DIVINING THE HUMAN - The Art of Alexander Newley

At the opening ceremony of the Alexander Newley book promotion in the Nikola Radošević Gallery in the center of Belgrade. Fantastic musical accompaniment by Sheela Newley. Director and cinematographer Ljubiša Tešić
The Book
DIVINING THE HUMAN - The Art of Alexander Newley
Alexander Newley with an introduction by Andria Zafirakou
Published April 2023
Spanning the worlds of Portraiture, Landscape, The Nude, Abstraction and Still Life, Alexander Newley’s project fuses the Fine Art traditions of patient observation and draughtsmanship with the transcendental intuitions of the mystic. ‘For me, art is a spiritual activity,’ he says, ‘a straining after the highest virtue of beauty and enlarged consciousness. As such, all art is essentially religious, even when it shows us a fallen world.’
Complementing the images is Newley’s personal reminiscence, placing each work in a fascinating narrative of self-becoming - and an often-dogged determination to stay true to his calling. There is a hilarious chapter about his alcohol-soaked portrait sittings with Gore Vidal, as well as vivid tellalls about his struggles to capture in paint giants such as Billy Wilder, Oliver Stone and Dame Judi Dench. The result is a unique account of an artist’s journey in his own words, firmly setting before us a body of work that continues to evolve and explore, always affirming a uniquely ‘human’ future.
Alexander Newley is an artist, writer and teacher known for his iconic portrait paintings of major figures in the arts including Gore Vidal, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Christopher Reeve, and Lord Jeffrey Archer. His work is in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery at The Smithsonian in Washington DC.