By the end of John Cecil Stephenson's art school training - first a scholarship to Leeds Art School then to The Royal College of Art - he was in a position to produce still lives, landscapes and portraits in a professional capacity. Like many painters of his generation, who had received similarly conventional instruction, he became a competent teacher, appointed in 1922, as Head of Art at The Northern Polytechnic. In this mould Stephenson might have remained a largely undistinguished painter - but in the early 1930s he found himself at the centre of a group of artists with avant-garde credentials, and his own art underwent a remarkable transformation. By 1934 he was exhibiting groundbreaking works such as Mask (CAT. 7), at the 7 & 5 Society, and in 1937 was a key contributor to the watershed publication and exhibition Circle, where his work was showcased alongside that of luminaries such as Kazimir Malevich, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. What led Stephenson to become, in the words of the celebrated art critic Herbert Read, 'one of the earliest artists in the country to develop a completely abstract style'? Between March 1919 and November 1965, John Cecil Stephenson lived in London at No. 6 Mall Studios, off Tasker Road, Hampstead. As the father figure of what Read christened 'a nest of gentle artists', his next door neighbours included, during the course of the decade leading up to World War II, Barbara Hepworth, John Skeaping, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Such fertile ground was further enriched by visits from artists fleeing persecution - including Piet, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Calder - just a few of the many internationally acclaimed artists who, whilst passing through London, formed part of the art set who congregated around Read's house at No. 3 Mall Studios.

Published for the first time in paperback, this best selling book shows London as represented by Edward Bawden (1903 - 1989) in prints, posters, drawings, paintings, murals and advertising material produced during his long career. The wide range of illustrations includes early work executed whilst a student in the early 1920s; the Morley College murals carried out in partnership with Eric Ravilious; advertising work for London Transport, Fortnum & Mason, Twinings Teas, Shell, Westminster Bank; the mural for the Lion & Unicorn Pavilion at the 1951 Festival of Britain; and a varied selection of his finest series of linocuts - including London Monuments and London Markets.

Edward Bawden (1903-1989) was one of twentieth century Britain's most innovative graphic designers. Book illustrator, wallpaper, textile and poster designer, watercolourist, mural painter, teacher. His designs still resonate strongly with young designers more than a quarter-of-a-century after his death. Bawden's influence on 20th-century design is beyond measure. Edward Bawden: Design is the newest title in ACC's award-winning Design series and an excellent introduction to the work of Edward Bawden. This fascinating book illustrates every aspect of his creativity, and is beautifully illustrated throughout.

The brothers Paul and John Nash, in their very different ways, were a major influence on twentieth century British design. Paul Nash (1889-1946) is now recognised as the most significant war artist of the last century; John Nash (1893-1977) as a plantsman artist. Both worked as designers and as tutors at the Royal College of Art, Paul encouraging a generation of designer artists that included Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Enid Marx. As a committee member of the Design and Industries Association and President of the newly formed Society of Industrial Artists (now the Chartered Society of Designers) Paul promoted design as no less an art form than the fine arts of painting and sculpture. His clients included London Transport, Shell and Curwen Press and publishers the Nonesuch and Golden Cockerel Presses. John became well known for his Edward Lear influenced humorous illustrations and his superb plant drawings and wood engravings that illustrate innumerable books and publications. Paul Nash and

Claud Lovat Fraser - universally known as Lovat - is one of the great unsung heroes of twentieth-century British design. During his short life of just thirty-one years, five of which were disrupted by the Great War, he achieved an astonishing amount of work as draughtsman, watercolourist, caricaturist, publisher, illustrator, designer of stage-sets, toys and fabrics: he also designed silks for Liberty's, cretonnes for Foxton's, advertising material for Eno's, MacFisheries, Gurr Johns and Atkinson's, and book-jackets for Heinemann and Nelson, among others. His inimitable style and psychedelic palette became the hallmark of both the Curwen Press and the Poetry Bookshop, but he is best remembered today, by those who are aware of him at all, for his poster, costume and set-designs for Nigel Playfair's 1920 production of 'The Beggar's Opera' at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

An excellent introduction to the work of two British designers Edward Bawden (1903-1989) and Eric Ravilious (1903-1942). This fascinating book illustrates every aspect of their creativity, featuring designs for wallpaper, posters, book jackets, trade cards and Wedgwood ceramics, to name but a few. Design opens with an informed and engaging essay by Peyton Skipwith, who, from the late 1960s, acted as Edward Bawden's principal dealer. Bawden and Ravilious both attended the Design School of the Royal College of Art. It was here that they met and started to experiment with print-making - marking the beginning of an extremely creative but tragically short-lived friendship. Ravilious was killed at the age of thirty-nine in an air-sea rescue mission during the Second World War; Edward Bawden survived him by forty-six years. ' Exquisite ...Design is a treat ' - Sunday Telegraph ' A neat little scrapbook ...beautifully laid out ' - Antiques Magazine

