Philip de László: His Life and Art

by Duff Hart-Davis

Philip de László (1869–1937) was born into a humble Hungarian family in Budapest and rose to become the preeminent portrait artist working in Britain between 1907 and 1937. He painted nearly 3,000 portraits, including those of numerous kings and queens, four American presidents, and countless members of the European nobility. “Has any one painter ever before painted so many interesting and historical personages?” asked his contemporaries. There has been no biography of him since 1939, and this new account of both his life and his work draws on previously untapped material from the family archive of over 15,000 documents, to which the author has had unrivaled access. It establishes the intrinsic importance of his art and re-positions him in his rightful place alongside his great contemporaries John Singer Sargent, Sir John Lavery, and Giovanni Boldini.

326 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2010

About the author

Peter Duff Hart-Davis, generally known as Duff Hart-Davis was a British biographer, naturalist and journalist, who wrote for The Independent. He was married to Phyllida Barstow and had one son and one daughter, the journalist Alice Hart-Davis. He lived at Owlpen, in Gloucestershire.