Our debut publication by Andrew Cranston pays tribute to a pocketbook the artist has carried with him for years: a slim but charming volume containing a collection of paintings and prints by Swiss-born German artist Paul Klee. This well-worn paperback, with its yellowed pages and gatefold images, has been a continued and convenient point of reference for Cranston, with the reproductions inside bearing a significant influence on many of the works included in 'What made you stop here?', the artist's first institutional solo show at The Hepworth Wakefield. As with the original titles of the Fontana Pocket Library of Great Art series to which the Klee book belongs, the object of this publication is to introduce the work of Andrew Cranston to the general reader at a price and in a format suitable to their pocket.In keeping with this model, Cranston's latest publication functions as an accessible entry point to his work, focusing on a rich selection of the artist's large-scale works, alongside several watercolours and a suite of new etchings. The book opens with an illuminating essay by Oli Hazzard, which grapples with all things Cranston: questions of perception, memory, and storytelling, all of which is controlled by an astonishing handling of colour, materiality, and composition. Each painting is presented alongside an accompanying interpretation by Liza Dimbleby—impressionistic passages of thoughtful wonder, imbued with formal curiosity and guided by years of friendship and conversation with the artist.
