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Thames & Hudson
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| Founded | 1949 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Walter Neurath and Eva Neurath |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | High Holborn |
| Distribution |
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| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www |
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books across all areas of visual creativity: the arts (fine, applied, decorative, performing), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film and music, and also archaeology, history and popular culture.[2] With its headquarters in London, it has a sister company in New York City and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong. In Paris it has a further subsidiary company, Interart, which is engaged in the distribution of English-language books, and a sister company, Éditions Thames & Hudson. The group currently employs 150 staff in London and a further 65 around the world.
The publishing company was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath, who aimed to make the world of art and the research of top scholars available to a wider public. The company's name reflects its international presence, particularly in London and New York. It remains an independent, family-owned company, and is one of the largest publishers of illustrated books, with over 2,000 titles in print.[3]
History[edit]
Walter Neurath was born in Vienna in 1903, and ran an art gallery and published illustrated books there.[4] In 1938, he left for London, where he initially worked as production director of Adprint, a London book-packaging company established by fellow Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges.[5] While at Adprint, Neurath designed and produced the hardback King Penguin Books, and developed the book series Britain in Pictures which integrated images with text rather than separating them into "plates" sections.[5][4]
Neurath and Foges helped pioneer the concept of book packaging and co-edition publishing, in which book ideas are conceived, commissioned, produced and sold to publishers operating in different markets, different countries, and in different languages in order to create large print-runs and thereby lower unit production costs.[6]
Wishing to take book packaging and international publication further,[6] and recognizing the need to amortize the high production costs of illustrated books, in 1949 Neurath established his own publishing house, incorporating offices in London and New York, and named the company Thames & Hudson to indicate it would publish in both British and North American markets.[5] Eva Feuchtwang (later Eva Neurath), who had arrived with her second husband in London from Berlin in 1939, was co-founder;[5] she married Neurath in 1953.[7]
Thames & Hudson published ten titles in its first year of 1950, including English Cathedrals with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, and Albert Einstein’s Out of My Later Years.
Within five years, annual publication grew from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955. Thames & Hudson outgrew its High Holborn offices and moved in 1956 to 30 Bloomsbury Street, just off Bedford Square, then the centre of book publishing in London. It remained at that address until 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.
In 1958, Thames & Hudson launched one of its best-known series, the World of Art. Pocket-sized and with black spines, the series grew to 49 titles within seven years, and has currently produced over 300 titles.
Other major series have included Ancient People and Places, edited by archaeologist Glyn Daniel, which eventually included over 100 titles, and the large-format Great Civilizations series, published from 1961, featuring contributions by Alan Bullock, Asa Briggs, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A. J. P. Taylor, John Julius Norwich and others.
Walter Neurath died in 1967 at the age of 63, and Eva Neurath became chairman of the company. Walter's son Thomas, who with his sister Constance had joined the company in 1961, became managing director; Constance later served as art director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance are on the company's board of directors, along with Thomas's daughters Johanna and Susanna.[8]
See also[edit]
- List of publishers
- Ian Mackenzie-Kerr (1929–2005), a book designer with T&H for nearly 50 years
- World of Art, Thames & Hudson's signature book series on the arts
References[edit]
- ↑ "Thames & Hudson Australia: Booksellers Page". Thames and Hudson Australia | Illustrated Books | Homepage. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
- ↑ Thames and Hudson, Google Books.
- ↑ "Thames & Hudson official site".
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Rosenthal, T. G. (8 October 2009). "Neurath, Walter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/60042. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Unwin, Peter (2013). "Eva Neurath". Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The Times. A & C Black.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Hirschfeld, Gerhard; Newman, Aubrey; Pulzer, Peter; Paucker, Arnold (1991). Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom. Mohr Siebeck. p. 200.
- ↑ W. Rubinstein; Michael A. Jolles (27 January 2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 718. ISBN 978-0-230-30466-6.
- ↑ "Thames & Hudson official site".