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(b 1854; d England, 1913).

English photographer, publisher and writer. He first travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as private secretary to the Bishop of Colombo. In 1870 he set up a small bookshop in Colombo, which by 1884 had diversified into a flourishing publishing house, H. W. Cave & Company, and a printing firm equipped to produce books with excellent quality photographic reproductions. He took a serious interest in photography, and this enabled him to illustrate the pictorial travelogues written by him and published by his own firm. His close supervision of the details of book production and photographic reproduction gave him a competitive edge over other commercial photographers. He returned to England in 1886 after the death of his wife and settled down in Oxford. He made occasional visits to Ceylon, but continued to manage his firm’s business from England.

In his photography Cave specialized in rural and landscape scenes and was especially interested in creating views with luxuriant tropical vegetation, using dramatic atmospheric lighting effects. Some of the best examples of this type of work are reproduced in his lavishly printed travelogues ...

French family of publishers. Gervais Charpentier (d 14 July 1871) introduced to France a new format for books that allowed more words to be printed on the page, thereby making books much less expensive to produce. Although the format was originally called in-18 anglais, it was soon known in France as the format Charpentier. Charpentier’s publishing house produced, among other things, beautiful illustrated books, including Théophile Gautier’s Capitaine Fracasse (1863), with illustrations by Gustave Doré, and an edition of the works of Alfred de Musset illustrated by Alexandre Bida (1813–95). These achievements were continued by Gervais’s son Georges Charpentier (b Paris, 1846; d 1905). As well as publishing important novels by French Realist writers, Georges was responsible for such editions as Quatrelle’s A coups de fusil illustrated by Alphonse de Neuville. Georges Charpentier was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1886.

(b Kingston upon Hull, 1770; d London, 12 or March 14, 1812).

English publisher and engraver. He studied in London under Francesco Bartolozzi and engraved a number of book illustrations but was best known as a publisher, issuing the designs by William Blake for Robert Blair’s poem The Grave (London, 1743). In 1805 Cromek commissioned Blake to draw and engrave the designs, but Blake felt betrayed when Cromek engaged Luigi Schiavonetti instead because he saw that Blake’s style of engraving would not please the public (for further discussion see Blake, William). Blake was further annoyed when Cromek commissioned Thomas Stothard to paint the Canterbury Pilgrims (1806; London, Tate; for illustration see Stothard, Thomas), an idea that Blake thought had been stolen from him; in 1809 Blake published a very successful singly issued print of it. Bentley has shown that although Cromek had considerable understanding and sympathy for Blake his treatment of him helped to increase the artist’s isolation....

English music, book and fine art printers and publishers . In 1863 the Rev. John Curwen (1816–80), a congregational minister, established the Curwen Press in Plaistow, London with the aim of promulgating the Tonic Sol-fa method of teaching music. Under John Curwen, and after his death under his son John Spencer Curwen (1847–1916), the Curwen Press printed sheet music and texts on music education. By 1908 John Curwen’s grandson Harold Curwen (1885–?1965) had joined the firm and encouraged them to broaden their production to include high-quality limited edition books. Harold also created a lithography studio so that artists could produce book illustrations. In 1920 Oliver Simon (d 1956) joined the press as a typographer, later becoming a renowned book designer. His brother Herbert joined shortly after and together they held the posts of chairman and managing director respectively through the 1940s and 1950s. In ...

(b Veracruz, Mar 13, 1880; d Stamford, CT, Jan 10, 1961).

Mexican illustrator, writer, gallery owner, and publisher, active in the USA. He was the son of a wealthy Mexican lawyer and publisher. De Zayas started his career as an artist by providing drawings for his father’s newspaper in Veracruz. In 1906 he moved on to Mexico City’s leading newspaper, El Diario, but a year later, after the ascension of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, whom the newspaper had opposed, he fled to the USA. There he landed a position making caricatures for the New York Evening World. Shortly after his arrival in the USA, he came into contact with Alfred Stieglitz, who staged solo shows of De Zayas’s caricatures at his gallery Gallery 291 in 1909 and 1910, both of which proved to be huge popular successes.

In 1910 De Zayas traveled to Paris, where he stayed almost a year, scouting out adventurous forms of modern art for Stieglitz, notably the cubist work of Picasso and African sculpture. On his return, equipped with knowledge of European modern art and inspired by the work of the French modernist ...

(Théodore)

(b Courtrai, Oct 12, 1814; d Nice, April 12, 1902).

