Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance - Thames & Hudson

Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance explores the beginnings of Florentine Renaissance art, with the painter-monk Fra Angelico at the centre of the story. Fra Angelico is one of the great masters of Renaissance art and is responsible for its early achievements in Florence, alongside painters Masaccio, Masolino, Uccello, and Filippo Lippi, sculptors Ghiberti, Donatello, and Nanni di Banco, and architect Brunelleschi.

Fra Angelico is sometimes seen as distinct from his contemporaries due to his status as a friar. A reconsideration of the chronology of his key early works shows that he was not only a full participant in the artistic culture of his time but also a key innovator: the great Prado Annunciation altarpiece, Fra Angelico's groundbreaking work from the mid-1440s, is the first Renaissance-style altarpiece in Florence. The altarpiece has been the subject of extensive conservation and technological research at the Prado, the results of which are presented here for the first time. This catalogue centres around this masterpiece, as well as two other recently acquired paintings by Fra Angelico: the Alba Madonna and the Funeral of Saint Anthony Abbot.

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 accessible to a wide audience, as well as the research of leading scholars. To reflect international perspectives, the company's name combined the rivers flowing through London and New York, represented in its logo by two dolphins symbolising 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 business, Thames & Hudson is one of the world's leading publishers of illustrated books with over 2000 titles in print. It publishes high-quality collector's books in all areas of visual creativity: the 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 growing. Based in London with a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, another subsidiary, Interart, distributes English-language books in France.

The 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 brand founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges developed the innovative concept of what is now called book packaging (or co-edition publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold to publishers operating in different markets and languages to create large print runs, thereby reducing unit production costs. Neurath's concept was the first of many innovations he introduced to the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

Wishing to continue packaging collector's books in a second edition and recognising the need to amortise the high production costs of illustrated books, Neurath established his own publishing house, with offices in London and New York in the autumn of 1949. Eva Neurath, who had arrived in London from Berlin in 1939, was a co-founder.

Of the ten titles published on the first Thames & Hudson list in 1950, English Cathedrals, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and most successful. A testament to the brand's strong belief in the longevity of books from the outset, it remained in print until 1971. Also appearing in the first year of publication was Albert Einstein's "Out of My Later Years", an early indicator of the programme's breadth. As the list gradually and successfully 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, then the epicentre of book publishing in London. The business 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 their most renowned series, World of Art, which became the foundation of a very diverse list. Characterised by their pocket size and black spines, the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. Almost 60 years later, the series boasts over 300 titles, with Christopher Frayling noting that "paint-splattered copies can be found in every art school in the country."

Other significant series that added depth and prestige to the list include Ancient People and Places, edited by Glyn Daniel, which since the 1950s has sparked pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and on television. Over 34 titles were published in the series over 34 years. The large-format series Great Civilizations, released 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 passed away 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 any other person was responsible for the revolution in publishing art books" and was "one of those rare entrepreneurs who successfully combined business acumen with idealism." Eva Neurath became chairperson. Walter's son, Thomas, who joined the company with his sister Constance in 1961, became managing director; Constance later served as art director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance remain on the board of Thames & Hudson, 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 - The Letters, from technical innovations such as "French folds" to the controversial documentation of graffiti art in Subway Art, Thames and Hudson have always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

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

The world of art and scholarship thus remains at the heart of Thames & Hudson's publishing programme, which stays true to its core principle: providing a "museum without walls." Today, Thames & Hudson is a recognisable international brand, a symbol of English publishing. Their catalogue includes thousands of amazing book titles, many of which are exclusive collector's editions. 

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