William Kentridge Fortune book - Thames & Hudson

South African artist William Kentridge (born 1955) has gained international recognition for his innovative and poetic work across drawing, sculpture, film, and printmaking. This monograph, the most comprehensive published to date within Kentridge's extensive oeuvre, gathers nearly 200 of his works created since 1989. Exploring diverse expressions across various media, the book is richly illustrated with over 2000 images. It reveals Kentridge's love of contradictions and uncertainties, showing how his work moves between personal and political, static and temporal, humorous and profound, authentic and metaphorical, as well as acts of creation, disassembly, or erasure. William Kentridge: Fortuna also unveils the dynamic process behind Kentridge's studio practice in Johannesburg, a creative act that can be described as a performance where he seeks ways to express his powerful ideas. This process aligns with the principle of “fortune,” a rule not governed by rational control but, as the artist himself states, one in which there is “neither plan nor chance in the making of images.”

Kentridge's lively commentary accompanies his works, offering essential insight into his methods and creative thinking. Curator Lilian Tone and artist and writer Kate McCrickard place their practice within a broader context, examining conceptual and visual trends in Kentridge's work and the relationship between his art and his native South Africa. The book is complemented by a bibliography and chronology covering the artist's major solo and group exhibitions, as well as his film and theatrical performances. William Kentridge: Fortuna is a rich and fascinating survey of one of the most important contemporary artists.

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 and 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 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 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. The company also develops a 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. Initially, he worked as a production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges developed an innovative concept now known as 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 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 autumn 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 most successful. The strong brand conviction regarding the longevity of books 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—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 with black spines, the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. Almost 60 years later, the series boasts over 300 titles, which, according to Christopher Frayling, “are splattered with paint in every art school across the country.”

Other significant 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 form and 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 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 & Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

2016 marked a remarkable 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 incredible titles, many of which are exclusive collector’s editions.

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