Book The Victim of Anonymity (lecture by Walter Neurath) Master of the Altar of Saint Bartholomew - Thames & Hudson

Are there miscarriages of justice in art history? Neil MacGregor believes there are. No matter how great the artist is, if their name is lost, they will not receive a fair judgment from posterity. No exhibition will be dedicated to their work; no books will be written about them; they will not even appear in indexes. Among these neglected geniuses is a 15th-century painter known only as the Master of the St. Bartholomew Altarpiece. He could have been Dutch or German; he may or may not have been a monk. Stylistically, he is attributed with around half a dozen paintings, including three large altarpieces, which allow us to construct a vivid, though hypothetical, personality: emotional, compassionate, perceptive, original, witty. The only certainty is that he was a great painter whose name, if known, would belong to Botticelli or Holbein.

In “The Sacrifice of Anonymity,” Neil MacGregor corrects the historical judgment, demonstrating the power of this unrecognized master, urging us to look carefully at works that are too easily overlooked, showing us an incomparable artist whose paintings derive fame solely from their own merits.

The Thames & Hudson brand was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their greatest passion and mission was to create a “wall-less museum” and to make the world of art, as well as leading scientific research, accessible to a broad audience. To reflect international perspectives, the company’s name combined the rivers flowing through London and New York, represented in their 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 company, Thames & Hudson is one of the world’s leading publishers of illustrated books with over 2000 titles printed. 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 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 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 a 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 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 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 most successful. It demonstrated the company’s strong conviction from the very beginning regarding the longevity of books, remaining in print until 1971. Also in the first year of publication was *Out of My Later Years* by Albert Einstein, an early indicator of the breadth of the program. 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 Bloomsbury Street 30, near Bedford Square, which became the epicenter of book publishing in London. The manufacturing remained at this address, eventually expanding to five buildings by 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

In 1958, Thames and Hudson launched one of the most famous series, *World of Art*, which became the foundation of a highly diverse list. Characterized by pocket-sized format and black spines, the series expanded within 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 important 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 on television. Over 34 titles have been published in the 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, along with 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.

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

Art and scholarship remain 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 extensive catalog includes thousands of original book titles. Many of these are exclusive collector’s editions.

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