Book Lump: The Dog Who Ate Picasso - Thames and Hudson

One spring morning in 1957, experienced photojournalist David Douglas Duncan visited his friend and frequent photographer Pablo Picasso at the artist's home near Cannes. The second pilot alongside Duncan in his Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL was the photographer's dog, Lump. The photographer and his pet were close companions, but Duncan's nomadic lifestyle and his other dog — a huge, jealous Afghan hound who tormented Lump — made life in Rome difficult for them. When they arrived at Picasso's La Californie villa on that historic day, Lump decided he had found paradise on earth and would live with Picasso, regardless of whether the artist welcomed him or not. This is the backdrop for a completely original book that offers an extraordinarily sensitive portrait of Picasso. Lump was immortalized in a portrait of Picasso painted on a plate on the day they met, but that was just the beginning. In a suite of forty-five reinterpretations of Velázquez's masterpiece “Las Meninas,” Picasso replaced the unthinkable dog in the foreground with playful renderings of Lump.

Today, as a gift from the artist to his hometown during his youth, all these historic canvases are now the main exhibit at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. Fourteen paintings have been recreated here in full color, paired with dramatic and intimate black-and-white photographs of Picasso and Lump by Duncan, which circle back to the happy dachshund who became a hairy, highly elongated icon of contemporary art.

Thames & Hudson was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their greatest passion and mission was to create a “wallless museum” and to make the world of art accessible to a broad audience, as well as to leading scholars. To reflect international perspectives, the company's name combined the rivers flowing through London and New York, represented in its logo by two dolphins symbolizing friendship and intelligence, one facing east, the other west, suggesting a connection between the Old World and the New.

Today, still an independent family business, Thames & Hudson is one of the world's leading publishers of illustrated books, with over 2,000 titles in print. It publishes high-quality books across all areas of visual creativity: arts (fine, applied, decorative, performing), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and music, as well as archaeology, history, and popular culture. The company is also expanding its list of children's books. Headquartered in London with a sister company in New York and branches in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, another subsidiary, Interart, distributes English-language books in France.

History of Thames & Hudson

Walter Neurath was born in Vienna in 1903. In 1938, he left his hometown — where he ran an art gallery and published illustrated books — for London. Initially, he worked as production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges developed a pioneering concept of what is now called book packaging (or co-publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold to publishers operating in different markets and languages, to create large print runs and thus reduce unit production costs. Neurath's concept was the first of many innovations introduced to the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

Eager to continue book packaging in a second edition and recognizing the need to amortize the high costs of producing illustrated books, Neurath founded his own publishing house, with offices in London and New York, in the fall of 1949. Eva Neurath, who arrived in London from Berlin in 1939, was a co-founder.

Of the ten titles published on Thames & Hudson's first list in 1950, *English Cathedrals*, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and achieved the greatest success. The company's strong conviction from the very beginning regarding the longevity of books was evidenced by the publication remaining in print until 1971. In the first year of publication, Albert Einstein's *Out of My Later Years* also appeared, indicating the broad scope of the program early on. As the list gradually expanded—from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955—the company moved its offices to High Holborn and in 1956 relocated to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, near Bedford Square, becoming the epicenter of book publishing in London. The manufacturing remained at this address, eventually expanding to five houses by 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

In 1958, Thames & Hudson launched one of its most renowned series, *World of Art*, which became the foundation of a highly diverse list. Characterized by pocket-sized editions with black spines, the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. Nearly 60 years later, the series boasts over 300 titles, which, according to Christopher Frayling, are “stained with paint copies” in every art school across the country.

Other significant series that added depth and prestige to the list include *Ancient People and Places*, edited by Glyn Daniel, who since the 1950s contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and television. Over 34 titles have been published in this series over 34 years. The large-format *Great Civilizations* series, published in 1961, featured contributions from esteemed scholars such as Alan Bullock, Asa Briggs, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A. J. P. Taylor, and John Julius Norwich.
After building one of the most important publishing houses in Europe in less than two decades, Walter Neurath died in 1967 at the age of 63. Sculptor Henry Moore wrote that “his death was a loss to our cultural life.” Sir Herbert Read noted that Neurath “more than anyone else was responsible for the revolution in art publishing” and was “one of those rare entrepreneurs who successfully combine business acumen with idealism.” Eva Neurath became chairwoman. Walter’s son, Thomas, who joined the company in 1961 with his sister Constance, became managing director; Constance later served as artistic director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance remain on the Thames & Hudson board, as do Thomas’s daughters, Johanna and Susanna.
From producing the first commercial edition of *The Book of Kells* to the triumphant publication of the six-volume *Vincent van Gogh - Letters*, from technical innovations like “French folds” to the controversial documentation of graffiti art in *Subway Art*, Thames & Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

The year 2016 marked an extraordinary new chapter for the company, announcing publishing partnerships with two of the world's leading museums: the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The art world and scholarship thus remain at the heart of Thames & Hudson’s publishing program, which remains true to its fundamental principle: providing a “museum without walls.”
Today, Thames & Hudson is a recognizable international brand, a symbol of British publishing. Its extensive catalog includes thousands of incredible titles, many of which are exclusive collector’s editions.

Manufacturer information