In Artists, Siblings, Visionaries, acclaimed biographer Judith Mackrell tells the stories of brother and sister artists Gwen and Augustus John.

As siblings, they could hardly have seemed more unalike. Augustus was in every way the larger of the two; vivid, volatile, and promiscuous, he was a hero among romantics and bohemians. And, until his drinking began to undermine his work, he was celebrated as one of the great British talents of his generation.

Gwen's place in the art world was much smaller. As a woman, it was always going to be harder for her to succeed, yet her very private way of working and her reserved nature meant it was only many years after her death that her own tremendous gifts were fully acknowledged. Beneath Gwen's quietness, though, was a temperament as turbulent as her brother's. She formed passionate attachments to men and women, including a long and tempestuous affair with the sculptor Rodin.

And, as this compellingly insightful account reveals, there were other ways in which the two Johns were remarkably similar. They were driven by the same urgent need to escape their drably provincial origins, by the same profound dedication to work, and, for both of them, the love they felt for one another was complicated by undercurrents of frustration and rage.

Mackrell creates a powerful portrait of a fascinating relationship—brother, sister, prodigiously talented artists and visionaries, whose experiments with form and color created some of the most memorable work of the early twentieth century.