About Gavin Cologne-Brookes

An Emeritus Professor, Gavin left Bath Spa University in 2019 and moved with his wife, Nicki, to Paris for five years. They have now returned to live in Wiltshire. The subjects of his books and essays include John Steinbeck, William Styron, Joyce Carol Oates, Bruce Springsteen, travel, memoir, and, most recently, the experience of living in Paris and his passion for oil painting. His writing ranges from literary and cultural criticism to narrative nonfiction. His years in the French capital have resulted in a series of paintings that will form the heart of an exhibition at the White Horse Gallery, Wiltshire, in March 2025. He’ll also exhibit paintings at Bath Spa University’s Corsham Court campus in May to coincide with the publication of a fictionalised memoir written during his time in the French capital. Among other things, Portraits from Paris: School and Travel Remembered from the City of Light, dramatizes Gavin’s memory of boarding school in the 1970s and the escape route he found through oil painting. 

As an oil painter, his portraits feature as part of his own and others’ publications. His ones of Styron, Oates, Springsteen and Arthur Miller are on loan display at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. The new book features four paintings, including the cover and the author image. Not unrelated to this has been a side interest in photographing places, people and wildlife, which is another medium he uses to reflect on our world.

Gavin has given talks in Brazil, France, Germany, Kenya, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay and across the United States, conducted a soutenance (PhD public viva) in Aix-en-Provence, and travelled elsewhere in Europe, Canada, South America and Africa. His talks merge literary and cultural commentary with history, politics, philosophy and memoir.

This website showcases his books, paintings and interest in photography.

But we all start out somewhere. Gavin in fact left school at seventeen with few qualifications. After a period of drift, a spell at art school, some years of travelling, especially around the United States, and extensive reading, especially in European Literature, he discovered what Stendhal calls “the sacred fire.” He studied at night to get to university aged twenty to do a degree in English and History. After an MA from SUNY Brockport and a PhD from the University of Nottingham, he taught European Studies at Harlaxton College, Lincolnshire, British Campus of the University of Evansville, IN. From 1993, he taught American and European Literature at Bath Spa University, becoming Professor of American Literature in 2007 and MA Creative Writing Programme Leader in 2016-19.

Rereading William Styron (2014) and American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen (2018) feature his portraits of Styron and Springsteen on the respective covers. Styron became a friend while Gavin was writing The Novels of William Styron (1995). He painted the portrait on learning of Styron’s final illness. This led him to reflect on Styron’s work partly through the lens of their friendship. American Lonesome is a meditation on an earlier inspiration. Springsteen’s songs energised Gavin’s youth and have accompanied him ever since. Another publication combining writing and painting is Joyce Carol Oates Ou Quelque Chose D’Approchant (2017). This is a memoir of getting to know the author while writing Dark Eyes on America (2005). JCO wrote of her portrait that she hoped she was indeed “something like this.” The opening event for the loan display of this and the portraits of Miller, Styron and Springsteen involved A Conversation with Gavin Cologne-Brookes, on 1 March, 2022. Portraits from Paris  has four strands to it: a memoir of boarding school, of Paris 2019-24, and of travel episodes in between, held together by Gavin’s journey toward becoming a painter.

In the Photography section, there’s a page devoted to photographs of the Crane Academy, a school in Kitale, Kenya. Nicki and Gavin took these photographs on a visit to support the Crane’s link with the Royal High School Bath. There are also a couple of paintings in the People Gallery, “Crane Academy Girls” and “Science Lesson, Kitale,” inspired by the visit.

Watch

You can watch here Gavin’s live launch of Portraits from Paris: School and Travel Remembered from the City of Light.

You can watch here Gavin’s 7 July 2020 talk, reading and Q&A on American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen. This is part of the LSU Press Remote Author Series.

You can watch here a 3-minute clip of Gavin talking about American Lonesome at the 2018 Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge.

Listen
You can listen here to his BSU Professorial lecture, Mortality and Memoir: Recalling What Matters.

View
You can view here the invitation leaflet for his 2011 exhibition, “Paintings 1995-2011.”