British publisher and dealer. He began his career in his father’s printing, binding and bookselling business, with a reading-room, at Courtrai, Belgium. From c. 1833 he was established in Paris, with his own print and paper-making business. In April 1840 Gambart arrived in England, representing Goupil’s print publishing business. By autumn 1842 he had formed a partnership known as Gambart & Junin, which specialized in the import of prints from the Continent. After a brief period at 12 Denmark Street, London, the expanding business was set up at 25 Berners Street, in March 1844, as publishers, importers and exporters of prints. It was from this address that Gambart launched his career as one of the leading print publishers of the mid-Victorian period, with engravings after all the most celebrated British and continental artists of the time, including Edwin Landseer, John Everett Millais, Rosa Bonheur, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and William Holman Hunt. Probably his most famous publication (...

(b Mexico City, ?1820; d Mexico City, 1897).

Mexican illustrator and printmaker. He probably began his career in 1847 in the workshop of the Murguía publishing house. In 1854, in collaboration with Andrés Campillo, he created an outstanding series of illustrations for the book Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, in which he portrayed character types (e.g. Great Poet, lithograph) in the manner of Honoré Daumier. In 1855 he founded the firm Litografía de Iriarte y Compañía. The following year he published portraits of famous personalities in the weekly review El Panorama. He was a co-founder in 1861 of the political fortnightly La Orquesta, on which he worked for more than ten years as an illustrator and eventually as a caricaturist and as editor. Iriarte continued to contribute to a number of periodicals, including El Renacimiento, and his firm also published the weekly San Baltazar (1869–1870). He collaborated with Santiago Hernández on numerous illustrations for, among others, ...

German, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 2 October 1865, in Münster; died 8 October 1937, in Raron (Valais, Switzerland).

Painter (including glass), pastellist, illustrator, draughtsman, decorative designer, graphic designer, writer, publisher.

Melchior Lechter was initially apprenticed to a painter of cartoons for stained-glass windows in Münster, before enrolling at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin in ...

(b Walthamstow [now in London], March 24, 1834; d London, Oct 3, 1896).

English designer, writer and activist. His importance as both a designer and propagandist for the arts cannot easily be overestimated, and his influence has continued to be felt throughout the 20th century. He was a committed Socialist whose aim was that, as in the Middle Ages, art should be for the people and by the people, a view expressed in several of his writings. After abandoning his training as an architect, he studied painting among members of the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1861 he founded his own firm, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (from 1875 Morris & Co.), which produced stained glass, furniture, wallpaper and fabrics (see §3 below). Morris’s interests constantly led him into new activities such as his last enterprise, the Kelmscott Press (see §5 below). In 1950 his home at Walthamstow became the William Morris Gallery. The William Morris Society was founded in 1956, and it publishes a biannual journal and quarterly newsletter....

(b Venice, July 18, 1842; d St Moritz, Aug 21, 1911).

Italian publisher. He was first an employee and later the manager of the Münster bookshop in the Piazza San Marco, Venice. From 1877 he was involved in an extraordinary series of 43 publications about Venetian art history, which made liberal use of photography. In these works he employed, and was among the very first to do so in Italy, the new ...

(b Worbis, Saxony, April 23, 1819; d London, Dec 17, 1899).

British bookseller and publisher of German birth. He was apprenticed to a bookseller in Nordhausen from 1834 to 1839 and afterwards spent three years working for a publishing house in Berlin. Quaritch came to England in 1842 and five years later became a naturalized British subject. In 1847 he established his own second-hand bookshop near Leicester Square, London, and in 1860 moved to premises on Piccadilly. His shop became a centre of interest for all the great bibliophiles around the world. He became known for his ability to find rare books, manuscripts, historic bindings and incunabula, and for the excellence of the catalogues that he issued at regular intervals throughout his career. From 1862 he employed Michael Kerney (1838–1901) as his chief cataloguer and literary adviser. The catalogues were comprehensive, with extensive indexes, notes and scholarly descriptions. One of the most valuable was the Bibliotheca Xylographica, Typographica et Palaeographica: Catalogue of Block Books and of Early Productions of the Printing Press in all Countries, and a Supplement of Manuscripts...

(b Greifswald, Aug 27, 1776; d Berlin, April 26, 1842).

