Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd – förlag

A beautifully illustrated record of L.S. Lowry's work that goes beyond his industrial landscapes and explores the full breadth of his practice to mark 50 years since the British artist's death.Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) is one of Britain's best-known artists. While his work remains hugely popular, this catalogue looks beyond the iconic industrial landscapes that made him famous, revealing the full breadth of his practice. It explores scenes of fairgrounds, processions, gatherings, beaches and sports fields that capture the rhythms of everyday British life.Published to accompany MK Gallery's exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the artist's death, L.S. Lowry: The Theatre of Life highlights Lowry's keen social observations and the rich emotional range, including empathy, melancholy and humour, that defines his work.Born on the outskirts of Manchester, Lowry developed an instantly recognizable style, famously restricting himself to just five undiluted oil colours: ivory black, vermilion, Prussian blue, yellow ochre and flake white. From around 1915 he painted on a white ground, allowing dark, shadowless forms to stand out against luminous surfaces.A complex figure, Lowry kept his life and art separate, fostering myths that still surround him: that he was a loner, self-taught and disconnected from art history and the wider cultural world. His career unfolded during a period of profound social change in Britain, as the workers, mills,terraced housing and urban landscapes he painted were bombed, cleared and transformed. These themes are explored throughout this book in more than 140 works, including less familiar early academic drawings, studies in pastel and watercolour, seascapes, portraits and surreal compositions, as well as the crowded industrial scenes for which he has long been admired.

A catalogue accompanying an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, exploring how beautiful art and radical social ideals intertwined with the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement.Behind the decorative designs and romantic storytelling of British designer and activist William Morris lies a radical vision for the future. Grappling with many of the issues we still face today, William Morris and his circle – including makers and designers such as Kate Faulkner and his daughter May Morris, and Pre-Raphaelites Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal – dared to imagine an alternative, fairer future with art for all.A Call to Art goes beyond the decorative motifs and medieval love stories, taking the reader deeper into the group’s collective vision, collaborative action and shared belief in the power of art and beauty to bring about positive social change. Still faced with rampant industrialisation and the ongoing destruction of the natural world, can we too look to the past and reimagine a better future?Bringing together paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and more, fresh perspectives are given on one of the world’s most influential thinkers, making this an ideal introduction to the movement and to the Fitzwilliam Museum’s extraordinary collections.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM MB BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2022A major survey of Dame Laura Knight, first female Royal Academician and popular British artist of the 20th century.Laura Knight (1877–1970) was one of the most famous and popular English artists of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, in 1965. In the following decades, her realist style of painting fell out of fashion and her work become largely overlooked. Anew generation has rediscovered her work, finding a contemporary resonance in her depictions of women at work, of people from marginalized communities and her contributions as a war artist.This beautifully illustrated book, which accompanied a major exhibition at MK Gallery, provides an overview of Knight’s illustrious career: from her training at Nottingham Art School at the age of 13 and her time in North Yorkshire and Cornwall, to her visits to traveller communities and a segregated American hospital. It also features her circus, ballet and theatre scenes, paintings of women during the war and her late paintings of nature.The selection of over 160 works combines celebrated paintings with less known graphic and design works, including ceramics, jewellery and costumes that reflect the artist’s enduring interest in the everyday activities of people from all walks of life.

‘A revelatory masterpiece, a true alternative history of our times’ - Simon Jenkins, former Chair of the National Trust'Thoroughly researched and elegantly written' - Peter Parker, TLSLGBTQ+ histories and identities come out of the National Trust’s properties in these touching, poignant and revealing stories.National Trust houses and landscapes might seem to embody conventional family values, but for generations some very different stories were hidden away. These belong to owners now considered queer for defying the norms of sexual orientation or gender identity – sometimes blatantly, occasionally as open secrets, but most often very discreetly. Michael Hall explores not only the best-known examples of sexual difference, such as Lawrence of Arabia at Clouds Hill, Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst and the ‘Dancing Marquess’ at Plas Newydd; he also covers more recently unveiled stories, such as the lesbian community at Smallhythe and the homosexual scandals associated with Clumber. Then there were the quietly confirmed bachelors, keen to pass their properties and collections to the Trust for posterity...These stories are set against the queer history of the National Trust itself, such as its foundation in 1895 against the backdrop of Oscar Wilde’s trials; hidden queer influences within the Trust in its early days; and the role of homophobia in its reorganisation in the 1960s; and the evolution to inclusivity and understanding in the twenty-first century.