The finest books produced during the quarter century prior to the outbreak of the Great War were almost invariably printed by the private presses, but post-war, with the development of new technology, the accolade of excellence passed into the hands of a small number of commercial firms, with the Curwen Press very much to the fore. Like those earlier printers, Harold Curwen was inspired by the Morrisian ideal, but he did not adhere to the tenet that 'hand made' was necessarily better than 'machine made', which led him to become one of the pioneering figures in the technical revolution that transformed the printing industry. Harold Curwen joined the family firm in 1908 and by 1916 had instigated a general replanning of the works and, aided by the wartime staff shortage, felt able to push ahead with the installation of modern machinery. He was in the forefront of the development of offset lithography, which ensured that the Curwen Press would be in the vanguard of fine colour printing throughout the next decade. Harold also pioneered, as far as England was concerned, the pochoir technique of hand-stencilling. 1922, was the beginning of the Curwen Press' golden decade, during which it produced "The Woodcutter's Dog", the English language edition of Julius Meier-Graefe's two volume biography of Van Gogh for the "Medici Society", the exhibition catalogue of books and manuscripts for "The First Edition Club", Goldoni's "Four Comedies" and the delightful little pocket engagement book, "The Four Seasons", illustrated by Albert Rutherston. Rutherston was later to illustrate Thomas Hardy's Yuletide in a "Younger World", the first of the Ariel Poems for Faber & Gwyer which were to become a feature of the collaboration between the two firms. In addition there was the 'Safety First' Calendar, adorned with Lovat Fraser's cautionary illustrations. Following restructuring in 1933, the Curwen Press had a further forty years of distinguished work ahead both in the printing of books, particularly those illustrated by Barnett Freedman, as well as jobbing work, including some of the finest posters for the London Underground by Bawden, Wadsworth, John Banting, Betty Swanwick, Barnett Freedman and others. "E. McKnight Kauffer, Design" contains over 150 illustrations, many from original artworks, and work not before reproduced. With descriptions by Brian Webb and an introductory essay by Peyton Skipwith. The "Design" series is the winner of the Brand/Series Identity Category at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2009, judges said: 'A series of books about design, they had to be good and these are. The branding is consistent, there is a good use of typography and the covers are superb.'

Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) was the most celebrated graphic designer working in Britain in the twentieth century. Born in Montana, he left America before the first world war to travel throughout Europe absorbing the influences of the Cubists and the German poster artist Ludwig Hohlwein. At the onset of war he settled in London. Seeing himself as a painter, he allied himself with the London Group and the Vorticists. He worked at Roger Fry's Omega Workshops with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and in 1915 was commissioned by Frank Pick, then the publicity manager at London Underground. This was the beginning of a client-designer relationship that lasted throughout the 1920s and '30s, only ending when Kauffer returned to New York in 1940. His posters, brilliantly coloured and strikingly modern, struck London like a Cubist thunderbolt. Soon other clients, Jack Beddington at Shell, Sir Colin Anderson at the Orient Shipping line, the Daily Herald (the instantly recognisable Birds in Flight pos

This new title in the highly-successful "Design Series" features the design work of the acclaimed artist Peter Blake. Best known of the British pop artists, Peter Blake came to fame in the late 1950s and early 1960s with iconic works like "On the Balcony" and "First Real Target" both now in the Tate Gallery. Tate held an exhibition of his works in 1983 as well as a more recent retrospective at Tate Liverpool in 2007. His famous works for album covers, such as "The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the Band Aid single "Do They Know Its Christmas", the Oasis greatest hits album "Stop the Clocks" and Paul Weller's "Stanley Road" brought him to a wider audience. This stunningly designed book celebrates the brilliant creative talent of a unique British artist. "The Design Series" is the winner of the Brand/Series Identity Category at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2009, judges said: 'A series of books about design, they had to be good and these are. The branding is consistent, there is a good use of typography and the covers are superb'.

To the interested observer the collected volumes of artist-designer Eric Ravilious's preparatory works and materials provide a veritable mine of information about his work and working methods, particularly regarding the masterful development of his signature pure pattern. Ravilious's scrapbooks represent a conscious accumulation of reference material, revealing his interest in subjects as diverse as tennis, cricket, fireworks and aeronautics, alongside a multitude of sketches, tracings and proofs of engravings. Ravilious' scrapbooks do not contain the mass of fascinating but disparate material, seen for example in similar volumes compiled by his great friend and artistic contemporary Edward Bawden. Rather, they document the considered progression of an inquisitive mind, grasping his chosen subjects in a unique and delicate visual language, where many of the artist's most famous motifs and images can be seen blossoming from embryonic stages. Bringing together over 170 images taken from the artist's 5 scrapbooks, accompanied by instructive commentary by the authors, this new book provides a fascinating record of the febrile imagination of one of Britain's best-loved artists.

Painter and illustrator Edward Bawden's five scrapbooks, assembled over a period of more than 55 years, contain everything from stamps, photographs, cigarette cards, Christmas cards and letters to newspaper cuttings, drawings and autographs, amongst other fascinating ephemera. Beautifully designed and illustrated with over 250 images taken from these books, Edward Bawden Scrapbooks reveals this wonderful and at times eccentric collection and provides a new insight into one of the most popular artists of 20th-century Britain. The pages illustrated provide an alternative window into Bawden's world, showing his very conscious awareness of both Surrealism and the work of other contemporary designers and typographers. But it is not only aficionados of Bawden who will be beguiled by these scrapbooks: perusing them is like trawling through an almanac of art, design and literature of the inter- and post-war years and the work of other key artists of the era such as Ben Nicholson, David Jones, Evelyn Dunbar, Eric Ravilious and Hugh Casson also appears. Some pages are beautiful, some instructive and others simply baffling but when taken in conjunction with Bawden's watercolours, prints, illustrations, murals and other designs, the scrapbooks are the closest thing we have to an autobiography of one of the 20th-century's most reclusive and English of artists.

This new title, with text by Peyton Skipwith and Brian Webb, contains more than 170 images, several not illustrated before. The book focuses on Ravilious as a designer, in particular his work as an illustrator and wood engraver, and his work in ceramics and textiles. The book builds on the success of the first and bestselling book in this series which featured the work of Ravilious and his friend Edward Bawden - Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious: Design. This book will form an excellent and affordable introduction to the work of this brilliant and popular artist.