The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

16 saturday review Saturday December 4 2021 | the times

Francis Bacon: Revelations
by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
William Collins, £30
No Francis Bacon fan can afford to
overlook this thunking biography by a
Pulitzer prizewinning husband-and-wife
team. Vivid descriptions, enlivening
anecdotes and revelatory detail (from the
profound impact of Nietzsche to Bacon’s
fascination with false teeth) enrich this
riveting narrative. A slew of other Bacon

Times

choice

art

And Away... by Bob

Mortimer Gallery, £20

These days Bob

Mortimer floats

just below national

treasure

status after

revealing his

graceful sense

of play on

Would I Lie to

Yo u? and Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone

Fishing. Both series have deepened our

appreciation for a comedian known for

decades of absurdist capering with his

double-act partner Jim Moir, aka Vic

Reeves. And in this beguiling memoir he

A

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choice

comedy

Side-splitting and life-changing

has a real story to tell: he crosscuts

between his triple heart bypass surgery

in 2015 to losing his father as he grew up

in Middlesbrough, accidentally burning

down the family house, hating university

and working as a solicitor before finding

fame with Reeves in the late 1980s.

Fight! Thirty Years Not Quite at the

Top by Harry Hill Hodder Studio, £20

There has always been something

analytical as well as fantastical about

Harry Hill’s everyday absurdism. Here,

after a few mock memoirs in which

“Harry Hill” was as much a character in

print as he was on TV Burp, the former

doctor lays out his path to success. For

him, comedy is a joy and a job, and he

details the importance of keeping the

ideas coming. “I was lucky enough to be

born with a modicum of talent,” he

concludes. So he tried making people

laugh. “I liked the feeling it gave me, so

I did it again.” There, easy.

The Lick of Love: How Dogs Changed

My Life by Julian Clary Quercus, £20

“All my adult life I have had a dog by my

side,” Julian Clary writes in an elegant

memoir that touches on canine

companions from Fanny the Wonder

Dog onwards. He is also frank about his

busy sex life in the 1980s, a career that

has gone from the alternative comedy

circuit to his own Channel 4 shows,

pantos and Strictly Come Dancing, and

settling down with his husband, Ian, in

London after a stint doing up and living

in a (haunted, he says) house in Kent

formerly owned by Noël Coward.

The Audacity by Katherine Ryan

Blink, £20

“I’ve come to peacefully accept that

being audacious is a gift I can’t escape,”

Katherine Ryan says in this wildly

readable memoir told in a series of

“how to” chapters that explore their

topics with no-nonsense honesty: “How

to let your friend’s murder define all your

relationships”; “How to be crowned Miss

Hooters Toronto”; “How to get plastic

surgery”; “How to get started in comedy”,

“How to attract toxic men... AND keep

them interested!” and “How to marry

your high-school boyfriend”. Tremendous.

It’s been a stand-out

year for stand-up

comics’ memoirs, says

Dominic Maxwell

you can commemorate this resonant

historical moment. Images of reliquaries,

manuscripts, jewels, sculptures and

stained glass windows speak of the life,

death and legacy of the martyr, who,

credited with a bizarre assortment of

miracles, was canonised by the Pope

barely three years after his murder.

Illuminating Natural History: The

Art and Science of Mark Catesby by

Henrietta McBurney Paul Mellon Centre

for Studies in British Art, £40

In the early 18th century Mark Catesby,

an amateur naturalist from East Anglia,

vividly documented the flora and fauna

of America from the tiniest “tumble-

turd” beetle to the flowering umbrella

tree. His watercolours, beautifully

reproduced (often in full-size plates)

biographies have been published, but this

portrait of an iconoclast who found glory

in squalor and snatched a sense of

grandeur from life’s banality must surely

count as definitive.

Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings

Taschen, £150

You can’t pop into your nearest museum

and find a Frida Kahlo painting; there

are none in British public collections.

And loan shows of her work get too

packed to look properly; the Mexican

artist with the famous monobrow has a

huge following. But with this gigantic

monograph you can enjoy a private

exhibition of her work. Leaf through her

life and career, picture by picture.

Epic Iran: 5000 Years of Culture

V&A, £40

The illustrated catalogue to the V&A’s

magnificent Epic Iran exhibition is the

museological equivalent of a magic-

carpet flight. Meet the Proto-Elamites,

who wrote in cuneiform and staged

elaborate temple rituals. Witness the rise

— and fall — of the Persian Empire.

Discover the glories

of Persepolis.

Encounter Parthians

and Sasanians; step

into medieval

mosques, peep

behind the scenes of

a harem in Tehran.

Witness a modern

revolution.

Eventually, 5,000

years after you set off,

you emerge blinking into modern Iran,

where a blue-eyed, gum-chewing blonde

blows a huge pink bubble in your face.

Thomas Becket: Murder and the

Making of a Saint British Museum, £35

Last year was the 850th anniversary of a

sensational true crime drama. Thomas

Becket, Archbishop of

Canterbury, was

hacked to death by the

henchmen of his friend-

turned-foe Henry II.

Planned pilgrimages

were postponed by the

pandemic, but with this

book — the richly

illustrated catalogue

to a recent British

Museum exhibition —

books of the year

Hunt them down! The

artists’ secrets revealed

Frida Kahlo, Thomas Becket and Albrecht Dürer jostle for space

in the best art books, chosen by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

private view The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo (1946). Below: a reliquary casket

PHOTO: BRIDGEMAN IMAGES © BANCO DE MEXICO DIEGO RIVERA FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUMS TRUST/VG BILD-KUNST, BONN 2021; THE INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES Y LITERATURA, 2021