Judith Mackrell

Judith Mackrell’s latest book offers a penetrating reappraisal of two of the most significant British painters of the Edwardian era. Artists, Siblings, Visionaries is not a conventional dual biography of Gwen and Augustus John, but an incisive study of how artistic reputations are constructed—and why some figures dominate cultural memory while others are left in shadow.

Augustus John emerged as a dazzling public presence in London, renowned for his virtuoso draftsmanship, flamboyant lifestyle, and portraits of cultural giants such as Churchill and Yeats. Mackrell looks beyond the legend to examine how his restless temperament and appetite for excess both fuelled and undermined his artistic legacy, complicating the myth of effortless brilliance that long surrounded him.

In contrast, Gwen John’s work unfolds quietly and inwardly. Painting solitary women in restrained interiors, she pursued an intensely private vision, shaped by years of solitude in Paris and a complicated relationship with Rodin. Though historically overlooked, her achievements—both artistic and personal—now resonate with increasing force. Mackrell resists simplistic comparison, instead revealing two radically different temperaments bound by shared struggles over creation, recognition, and endurance. The book ultimately asks how art history decides whom to remember—and why those judgments so often change.