Described as combining ‘memoir, art criticism, and history to brilliant effect’ (The New York Times Book Review), Laura Cumming’s highly-acclaimed latest book, Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death, transports her reader into the captivating world of 17th century Dutch paintings in the light of her own life and those of two painters: the Dutch master Carol Fabritius, artist of The Goldfinch and a mysteriously small handful of other paintings, and Cumming’s own father, the Scottish painter James Cumming. Both painters died suddenly, and both left works that have changed the author’s own life What art can be, and how it can shift your thinking in a thunderclap - this goes to the heart of Cumming’s talk for the Ruskin Art Club.
Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of The Observer since 1999. Previously, she was arts editor of The New Statesman (UK), literary editor of The Listener (UK), and deputy editor of Literary Review. She is a former columnist for The Herald (Scotland) and has contributed to the Evening Standard (London), The Guardian, L’Express, and Vogue. Her book The Vanishing Velazquez won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was a New York Times bestseller. Her memoir On Chapel Sands was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford and Costa Prizes. Thunderclap has just own the Writer’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2024.