Anita Brookner (16 July 1928 – 10 March 2016) was an English novelist and art historian. She was

Slade Professor of Fine Art The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art and art history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College, London. History The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collect ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Booker–McConnell Prize for her novel ''

Hotel du Lac ''Hotel du Lac'' is a 1984 Booker Prize-winning novel by English writer Anita Brookner. It centres on Edith Hope, a romance novelist who is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. There she meets other English visitors, including Mr ...

''.

Life and education

Brookner (Bruckner) was born in

Herne Hill Herne Hill is a district in South London, approximately four miles from Charing Cross and bordered by Brixton, Camberwell, Dulwich, and Tulse Hill. It sits to the north and east of Brockwell Park and straddles the boundary between the borou ...

, a suburb of London. She was the only child of Newson Bruckner, a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

immigrant from

Piotrków Trybunalski Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the second-largest city situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Previously, it was the capita ...

in Poland, and Maude Schiska, a singer whose grandfather had emigrated from Warsaw, Poland, and founded a tobacco factory at which her husband worked after arriving in Britain aged 18. Her mother gave up her singing career when she married and, according to her daughter, was unhappy for the rest of her life. Maude changed the family's surname to Brookner because of anti-German sentiment in Britain. Anita Brookner had a lonely childhood, although her grandmother and uncle lived with the family, and her parents, secular Jews, opened their house to Jewish refugees fleeing the Germans during the 1930s and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. "I have said that I am one of the loneliest women in London" she said in her ''

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...

'' interview. She was educated at the

James Allen's Girls' School James Allen's Girls' School, abbreviated JAGS, is an independent day school situated in Dulwich, South London, England. It is the second oldest girls’ independent school in Great Britain - Godolphin School in Salisbury being the oldest, founde ...

, a fee-paying school. In 1949 she received a BA in history from King's College London, and in 1953 a doctorate in art history from the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. Under the supervision of Anthony Blunt, then director of the Courtauld, what was originally a Masters thesis on the French genre painter

Jean-Baptiste Greuze Jean-Baptiste Greuze (, 21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805) was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. Biography Early life Greuze was born at Tournus, a market town in Burgundy. He is generally said to have formed h ...

was upgraded to a doctorate. However, she received a French government scholarship in 1950 to the

École du Louvre The École du Louvre is an institution of higher education and grande école located in the Aile de Flore of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. It is dedicated to the study of archaeology, art history, anthropology and epigraphy. Admission is ...

and spent most of the decade living in Paris.

Career

Academic

In 1967, she became the first woman to hold the Slade Professorship of Fine Art at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

. She was a visiting lecturer at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

from 1959 to 1964 when she became a lecturer at the

. She was promoted to

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at the Courtauld in 1977, where she worked until her retirement in 1988. She began her career as a specialist on 18th century French art but later extended her expertise to the romantics. She contributed articles to '' ArtReview'' in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Among her students at the Courtauld was art historian Olivier Berggruen, whose graduate work she advised. She was a Fellow of King's College London and of New Hall, Cambridge (

Murray Edwards College Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1954 as New Hall. In 2008, following a donation of £30 million by alumna Ros Edwards and her husband Steve, it was renamed Murray Edwar ...

from 2008). Photographs taken by Anita Brookner are held in the Conway Library of art and architecture at the Courtauld Institute.

Novelist

Brookner published her first novel, '' A Start in Life'' (1981), at the age of 53. Thereafter she published roughly one a year. Brookner was regarded as a stylist. Her novels explore themes of emotional loss and difficulties associated with fitting into society, and intellectual, middle-class women, who suffer isolation and disappointments in love. Many of her characters are the children of European immigrants to Britain; a number appear to be of Jewish descent. ''

'' (1984), her fourth novel, was awarded the Booker–McConnell Prize.

Private life and honours

Brookner never married, but took care of her parents as they aged. Brookner commented in one interview that she had received several proposals of marriage, but rejected all of them, concluding that men were "people with their own agenda, who think you might be fitted in if they lop off certain parts. You can see them coming a mile off." She gave the 1974 Aspects of Art Lecture. In 1990, she was appointed a Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE). She died in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, on 10 March 2016, at the age of 87.

Publications

*''Greuze: 1725–1805: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth-century Phenomenon'' (1972) (on

) *''Jacques-Louis David'' (1980) (on the

history painter History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

Jacques-Louis David) *'' A Start in Life'' (1981, US title ''The Debut'') *''Providence'' (1982) *''Look at Me'' (1983) *''

'' (1984) ( Booker Prize winner) *''Family and Friends'' (1985) *''A Misalliance'' (1986) *''A Friend from England'' (1987) *''Latecomers'' (1988) *''Lewis Percy'' (1989) *''Brief Lives'' (1990) *''A Closed Eye'' (1991) *''Fraud'' (1992) *''A Family Romance'' (1993, US title ''Dolly'') *''A Private View'' (1994) *'' Incidents in the Rue Laugier'' (1995) *''Altered States'' (1996) *''Visitors'' (1997) *''Falling Slowly'' (1998) *''Undue Influence'' (1999) *''Romanticism and its Discontents'' (2000) *''The Bay of Angels'' (2001) *''The Next Big Thing'' (2002, US title ''Making Things Better'') (longlisted for the Booker Prize) *''The Rules of Engagement'' (2003) *''Leaving Home'' (2005) *''Strangers'' (2009) (shortlisted for

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

) *''At The Hairdresser'' (2011) (novella, available only as an e-book)

References

External links

*
Anita Brookner Collection
at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...