"Craigie Aitchison's distinctively spare and dazzlingly hued paintings hold a special place in British art. Published to accompany a retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, this book includes many of the key works of his distinguished career, and examines his oeuvre in a specially commissioned essay by Andrew Lambirth." "After abandoning law school in 1952, Aitchison studies under Sir William Coldstream at the Slade. There his compositions became ever more summarised and simplified. On a scholarship that took him to Italy, he developed the unique palette and style that his mentor, the dealer and painter Helen Lessore, later defined as 'truly Mediterranean'." "Over the years Aitchison has specialised in the traditional genres of portraiture, landscape and still-life, but in each case the result has been fresh and luminous, infused with a poetic sense of mystery and stillness, as if new life had been breathed into conventional subject matter." "Aitchison's interpretation of the Crucifixion has been an enigmatic presence in many of his works, and continues to be one of his most enduring subjects."--Jacket.