Art critic and author John Berger died on Monday at the age of 90 in his home in the Parisian suburb of Antony. A Booker Prize-winning novelist, he is best known for Ways of Seeing, which is widely regarded as a seminal work on the appreciation of visual art. The book, which became an art-school standard in the West, was also turned into a four-part BBC series presented by Berger.

A Marxist, Berger was a strong critic of capitalism and what he saw as centuries of elitist critical tradition, which did not evaluate artwork in their social and political context. The author was remembered and praised by several celebrities for his ability to “change the way you look at the world” through his writings.

Artist David Shrigley caller Berger “the best ever writer on art”. Actor and director Simon McBurney mourned his death, calling him a guide, mentor and friend. “John Berger left us this morning. Now you are everywhere,” he said.

Berger, who won the Booker Prize in 1972 for his novel G, donated half the awarded cash prize to the British Black Panthers, who he said were “the black movement with the socialist and revolutionary perspective that I find myself most in agreement with in this country”, according to The New York Times.