Fortunato Depero and Depero futurista 1913–1927

This thesis examines Depero futurista 1913–1927, the so-called ‘bolted book’ created in 1927 by Futurist artist Fortunato Depero (1892-1960). Although Depero and his book have already been the subject of artistic re-evaluation, the literature relating to this work neglects a number of key aspects pertaining to the figure of the artist, still failing to provide a detailed account of Depero futurista 1913–1927. In order to address these gaps, this study is divided into two distinct parts: the first, composed of chapters 2, 3 and 4, takes an analytical approach intended to give a detailed description of the book and its context. Chapter 2 examines the graphic and artistic context in order to understand the circumstances in which Depero futurista 1913–1927 was published. Chapter 3 analyses Depero’s correspondence with the publisher Azari and the professional relationship between Depero and the Mercurio printing works, in order to understand the design methodologies adopted by Depero during the process of creating the book. In chapter 4, the analysis moves onto the book as an object, focusing on its content and formal features – its structure, layout and typefaces. The second part of this research, comprising chapters 5, 6 and 7, uses Depero futurista 1913–1927 as an index from which to extrapolate areas of research related to Fortunato Depero, highlighting pages that refer to certain themes and presenting critical discussion of them. Chapter 5 analyses the political context in which the book was created and how it is inextricably linked with the institutions of the Italian Fascist regime. Given Depero futurista 1913–1927’s function as a self-promotional tool, chapter 6 examines Fortunato Depero’s interest in the field of advertising. Finally, chapter 7 reflects on Depero futurista 1913–1927 as a particular kind of book object and the extent to which it can be considered a work of art in terms of the discourse on artists’ books

The Public Value of the Humanities

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Recession is a time for asking fundamental questions about value. At a time when governments are being forced to make swingeing savings in public expenditure, why should they continue to invest public money funding research into ancient Greek tragedy, literary value, philosophical conundrums or the aesthetics of design? Does such research deliver 'value for money' and 'public benefit'? Such questions have become especially pertinent in the UK in recent years, in the context of the drive by government to instrumentalize research across the disciplines and the prominence of discussions about ‘economic impact' and 'knowledge transfer'. In this book a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance, reflect on the public value of their discipline, using particular research projects as case-studies. Their essays are passionate, sometimes polemical, often witty and consistently thought-provoking, covering a range of humanities disciplines from theology to architecture and from media studies to anthropology

The Public Value of the Humanities

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Recession is a time for asking fundamental questions about value. At a time when governments are being forced to make swingeing savings in public expenditure, why should they continue to invest public money funding research into ancient Greek tragedy, literary value, philosophical conundrums or the aesthetics of design? Does such research deliver 'value for money' and 'public benefit'? Such questions have become especially pertinent in the UK in recent years, in the context of the drive by government to instrumentalize research across the disciplines and the prominence of discussions about ‘economic impact' and 'knowledge transfer'. In this book a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance, reflect on the public value of their discipline, using particular research projects as case-studies. Their essays are passionate, sometimes polemical, often witty and consistently thought-provoking, covering a range of humanities disciplines from theology to architecture and from media studies to anthropology

Redefining Female Talent: Chinese Women Artists in the National and Global Art Worlds, 1900s - 1970s

