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Abrams, Harry N(athan)  

A. Deirdre Robson

(b London, Dec 8, 1904; d New York, Nov 25, 1979).

American publisher and collector. He trained at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York before working in publishing. In 1950 he set up his own publishing company, Harry N. Abrams Inc., one of the first American companies to specialize in art books. In 1968 he founded Abbeville Books. His collecting, which began in the mid-1930s, went through three distinct phases: his first interest was in such contemporary American painters as Milton Avery and Raphael Soyer. He continued to purchase such works into the 1950s, but from the mid-1940s his collecting began to be dominated by works by major 20th-century artists; he acquired, among other works, Marc Chagall’s Clock (1948), Pablo Picasso’s Motherhood (1921) and Georges Rouault’s Miserere (1939).

Abrams’s most notable period as a collector was the 1960s, when he became known as a major collector of new American art. His interest in this area was fuelled by the ...

Article

Ackermann, Rudolph  

John Ford

[Rudolf]

(b Stollberg, Saxony, April 20, 1764; d Finchley, London, March 30, 1834).

English publisher and patron of German birth. He trained as a carriage designer in Paris and moved to England between 1783 and 1786. He established his own business as a carriage maker, undertaking major commissions in London and Dublin. In 1804 he designed Pius VII’s carriage for the coronation of Napoleon and in 1805 the funeral carriage of Horatio, Viscount Nelson. By 1800 Ackermann had built up a unique business at 101 The Strand, London, known as ‘The Repository of Arts’. This encompassed a drawing school with 80 pupils, the sale and loan of Old Master paintings and watercolour drawings, the publication of decorative prints and illustrated books and the manufacture of watercolour paints including a number of new chemical pigments.

In the early 19th century, Ackermann was an important and regular patron of English watercolour painters, employing William Henry Pyne, Augustus Charles Pugin, Thomas Heaphy, Frederick Mackenzie (1787–1854...

Article

Adams, Tate  

(b Holywood, County Down, Ireland, Jan 26, 1922).

Australian painter, printmaker, book designer, lecturer, collector, gallery director and publisher of limited edition artists’ books, of Irish decent. He worked as a draughtsman before entering war service in the British Admiralty from 1940 to 1949, including five years in Colombo, where he made sketching trips to jungle temples with the Buddhist monk and artist Manjsiro Thero. Between 1949 and 1951 Adams worked as an exhibition designer in London and studied wood-engraving with Gertrude Hermes in her evening class at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design). In 1951, after moving to Melbourne, Adams began a 30-year teaching commitment at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he instructed many of the younger generation of Australian printmakers, including George Baldessin and Jan Senbergs. A brief return to Britain and Ireland in 1957–8 provided experience with Dolmen Press, Dublin, which published his first book of engravings, ...

Article

Afanasiev  

Russian, 19th century, male.

Active between 1809 and 1826 in Moscow.

Engraver (line-engraving).

This artist belonged to the school of the Moscow printer and collector P.P. Beketov. Under the direction of J. Rosanov, N.Z. Sokolov and A.J. Ossipov, Afanasiev engraved a series of three hundred portraits of famous Russians, published in three volumes between ...

Article

Aitken, William Maxwell, 1st Baron Beaverbrook  

Ian G. Lumsden

(b Maple, Ont., May 25, 1879; d Cherkley, nr Leatherhead, June 9, 1964).

British publisher, financier, politician, collector and patron, of Canadian birth. As Minister of Information during World War I, he was responsible for the War Records Office in London, through which Wyndham Lewis, Muirhead Bone, William Orpen, Christopher Nevinson, Augustus John and six Canadian artists, J. W. Beatty (1869–1941), Maurice Cullen, C. W. Simpson (1878–1942), Fred Varley, David Milne and A. Y. Jackson, received commissions to record Canada’s military contribution to the war effort. The Canadian War Memorials were deposited at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in 1921, and since then all but the major canvases have been transferred to the Canadian War Museum, also in Ottawa.

Beaverbrook was instrumental in developing the National Gallery of Canada’s collection of historical pictures; he was directly responsible for the gift of Benjamin West’s The Death of Wolfe by the Duke of Westminster in 1918, and the acquisition of ...

Article

Alberdingk Thijm, Josephus Albertus  

(b Amsterdam, Aug 13, 1820; d Amsterdam, March 17, 1889).