German publisher and collector. He started as an apprentice in the bookshop of Gottlieb August Lange (d 1796) in Greifswald in 1790 and moved to the branch in Berlin in 1795. In 1801 he took over the bookshop of the Realschule there. The ‘publisher of the Romantics’ (including among others the Grimm brothers, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Novalis and Heinrich von Kleist), Reimer prospered and in 1822 purchased Weidmann’s bookshop in Leipzig. His friends included the writer and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and the writer Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860). He started building up his collection in 1814. He possessed 31 paintings by his compatriot and childhood friend Caspar David Friedrich, including Ruined Monastery of Eldena (c. 1825) and Oak Tree in the Snow (c. 1829; both Berlin, Tiergarten, N. G.). Among the drawings in Reimer’s collection were designs (Frankfurt am Main, Städel Kstinst.) for a ...

English family of engravers, illustrators and publishers. Isaac Taylor (i) (b Worcester, 13 Dec 1730; d Edmonton, 17 Oct 1807) worked initially for the London map publisher Thomas Jeffreys (fl 1732; d 1771). He engraved some plates of Old Master pictures for John Boydell and exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1765–80. He was a capable artist, much in demand for book illustrations, which he both designed and engraved, for example a vignette (1765) retained for many editions of Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village and frontispieces (1780) for each of the seven volumes of Samuel Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison. He also engraved architectural plates and in the 1770s he took over the business of Henry Webley of Holborn, the leading publisher of architectural books. From about 1775 he traded as I. & J. Taylor, at first with his brother James Taylor (...

Russian, 19th century, male.

Active in France from 1844 to 1849, and in Germany from 1867 to 1895.

Born 9 June 1820, in Sorgenfrei (near Riga); died 7 April 1895, in Berlin.

Painter, illustrator, lithographer, publisher. Battle scenes, genre scenes.

Son of a burgomaster of Riga, Vasilii Timm was interested in drawing from an early age, and in ...

(b Veracruz, 1848; d Tacubaya, Mexico City, Feb 14, 1904).

Mexican illustrator and lithographer. He began his career in 1869, making prints for the weekly La ilustración potosina in San Luis Potosí. He collaborated with Alejandro Casarín and Jesús Alamilla on illustrations using engravings colored with pen for the novel Ensalada de pollos by José Tomás de Cuéllar. In these the use of a schematic design accentuated the appearance of the figures portrayed. He created caricatures (1872–1873) for La orquesta and other periodicals, but he established his reputation with caricatures (1874–1876) of government figures for the weekly Hijo Ahuizote. Villasana was a member of the political party of President Porfirio Díaz and in 1880 published ferocious caricatures of Díaz’s opponents in El coyote emplumado. He was co-publisher in 1883, with Ireneo Paz, of La patria ilustrada and in 1888 he founded his own weekly, México y sus costumbres; in both periodicals he published his own caricatures of public figures. In ...

(b St-Denis, Réunion, c. 1867; d Paris, Feb 19, 1939)

French art dealer and publisher. He was the most notable contemporary art dealer of his generation in France, as well as an innovative publisher of prints and illustrated books. Brought up in Réunion, he arrived in Paris c. 1890 as a law student and soon started buying and selling prints and drawings for his own pleasure. After a period working at L’Union Artistique for Alphonse Dumas, an established dealer, he set up on his own and in 1894 opened a small gallery near the Opéra on the Rue Laffitte, then the centre of the Paris art trade.

Vollard made his first major impact as a dealer in 1895 when he organized Cézanne’s first one-man exhibition. Over the next ten years he built up, at relatively low cost, a large stock of paintings by Cézanne, which eventually provided him with enormous profits. Concurrently he acquired work by van Gogh, Gauguin, Bonnard, ...

English family of printers and publishers . Charles Whittingham (i) (b nr Coventry, 16 June 1767; d 5 Jan 1840) was apprenticed to a bookseller and printer, Richard Bird, from 1779 to 1786. In the late 1780s Whittingham set up as a printer in Fetter Lane, London. The earliest piece of printing associated with him is Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (1792). His association from 1803 with the bookseller John Sharpe resulted in several series, including the British Classics (1803), Sharpe’s British Theatre (1804) and British Poets (1805); Whittingham issued his own British Poets series in 100 volumes in 1822. From 1803 he used some of the earliest Stanhope presses and traded as the Stanhope Press until 1811, when, having moved part of his business to Chiswick, he adopted the Chiswick Press imprint. By then he was also working for almanac and book publishers and publishing books himself. In ...