The Latest Breaking News from Gwen John

Gwen’s talent vastly outshone her brother’s – but both are treated with subtlety in this outstanding dual biography

He was a wild, glamorous painter, the toast of the early 20th century, whose life and career eclipsed his sister’s. But, after dying almost unknown, Gwen is now having the last laugh

The quiet Welsh painter Gwen John was not like any other artist, male or female – she was genuinely unique. She was neither an heiress, like most unmarried modernist women, nor a conventional academic artist, like most women who had to make a living with their art.

The Welsh-born painter Gwen John is generally remembered as a “fragile”, isolated figure, said Mark Hudson in The Independent. Neglected for some time after her death, John (1876-1939) was rediscovered in the 1980s, when she was reassessed as a reclusive talent overshadowed by two “bombastic male egos”: her brother, the…

Flawed, preoccupied and animated, Donachie’s vivid portraits intrigue and charm in a lively exhibition; Gwen John feels anaemic by comparison

Tensile and hard-won, the artist’s singular work is occasionally lost in the scrum of a show keen to situate her in a social, sexual and painterly whirl

She is famous for painting solitary women. But, far from being the recluse of popular myth, this pupil of Whistler, admirer of Cézanne and lover of Rodin was ahead of her time

Suzanne Valadon fed hers caviar. Leonor Fini kept two dozen. And when Tracey Emin lost hers, the missing posters fetched £500 each. The writer of a new book about painters and moggies celebrates furry muses

The category of “art book” is vast, like art itself, but the best ones mix beautiful, interesting images with engaging and intelligent text. The books on this short list range from groundbreaking scholarly texts to dreamy, personal reflections, but all find that balance between image and narrative that makes an…