Dutch writer, critic and collector. He was raised in a cultivated and artistic merchant family but preferred writing to commerce. In addition to serving as an editor of the Volksalmanak voor Nederlandsche Katholieken, he published the Dietsche Warande. His lifelong advocacy of Roman Catholic emancipation is reflected in many of his short stories (written under the pseudonym Pauwels Foreestier) concerning Catholic life in 17th-century Holland. In 1876 he was appointed professor of aesthetics and the history of art at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldenden Kunsten, Amsterdam. An architectural preservationist and an important critic of the art and architecture of his time, he asserted that art should serve a religious function, as it had during the Middle Ages. It should be social, idealistic and transcendental. In his ideal society the arts would form a harmonious unit under the heading of architecture. His brother-in-law P. J. H. Cuypers was the leading Dutch architect of the day, whose career was assisted by Alberdingk Thijm’s advocacy of Gothic Revivalism in architecture. Alberdingk Thijm was particularly opposed to the painters of the Barbizon and Hague schools, whose work he considered to have no underlying purpose. Rather, he preferred the Düsseldorf school, which displayed a knowledge of history and literature. His large collections reflected his philosophical orientation. His numerous 17th and 18th-century Dutch paintings, mostly by minor masters, represented all the genres. He also owned a large collection of drawings and prints, as well as books, manuscripts and religious art from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which included a Gothic ciborium, a Byzantine crucifix and embroideries on silk, which were dispersed at auction after his death (Amsterdam, Muller, ...

Article

Amerbach family  

Elisabeth Landolt

Swiss family of collectors of German origin. Johannes Amerbach (b ?Amorbach, c. 1450; d Basle, Dec 25, 1513) gained his MA at the Sorbonne, Paris, and trained as a printer in Nuremberg and Venice. In 1482 he settled in Basle, where in 1484 he founded his own print shop and publishing house. He was in close contact with Albrecht Dürer during the latter’s stay in Basle (1491–2). Apart from works of art for personal use, for example ornamental daggers, he probably owned graphic and print blocks for woodcut illustrations by Dürer. Johannes’s son, Bonifacius Amerbach (b Basle, 11 Oct 1495; d Basle, 24 April 1562), a lawyer, professor at the University of Basle and syndic of the Basle council, was the heir and executor of Erasmus and owned paintings by the Holbein family and important gold and silver pieces, for example the well-known ‘...

Article

Arrowsmith, John  

Linda Whiteley

(b Monceaux-sous-Paris, 1790; d 1849).

French dealer, print-publisher and collector, of English descent. His father, William Arrowsmith, was an agent for members of the Orléans family. Through his brother-in-law Louis Daguerre, John Arrowsmith was instrumental in negotiating the installation of the Diorama in Park Square East, Regent’s Park, London, opened in 1823 (see Diorama). In 1822, on one of his frequent visits to London, he saw Constable’s The Haywain (1821; London, N.G.) at the British Institution and shortly after began negotiations to buy it in order to exhibit it in Paris. He purchased it in 1824, along with View on the Stour near Dedham (San Marino, CA, Huntington Lib. & A.G.) and a smaller seascape, and in June 1824 exhibited them at his premises at 1, Rue Grange-aux-Belles, Paris. He sent the two larger landscapes to the Salon of 1824, as well as a view of Hampstead Heath. He was one of a small group of dealers attempting to specialize in the sale of works by living artists, and his contacts with England were particularly useful during the 1820s, when an enthusiasm for English literature and art was widespread among young French artists who were part of the Romantic movement. Between ...

Article

Avery, Samuel P(utnam)  

Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort

(b New York, March 17, 1822; d New York, Aug 11, 1904)

American wood-engraver, art dealer, collector and philanthropist. Avery’s career as a wood-engraver and his involvement with the New York publishing trade began in the early 1840s. He worked for, among others, Appleton’s, the New York Herald and Harper’s and produced illustrations for trade cards, religious tracts, adventure stories and children’s books. By the early 1850s Avery had begun compiling humorous books and commissioning drawings from such artist-illustrators as Felix Octavius Carr Darley, John Whetten Ehninger, Augustus Hoppin (1827–96), Tompkins Harrison Matteson and John McLenan (1827–66). His business contacts led to close relationships with such artists as Frederick Church, John F. Kensett and William Trost Richards.

By the late 1850s Avery had begun to collect drawings and small cabinet pictures by local artists. Other art collectors, notably William T. Walters, asked Avery’s advice when commissioning works of art. In 1864 he turned his engraving practice over to ...

Article

Combe, Thomas  

John Christian

(b Leicester, 1797; d Oxford, Oct 29, 1872).

English publisher and patron. He was one of the earliest patrons of the Pre-Raphaelites, and his bequest of their works to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, is notable among collections formed in the 19th century in that it remains largely intact. (Unless otherwise stated, all works mentioned are in the Ashmolean.) In 1838 Combe became Superintendent of the Clarendon Press at Oxford University, a post he held until his death. Under his management, the Press, hitherto run at a loss, became a source of revenue; Combe’s own substantial share in the profitable business of printing Bibles and prayer books enabled him to acquire a considerable personal fortune. He was a genial, hospitable man of strong religious convictions, a friend and ardent supporter of the Tractarians; John Henry Newman officiated at his marriage in 1840. Combe and his wife Martha (1806–93) were active in many forms of charitable work, and Combe, who edited ...