A beautifully illustrated study of one of Britain’s most significant 20th century painters, featuring over 40 of his most ambitious paintings. Euan Uglow (1932–2000) was one of Britain’s most significant twentieth-century painters, known for his sustained observation and painstaking technique, often taking months, if not years, to complete a work. Each picture pursues a particular idea, seeking to depict the visual reality of the concept, expressed with radiant colours and light. This book accompanies the first solo exhibition of Uglow’s work in a UK public institution (MK Gallery) for 20 years and features over 40 of his most ambitious paintings.Uglow often had three or four active ‘set-ups’ in his Battersea studio, using particular rectangular compositions in an attempt ‘to paint a structured painting full of controlled and therefore potent emotion’. Almost mathematical in his methods, Uglow left markings on his canvases that reveal his processes, including how the passage of time affected the depiction of his subjects.Best known for his large-scale nudes, Uglow also made landscapes in the summer light of the Mediterranean and still lifes, taking up the challenge of painting materials such as plastic, as well as organic material in gradual decay, such as fruit.With essays by Catherine Lampert and Kate Aspinall the book also includes drawings and examples of work by his artistic influences, Paul Cézanne, Alberto Giacometti and his former tutors William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.

The Practical Watch Escapement explains the action of the escapement in terms accessible to both expert and layman.One of George Daniels' central contributions to horology is his co-axial escapement. Having observed that the dominant lever escapement begins to change its rate after a year or two - a disturbance caused by the sliding action of the impulse elements of the escapement - Daniels set about developing a mechanism that avoided this problem.The result of his efforts was the co-axial escapement, a mechanism in which he sought to combine the strengths and eliminate the deficiencies of existing watch escapements, the lever escapement foremost among them. First devised in 1977, today it remains largely the same as fitted in watches of Daniels' own manufacture, as well as those of several wrist-watch manufacturers.The text is accompanied by a series of detailed line drawings.

Many years after its first publication, the best-selling Watchmaking continues to inspire and encourage the art of watchmaking, especially among new generations of enthusiasts. As a supreme master of his art, George Daniels' advice is constantly sought by both students and watch repairers, his understanding of the problems that can beset the would-be watchmaker, especially in an age of mass production, and his expert knowledge of the history of watchmaking being second to none.Here, the making of the precision timekeeper is described step by step and illustrated at each stage with line drawings and brief explanatory captions. The text is easy to follow and care has been taken to avoid complicated technical descriptions. As Daniels is particularly interested in the development of the escapement - many are described in this book, several of his own design - the reader is encouraged to explore this aspect of watchmaking in even greater detail.This classic handbook still remains indispensable to generations of watchmakers and repairers, and also provides a fascinating insight to the enthusiast and watch-collector who, until its publication, had rarely been able to admire the superb craftsmanship of a fine watch without understanding how it works.

This publication, together with the exhibition it accompanies, presents the largest ever survey of work by Vanessa Bell (1879–1961). Described in 1923 as ‘the most important woman painter in Europe’, Bell was a pioneering modernist and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of influential English artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century.The book traces Bell’s explorations into the Italian Renaissance, her encounters with the European avant-garde, including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, and her leading role in social and cultural activities such as the Friday Club, a group of artists founded in 1905, as well as the design enterprise Omega Workshops. It also looks at the key contributions Bell made towards the development of abstract art, creating what friend and art critic Roger Fry described as ‘visual music’.Collaborations formed an essential part of Bell’s approach to art, including with her sister, the writer Virginia Woolf, and the artist Duncan Grant, with whom Vanessa Bell’s all-encompassing approach to art found its ultimate expression in Charleston, the farmhouse they shared in East Sussex.Through over 130 works of art produced across her entire career this book examines the development of Bell’s landscapes, still lifes and portraits alongside her wider approach to creativity through design, furniture, ceramics and drawings.

