Print Publications

The Paul Mellon Centre has a long history of publishing original and creative scholarship of the highest standard on all aspects of British art and architecture, and the 2017–2018 list is a good example of the breadth of our publishing programme. From a Tudor recipe for veal stuffed with strawberry leaves to the pruning habits of the rural county gentry, Catherine Richardson and Tara Hamling’s A Day at Home in Early Modern England and Jill Francis’s Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales brought exciting new research and fresh perspectives to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century studies. Kate Retford delivered a ground-breaking examination of an innovative mode of portraiture in The Conversation Piece, and John Holmes added the flavour of a rather different discipline to the list with his investigation of the Pre-Raphaelite preoccupation with contemporary science. Lynda Nead took her readers on a fascinating journey through the fog and smoke of post-war Britain in The Tiger in the Smoke, while Penelope Curtis’s 2015 Mellon Lectures on the fundamental elements of sculpture – from ancient boundary markers to radical contemporary installations – were published in book form.

These monographs were joined by the publication of two major collaborative research projects: the Survey of London team produced the latest two volumes in their landmark series of forensic studies of the capital’s built environment, and Robin Simon and MaryAnne Stevens brought to a conclusion their eight-year multi-authored exploration of the Royal Academy’s history and collections.

At this time, we were also preparing various other projects for publication including the monumental catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough; an investigation of collecting and the art market by Morna O’Neill, told through the life and work of Hugh Lane; and a comprehensive history of Kensington Palace. In addition to our own PMC titles, we were delighted to be involved in the Yale Center for British Art’s exhibition catalogue George Shaw: A Corner of a Foreign Field, edited by Mark Hallett. The production of this final book, managed by the PMC in consultation with friends and colleagues at the YCBA, has been a collaboration of the best and most productive sort.

Detail from the cover of A Day at Home in Early Modern England: Material Culture and Domestic Life 1500-1700 by Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson, published October 2017