The joy of hanging out with artists

Lynn Barber is known as a distinguished journalist, but what she always wanted to do was hang out with artists. This book feels like a marvellous cocktail party, packed with the painters and sculptors Barber has interviewed over the years: Howard Hodgkin, Phyllida Barlow, Grayson Perry, Maggi Hambling. Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin eye one another warily from opposite sides of the room; Salvador Dali’s ocelot weaves between the guests; everyone, naturally, is smoking. Lucian Freud is a no-show – though having refused Barber’s many interview requests, he did send a scrawled note explaining he had no wish to ‘be shat upon by a stranger’.

Feuds and gossip are the making of any gathering, and A Little Art Education is not a book of art criticism. Barber likes what she likes, and though she is insightful on the works which move her, comparing David Hockney’s Yorkshire landscapes to the ‘visionary’ canvases of Samuel Palmer, this series of vignettes is as much about personalities as pictures.