News about Julian Barnes

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Julian Barnes, a novelist, has sparked rumors that eminent art critic David Sylvester demanded gifts from artists whose work he was writing about. 'Sylvester, who died in 2001, wanted two pieces from each artist,' Barnes writes in The London Review of Books.' This has enraged Sylvester's children, Xanthe and Naomi, who describe Freud as a 'p***** off' because of their father's honesty. They write: "The LRB's publication of these remarks so casually and unquestionably disgraceful," they write in a letter in the new Review.'