Private View is a witty, informed and highly entertaining excursion into the lives and times of great artists. Gone is the old reverence, and here in its place, are the real stories of the artists who have gone down in history... their women, their crimes, their illnesses, their perversions, their patrons. The author, herself an accomplished artist and a fellow of the Royal Society of Art, brings to life the worlds where art was part of everyone s lives, where rivals murdered one another, shared lovers, stole from one another and generally fought to survive in the astonishing times in which they lived.