Peter Michael Fuller (31 August 1947 – 28 April 1990) was a British art critic and magazine editor.
Life
editFuller was born in Damascus, Syria, and educated at Epsom College and Peterhouse, Cambridge.[1] In the early 1970s he wrote for the radical newspapers Black Dwarf and Seven Days,[1] and was responsible for establishing the latter,[2] "a short-lived Marxist glossy weekly".[3] Fuller subsequently freelanced elsewhere. Originally a follower of the critic John Berger, Fuller moved to the political right in mid-life, coming into conflict with his former allies Art & Language.
Peter Fuller was the founding editor of the art magazine Modern Painters, launched in 1987,[4] reflecting his admiration for the aesthetic principles of John Ruskin. In the spring of 1989 he was appointed art critic of The Daily Telegraph.[1] Along with such books as Art and Psychoanalysis, Fuller wrote regularly for Art Monthly UK and New Society for nearly 20 years.
Fuller died in a car accident on the M4 motorway in Berkshire on 28 April 1990.[5] Peter Fuller is buried in Stowlangtoft, Suffolk, UK.
The archive of Fuller's letters, journals and writings is held at the Tate Gallery in London. The Peter Fuller Memorial Foundation, a registered English charity (no.1014623), was set up in 1991. The Foundation hosts an annual lecture at the Tate Gallery and runs the online art magazine Art Influence.
Books
edit- Die Champions: Psychoanalyse d. Spitzensportlers, Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1976.
- The Champions: The Secret Motives in Games and Sports, Urizen Books, 1977; London: Allen Lane, 1978
- The Psychology of Gambling (with Jon Halliday), Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1977
- Art and Psychoanalysis, London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1981; The Hogarth Press, 1988
- Beyond the Crisis in Art - Writers and Readers;, 1981.
- Robert Natkin, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1981
- Seeing Berger: A Reevaluation of Ways of Seeing, Writers & Readers, 1981
- Aesthetics After Modernism, Writers and Readers, 1983.
- The Naked Artis: 'Art and Biology' and Other Essays, Writers & Readers Publishing, 1983
- Images of God: The Consolations of Lost Illusions, London: Chatto and Windus, 1985; London: The Hogarth Press, 1990
- The Australian Scapegoat: Towards and Antipodean Aesthetic, University of Western Australia Press, Western Australia, 1986
- Henry Moore, (with Susan Crompton and Richard Cork), London: Royal Academy of Arts / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988
- Seeing Through Berger, Claridge Press, 1988
- Theoria: Art and the Absence of Grace, Chatto and Windus, 1988.
- Left High and Dry: the Posturing of the Left Establishment, The Claridge Press, 1990
- Marches Past, The Hogarth Press, 1991
- Peter Fuller's Modern Painters: Reflections on British Art, (edited by John McDonald), London: Methuen, 1993
- Henry Moore: An Interpretation, Methuen, 1994.
Films
editPeter Fuller made a number of documentaries with Mike Dibb, including;
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow - art and psychoanalysis with Robert Natkin and Peter Fuller, 50 minutes, BBC, 1979
- Fields of Play - series exploring the role of play in every area of our lives from childhood and learning to gambling and war games, 5x60 minutes, BBC, 1979
- Naturally Creative - wide-ranging film essay on the origins of human creativity, 90 minutes, Channel 4, 1986/7
References
edit- ^ a b c Dennis Griffiths The Encyclopedia of the British Press 1422-1992, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p.256
- ^ Robert Chenciner "Introduction To Peter Fuller" Archived 4 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Art Influence (Peter Fuller Memorial Foundsation), February 2008
- ^ Robert Irwin "Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties", London: Profile Books, 2011, p.182 (page number taken from the http address.)
- ^ Jones, Jonathan (13 May 1999). "This man made Britart what it is. He would have hated it". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
- ^ "Peter Fuller; Art Critic, 42", New York Times, 1 May 1990