A Look At My Life

by Eileen Agar

Genres: Art, Biography

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1988

Reviews

[Fran]

A disappointment both in terms of how it was written and the content. As an artist I often enjoy reading the writing of other artists as they can give an insight into the creative process, difficulties, and motivations that all artists share to a greater or lesser extent. Agar seems to use her creative enterprise as a route to celebrity and tediously describes the lifestyle of a socialite who enjoyed travelling and socialising with little reference to her own practice. I wanted to read her thoughts on art and the opinions she discussed with Picasso and Paul Nash, but the interactions she mentions with various literary and artistic figures are rather dull and superficial. She seems more interested in sex than intellectual debate and this book sometimes reads as a chronological catalogue of the famous people she met, flirted or slept with that could have been written by any minor celebrity. Only the occasional mention of making work for a show or the Tate buying a painting serves as a reminder that we are reading about the life of an artist.

[K Kriesel]

I discovered the artwork of Eileen Agar about a month ago and fell head over heels over her paintings. Naturally I ordered a copy of her memoir asap so I could learn more about the person behind the paintbrush.

To be honest, Agar was not much of a writer. The majority of her memoir lists different people she met and places she visited, often with just a sentence or two with her personal opinion on them. And she said herself that she was trying to write down the life of her deceased husband - an honorable intent, not executed well. I suspect that this memoir was an attempt to condense a long series of diaries.

Also, a lot of what she writes just hasn't aged well. Despite her rebellion and free-thinking art she was a product of her upbringing.
I'm glad that I read this book but I think her artwork says much more about her.