Paul Rego Book Full Artwork - Thames and Hudson

Many of the greatest artists since the time of Dürer and Rembrandt have used print media to explore some of their most important ideas. Paula Rego continues in this tradition, engaging her imagination through both etching and lithography, and enthusiastically employing media to create works as haunting, erotic, and powerful as her paintings. This lavishly produced book, now expanded and updated with tritone and colour reproductions, is the first monograph dedicated solely to Rego’s graphic work. It discusses and illustrates all her prints, including unpublished works — over 200 etchings and lithographs spanning half a century from 1954 to 2003.

Many of Rego’s prints are based on motifs, as she says that one image sparks the idea for the next. Among them are Rhyming Riddles, which reveal a darkly humorous approach to childhood difficulties and provide a rich seam of insight into her early girls and individually characterized animals. The narrative layers and emotional nuances of her work are vividly demonstrated in her 1992 Peter Pan series, as well as in Pendle Witches (1996), for which she closely collaborated with poet and writer Blake Morrison, who was inspired by her 1996–98 series The Children’s Crusade. The book concludes with her latest portfolio of lithographs, largely based on Jane Eyre. T.G. Rosenthal, a longtime supporter of Rego’s work, discusses the background of each series and comments on each print. He also extensively quotes conversations between himself, others, and the artist, highlighting Rego’s subversive humor and her decidedly feminist approach. Fully illustrated, the catalogue raisonné by Hannah Begbie, Rego’s etching techniques explained by the artist and printmaker Paul Coldwell, along with exhibition lists, chronology, and bibliography, make this an exceptional resource on this leading artist’s major work.

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 and leading scholarly research accessible to a broad public. To reflect an international perspective, 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 2000 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. It is also expanding its list of children’s books. 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. He initially worked as production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foge. Neurath and Foge developed an innovative 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 produce 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 tradition of packaging collectible books 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 autumn 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, were 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—it relocated to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, near Bedford Square, which became 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 formats 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 “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 from the 1950s contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book and television formats. Over 34 titles were published in this series over 34 years. The large-format *Great Civilizations* series, launched 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—culturally and in terms of production techniques.

The year 2016 marked a remarkable 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 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 which are prestigious collector’s editions. 

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