The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis and his Contemporaries

Artists: Arthur Devis, Francis Hayman, Thomas Gainsborough, Richard Wilson, Johann Zoffany et al. 
Author: Ellen G.D'Oench 
Publisher: Yale Center for British Art 
Date: 1980 
Condition: Some minor handling marks to the front and back covers, a strip of minor sunning to the front cover spine edge, otherwise a clean and tidy copy of a useful and informative catalogue. Published in the US, this catalogue is quite scarce in the UK

Arthur Devis is not a well-known name outside those who study early English portraiture, but his work, often showing his sitters in opulent but strangely little-furnished interiors, has an appeal which has persisted for decades. The revival of interest in the 'conversation piece' painting style of the early to mid c18th really took hold in the 1920s and these curious portraits, somehow intimate yet still a little stiff and awkward, have retained their power to fascinate. 

This catalogue, from an exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, an institution which has a very good holding of English portraits of this period, looks at Devis in the context of his contemporaries such as Francis Hayman, Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth and Johann Zoffany. Largely illustrated in black and white, it does however include a very illuminating essay by Ellen D'Oench, a leading scholar on Devis as well as extensive notes on the individual exhibits. It is also typeset in a rather wonderful semi-18th style which is rather idiosyncratic but refreshing to see!