Phaidon Press invented the art book. It was in 1930s Vienna that Bela Horovitz and Ludwig Goldscheider established the format of the illustrated monograph: a short essay by an expert, usually an Austrian art historian hired for a modest fee, followed by a sumptuous range of high-quality repro.
They left before the Anschluss and arrived in London, bringing their distinguished backlist with them. Effete British art history was immediately fortified by stern German-language methodology. After several changes of ownership, direction and fortune, not all of them good, Phaidon is now perhaps the outstanding international publisher of illustrated books.
Production values have always been a Phaidon priority, but the comfortable, formulaic old monograph has gone, to be replaced by the high-concept book. In a revealing way this pantomimes the changing status of art: once the concern of sophisticated coteries, art is now indistinguishable from the trashy global luxury business lashing about in its garish pools of excess.
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