The Irreplaceable Brian Sewell

When I wrote about the controversial English art critic Brian Sewell in the May edition of Quadrant I was aware that he was already seriously ill. Sadly Brian died on September 19 in London. I find it hard to believe I will never see his witty, informed and provocative articles in the Evening Standard again. That is a very great loss after nearly thirty-one years.

Our professional lives as critics began within weeks of each other in 1984 and I have been aware of Brian’s welcome presence in the greater firmament of critics ever since. Our backgrounds may have seemed quite different yet often we reached similar conclusions about the serious shortcomings of supposedly world-class recent artists and exhibitions. I believe that was because we tended to view all art in a greater context of time than the merely recent. Thus we might see a painter described by others as a highly significant figure of the moment but both of us could not help wondering how such an artist could really be…