A celebration of the best of the National Trust's exquisite ceramic collection.This publication introduces the rich and varied ceramics in the National Trust's vast and encyclopaedic collection. This collection numbers approximately 75,000 artefacts, housed in 250 historic properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. One hundred key pieces have been selected from this rich treasure trove, each contributing to our knowledge of ceramic patronage and history, revealing the very personal stories of ownership, display, taste and consumption. The selection includes the following Continental wares: 'Red-figure' wares; Italian armorial tableware; Dutch Delft from the Greek A factory, owned by Adrianus Kocx; Chinese Kraak ware; Dehua ware; Japanese Kakiemon-style and Imari-style tableware and garnitures; Meissen table sculpture by Johann Joachim Kandler; tableware attributed to Adam Friedrich von Lowenfinck; Castelli faience from the Grue workshop.It also includes wares from the following porcelain manufactories: Doccia; Vienna; Vincennes; Sèvres; Dihl and Feulliet. English pottery and porcelain includes delftware; salt-glazed stoneware; creamware; Wedgwood Black Basalt and Etruscan ware; Chelsea, Bow, Worcester and Derby porcelain; Minton China; De Morgan, and Martin ware. From the Americas, the selection includes Pueblo ware. Many are published for the first time, sometimes illustrated in their original interiors. Collectively, the selection surveys patterns of ceramic collecting by the British aristocracy and gentry over a four hundred year period.

A stunning display of the vibrant and wide-ranging talent of Vanessa Bell in the first catalogue devoted to the artist.Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) has been known as the still, quiet centre around which the Bloomsbury Group revolved,. She was renowned for her beauty, her complex romantic entanglements and, later, her domestic gravitas – and as the sister of Virginia Woolf. But Bell was also one of the most advanced British artists of her time, with her own distinctive vision, boldly interpreting new ideas about art which were brewing in France and beyond.This publication beautifully showcases Bell’s pioneering oil paintings, photographs, ceramics, fabrics, decorative screens and works on paper in a revelatory affirmation of her vibrant and wide-ranging talent. Including more than 180 colour plates, Vanessa Bell is a definitive record of Bell’s accomplishments. The book is enhanced with photography of Charleston, the Sussex farmhouse that she occupied with creative flair alongside Duncan Grant and the rest of her unconventional family.With sections devoted to portraiture, landscape, still life, design, domestic scenes and female subjects, the book gathers together a rich chorus of voices – from renowned Bloomsbury scholars to emerging experts – delivering a fresh view of an intrepid modern artist seen clearly on her own terms at last.

Maritime prints, drawings and watercolours a re discussed, and a historical survey of the development of marine art is given, by a former Head of Painting at the Nat ional Maritime Museum in Greenwich. '

The fruits of sixteen years of discriminating acquisition on the international art market, Robert Smith's is one of the most important collections of European bronzes in private hands today. The collection embraces the Renaissance in Italy and northern Europe in such a way that its components complement and enhance the appreciation of each other. Central to the collection is a group of thirteen pieces that illustrate the legacy of Giambologna in Florence. Also assembled are pieces by independent contemporaries: Alessandro Vittoria and Francesco Segala in the Veneto, and the younger Genoese-born Niccolo Roccatagliata, whose surviving work is of the utmost rarity. A selection of fine early North Italian bronzes serves as an introduction to the collection; the Netherlands and France are also well represented. Many pieces have distinguished provenances, and all have been exhaustively researched. The book comprises not just a catalogue but an important and original contribution to scholarship in its own right.This new and extended version of the first edition retains the entries written by Anthony Radcliffe with a few additions or corrections, and an entry that he drafted on the miniature cannon signed by Orazio Antonio Alberghetti has also been incorporated. New entries have been supplied by Marietta Cambareri, currently Curator of Sculpture in the 'Arts of Europe' section of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by Fabio Barry, Mellon intern for 2004 in the Department of Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and by Nicholas Penny.