Article

Copley, William Nelson  

Diane Tepfer

(b New York, Jan 24, 1919; d Key West, FL, May 7, 1996).

American dealer, patron, and painter. Born into a newspaper-publishing family, he responded to his upper-class establishment upbringing by seeking out ambivalence in art and life. Copley established the Copley Galleries in Los Angeles in 1948 with John Ployardt as partner and showed Magritte, Max Ernst, Roberto Matta, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, and Joseph Cornell, as well as younger local artists. He regularly purchased a work from each show and built up his collection. Self-taught as a painter, in 1951 he closed the gallery to paint and moved to Paris, where he bought directly from the Surrealists. He returned to the USA in 1963, living and working in Roxbury, CT. He regularly exhibited at the Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York, and elsewhere in the USA and Europe. He used Magritte’s method of ‘assembling images’ in his own narrative figurative paintings. As in some Surrealist works, eroticism is the guiding force in brightly coloured and witty paintings. He compared ...

Article

Didot family  

Linda Whiteley

French family of typographers, printers, publishers and collectors. The first to settle in Paris was Denis Didot (2nd half of 17th century), whose son François Didot (1689–1759) founded in 1713 the family publishing business. His sons François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1804) and Pierre-François Didot (1731–93) developed the business, adding a type foundry and a paper-mill. The elegance of their publications brought them the patronage of the brothers of Louis XVI: Monsieur (later Louis XVIII) and the Comte d’Artois (later Charles X). The sons of François-Ambroise included Pierre Didot, a publisher, among whose illustrators were some of the most distinguished artists of the day, and Firmin Didot (1764–1836), who designed the Didot typeface for his brother’s use. Firmin Didot’s son Ambroise Firmin-Didot was a notable collector of prints. The cadet branch of the family, Didot Jeune, the descendants of Pierre-François Didot, included Saint Marc Didot, who assembled a fine collection of paintings....

Article

Forbes, Malcolm  

Margaret Kelly

(Stevenson)

(b New York, Aug 19, 1919; d Feb 24, 1990).

American publisher and collector. In his position as Chairman and Editor-in-chief of the fortnightly American business magazine Forbes, he established one of the oldest corporate art collections in America in the 1950s when he began to acquire objets d’art created by Peter Carl Fabergé: the collection contains over 300 pieces, including 12 Imperial Easter eggs. A man of eclectic tastes, and spurred by fond childhood memories, Forbes assembled a collection of 100,000 lead soldiers and over 500 tin clockwork toy boats. The Fabergé works and selected toys are displayed at the Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York with American presidential manuscripts and related historical memorabilia that Forbes believed ‘better depict each [president] than the likenesses that abounded in their time’. Numbering over 3000 pieces, the collection is the finest of its kind in private hands.

The Forbes picture collection, predominantly conservative in flavour, features works by French 19th-century military painters, Victorian artists, Kinetic artists, American Realists and 19th- and 20th-century photographers. Forbes established the ...

Article

Galle, Joannes  

Christine van Mulders

[Jan]

(b Antwerp, bapt Sept 27, 1600; d Antwerp, Dec 20, 1676).

Flemish engraver, publisher and print dealer, son of Theodor Galle. He became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1627–8 and its dean in 1638–9. Although various engravings have been attributed to him, he was probably only their publisher. However, engravings after Rubens’s Crucifixion (Hollstein, no. 2) and ...

Article

Galle, Philip  

Christine van Mulders

[PhilippPhilips]

(b Haarlem, 1537; d Antwerp, 12 or March 29, 1612).

Flemish draughtsman, engraver, publisher, print dealer, writer and historian. It is possible that he was a pupil in Haarlem of Dirk Volkertsz. Coornhert, but more than likely he was trained in the Antwerp workshop of Hieronymous Cock, who published Galle’s first prints in 1557 and for whom he worked for many years. Shortly after 1557 Philip Galle started his own publishing and print business, for which he travelled extensively: in 1560–61 he visited the southern Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy. After 1564 he settled in Antwerp, where he acquired citizenship in 1571, the same year in which he became a master in the city’s Guild of St Luke. He served as dean of the guild from 1585 to 1587. His documented pupils were H. van Doort in 1580, Karel van Mallery (1571–1635) in 1586, Jean-Baptiste Barbé (1578–1649) in 1594 and Peter Backereel (d 1637) in ...

Article

Galle, Theodor  

Christine van Mulders

[Dirck]

(b Antwerp, bapt July 16, 1571; d Antwerp, bur Dec 18, 1633).

