Product Description

Derren Brown is known to his devoted fans as a brilliant showman and illusionist. His television shows attract audiences in the millions and his live show plays to sell-out audiences every night. But in his spare time, Derren uses a very different skill. He is a prodigiously talented artist who paints caricatures of famous faces from around the world. He has painted everyone from Richard Dawkins to Robbie Williams, from Anthony Hopkins to Amy Winehouse, and here for the first time they are all collected together, with Derren's thoughts on the person concerned and why he wanted to paint them in the first place. This title is a must for all of Derren's fans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6766 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

About the Author
Derren was born in 1971 in Croydon. It was a difficult birth - his mother was in Devon at the time. A precocious and puzzling only child, he liked to paint, foster obsessive habits and once set fire to a neighbour's boat by accident. Derren went to study Law and German at Bristol University and fell in love with the city. In 1999 he was asked by Channel 4 to put a mind-reading programme together for television, which became Derren Brown: Mind Control. It was an immediate success and gained Derren a cool underground kudos which he described as 'not enough'. Mind Controls 2 and 3 followed, then a series, and then in October 2003 Derren caused an international furore by playing Russian Roulette live on television. This secured his notoriety with the public and his big apartment in London. Further specials have followed - Derren Brown: The Seance which was the most complained about show in the history of television. He still gets several letters of complaint a week from psychics and Christians. He is sensitive to everyone's objections but knows at least the latter group will forgive him. Derren's workload keeps him exhausted and irritable fifty-two weeks a year and he continues to live in London with a large collection of taxidermy and a fatalistic parrot. He spends any free weekends painting and likes to receive gifts.

Customer Reviews

Magic - but in a different way!
Derren Brown is, of course, best known as the country's leading magician and hypnotist but these elaborate caricatures will be a revelation to many (those who have visited his website will already be aware of this other talent).

Appreciation of caricature is the kind of thing you could write a doctoral thesis about. It is probably linked to how much you can tolerate ambiguity - some people don't 'get' caricatures at all, while others say they reveal truths a more naturalistic portrait does not. It is worth emphasising just how elaborate these pictures are - no mere line drawings. Of course, some caricaturists can reduce a face to a few simple lines but here we have something different: almost a bridge between oil paintings (which generally flatter) and caricatures (which generally don't though Brown insists he has a fondness for his subjects. Perhaps that's why he hasn't done Richard Littlejohn or Alastair Campbell?)

The accompanying text is fascinating, taking in psychology and philosophy as well as art - and, of course, the odd aside about the author's OTHER job also creeps in. The choice of subjects is eclectic and revealing. If you love portraiture and caricature, you will want to buy this book. I just hope he doesn't get so addicted to painting that he stops performing!

Good but could have been even better
It took a while for me to receive my copy but I wasn't disappointed. The full colour and B&W portrait photographs are fantastic, I'm with David Tennant (featured in the book) when he says that he hates Derren as the bloke is so talented. I would have given it 5 stars but I felt that what was missing was some photo's and explanation of how Derren's paintings came to be - some stage by stage pictures to see how he initially sketched the outline to the finished article.

I don't know if there will be a volume 2 but I'll be one of the first on the list - a great coffee table book.

A jolly good book.
My first, initial response when perusing Derren Brown's 'Portraits' was 'bugger me, this man is a genius'. The portraits shown are absolutely wonderful representatives of their subjects and the commentary that is alongside them provides the reader with an interesting insight to Derren's artistic talent. Is there anything this man can't do?!