Throughout the 17th century, a steady stream of Dutch painters made the arduous journey to Italy, the acknowledged 'home of art'. But they were more inspired by the country itself than its artistic tradition. In their paintings, they recorded the glittering distances of the Roman campagna, the ruins of earlier civilisations, and the colourful characters of the streets and countryside. Hugely popular in their own time, and influential throughout the 18th century, the 'Dutch Italianates' fell out of favour in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, for Noel Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeois, founders of Dulwich Picture Gallery, artists like Nicolaes Berchem, Karel Du Jardin, Philips Wouwermans, Aelbert Cuyp and Adam Pynacker were names to mention in the same breath as Rembrandt and Ruisdael.This book once again celebrates the beauty, virtuosity, observation and humour of the Dutch Italianate vision while also telling the fascinating story of Dulwich Picture Gallery itself.

The remarkable story of George Daniels, the master craftsman who was born into poverty but raised himself to become the greatest watchmaker of the twentieth century.George Daniels (1926-2011) stands alone in modern times as the inventor of the revolutionary co-axial escapement, the first substantial advance in portable mechanical timekeeping over the lever escapement, which has dominated ever since its invention in 1759. Daniels's love of mechanics embraced not only the minute, however - he was also a passionate collector and driver of historic motorcars.This revised and expanded edition of his autobiography also contains a new section that illustrates and discusses over thirty of the pocket and wrist-watches Daniels himself made over the years.Witness here the triumph of intelligence, ingenuity, matchless skill and singularity of purpose over the most unpromising of beginnings.

All in Good Time is the remarkable story of George Daniels (1926-2011), the master craftsman, who was born into poverty but raised himself to become the greatest watchmaker of the twentieth century. Daniels stands alone in modern times as the inventor of the revolutionary co-axial escapement, the first substantial advance in portable mechanical timekeeping over the lever escapement, which has dominated ever since its invention in 1759. Daniels''s love of mechanics embraced not only the minute, however - he was also a passionate collector and driver of historic motorcars. This revised and expanded edition of his autobiography also contains a new section that illustrates and discusses over thirty of the pocket and wrist-watches Daniels himself made over the years. Witness here the triumph of intelligence, ingenuity, matchless skill and singularity of purpose over the most unpromising of beginnings.

A collection of illustrations showcasing many previously unpublished paintings of the artist Eric Ravilious.Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) is now firmly one of the most popular artists of his period. He was a painter of watercolours and murals, a book illustrator in wood engraving and lithography, and a designer of transfer-ware pottery. He applied a dry and precise style of working to imaginative and romantic subject matter from the world around him and from his imaginative transformations of the art and imagery of the past. From 1940, he was an Official War Artist, painting memorable pictures of ships, aircraft and coastal defences before his tragic death in a flying accident off Iceland. This book includes illustrations of many previously unpublished paintings, including a number from private collections, as well as surveying his other artistic activities. The text also draws on many letters and other documents, again previously unpublished, and is the most comprehensive account of Ravilious' career ever published. It positions the artist in relation to the English art of his time, and more recent critical and cultural issues.The book accompanied a centenary exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London.

The first proper overview of Fred Farrell's vivid drawings from the First World War. Beautifully illustrated in full colour, insightful essays and catalogue entries explain the genesis, execution and reception of these poignant works.Frederick Arthur Farrell (1882-1935) came from a distinguished Glasgow family. He initially studied civil engineering, and as an artist was self-taught, although he owes a debt to the advice and example of Muirhead Bone. By the outbreak of World War I, he was developing a reputation as an up-and-coming etcher and watercolourist of portraits and topographical subjects. He enlisted as a sapper, or military engineer, with the Royal Engineers Railway Troops Depot but was discharged from the Army due to ill health.In December 1916, Farrell returned to the Front as a war artist, attached for three weeks to the 15th, 16th and 17th Highland Light Infantry in Flanders. In November 1917 he was in France, attached for two months to the staff of the 51st (Highland) Division. In between, authorized by the Minister of Munitions and Admiralty, and supported by Glasgow's Lord Provost, Farrell drew the heroic home effort of women in Glasgow's munitions factories, shipyards and engineering works. As a former soldier, Farrell's sketches and watercolours of the Front powerfully offer a landscape filtered through personal experience and emotion.Battle scenes and strategic deliberations are reconstructed, informed by first-hand accounts. Many include portraits of actual soldiers. There are poignant images of graves, devastated landscapes and destroyed churches. However, there are also scenes of reconstruction and renewed activity amid the desolation. He is at his most dynamic in his drawings of the munitions factories which are full of noise, light and movement. In these there is a sense of joy and energy in industry and machinery, in patterning and design.The commission Farrell received from the Corporation of Glasgow to produce 50 drawings of the front line and munitions factories in the city to record the war for posterity was extraordinary. He was unique in being the only war artist to be commissioned by a city rather than by the government, Imperial War Museum or armed forces. Glasgow was one of the first cities to recognize the importance of creating such a memorial, rather than just creating images for propaganda purposes.

