The Complete Outsider
by Brian Sewell
Quartet, 628pp, £20/$27.50
By the end of his life, Brian Sewell (1931-2015) was one of the rare art historians and critics known to the general public. Unabashedly an “elitist” in the best sense of the word, he nevertheless achieved his fame by writing reviews for the mass-audience Evening Standard and appearing on television. Sewell refused to talk down to his readers. Nor did he ever scrap his elegant pronunciation – the norm in Sewell’s 1930s childhood, but out of fashion in later years.
