ACCIDENTAL ALCHEMY

Combining aesthetic sensitivity, technical understanding and psychological insight, Neil Wells brings to life the story of Signature and the significant influence the periodical has had on fine art which has long been overlooked. While few people nowadays will have read it, no journal has greater claim to have stimulated the taste that became British neo-Romanticism in the mid 20th century. Its editor, publisher, patron and printer Oliver Simon was something of an enigma. Shy, he somehow knew 'everyone' in the London literary and arts scene during the 1930s and 40s. So outwardly conservative to be dubbed 'the archbishop' by Ben Nicholson, Oliver elicited adventurous art from his artist contributors to Signature. They were fellow travellers on a journey - young artists working in commercial art to pay the bills. Having mastered graphic techniques for applied purposes, they then began to apply what they had learned into their own artwork, then they went off to War. Those interested in the work of Paul Nash, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Edward Bawden and Barnett Freedman will enjoy this handsomely illustrated book. Backed by prodigious research and replete with insights into aesthetic connections and artists' lives, the book deepens our understanding of a key strand in English Modernism. Reproduced in glorious colour are many examples such as pattern paper designed for Chatto & Windus, an Evelyn Dunbar illustration for Wuthering Heights, an Eric Gill sketch of Beatrice Warde at work, auto-lithographic advertisements with bold typography and colours, title pages from books, watercolour and pencil drawing, wood engraved patterns and a reproduction of Edmund Blunden's letter to the quiet maverick editor Oliver Simon. With satin pagemarker, hundreds of colour and other reproductions, many full page, a time capsule of images and ideas that still resonate creatively today. 208pp, 19.7 x 24cm. A beautiful quality publication with glamorous decorated endpapers.