This beautifully illustrated book is the first full-length critical study to focus on the watercolours of multitalented British artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903–1942). Adopting the wide-ranging approach familiar to readers of his previous books on the artist, author James Russell explores the evolution of a remarkable talent. An introductory section offers an intimate portrait of Ravilious, an artist for whom personal relationships, particularly with women, were paramount. It goes on to describe the extraordinary achievements of an all-too-brief career, drawing on new research to seek out artistic influences and examine Ravilious’s relationships with fellow-artists, as well as the development of his mark making.There follows the most comprehensive display of Ravilious watercolours yet assembled. Some have never been published, while others are familiar and well loved. Many are explored in short accompanying essays, some with full-bleed images that show details of paintings at full size. These texts are designed to entertain and enlighten, looking at composition, technique, influence and inspiration, or discussing the significance of particular subjects and the people behind the scenes. This is the definitive guide to the luminous, evocative and timeless watercolours of Eric Ravilious, an artist now regarded as one of the finest of the twentieth century.

This October - for the first time ever - never-before-seen-objects from the Metropolitan Police's Crime Museum will go on public display in a major new exhibition opening at the Museum of London. Using original evidence from this extraordinary collection, The Crime Museum Uncovered willl unlock real-life case files to take the reader on an uneasy journey through some of the UK's most notorious crimes from Dr Crippen to the Krays, the Great Train Robbery to the Millennium Dome diamond heist. Giving voice to the real people behind these objects the book will consider the changing nature of crime and advances in detection over the last 140 years, as well as the challenges faced in policing the capital, such as terrorism, drugs and rioting.

Liberation of Colour explores the whole career of Winifred Nicholson with a special emphasis on her theories of colour.Throughout her life, Winifred Nicholson was interested in prisms and rainbows. When she was given some prisms by a physicist friend in the mid-1970s, her painting took on a new direction. Looking through a prism, she saw objects with a rim of prismatic colour. She explored and developed these ideas, often painting pictures that verged on the abstract.Using specific paintings to examine her ideas and writings about colour, the book includes her late 'prismatic' pictures which have never been properly explained. These pictures were a culmination of her life's search to find "form's secret and rhythmic law". She painted them in Greece in 1979, at her home in Cumbria, and during her last painting trip to the Island of Eigg in the Hebrides in 1980, where she had an inspired period of painting and made some of her best-loved pictures.Published on the occasion of the exhibition Liberation of Colour at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, the book illustrates many previously unseen paintings from private collections, as well as some of Nicholson's best known works. It also draws on new research, including previously unseen archival material.

This comprehensive survey of the career of Edward Bawden brings together his most significant work in watercolour, printmaking, design and illustration.A sequel to the author's previous title on Ravilious, this volume surveys the life and work of fellow artist Edward Bawden (1903-1989), another popular exponent of the modern British tradition. The book explores in depth the most significant creative periods of Bawden's life and is fully illustrated throughout.Bawden began his career in the 1920s as a precociously talented designer and illustrator. He successfully reinvented himself time and again as the decades passed while always retaining a distinctive freshness, humour and humanity in his work.The book accompanied a major exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Based on new research, this profusely illustrated book draws together for the first time a group of works from public and private collections to examine the relationship that Thomas Gainsborough had with the theatrical world and the most celebrated stage artists of his day.Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) was linked with the stage through personal friendships with James Quin, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, the most renowned actors of the eighteenth century. He painted notable portraits of these and twenty others, including dramatists, dancers and composers.Not long after Gainsborough moved from Bath to London in 1774, the management of the Drury Lane theatre passed to the artist's friends Richard Brinsley and Thomas Linley. At this time, London's theatres were undergoing regular refurbishment to take account of technical innovations in lighting and stage machinery. At the King's Theatre in Haymarket in 1778, the 'elegant improvements' included frontispiece figures emblematic of Music and Dancing, and were painted in monochrome by Gainsborough.This publication firmly establishes the artist’s place within the theatrical worlds of Bath and London and shows why the art of ballet, and in particular Gainsborough’s sitters Gaetan Vestris, Auguste Vestris and Giovanna Baccelli, rose to prominence in 1780. It examines parallels between Gainsborough’s much admired painterly naturalism and the theatrical naturalism of David Garrick and Mrs Siddons, with whom he had personal friendships.

