In Bright Stars, Kate Bryan examines the lives and legacies of 30 great artists who died too young, celebrating their inspirational stories and extraordinary talent.

Some of the worlds greatest and most-loved artists died under the age of forty. But how did they turn relatively short careers into such long legacies? What drove them to create, against all the odds? And how can we use these stories to re-evaluate artists lost to the shadows, or whose legacies are not yet secured?

Most artists have decades to hone their craft, win over the critics and forge their reputation, but thats not the case for the artists in this book. Art heavyweights Vincent van Gogh and Jean-Michel Basquiat have been mythologised, with their early deaths playing a key role in their posthumous fame. Others, such as Aubrey Beardsley and Noah Davis, were driven to create, knowing their time was limited.

For some, premature death, compounded by gender and racial injustice, meant being left out of the history books as was the case with Amrita Sher-Gil, Charlotte Salomon and Pauline Boty, now championed by Kate Bryan in this important re-appraisal. And, as Caravaggio and Vermeers stories show us, it can take centuries for forgotten artists to be given the recognition they truly deserve.