August Strindberg: Painter, Photographer, Writer

While August Strindberg (1849-1912) is well known to an international audience as a prolific writer, primarily of plays, his work in the visual arts has remained largely unseen. Painter, Photographer, Writer examines the paintings, drawings, and photographs that demonstrate Strindberg's independent and radical approach to art. Critics have compared Strindberg's paintings to those of Turner, but also to those of artists from much later movements such as Expressionism. In his youth, working as an art critic, he was one of the first in Sweden to show an understanding of Impressionism. In writings of the 1890s he anticipated ideas promoted by Dada and Surrealism. The book includes correspondence between Strindberg and his friend Gauguin, along with new translations of Strindberg's Cloud Images and New Arts. Painter, Photographer, Writer accompanies a major exhibition of Strindberg's visual works to be held at Tate Modern in 2005.