Early Praise for Rogues and Scholars: "With panache and characteristically elegant narrative skill, James Stourton throws open the doors to a riveting chapter in the history of art in which glamorous eccentricities, serious scholarship and a good deal of swindling cohabit. It is a story of gentlemen and of crooks, told through witty firsthand accounts about colorful characters sailing dangerously close to the wind. Stourton brings us a gripping and thoroughly researched chronicle of the post-war art market, punctuated with the occasional 'you couldn't make this up' moment. Rogues & Scholars is just as entertaining as it is educational."--Wolf Burchard, curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Praise for Kenneth Clark: "A crisp and authoritative biography [told] with grace and wit. A pre-eminent figure of cultural life during the twentieth century, Clark recognized that in dark times there is a yearning for serious art, music and literature."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times "Learned, eloquent. Stourton carefully chronicles Clark's rather loveless childhood, his apprenticeship with Berenson in Italy, his appointment as keeper of fine art at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, at the astonishing age of 27, his rise to command the National Gallery at 30, [and his] influence in the world of television."--Dan Hofstadter, The Wall Street Journal
"James Stourton leaves no stone unturned in Kenneth Clark, his magisterial and engrossing biography, which achieves a perfect balance between Clark's complex private world and his hugely successful career."--Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War
"Outstanding. Stourton proves to be a highly capable guide to this significant 20th-century life...A sparkling, thoroughly entertaining portrait of a brilliant popularizer who brought art to the masses." -- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Superb. Stourton, a former chariman of Southeby's, is the ideal choice for Clark's official biographer and has produced an accomplished book that is scholarly, entertaining, beautifully written and sympathetic, while far from uncritical."--Michael Prodger, The Times (London)
"Richly detailed, colourful and astute. A resplendent biography."--John Carey, The Sunday Times (London)
"An astute study. Stourton has dissected his subject's multiple personae and unpicked his ambiguities and evasions. [He] astutely analyses Clark's emotional and intellectual contradictions."--Peter Conrad, The Gaurdian