A glittering display of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s finest pieces of jewellery and metalwork.The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, holds stunning examples of jewellery and metalwork from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This exceptional period of design covers the neo-Gothic and historicist designs of the mid- to late nineteenth century, the groundbreaking work of British Arts and Crafts designers, sinuous curves influenced by the European Art Nouveau movement and the structural modernity of the 1930s.The collection contains jewellery by some of the finest historicist designers, including the Castellani and Giuliano families and John Brogden, as well as a spectacular decanter by William Burges. There are important pieces of jewellery and silver by the most famous of Arts and Crafts designers, including C.R. Ashbee, Henry Wilson, Gilbert Marks and John Paul Cooper.Unique pieces designed by the artist Charles Ricketts hold a special place in the history of queer art in Britain, having been designed for his friends Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, a couple known collectively as Michael Field. Modernist silver is represented by leaders of the field Omar Ramsden and H.G. Murphy.This beautifully illustrated volume reproduces 70 of the Museum’s most important pieces from this period, many previously unpublished, with comparative illustrations of some of the original designs. Importantly, the book is arranged chronologically by designer and includes biographies, a description of their work and how it changed over time, as well as commentary about the specific works in the Museum’s collection.The book brings together for the first time the Fitzwilliam’s exceptionally fine holdings of jewellery and metalwork from this highly popular and fruitful period of design.

An informed and beautifully illustrated new history of the Silk Road camel in Chinese jade.For hundreds of years, the Bactrian camel ploughed a lonely furrow across the vast wilderness of Asia. This bizarre-looking, temperamental yet hardy creature here came into its own as the core goods vehicle. This animal would resolutely and reliably transport to China – over huge and unforgiving distances – fine things from the West while taking treasures out of the Middle Kingdom in return. Where the chariot, wagon and other wheeled conveyances proved useless amidst the shifting desert dunes, the surefooted progress of the camel – the archetypal ‘ship of the Silk Road’ – now reigned supreme.The Bactrian camel was a subject that appealed particularly to Chinese artists because of its association with the exotic trade to mysterious Western lands. But the camel enjoyed cachet and status as more than just the chief conduit of thriving intercontinental commerce. After Buddhism arrived in China from India in the third century AD, via the Gandharan civilisation on the boarders of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, this new and vital religion stimulated the peaceful insemination of foreign ideas and culture as well as products. The camel was thus the harbinger not just of new things, but of entirely new ways of thinking. In his lavishly illustrated volume, Angus Forsyth explores diverse jade pieces depicting this iconic beast of burden. Almost one hundred separate objects are included, many of which have not been seen in print before. The author also offers the full historical background to his subject, presenting a strong appeal to collectors and art historians alike.

Nominated for the 2019 Karel van Mander prize, this lavishly illustrated overview showcases some of the most significant Chinese wallpapers surviving in the British Isles.Chinese wallpaper has been an important element of western interior decoration for three hundred years. As trade between Europe and China flourished in the seventeenth century, Europeans developed a strong taste for Chinese art and design. The stunningly beautiful wall coverings now known as ‘Chinese wallpaper’ were developed by Chinese painting workshops in response to western demand. A sophisticated synthesis of eastern and western art, Chinese wallpapers were an early-modern global product and they are still popular and influential today. In spite of their spectacular beauty, Chinese wallpapers have not been studied in any depth until relatively recently. This book provides an overview of some of the most significant Chinese wallpapers surviving in the British Isles. Sumptuously illustrated, it shows how these wallpapers became a staple ingredient of high-end interiors while always retaining a touch of the exotic.The book charts the stylistic development of Chinese wallpaper, allowing individual wallpapers to be more securely dated. It also touches on the China trade, the crucial role of the paper-hangers and the social significance of Chinese-style decoration in Britain. This is a ground-breaking resource for both scholars and designers, as well as for anyone interested in historic interior design.

