Modernists and Rebels. Bacon, Freud, Hockney and the London School

The historical and art historical study by Martin Gayford (born 1952), author of collections of interviews with David Hockney and Lucian Freud, books about British art, Van Gogh, and Michelangelo, focuses on London painting of the 1950s-1970s, where the innovations of pop art intertwined with its obsession with the mass culture of consumer society, existentially oriented neo-expressionism and the traditional interest in colorful material typical of England. The work of leading British artists of this time - Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, R. B. Kitaj, David Hockney, and others - is examined by the author in the context of aesthetic quests and the vibrant bohemian life of swinging London.
The book is written based on Gayford's conversations with most of the artists he talks about; numerous excerpts from these conversations immerse the reader in the atmosphere of British art of the recent past.