Thomas David was born in Germany in 1967. He studied History of Art and English Philology at Hamburg University and at the University College in London. He works as a journalist for a television program and for the renowned newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
He lives in Hamburg.
Vincent van Gogh rebels against tight limitations of traditional painting. Eager and inspired by Japanese pictures, he creates a completely new style. He is fascinated and inspired by the “pure colour”, by the beauty and the shinny sun of the Provenza, and he paints in there “the bridge at Arles”.
Thomas David narrates this great artist’s life and he tells us about the difficult and happiness –few- years of his friendship with Gauguin, about the nostalgia, his crisis, his hallucinations and about his premature and tragic death.
Selected and awarded in Germany as one of the best fiction books for teenagers.
"Thomas David tells us about the artist’s life with a warmth and proximity that is closer to articles and reports, rather than to biographies. It is pleasant, although conscientiously rigorous… and there it is the brilliant visual support, which is the cherry on top in this succulent cake (CLIJ, Children and Young Adult’s Literature Notebooks).
An artist, a sculptor, an architect, a scientist, an inventor and a philosopher. Leonardo, the Renaissance multitalented genius, apparently used the help of comedians and musicians to succeed in displaying this Lisa Gherardini’s worldwide known smile on his canvas .
Thomas David writes, with an infectious eagerness, about the pretty Gioconda, about outrages and suppositions in Sforzas’ and Borgias’ Courts, and about the exciting time of Renaissance in Italy.
“This book series succeeds in making teenagers to be interested in Art” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, German Newspaper).
What is the reason why horses are blue, deer are red and cows are yellow in his paintings? Because Franz Marc (1880-1916) did not just want to draw things like they “look like”, but he wanted to draw “what is behind them”. Among other avant-garde artists from the beginning of the 20th century, Marc became a pioneer in modern art in Germany.
Thomas Davida leads us in a journey throughout the friendship between Franz and Macke, the circles associated with the DER BLAUE REITER (“the blue horseman”), throughout happiness and melancholy, his dreams as an artist and his tragic and premature death in Verdun battlefields.
King Belshazzar is terrified by the fire letters appearing at midnight on a wall of his palace. Thomas David relives, in a exciting and poetic way, the “golden age” of Dutch Paintings.
He writes about Rembrandt, about his friends, about his sitters and his pupils, about his study, about Saskia, Hendrickje, about the fame and the crisis, about Art and about the bankruptcy in economy.
David develops, by means of his wide knowledge, a portrait of the artist and gives us a look about the energetic life in the Netherlands during the 17th century.