth and being attacked by crows, Charlton Heston swallowing a mouthful of paint as he frescoes the ceiling of a 70mm Sistine Chapel, Ed Harris in a T-shirt dripping brushfuls of paint onto a huge canvas and Salma Hayek being transported at speed in a four-poster bed to a contemporary art gallery in Mexico City...

Christopher Frayling is an award-winning broadcaster, a writer and a cultural historian. He was Rector of London’s Royal College of Art from 1996‒2009, a Professor of Cultural History at the RCA for over thirty years and is now a Professor Emeritus there. He is also Professor Emeritus of Arts at the University of Lancaster and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Former Chairman of Arts Council England, and of the Design Council, he was the longest-serving Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum and for ten years Chairman of the Royal Mint Design Advisory Committee. He was knighted in 2000, by Queen Elizabeth II, for ‘services to art and design education’. Christopher’s many books include The 2001 File, Once Upon a Time in the West: Shooting a Masterpiece and Sergio Leone by Himself. The Art Pack, with his wife, the artist Helen Frayling, was a worldwide bestseller that went on to help revolutionise art publishing.

“At an historical moment when the clichés of art history have turned into spectacular immersive experiences featuring digital versions of artists’ greatest hits, and when at the same time age-old establishment assumptions are being seriously questioned by scholars, it seems timely to revisit the Hollywood history of art.” - Christopher Frayling