A vividly illustrated catalogue of linocuts by the Modern British printmakers of the Grosvenor School of Art.The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was founded by the influential teacher, painter and wood-engraver Iain McNab in 1925. Situated in London’s Pimlico district, the school played a key role in the story of modern British printmaking between the World Wars. The Grosvenor School artists received critical acclaim in their time that continued until the late 1930s under the influence of Claude Flight who pioneered a revolutionary method of making the simple linocut to dynamic and colourful effect.Cyril Power, a lecturer in architecture at the school, and Sybil Andrews, the School Secretary, were two of Flight’s star students. Whilst incorporating the avant-garde values of Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism, the Grosvenor School printmakers brought their own unique interpretation of the contemporary world to the medium of linocut in images that are strikingly familiar to this day. They are included in the print collections of the world’s major museums, including the British Museum, the MoMA in New York and the Australian National Gallery.Cutting Edge, which accompanied an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, illustrates over 120 linocuts, drawings and posters by Grosvenor School artists; its thematic layout focuses on the key components which made up their dynamic and rhythmic visual imagery. For the first time, three Australian printmakers, Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme - who played a major part in the Grosvenor School story - are included in a major museum exhibition outside of Australia.

This comprehensive book is both a biographical exploration of the early life of Mary Seton Watts and a survey of the pottery she designed.Mary Seton Watt's (1849-1938) roots in Scotland, her artistic career and her marriage to the Victorian artist George Frederic Watts all influenced the design of the Grade 1 listed Cemetery Chapel at Compton. It also influenced the art potteries which she then set up, both in Compton (The Potters' Arts Guild) and in her home village near Inverness.The pottery at Compton was in business for more than fifty years, making terracotta garden ware, memorials and small decorative pieces. It remained open even through two World Wars and a trade depression.This highly illustrated publication showcases the beautiful and individual pieces of pottery. It is a fitting tribute to the ability of Mary Watts to coordinate both people and resources.

A sequel to Winifred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour, this book is the first monograph on this highly talented artist who deserves to be better known. This book explores the career of the St Ives artist Kate Nicholson, daughter of Ben and Winifred Nicholson. The contents range from her early landscapes, to the still lifes painted in Cumberland and St Ives, the abstracts – many of them inspired by her travels in Greece – to the late works made on the Isle of Eigg in the Hebrides.Also examined is her artistic relationship with her mother, with whom she painted side-by-side in Cumberland and Scotland, and on their many Greek travels. It discusses her creative relationship with her father with whom she lived in St Ives in the mid-1950s for two years, as well as her friendship with many of the St Ives artists and her role in the Penwith Society. Published to accompany the exhibition Kate Nicholson at Falmouth Art Gallery, this book illustrates many works from both public and private collections. It draws on ground-breaking new research, together with the author’s experience of travelling with Nicholson on painting trips.

This first major monograph on cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener traces his life and career, bringing new insights into his business practice, designs and construction techniques. Jean-Henri Riesener (1734–1806) was one of the greatest French cabinetmakers of all time. From humble beginnings as a German immigrant in Paris, he found fame through the delivery of a magnificent roll-top desk to Louis XV in 1769. He went on to become Marie-Antoinette’s favourite cabinetmaker, supplying the queen and the court of Louis XVI with sumptuous furniture of superb quality.Renowned for his exquisite marquetry and refined designs, his pieces were ornamented with spectacular gilt-bronze mounts made by some of the greatest metalworkers in Paris. In the nineteenth century, Riesener’s name became associated with the very best of Louis XVI-period French furniture. His pieces continue to be highly sought after and are found in major museums worldwide.Based on the extensive collections of Riesener furniture in the Wallace Collection, Waddesdon Manor and the Royal Collection, the authors examine the objects and their history, and highlight the changing tastes of the nineteenth-century collectors who acquired so many former French royal pieces. The new illustrations and visual glossary add another important resource for art historians, decorative arts enthusiasts and furniture lovers.