John Adamson | |
---|---|
Born | 1949 (age 73–74) Devon, England |
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh University of Geneva |
Occupation(s) | publisher, translator and writer |
Website | johnadamsonbooks.com |
John Adamson FSA (born 1949) is a British publisher, translator and writer. He specialises in illustrated books in the fine and decorative arts.
John Adamson was born in Devon, the younger son of George Worsley Adamson, illustrator and cartoonist and Mary Marguerita Renée (née Diamond). After studying at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Geneva, [1] he joined Cambridge University Press in 1974.
He held various functions within the marketing department of the Press: first as European sales representative (1975); then publicity manager (1977); [2] becoming export sales director in 1980. [3] During the period of his directorship, Cambridge University Press won for the first time the Queen's Award for Export Achievement. [4]
While at Cambridge University Press he helped mount two exhibitions of humorous art in his spare time. For the first of these, "L’Humour Actuel franco-britannique. 200 dessins" [Franco-British Humour Today: 200 drawings], hosted by the Galerie M.L.R. Genot in the Marais, Paris in 1974, [5] he "organized the British contribution", [6] commissioning Quentin Blake to design the poster. The second exhibition "Famous British Cartoonists" was held the following year at the London Gallery, N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, and featured only the cartoons of artists working in the British Isles. "Many [cartoons] such as those by George Adamson almost leave the field of illustrations to become technically speaking fine art," wrote Betje Howell in her review of the show in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner . [7]
In 1987 he was appointed Head of Publications and Retailing at the National Portrait Gallery, [8] London, where in the course of his five-year tenure he and his team were involved in the publication of exhibition catalogues and books ranging from Franz Xaver Winterhalter [9] to T. E. Lawrence , [10] from The Raj [11] to a pictorial volume on the NPG's permanent collection. [12]
In 1992 he set himself up as a publishing and picture-library consultant. [13] He advised private collectors as well as museums such as the Wallace Collection, providing them with a full editorial and production service. [14] Soon, however, he began working as an independent publisher making available an ongoing range of illustrated books and catalogues for museums, dealers and private collectors under his own imprint, as well as translating books and exhibition catalogues on behalf of French publishers such as the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN), Éditions Gallimard, Éditions Diane de Selliers and Éditions Faton.
A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling small holes, mainly in wood, without splitting. It was defined in Joseph Gwilt's Architecture (1859) as "a piece of steel of a semi-cylindrical form, hollow on one side, having a cross handle at one end and a worm or screw at the other".
The Musée de Cluny, officially Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge, is a museum of medieval art in Paris. It is located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, bordered by square Samuel-Paty to the south, boulevard Saint-Michel to the west, boulevard Saint-Germain to the north, and rue Saint-Jacques to the east.
A spokeshave is a hand tool used to shape and smooth woods in woodworking jobs such as making cart wheel spokes, chair legs, paddles, bows, and arrows. The tool consists of a blade fixed into the body of the tool, which has a handle for each hand. Historically, a spokeshave was made with a wooden body and metal cutting blade. With industrialization metal bodies displaced wood in mass-produced tools. Being a small tool, spokeshaves are not suited to working large surfaces.
A brace is a hand tool used with a bit to drill holes, usually in wood. Pressure is applied to the top while the handle is rotated. If the bit's lead and cutting spurs are both in good working order, the user should not have to apply any pressure other than for balance: the lead will pull the bit through the wood. Bits used to come in a variety of types but the more commonly used Ridgeway and Irwin-pattern bits also rely on a tip called a snail, which is a tapered threaded screw that pulls the bit forward.
Although an antique tool might be said to be one that is more than a hundred years old, the term is often used to describe any old tool of quality that might be deemed collectable.
Paul Storr was an English goldsmith and silversmith working in the Neoclassical and other styles during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His works range from simple tableware to magnificent sculptural pieces made for royalty.
The Holtzapffel dynasty of tool and lathe makers was founded in Long Acre, London by a Strasbourg-born turner, Jean-Jacques Holtzapffel, in 1794. The firm specialized in lathes for ornamental turning but also made a name for its high-quality edge and boring tools.
Rundell & Bridge were a London firm of jewellers and goldsmiths formed by Philip Rundell (1746–1827) and John Bridge.
Edward Preston & Sons is a tool manufacturer based in Birmingham, England.
The firm of Alexander Mathieson & Sons was one of the leading makers of hand tools in Scotland. Its success went hand in hand with the growth of the shipbuilding industries on the Firth of Clyde in the nineteenth century and the emergence of Glasgow as the "second city of the Empire". It also reflected the firm's skill in responding to an unprecedented demand for quality tools by shipyards, cooperages and other industries, both locally and far and wide.
The firm of T. Norris & Son was one of the most prestigious makers of hand tools in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and famed for the quality and gracefulness of its output, notably of its metal planes. Both wooden and metal planes made in Norris's workshop survive as do other edge tools. Some Norris planes, especially bespoke models, are highly prized by woodworkers and collectors.
Philip Rundell (1746–1827) was a highly prosperous English jeweller, fine jewellery retailer and master jewellery makers' business proprietor, known for his association with royalty. With John Bridge, he ran and co-owned Rundell and Bridge, a firm with widespread interests in the jewellery and precious metal trades.
Diana Widmaier Picasso is a French art historian specialized in modern art, living in Paris.
Philippa Jane Glanville , OBE, FSA, formerly chief curator of the metal, silver and jewellery department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, is an English art historian who is an authority on silver and the history of dining.
The Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum is a museum of carpentry tools in Kobe, Japan. The museum was opened in 1984 with the objective of collecting and conserving ancient tools as an example of Japanese cultural heritage, in order to pass them on to the next generation through research and exhibitions.
Charles Henry Truman, FSA, was an art historian and a leading authority on gold boxes.
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg was a French art historian and honorary general curator for heritage, a specialist on Gothic and Romanesque art.
The Shepherds is a c. 1717 painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin. It is the most finished version of a composition later reused by the same artist in Pastoral Pleasure.
The Hurdy-Gurdy Player is an oil-on-canvas painting by Georges de La Tour. The artist neither signed nor dated it, but it was produced in the first phase of his career, probably between 1620 and 1625. It is also known as The Hurdy-Gurdy Player in a Hat or The Hurdy-Gurdy Player with a Fly. It is now in the Musée d'Arts de Nantes.
The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds is an oil-on-canvas painting produced c. 1636–1638 by the French artist Georges de La Tour. It is now in the Louvre, which bought it in 1972. Though its commissioner is unknown, it is signed Georgius De La Tour fecit under the card sharp's elbow and in the shadow of the tablecloth.