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Fontana Modern Masters

March 22, 2023

The Fontana Modern Masters was a series of pocket guides on writers, philosophers, and other thinkers and theorists who shaped the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century. The first five titles were published on 12 January 1970 by Fontana Books, the paperback imprint of William Collins & Co, and the series editor was Frank Kermode, who was Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. The books were very popular with students, who "bought them by the handful", according to Kermode,[1] and they were instantly recognisable by their eye-catching covers, which featured brightly coloured abstract art and sans-serif typography.

Art as book covers

 
Camus by Conor Cruise O'Brien, published by Fontana Books in 1970. The cover shows a detail from an Op Art painting by Oliver Bevan (details).

The Fontana Modern Masters occupy a unique place in publishing history – not for their contents but their covers, which draw on the following developments in twentieth-century art and literature:[2][3]

The cover concept was the brainchild of Fontana's art director John Constable, who had been experimenting with a cover treatment based on cut-ups of The Mud Bath, a key work of British geometric abstraction by the painter David Bomberg. However, a visit to the Grabowski Gallery in London introduced Constable to the work of Oliver Bevan, a graduate of the Royal College of Art in 1964, whose optical and geometric paintings were influenced by Vasarely's Op Art. On seeing Bevan's work, Constable commissioned him to create the covers for the first ten Fontana Modern Masters, which Bevan painted as rectilinear arrangements of tesselating blocks. Each cover was thus a piece of abstract art, but as an incentive for readers to buy all ten books the covers could be arranged to create a larger, composite artwork. The "set of ten" books appeared in 1970–71 but overran when Joyce was published with the same cover as Guevara:

A second "set of ten" featuring a new Bevan cut-up was published in 1971–73 but the inclusion of Joyce in the first "set of ten" left this second set one book short:

A third "set of ten" featuring Bevan's kinetic Pyramid painting began to appear in 1973–74 but Constable left before the set was complete and his replacement, Mike Dempsey, scrapped the set-of-ten incentive after eight books:

Dempsey switched the covers to a white background and commissioned a new artist James Lowe, whose cover art for the next eight books in 1975-76 was based on triangles:

Nine more books appeared in 1977–79 with cover art by James Lowe based on squares:

Dempsey left Fontana Books in 1979 but continued to oversee the Modern Masters series until a new art director, Patrick Mortimer, was appointed in 1980. Four more books followed under Mortimer with cover art by James Lowe based on circles:

The cover concept was dropped after this and a new design was used that featured a portrait of the Modern Master as a line drawing or later a tinted photograph, and mixed serif and sans-serif typefaces, upright and italic fonts, block capitals, lowercase letters and faux handwriting. The design was used for reprints and six new titles:

Book covers as art

Fontana's use of art as book covers went full circle in 2003-05 when the British conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin "reproduced" the covers of the forty-eight Fontana Modern Masters from Camus to Barthes as a series of flawed paintings (the titles are missing and the colours have run) in watercolour and ink on paper, each measuring 28 x 19 cm. However, Shovlin also noticed ten forthcoming titles listed on the books' front endpapers which, for reasons unknown, had not been published:

Shovlin then set out to paint these "lost" titles and thus "complete" the series. To do this he devised a "Fontana Colour Chart" based on the covers of the published books, and a scoring system that – like his paintings – was deliberately flawed. Given these flaws, and those in Fontana's original series, the absence of any modern masters from the visual arts is notable,[4] since Matisse was one of four "forthcoming titles" that Shovlin had apparently overlooked:

Benjamin and Matisse have since been included in a new series of seventeen large Fontana Modern Masters that Shovlin painted in 2011-12. These use a similar scoring system to his watercolours of 2003–05 and a new "Acrylic Variations Colour Wheel".[5] The paintings are acrylic on canvas and each measures 210 x 130 cm:

  • Arendt by David Watson (Variation 1)
  • Benjamin by Samuel Weber (Variation 3)
  • Berlin by John Gray (Variation 1)
  • Derrida by Christopher Norris (Variation 3)
  • Dostoyevsky by Harold Rosenberg (Variation 1)
  • Foucault by J. G. Merquior (Variation 1B)
  • Fuller by Allan Temko (Variation 3)
  • Jakobson by Krystyna Pomorska (Variation 2)
  • Kipling by Lionel Trilling (Variation 2)
  • Lacan by Malcolm Bowie (Variation 1)
  • Mann by Lionel Trilling (Variation 1A)
  • Matisse by David Sylvester (Variation 1A)
  • Merleau-Ponty by H. P. Dreyfus (Variation 1)
  • Needham by George Steiner (Variation 3A)
  • Sherrington by Jonathan Miller (Variation 3)
  • Steinberg by John Hollander (Variation 3B)
  • Winnicott by Adam Phillips (Variation 3)

