Book Rembrandt's Universe His Art, His Life, His World - Thames & Hudson

Celebrated both in his time and today, Rembrandt's works possess an extraordinary power to endure. His oeuvre was remarkable, totaling around 600 paintings, 300 etchings, and 2000 drawings, ranging from commissioned portraits to landscapes and religious allegories.
Despite his long-standing popularity, credible accounts of Rembrandt's life and work have been difficult to compile, and a debate has long raged over the exact number of works that can be definitively attributed to the master. Gary Schwartz, dividing centuries of debate into one volume, provides a fully accessible overview of the controversies and mysteries surrounding Rembrandt and his masterpieces. Additionally, Schwartz addresses more detailed aspects of Rembrandt's scholarship: the artist's personal relationships; his finances; his artistic influences; his choice of subject matter; his techniques.

With more full-color reproductions of Rembrandt's works than any other collection, Rembrandt's Universe is the definitive text — on Rembrandt and art. Highly readable and full of information about the painter and interpretations of his work, including a friendly treatment of his scholarship to date.

The Thames & Hudson brand 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 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-run publisher, Thames & Hudson is one of the leading publishers of illustrated books worldwide, with over 2000 titles in print. It publishes high-quality collectible books across all areas of visual creativity: arts (fine arts, applied arts, decorative arts, performing arts), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and music, as well as archaeology, history, and popular culture. The list of children's books is also expanding. 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 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 an innovative concept of what is now called book packaging (or co-publishing), where ideas for books are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold to publishers operating in different markets and languages to create large editions and thus reduce unit production costs. Neurath’s concept was the first of many innovations introduced to the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

Seeking to continue the packaging of collectible books in a second edition and recognizing the need to amortize the high costs of producing illustrated books, Neurath established his own publishing company, 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 most successful. It demonstrated the company's strong belief from the outset in the longevity of books, remaining in print until 1971. Also in the first year of publication was *Beyond My Later Years* by Albert Einstein, an early indicator of the program’s scope. As the list gradually expanded from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955, the company moved its offices from 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 manufactory remained at this address, eventually expanding to five houses, until 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

Other important series that have added depth and prestige to the list include *Ancient People and Places*, edited by Glyn Daniel, who since the 1950s has contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and television. Over 34 titles have been published in the series over 34 years. The large-format *Great Civilizations* series, published in 1961, included 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 along 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 and Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

2016 marked the beginning of an extraordinary new chapter for the company, announcing publishing partnerships with two of the world’s most important museums: British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.

Thus, the world of art and scholarship 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 British publishing. Its catalog includes thousands of incredible book titles. Many of these are luxury collector’s editions.