Andrew Graham-Dixon for Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

Andrew Graham-Dixon is coming to Memorial Hall, St Peter's School, Clifton on Tuesday 20 October, where he'll be talking about his book Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found. If you've ever spent an afternoon staring at a Vermeer and wondering how so little is actually known about the man himself, this is exactly the kind of thing you'll want to hear. He's spent years digging into the gaps in the record, and the talk is built around what he's found.

The book doesn't just stick to the paintings. It follows new leads and draws on a mass of historical evidence, some of it freshly uncovered in the archives of Delft and Rotterdam, to bring out friendships Vermeer had that we didn't know about and a previously undetected allegiance to a radical movement driven underground by persecution. It's the kind of research that changes the context of the work—seeing the man behind the canvases as someone with a life and a set of beliefs that were hidden from view for centuries. Peter Carey called the book 'going to revolutionise the way we understand Vermeer', and that's the kind of ground the talk covers.

Graham-Dixon is well-placed to lead the conversation. He's an art historian, biographer and broadcaster who's made more BBC television series about art than any other presenter, and for years he was the main art critic for the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent. His biography of Caravaggio drew praise from Peter Carey, who called it 'a thrilling lesson in the art of seeing', and from Neil MacGregor. He's used to taking a subject and making it feel immediate and human, which is exactly what he's doing here with Vermeer.

The talk is at Memorial Hall, St Peter's School, Clifton, York YO30 6AB on Tuesday 20 October, starting at 7pm with doors open from 6.30pm.