See also

  • Foucault - one of the books in the series

References

  1. ^ Frank Kermode. Not Entitled: A Memoir. London: HarperCollins, 1996, p. 224.
  2. ^ James Pardey. "The Shape of the Century". 2012-03-28 at the Wayback Machine Eye Magazine, Winter 2009, pp. 6–8.
  3. ^ James Pardey. "Oliver Bevan: In Search of Utopia". RWA Magazine, Autumn 2012, pp. 26–27.
  4. ^ Jamie Shovlin. Fontana Modern Masters. Riflemaker, London, 14 April – 28 May 2005.
  5. ^ Jamie Shovlin.Various Arrangements. Haunch of Venison, London, 18 April – 26 May 2012.

External links

  • Fontana Modern Masters or books, art, and books as art: a cover story

March 22, 2023
fontana, modern, masters, series, pocket, guides, writers, philosophers, other, thinkers, theorists, shaped, intellectual, landscape, twentieth, century, first, five, titles, were, published, january, 1970, fontana, books, paperback, imprint, william, collins,. The Fontana Modern Masters was a series of pocket guides on writers philosophers and other thinkers and theorists who shaped the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century The first five titles were published on 12 January 1970 by Fontana Books the paperback imprint of William Collins amp Co and the series editor was Frank Kermode who was Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London The books were very popular with students who bought them by the handful according to Kermode 1 and they were instantly recognisable by their eye catching covers which featured brightly coloured abstract art and sans serif typography Contents 1 Art as book covers 2 Book covers as art 3 See also 4 References 5 External linksArt as book covers Edit Camus by Conor Cruise O Brien published by Fontana Books in 1970 The cover shows a detail from an Op Art painting by Oliver Bevan details The Fontana Modern Masters occupy a unique place in publishing history not for their contents but their covers which draw on the following developments in twentieth century art and literature 2 3 Twentieth century geometric abstraction colour field painting and hard edge painting Op Art and in particular the work of Victor Vasarely The English beatnik Brion Gysin s cut up technique as popularized by William Burroughs The cover concept was the brainchild of Fontana s art director John Constable who had been experimenting with a cover treatment based on cut ups of The Mud Bath a key work of British geometric abstraction by the painter David Bomberg However a visit to the Grabowski Gallery in London introduced Constable to the work of Oliver Bevan a graduate of the Royal College of Art in 1964 whose optical and geometric paintings were influenced by Vasarely s Op Art On seeing Bevan s work Constable commissioned him to create the covers for the first ten Fontana Modern Masters which Bevan painted as rectilinear arrangements of tesselating blocks Each cover was thus a piece of abstract art but as an incentive for readers to buy all ten books the covers could be arranged to create a larger composite artwork The set of ten books appeared in 1970 71 but overran when Joyce was published with the same cover as Guevara Camus by Conor Cruise O Brien 1970 Chomsky by John Lyons 1970 Fanon by David Caute 1970 Guevara by Andrew Sinclair 1970 Levi Strauss by Edmund Leach 1970 Lukacs by George Lichtheim 1970 Marcuse by Alasdair MacIntyre 1970 McLuhan by Jonathan Miller 1971 Orwell by Raymond Williams 1971 Wittgenstein by David Pears 1971 Joyce by John Gross 1971A second set of ten featuring a new Bevan cut up was published in 1971 73 but the inclusion of Joyce in the first set of ten left this second set one book short Freud by Richard Wollheim 1971 Reich by Charles Rycroft 1971 Yeats by Denis Donoghue 1971 Gandhi by George Woodcock 1972 Lenin by Robert Conquest 1972 Mailer by Richard Poirier 1972 Russell by A J Ayer 1972 Jung by Anthony Storr 1973 Lawrence by Frank Kermode 1973A third set of ten featuring Bevan s kinetic Pyramid painting began to appear in 1973 74 but Constable left before the set was complete and his replacement Mike Dempsey scrapped the set of ten incentive after eight books Beckett by A Alvarez 1973 Einstein by Jeremy Bernstein 1973 Laing by Edgar Z Friedenberg 1973 Popper by Bryan Magee 1973 Kafka by Erich Heller 1974 Le Corbusier by Stephen Gardiner 1974 Proust by Roger Shattuck 1974 Weber by Donald G MacRae 1974Dempsey switched the covers to a white background and commissioned a new artist James Lowe whose cover art for the next eight books in 1975 76 was based on triangles Eliot by Stephen Spender 1975 