In Memory of Andrew Causey (1940-2014)

We are sad to report the death last week-end of Andrew Causey, author of three Lund Humphries books and a highly regarded historian of modern British art.

Andrew was one of our most meticulous, professional, courteous and unassuming authors.  His writing on art was poised, precise, often challenging and always hugely enlightening. His book on the Drawings of Henry Moore (2010), published to coincide with Tate Britain’s Moore retrospective, was the first book to discuss the entire range of Moore’s drawings in a single volume, and to establish them on an equal footing with Moore’s sculpture.  It was widely praised  (The Art Newspaper called it  ‘a fascinating and revealing study written with admirable clarity’) and went into a second printing.  His subsequent books on Paul Nash (2013) and Stanley Spencer (2014), the latter completed during Andrew’s recent illness, were equally rigorous, each book taking an original slant on the paintings of a well-known artist. They concluded a career studded with publications which became the standard texts on their subjects.

It was poignant that Andrew’s last piece of writing for Lund Humphries described the genesis of our 1948 monograph on Paul Nash, published posthumously but prepared by Nash in his final years. Andrew penned his Landmark text for this blog from his hospital bed, and we heard later that it had cheered him up to write it.  It was as polished and erudite as all his writing.

Lucy Myers, Managing Director