Peter Lanyon was one of the most exciting and original landscape painters of the 20th Century. The only native-born Cornishman of the St Ives artists, Lanyon"s representation of the land he grew up in was complex and passionate: for him it was part social history, part myth, part aesthetic. This book tells of Lanyon"s singular place within the 20th Century"s major art movements alongside his strong belief in employing landscape and place to explore questions of personal identity. ‘I would not be surprised if all my painting now will be done on an edge – where the land meets the sea, where flesh touches at the lips."

‘Peter Lanyon was a major figure not just in St Ives, but also on an international stage. His powerful paintings ... placed him in the forefront of abstract painting in Europe and America during the late ‘50s and the early ‘60s." NICHOLAS SEROTA.

"I bought a small Peter Lanyon watercolour many years ago, almost by accident. No matter whatever else hung in the room, my eye continually roved back to it. It was so little but powerfully persuasive. The secret attraction, of course, is that through his landscape he revealed, with assugre and quiet complexity, a palimpsest of his own being. This excellent book successfully rescues him from the relatively forgotten, and, I hope, will finally bring him the recognition he deserves". DAVID BOWIE