Walking from one gallery into the next is a little like turning the pages of a huge and wonderful book
This autumn marks ten years of Thames & Hudson’s publishing partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The museum houses 5,000-year-old Chinese ceramics, glittering jewels worn by Catherine the Great of Russia, the world’s most beautiful carpet and some of Leonardo’s notebooks – as well as Johnny Rotten’s Sex Pistols T-shirt, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust costume and Elton John’s glasses.
It’s not all locked up in glass cabinets, either: you can step inside the actual-size model of Trajan’s Column. However, visitors are not encouraged to jump on the Great Bed of Ware – three metres wide, designed more than 400 years ago for up to 12 occupants at a coaching inn in Hertfordshire. Tracey Emin says, ‘Every time I pass it, it makes me want to curl up and go to sleep’.
The joys of reading books are not so different to walking through the galleries of a great museum: the experience is personal, yet shared. We follow our curiosity, we respond emotionally, find our favourites and make unexpected discoveries. Walking from one gallery into the next is a little like turning the pages of a huge and wonderful book.
Over the last ten years, T&H and the V&A have published more than 60 titles on topics drawn from the museum’s extraordinary collections, from fashion and textiles to ceramics, art, design, and photography. Among them is William Morris, the largest monograph on the pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, published to mark the 125th anniversary of the great designer’s death. William Morris is responsible for a huge range of designs for textiles, furniture, tiles, tableware and decorative arts and crafts of every kind. Morris is surely the undisputed patron saint of Victorian design.
If the V&A were a book, the opening chapter would have to be on fashion. It’s what the museum has become well known for in recent years, with milestone exhibitions on Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga, not to mention a homage to fashion muse Naomi Campbell. The range of fashion books T&H has created with the museum are for those who want to dig even deeper: not only with lots of easy-to-love volumes on bags, rings, hats and shoes, but also the ‘Fashion in Detail’ series that explores dress from different centuries and cultures up close: a truly beautiful history lesson.
Can a museum really resemble a book? T&H’s founders thought of it the other way round: the new publishing company was intended to be a ‘museum without walls’, bringing the world of art into contact with the largest-possible readership. The V&A’s mission has been to promote art and design for all, building a peerless collection to showcase human creativity, and to inspire the designers and makers of today and tomorrow.
In both cases, for museum and publisher, the prime ambition is to bring knowledge and the widest possible public together. Their missions could hardly be closer.
Words by Julian Honer and Philip Watson
1. William Morris
A pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris (1834–1896) turned the tide of Victorian England against an increasingly industrialized manufacturing process towards a reanimated respect for the skill of the maker. His designs are still much admired today.
Published to mark the 125th anniversary of Morris’s death, William Morris offers the most comprehensive, fully illustrated exploration of Morris’s creative life to date, surveying his various endeavours from painting and stained glass to furniture, textiles and publishing.
A thing of beauty - Literary Review
Discover William Morris
2. 18th-Century Fashion in Detail
Part of our ‘Fashion in Detail’ series, 18th-Century Fashion in Detail takes a rare, close-up look at the sharp pleats, high collars, colourful beads and intricate lacework seen in 18th-century clothing. Some of the garments in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s extensive fashion collection are often too fragile to be on display and this book offers a detailed look at each exquisite, labour-intensive detail.
An inspirational resource for students, collectors, designers and anyone who is fascinated by fashion and costume - New Design
Discover 18th-Century Fashion in Detail
3. Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion
Silk has long captured the imagination of peoples round the globe, inspiring creativity in the making of luxurious textiles. Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion is a major survey that explores the history and geography of silk production and celebrates the ingenuity, innovation and skill of designers and makers. From weaving and knitting to dyeing, printing and embroidery, this compendium showcases a rich variety of artworks, furnishings and clothing, including fashions from recent designer catwalk shows in North America, Asia and Europe.
Luxurious ... exquisite - Publishers Weekly
Discover Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion
4. The Artist’s Sketchbook
Artists have been using sketchbooks as part of their preparatory practice for centuries and the extensive sketchbook collection at the V&A brims with exquisite examples. Selected by the V&A’s curators, and organized chronologically by artist, The Artist’s Sketchbook introduces around eighty profiles from different eras and movements, including John Constable, Beatrix Potter, Paul Nash and Julie Verhoeven. With rich, detailed photography, the sketchbooks are shown to be very much works of art in themselves, with open-book shots and selected covers reproduced as well as single pages.
An absolute triumph - ArtBookReview
Discover The Artist’s Sketchbook
5. Constable’s Skies
John Constable is one of the greatest painters of the English weather. His depictions of the sky are essential components of all his landscape paintings, from such famous works as the Hay Wain to his numerous cloud studies. Constable was captivated by the sky, culminating in paintings in which the landscape beneath the ever-changing sky is completely absent. Part of the Artists in Focus series, Constable’s Skies explores the artist’s fascination with the sky and brings together his remarkable depictions of the English weather.
Collates the artist's cloud studies with the weather reports for the day they were done … The effect is like a time machine - The Spectator
Discover Constable’s Skies
6. Calling the Shots
The V&A holds the UK’s national collection of photography, with more than 800,000 photographs in its archive. Calling the Shots draws on this rich and varied resource to present an unprecedented view of photographic history through a queer lens. Exploring imagery from pioneering LGBTIQ+ photographers and subjects alongside work documenting activism, hard-won legal battles and moments in LGBTIQ+ history, Calling the Shots offers an exciting appraisal of photography's role in expressing, documenting and celebrating queer life.
A vital addition to the bookshelves of art enthusiasts, creatives and students alike - Aesthetica
Discover Calling the Shots
7. The V&A Sourcebook of Pattern and Ornament
From Japanese kimono and William Morris fabrics to Chinese porcelain and contemporary furniture, the wealth of pattern and ornamentation in the many objects that enrich our lives is testament to the inventiveness of designers and craftspeople around the globe and throughout history. Such works reveal humanity’s unceasing desire to combine pattern with design. The V&A Sourcebook of Pattern and Ornament is a richly illustrated sourcebook of ornamentation from around the world, with more than 1,000 historic and contemporary examples to choose from.
An outstanding source of inspiration - Beautiful Heirloom Home
Discover The V&A Sourcebook of Pattern and Ornament
8. Screenprints
Screenprints: A History is a celebration of the fine-art applications of this versatile medium, from the commercial origins of the screenprinting process in 1920s America, its pivotal role in 1960s Pop and Op Art among artists such as Andy Warhol and Bridget Riley, through to its adoption by Damien Hirst and the YBAs of the 1990s, and its enduring presence in contemporary art. It also gives attention to lesser-known names who pioneered the use of the screenprint in fine art in the UK, the USA and Europe, and traces its global spread through Africa, the Caribbean and Australasia. This beautifully designed, strikingly illustrated introduction will appeal to art lovers and practising artists everywhere.
You really couldn’t wish for a better guide, survey or history - The Artist
Discover Screenprints: A History
9. Studio Ceramics
Studio Ceramics is a magnificent catalogue of the V&A's collection of 20th-century and contemporary British ceramics, from the pioneering work of such practitioners as Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew and Lucie Rie to the experimentation of contemporary artists like Rachel Kneebone, Grayson Perry and Edmund de Waal. The book provides essential historical context and documents the medium’s shift into an expressive, and sometimes interventionist, art form.
A joy to behold - The Art Newspaper
Discover Studio Ceramics
