Luca Signorelli's book Complete Pictures - Thames and Hudson

Thanks to his profound expertise in design, especially of nudes, and his grace in invention and composition, [Luca Signorelli] paved the way for artistic excellence. ”These words, written by Giorgio Vasari in his famous *Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects*, express the great admiration with which Signorelli was regarded by his contemporaries. Born in Cortona around 1450, Signorelli began his training under Piero della Francesca, then studied with Florentine masters Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose workshops Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi, and Pietro Perugino also learned their craft. It was only as Perugino’s assistant that Signorelli completed his first known work, the Testament and Death of Moses in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, in 1482.

Between that date and his death in 1523, Signorelli worked in central Italy for some of the greatest patrons of the era, earning a reputation as one of the leading painters of his generation. Recently restored — and here beautifully recreated — the extraordinary cycle of frescoes of the Last Judgment in the Cappella Nova in Orvieto, rightly regarded as Signorelli’s masterpiece and a pinnacle of the Italian Renaissance, reveals with full force and glory the artist’s skills as a master colorist and one of the highest exponents of male nudes. Illustrated with beautiful color plates after restoration, this book is the first in fifty years to reassess Signorelli’s significance and catalog his work. In the detailed artist’s biography, Laurence Kanter traces his career from early days in Piero’s workshop to later work in Tuscany and Umbria. In the catalog, Tom Henry presents his entire body of paintings, including many images never before reproduced, while a separate section with plates discusses twenty-one of his most important works. Together, these contributions form the most comprehensive volume on Luca Signorelli ever published.

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, as well as the work of leading scholars, accessible to a broad audience. 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 publisher, Thames & Hudson is one of the world’s leading publishers of illustrated books, with over 2,000 titles in print. It publishes high-quality collectible books across all areas of visual creativity: 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 also includes a growing selection of children’s books. Headquartered in London with a sister company in New York and branches in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, a 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 production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foge. Neurath and Foge developed an innovative concept now known as book packaging (or co-publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold by publishers operating across different markets and in various languages, to create large editions and reduce unit production costs. Neurath’s concept was the first of many innovations introduced into the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

Seeking to continue the tradition of collectible book packaging in a second edition and recognizing the need to amortize the high costs of producing illustrated books, Neurath founded 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 the first list by Thames & Hudson in 1950, *English Cathedrals*, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and achieved the greatest success. A testament to the brand’s strong conviction from the very beginning regarding the longevity of books, it remained in print until 1971. In the first year of publication, Albert Einstein’s *Out of My Later Years* also appeared, an early indicator of the program’s breadth. As the list gradually expanded—growing 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 and 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 “splattered 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 were 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 establishing one of the most significant 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 & Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in terms of 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: British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.

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 original titles, many of which are luxurious collectible books.

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