Peter Michael Fuller (31 August 1947 – 28 April 1990) was a British art critic and magazine editor.

Life

Fuller was born in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, and educated at

Epsom College Epsom College is a co-educational independent school on Epsom Downs, Surrey, England, for pupils aged 11 to 18. It was founded in 1853 as a boys' school to provide support for poor members of the medical profession such as pensioners and orpha ...

and Peterhouse,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

.Dennis Griffiths ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press 1422-1992'', London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p.256 In the early 1970s he wrote for the radical newspapers '' Black Dwarf'' and ''Seven Days'', and was responsible for establishing the latter, "a short-lived Marxist glossy weekly". Fuller subsequently freelanced elsewhere. Originally a follower of the critic John Berger, Fuller moved to the political right in mid-life, coming into conflict with his former allies ''

Art & Language Art & Language is a conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created in the late 1960s. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the creati ...

''. Peter Fuller was the founding editor of the art magazine ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of ...

'', launched in 1987, reflecting his admiration for the aesthetic principles of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

. In the spring of 1989 he was appointed art critic of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

''. Along with such books as ''Art and Psychoanalysis'', Fuller wrote regularly for ''Art Monthly UK'' and '' New Society'' for nearly 20 years. Fuller died in a car accident on the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

on 28 April 1990."Peter Fuller; Art Critic, 42"
''New York Times'', 1 May 1990 Peter Fuller is buried in Stowlangtoft,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, UK. The archive of Fuller's letters, journals and writings is held at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in London. The Peter Fuller Memorial Foundation, a registered English charity (no.1014623), was set up in 1991. The Foundation hosts an annual lecture at the Tate Gallery and runs the online art magazine ''Art Influence''.

Books

*''Die Champions: Psychoanalyse d. Spitzensportlers'', Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1976. *''The Champions: The Secret Motives in Games and Sports'', Urizen Books, 1977; London: Allen Lane, 1978 *''The Psychology of Gambling'' (with Jon Halliday), Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1977 *''Art and Psychoanalysis'', London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1981; The Hogarth Press, 1988 *''Beyond the Crisis in Art'' - Writers and Readers;, 1981. *''Robert Natkin'', New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1981 *''Seeing Berger: A Reevaluation of Ways of Seeing'', Writers & Readers, 1981 *''Aesthetics After Modernism'', Writers and Readers, 1983. *''The Naked Artis: 'Art and Biology' and Other Essays'', Writers & Readers Publishing, 1983 *''Images of God: The Consolations of Lost Illusions'', London: Chatto and Windus, 1985; London: The Hogarth Press, 1990 *''The Australian Scapegoat: Towards and Antipodean Aesthetic'', University of Western Australia Press, Western Australia, 1986 *''Henry Moore'', (with Susan Crompton and Richard Cork), London: Royal Academy of Arts / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988 *''Seeing Through Berger'', Claridge Press, 1988 *''Theoria: Art and the Absence of Grace'', Chatto and Windus, 1988. *''Left High and Dry: the Posturing of the Left Establishment'', The Claridge Press, 1990 *''Marches Past'', The Hogarth Press, 1991 *''Peter Fuller's Modern Painters: Reflections on British Art'', (edited by John McDonald), London: Methuen, 1993 *''Henry Moore: An Interpretation'', Methuen, 1994.

Films

Peter Fuller made a number of documentaries with

Mike Dibb Mike Dibb (born Wharfedale, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 29 April 1940) is an English documentary filmmaker. In almost half a century of making films mainly for television – on subjects including cinema, literature, art, jazz, sport and popular cu ...

, including; *''Somewhere Over the Rainbow'' - art and psychoanalysis with Robert Natkin and Peter Fuller, 50 minutes, BBC, 1979 *''Fields of Play'' - series exploring the role of play in every area of our lives from childhood and learning to gambling and war games, 5x60 minutes, BBC, 1979 *''Naturally Creative'' - wide-ranging film essay on the origins of human creativity, 90 minutes, Channel 4, 1986/7

References

External links

Art Influence web-site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuller, Peter 1947 births 1990 deaths British art critics People from Damascus Road incident deaths in England People educated at Epsom College Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge The Daily Telegraph people 20th-century English businesspeople