Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys is an Edinburgh-based art critic, who is especially interested in art that engages with environmental questions. He often writes essays for museum and gallery publications and his writing has also been published in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites including Apollo, art-agenda, ArtReview, Frieze, The Independent, Monocle, New Scientist, The Telegraph, and The World of Interiors among others.

Jeffreys is the author of Signal Failure: London to Birmingham, HS2 on Foot (Influx Press, 2017). The book was described as “deeply and disarmingly human” by Richard Smyth in New Statesman, “enchanting” by Ian Sansom in Times Literary Supplement, and “very, very special” by Tamim Sadikali in Minor Literatures.

Jeffreys is also the founder and editor of The Learned Pig, an online magazine with four areas of interest: art, thinking, nature, writing.

Current Publication

 THE WHITE BIRCH  - Little, Brown - 3rd June 2021

Wherever you go in the world, Russia is rarely out of the news. At the same time, the birch - a pioneer species and Russia's unofficial national emblem - is one of the most widespread and easily recognisable of trees: able to thrive in an array of different environmental conditions across the northern hemisphere. In The White Birch, art critic Tom Jeffreys grapples with the riddle of Russianness through numerous interlocking journeys, encounters, histories and artworks that all share one thing in common: the humble birch.

Praise:

'A natural-political exploration of Russian relationships with the birch tree across past, present, and future. Moving from the Tsarina's garden to the Soviet Gulag, from Chernobyl to Lake Baikal, The White Birch is elegant and intrepid, like its subject' -- Daisy Hildyard, author of The Second Body and Hunters in the Snow

'Genuinely revelatory' -- Sophy Richards ― TLS

'There could be no better guide through the thickets of meaning, history and imagery that entangle with the birch tree than figurative forester Tom Jeffreys' -- Melissa McCarthy, author of Sharks Death Surfers

'A beautiful and profound meditation on the way landscape shapes art and life. I was entranced by The White Birch, a book that comes close to encapsulating the vast enigma of Russia in the form of a single tree' -- Alex Preston, author of Winchelsea and As Kingfishers Catch Fire

'I love this book. Jeffreys admits he doesn't know where he's going at every turn, but trusts his instinct - and his ear for a good story - as he tries to untangle myth from fact . . . This is the great joy of The White Birch' -- Mark Hooper ― Caught by the River