Painting People book The State of Art - Thames and Hudson

After a century in which the scope of artistic materials expanded to include film and photography, performance, found objects, and concepts, focus returned to painting. The new generation of artists delights in solitary, slow, subtle processes related to human painting, preferring the unique ability of paint to distill life through events rather than a photographic snapshot. Charlotte Mullins illustrates works by over 85 artists. Many choose to look at this person with a crooked smile in scenes of everyday life, while others prefer alien forms of life or parallel universes. Some focus solely on the human figure, while an increasing number of young painters draw inspiration from folk art or social realism. In a world full of images, artists also find new and important ways to use found images to explore the relationship between realism and abstraction.

The works of these contemporary masters of figurative painting are displayed in over 200 reproductions, with clear text and detailed commentary, along with artist biographies.

The Thames & Hudson manufactory 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 research of leading scientists, 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 2,000 titles printed. It publishes high-quality 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 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 book ideas 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 autumn 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 start in the longevity of books, remaining in print until 1971. The first year’s publication also included *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, then 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.

In 1958, Thames and Hudson launched one of the most renowned series, World of Art, which became the foundation of a highly diverse list. Characterized by pocket-sized editions and black covers, 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 in 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 television. Over 34 titles have been published in the series over 34 years. The large-format series Great Civilizations, 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 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 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.

The world of art and scholarship remains at the heart of Thames & Hudson’s publishing program, which stays 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 engaging titles, many of which are luxurious collector’s editions.

Manufacturer information