Book Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to the Present (British Museum) - Thames & Hudson

Focusing on 56 selected works from the 1970s to today, Pushing Paper explores why drawing has endured as a method of art-making and examines the essential and fundamental nature of drawing through themes such as systems and process, identity, place and space, time and memory, power and protest. These broad themes allow for the creation of original connections between images that will inspire all drawing practitioners.

Supported by the Bridget Riley Art Foundation, the book presents works by leading contemporary artists from around the world, including Phyllida Barlow, Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Adel Daoud, Richard Deacon, Tacita Dean, Peter Doig, Tracey Emin, Richard Hamilton, Jacob El Hanani, David Hockney, Ellen Gallagher, Andrzej Jackowski, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Minjung Kim, Marcia Kure, Nja Mahdaoui, Sol LeWitt, Bahman Mohassess, David Nash, Eduardo Paolozzi, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Susan Schwalb, Hamid Sulaiman, Imran Qureshi, Hajra Waheed, and Rachel Whiteread, as well as exciting works by lesser-known artists.

Pushing Paper, aimed at both drawing enthusiasts and artists and students, includes a surprising analysis of the status of drawing in the contemporary art world.

Thames & Hudson was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their greatest passion and mission was to create a "museum without walls" and to make the world of art accessible to a wide audience, as well as the research of 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-owned business, Thames & Hudson is one of the world's leading publishers of illustrated books with over 2000 titles in print. It publishes high-quality collectible books in all areas of visual creativity: the arts (fine, applied, decorative, performing), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and music, as well as archaeology, history, and popular culture. The list of children's books is also growing. Based in London with a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, another subsidiary, Interart, distributes English-language books in France.

History of the Thames & Hudson brand

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 a production director at Adprint, a brand founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges developed the innovative concept of what is now called book packaging (or co-edition publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold to publishers operating in different markets and languages to create large print runs, thereby reducing unit production costs. Neurath's concept was the first of many innovations he introduced to the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

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

Of the ten titles that were published on Thames & Hudson's first list in 1950, English Cathedrals, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and most successful. A testament to the brand's strong belief in the longevity of books from the very beginning, it remained in print until 1971. The first year of publication also saw "Out of My Later Years" by Albert Einstein, an early indicator of the program's breadth. With the gradual and successful expansion of the list, which grew from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955, the company moved its offices in High Holborn and in 1956 relocated to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, near Bedford Square, then the epicenter of book publishing in London. The company remained at this address, eventually expanding to five houses, until 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

In 1958, Thames and Hudson launched one of its most renowned series, World of Art, which became a cornerstone of a very diverse list. Characterized by a pocket size and black spines, the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. Nearly 60 years later, the series featured over 300 titles, of which, according to Christopher Frayling, "there are 'paint-splattered copies' in every art school in the country."

Other important series that added depth and prestige to the list include Ancient People and Places, edited by Glyn Daniel, which from the 1950s contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and on television. Over 34 titles were published in the series over 34 years. The large-format series Great Civilizations, published in 1961, included contributions from such esteemed scholars 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 any other person was responsible for the revolution in publishing art books" and was "one of those rare entrepreneurs who successfully combined business acumen with idealism." Eva Neurath became chairperson. Walter's son, Thomas, who joined the company with his sister Constance in 1961, became managing director; Constance later served as art director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance remain on the board of Thames & Hudson, 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 such technical innovations as "French folds" to the controversial documentation of graffiti art in Subway Art, Thames and Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

The year 2016 opened an extraordinary new chapter for the company, heralding a publishing partnership with two of the world's most important museums: the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The world of art and scholarship thus remains at the heart of Thames & Hudson's publishing program, which remains true to its core principle: providing a "museum without walls." Today, Thames & Hudson is a recognizable international brand, a symbol of English publishing. Their catalog includes thousands of amazing book titles, many of which are elite collector's books.