Sturgis proved to be an exceptional artist's biographer in Aubrey Beardsley (1999), and he now presents a substantial but ever-lively life of the questing British painter Sickert (1860-1942), whom Sturgis succinctly describes as "a great man and a great artist." Charming and mischievous, Sickert enjoyed a happy childhood, a stint as an actor that inspired his scandalous music-hall paintings, and marriage to a woman willing to support him even after they divorced because of his many affairs. Sickert's notorious sexual escapades run the gamut from romantic to pragmatic to farcical. Profoundly inspired by James McNeil Whistler and Degas, Sickert became a leader among radical British painters, an influential art critic, and a teacher. Sturgis' glowing portrait stands in stark opposition to crime writer Patricia Cornwell's extravagant claim in Portrait of a Killer (2002) that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Indeed, Sturgis makes short work of Cornwell's allegations after fully substantiating his portrait of Sickert as a revered artist whose joie de vivre, "rare power of objective vision," frankness, and intensity revitalized the British figurative tradition. Donna Seaman