In the words of the late Gillian Ayres, this is a book about "what can be done with painting." Drawing on decades of conversations with practicing painters, acclaimed author Martin Gayford offers intimate insight into the practice, meaning, and potential of this timeless medium.

As a way of making images, pigment applied to any surface from cave wall to canvas, painting has been around for tens of thousands of years. Yet it has proved capable of endless renewal. Now in the third decade of the twenty-first century it is once more at the forefront of contemporary art. How Painting Happens will consider how and why this is so, examining this perennial medium through the eyes of its exponents past and present. Hardcover, 384 pages.