This study examines the art practices of three generations of Chinese women who were active between the 1900s and the 1970s. Its conceptual focus is on the reassessment of female talent and virtue, a moralized dichotomy that had been used to frame womens social practices and cultural production for centuries in China. The study opens in the period when female poetic practice was harshly vilified by reformists of the late Qing era (1890s-1911). It questions why womens art production was not directly condemned and examines how womens increasingly public displays of artistic talent were legitimized through the invocation of long-standing familial norms, the official sanction of new education, and the formulation of various nationalist agendas. Most importantly, this study demonstrates how women artists joined female writers, educators, and political figures in redefining gender possibilities in the early Republican period. Women artists discussed in this study practiced both Chinese-style and Western-style art. It examines their participation in several different public contexts, including art education, exhibitions, art societies, and philanthropic organizations. Representatives of the first generation, Wu Xingfen (1853-1930) and Jin Taotao (1884-1939), advanced the artistic legacy of their predecessors, the women of the boudoir (guixiu), while at the same time expanding the paradigm of traditional womens art practices. In addition to their emerging visibility in the local art world, they also exhibited works in international expositions, engaged with foreign concessions, and traveled abroad. Members of the Chinese Womens Society of Calligraphy and Painting (Zhongguo nzi shuhuahui) who represent the second generation, embraced new institutional possibilities by studying, teaching, and forming a collective to reaffirm womens position in the traditional-style art milieu. Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) and her cohort of Western-style artists who formed the third generation, contributed to modern art reform in China in the early twentieth century. Pans distinct life trajectory and subsequent career in Paris illuminate the ways race and gender figured in transcultural artistic representations from the 1940s to the 1970s. These artists public presence in both the national and global art worlds redefined and repurposed female talent as both a patriotic virtue, and new expressions of gender subjectivities

State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

This book, full of quantitative evidence and limited-circulation archives, details manufacturing and the beginnings of industrialisation in China from 1644 to 1911. It thoroughly examines the interior organisation of public craft production and the complementary activities of the private sector. It offers detailed knowledge of shipbuilding and printing. Moreover, it contributes to the research of labour history and the rise of capitalism in China through its examination of living conditions, working conditions, and wages

‘The poor man’s picture gallery': an enquiry into artists’ printmaking and print images in the cultural and political context of post-war Britain, 1945-60

This thesis argues for the value of attending to artists’ printmaking in Britain between 1945 and 1960. It claims that prints provided a particular artistic space in which contemporary experiences and issues in culture and politics were readily explored and, as evidence for this, it offers developed interpretations of print images. In parallel, it proposes that an idea of prints as a way to democratise art ownership marked both printmaking and print images across the period. The first chapter explores the nature and status of post-war printmaking, in particular via the Society of London Painter-Printers exhibition of 1948. It also looks at images from the first series of Lyons Lithographs, from 1947, considering these as responses to wartime atrocity and postwar reconstruction. Artists discussed include Matthew Smith, Eileen Agar, Prunella Clough, Graham Sutherland, Edwin La Dell, Barnett Freedman and Mary Kessell. The following two chapters look at prints published to celebrate the Festival of Britain, in 1951, and the Coronation, in 1953. The Festival of Britain images are discussed as a sympathetic, though complex, visual response to the culture accompanying the development of a welfare state after 1945. The 1953 images are interpreted as revealing tensions that arose for this position when picturing the royal and military spectacle of the Coronation. Artists whose work is discussed include Lynton Lamb, Fred Uhlman, John Minton, Barbara Jones, Stella Marsden, Edward Bawden and Keith Vaughan. The final chapter examines work published by St George’s Gallery Prints in the later 1950s and in particular images by Merlyn Evans, interpreted in relation to the history of modernist primitivism, and Josef Herman and George Chapman, considered in relation to themes of stasis and change in the context of Britain’s evolving industrial landscape. By demonstrating the interpretive possibilities of attending to post-war prints, the thesis argues against tendencies in art history that view much British art and printmaking after 1945 as parochial and timid. At the same time, it argues for a sophisticated approach to periodisation that recognises the specificity of the post-war period but also its links to the 1930s and its continuities with the 1960s

A history of scientific journals : publishing at the Royal Society, 1665-2015

Funding information: For financial support, we thank the Arts & Humanities Research Council, whose grant (AH/K001841) funded four years of intensive research, by three postdoctoral researchers, at the archives of the Royal Society, among other places. We also thank the University of St Andrews open access fund, for support with the final publication of this book.Publisher PD

State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

This book, full of quantitative evidence and limited-circulation archives, details manufacturing and the beginnings of industrialisation in China from 1644 to 1911. It thoroughly examines the interior organisation of public craft production and the complementary activities of the private sector. It offers detailed knowledge of shipbuilding and printing. Moreover, it contributes to the research of labour history and the rise of capitalism in China through its examination of living conditions, working conditions, and wages