Marx by David McLellan 1975 Pound by Donald Davie 1975 Sartre by Arthur C Danto 1975 Artaud by Martin Esslin 1976 Keynes by D E Moggridge 1976 Saussure by Jonathan Culler 1976 Schoenberg by Charles Rosen 1976Nine more books appeared in 1977 79 with cover art by James Lowe based on squares Engels by David McLellan 1977 Gramsci by James Joll 1977 Durkheim by Anthony Giddens 1978 Heidegger by George Steiner 1978 Nietzsche by J P Stern 1978 Trotsky by Irving Howe 1978 Klein by Hanna Segal 1979 Pavlov by Jeffrey A Gray 1979 Piaget by Margaret A Boden 1979Dempsey left Fontana Books in 1979 but continued to oversee the Modern Masters series until a new art director Patrick Mortimer was appointed in 1980 Four more books followed under Mortimer with cover art by James Lowe based on circles Evans Pritchard by Mary Douglas 1980 Darwin by Wilma George 1982 Barthes by Jonathan Culler 1983 Adorno by Martin Jay 1984The cover concept was dropped after this and a new design was used that featured a portrait of the Modern Master as a line drawing or later a tinted photograph and mixed serif and sans serif typefaces upright and italic fonts block capitals lowercase letters and faux handwriting The design was used for reprints and six new titles Foucault by J G Merquior 1985 Derrida by Christopher Norris 1987 Winnicott by Adam Phillips 1988 Lacan by Malcolm Bowie 1991 Arendt by David Watson 1992 Berlin by John Gray 1995Book covers as art EditFontana s use of art as book covers went full circle in 2003 05 when the British conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin reproduced the covers of the forty eight Fontana Modern Masters from Camus to Barthes as a series of flawed paintings the titles are missing and the colours have run in watercolour and ink on paper each measuring 28 x 19 cm However Shovlin also noticed ten forthcoming titles listed on the books front endpapers which for reasons unknown had not been published Dostoyevsky by Harold Rosenberg Fuller by Allan Temko Jakobson by Thomas A Sebeok Kipling by Lionel Trilling Mann by Lionel Trilling Merleau Ponty by H P Dreyfus Needham by George Steiner Sherrington by Jonathan Miller Steinberg by John Hollander Winnicott by Masud Khan this was published with a different author as listed in the previous section Shovlin then set out to paint these lost titles and thus complete the series To do this he devised a Fontana Colour Chart based on the covers of the published books and a scoring system that like his paintings was deliberately flawed Given these flaws and those in Fontana s original series the absence of any modern masters from the visual arts is notable 4 since Matisse was one of four forthcoming titles that Shovlin had apparently overlooked Benjamin by Samuel Weber Erikson by Robert Lifton Ho by David Halberstam Matisse by David SylvesterBenjamin and Matisse have since been included in a new series of seventeen large Fontana Modern Masters that Shovlin painted in 2011 12 These use a similar scoring system to his watercolours of 2003 05 and a new Acrylic Variations Colour Wheel 5 The paintings are acrylic on canvas and each measures 210 x 130 cm Arendt by David Watson Variation 1 Benjamin by Samuel Weber Variation 3 Berlin by John Gray Variation 1 Derrida by Christopher Norris Variation 3 Dostoyevsky by Harold Rosenberg Variation 1 Foucault by J G Merquior Variation 1B Fuller by Allan Temko Variation 3 Jakobson by Krystyna Pomorska Variation 2 Kipling by Lionel Trilling Variation 2 Lacan by Malcolm Bowie Variation 1 Mann by Lionel Trilling Variation 1A Matisse by David Sylvester Variation 1A Merleau Ponty by H P Dreyfus Variation 1 Needham by George Steiner Variation 3A Sherrington by Jonathan Miller Variation 3 Steinberg by John Hollander Variation 3B Winnicott by Adam Phillips Variation 3 See also EditFoucault one of the books in the seriesReferences Edit Frank Kermode Not Entitled A Memoir London HarperCollins 1996 p 224 James Pardey The Shape of the Century Archived 2012 03 28 at the Wayback Machine Eye Magazine Winter 2009 pp 6 8 James Pardey Oliver Bevan In Search of Utopia RWA Magazine Autumn 2012 pp 26 27 Jamie Shovlin Fontana Modern Masters Riflemaker London 14 April 28 May 2005 Jamie Shovlin Various Arrangements Haunch of Venison London 18 April 26 May 2012 External links EditFontana Modern Masters or books art and books as art a cover story Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Fontana Modern Masters amp oldid 1118503176, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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