Flemish engraver, publisher and print dealer, son of Philip Galle. He was a pupil of his father. In 1596 he was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke and about the same time established a print-selling business. He travelled to Italy with his brother Cornelis (the elder) in the same year. Theodor married the daughter of the Antwerp publisher Jan Moretus the elder and after his father’s death in 1612 took over the direction of the Galle workshop and publishing house. Theodor Galle was chiefly active as a publisher and print dealer. However, while in Rome, he engraved, after his own designs, the Imagines ex antiquis marmoribus, numismatibus et gemmis expressae (Hollstein, nos 226–376). He also reproduced compositions by others including Hans Bol (e.g. the Story of Abraham, Hollstein, nos 1–4), Joannes Stradanus (e.g. the History of the Romans, Hollstein, nos 390–95) and Peter Paul Rubens (e.g. the title-pages for the ...

Article

Hollis, Thomas  

(b London, April 14, 1720; d Corscombe, Dorset, Jan 1, 1774).

English collector, antiquary, patron and editor. He pursued humanistic and scientific studies under Dr John Ward, and in 1739/40 he was admitted at Lincoln’s Inn as a law student, and lived in chambers until 1748. During a trip to Venice, in 1750 or 1751, he made the acquaintance of Joseph Smith, who became a lifelong friend and correspondent, and who may have induced him to order six of the nine paintings by Canaletto he eventually owned. These included the larger version of Ranelagh: Interior of the Rotunda (London, N.G.), which showed the site from a different viewpoint to the version of 1751 (priv. col., see exh. cat., p. 91), and the acclaimed Walton Bridge (London, Dulwich Pict. Gal.), both of which were inscribed on the back in Italian as having been painted for Hollis in London in 1754. A third, large painting, described in the catalogue of the sale of the paintings by Canaletto in ...

Article

Horovitz, Bela  

Valerie Holman

(b Budapest, April 18, 1898; d New York, March 8, 1955).

Austrian publisher, active in England; he acquired British nationality in 1946. He founded Phaidon Verlag with Ludwig Goldscheider in Vienna in 1923 and initially published bibliophile editions of literature with great attention to good design. This was followed by literary masterpieces and contemporary criticism, and in 1930 the firm began publishing classics of writing on history in large, well-illustrated and inexpensive editions. Historical biographies followed, and among them the first three of the many that Phaidon devoted to great artists: Leben Michaelangelos and Velázquez und sein Jahrhundert (both London, 1933) and Raphael (London, 1941, 2/?1948). In 1933 Phaidon published their first large-format monographs in several different language editions, on Van Gogh (Vienna and London, 1936), the Impressionists (Vienna, 1937) and Botticelli (Vienna, 1937), which established the firm’s reputation for high quality reproduction and an international outlook. On the annexation of Austria in 1938 Sir ...

Article

Huquier, Gabriel  

Madeleine Barbin

(b Orléans, May 7, 1695; d Paris, June 11, 1772).

French collector, engraver, print-publisher and print-seller. He was probably led to study engraving by his taste for collecting prints and drawings. He made no innovations in the engraving process, but used etching lightly reworked with the burin, a method suited to reproducing the sort of drawings that he usually chose as models, most of them coming from his own collection.

Huquier’s engravings are mostly of work by contemporaries, sometimes in the form of single engravings, but mostly in books of six, twelve, or sometimes more plates. They are rarely dated. He began by reproducing the works of Claude Gillot, including La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Bruand, Hébert and Sjöberg, nos 695–754) and Scènes comiques du Théatre italien (c. 1729–32; bhs 755–66). Among other works by Antoine Watteau, he engraved 12 arabesques (bhs 1711–44) for the Recueil Jullienne. He also engraved Edme Bouchardon’s Livre de vases...

Article

Koch, Alexander  

Laurie A. Stein

(b Cologne, Sept 9, 1860; d Darmstadt, Jan 5, 1939).

German publisher, patron and collector. He was influential in the reform movements in art, in particular Jugendstil, the German version of Art Nouveau. Through his publications he hoped to free art from the constraints of the studio, elevate public taste and encourage the creation of a style that would be in keeping with an ideal modern culture. Trained as a printer, he started a magazine of the carpet trade, Tapetenzeitung, in 1888 and shortly afterwards, with only DM 100 as capital, established Verlagsanstalt Alexander Koch. The highly successful firm published periodicals, including Fachblatt für Innen-Dekoration (first issue 1890; since 1980 Architektur, Innenarchitektur, technischer Ausbau) and Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration (first issue 1897); catalogues, notably Grossherzog Ernst Ludwig und die Ausstellung der Künstler-Kolonie in Darmstadt von Mai bis Oktober 1901; and books, among them Handbuch neuzeitlicher Wohnungskultur (1912). He also published the Meister der Innenkunst, the series of prizewinning designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, M. H. Baillie Scott and Leopold Bauer for the competition ‘Haus eines Kunstfreundes’ of ...