Wherever she is working outside, from the remote coastline of her native Scotland to the mountains of Andalucia and the Arizona desert, Barbara Rae responds to what she sees in her sketchbooks. Published here for the first time, these dynamic studies provide themes and motifs for Rae's paintings and prints, but they also stand alone as sensuous evocations of the landscapes to which she is so attached. Richard Cork draws on interviews with the artist to examine how she sketches to connect with a subject, and in a spirited response to the books themselves he describes the experience of looking through their vibrant pages. Introducing the sketches according to such themes as Man and Sea and Desert Symbols, Gareth Wardell probes Rae's particular obsessions. Following the recent publication of her prints, this rich book confirms Rae as one of the boldest of contemporary artists, moved as much by emotion as her senses to record the visible world.
