Studio Vista

Studio Vista was a British publishing company founded in 1961 that specialised in leisure and design topics.[1] In the 1960s, the firm published works by a number of authors that went on to be noted designers.

Studio Vista
TypePrivate
IndustryPublishing
Founded1961 
FounderCecil Harmsworth King
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom

History

Studio Vista was founded by Cecil Harmsworth King and it was then purchased by the Rev. Timothy Beaumont, later Baron Beaumont of Whitley,[2] with funding from Beaumont's fortune. In 1961 David Mark Herbert joined the firm, becoming its editorial director and then chief executive.[3][4] After Beaumont entered politics, he sold his publishing interests and Studio Vista was bought by the American firm Collier Macmillan in 1968.[5] In 1969, the publisher Frances Lincoln joined the firm as an editorial assistant, staying for six years and rising to the position of managing editor.[6] In 1975, Frances Lincoln led a strike at the firm after the new owners threatened to make 40 people redundant.[7]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s some of Studio Vista's titles (such as William Klein's 1959 photo essay on Rome) and series (such as the Vista Travel guides and The Pocket Poets) were published under the publisher names of "Vista Books" and "Edward Hulton".[8][9]

Books

Among the notable books published by the firm were The Nature of Design by the furniture designer David Pye (1964) and Graphics Handbook by the graphic designer Ken Garland (1966) (both in the Studio Paperbacks series edited by John Lewis), Norman Potter's What is a Designer: Education and Practice (1969), and Gillian Naylor's The Bauhaus (1968).

The firm also published a number of books by the Romanian architect Serban Cantacuzino.

Book series
  • Aquarium Paperbacks[10]
  • Blues Paperbacks (edited by Paul Oliver)[11]
  • Christie's South Kensington Collectors Series (in association with Christie's Contemporary Art)
  • City Buildings
  • Collectors' Blue Books[10]
  • Creative Sewing Series (in association with the Singer Company)
  • Elements of Painting Series
  • Facts of Print[10]
  • Field Sports Handbooks
  • Gold Series
  • Great Ages of World Architecture
  • Great Drawings of the World
  • Hadfield Anthologies[10]
  • Knowing and Doing
  • Leaders of Modern Thought
  • Movie Paperbacks (jointly published in the U.S. by Praeger Publishing)[12]
  • New Directions in Architecture
  • Picturebacks (also referred to as: Studio Vista | Dutton Picturebacks) (published in the U.S. by E. P. Dutton)[13]
  • Planning and Cities
  • Plan Your Home[10]
  • Pocket How-To-Do-Its (also known as: Pocket How To Do It) (jointly published in the U.S. by Watson-Guptill)
  • The Pocket Poets
  • Rockbooks
  • Small Garden Library
  • Studio Drawing Books
  • Studio Handbooks
  • Studio Paperbacks[4]
  • Vision + Value Series
  • Vista Travel[14]
  • Visual History of Modern Britain

See also

References
  1. Studio Vista, royalacademy.org.uk. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  2. "Lord Beaumont of Whitley ", The Guardian, 11 April 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  3. "The Hon David Herbert", The Times, 23 November 1996, p. 27.
  4. Robert Cross, Obituary: David Herbert, The Independent, 22 November 1996. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  5. "Tim Beaumont (1928-2008)". Bear Alley Books. 12 April 2008. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  6. "Frances Lincoln", The Times, 1 March 2001, p. 25.
  7. Mark Girouard, "Frances Lincoln", The Guardian, 2 March 2001. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  8. Vista Books, worldcat.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  9. https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=betjeman+pocket+poets&qt=owc_search Betjeman Pocket Poets], worldcat.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  10. Cassell's Directory of Publishing in Great Britain, the Commonwealth, Ireland and South Africa, London: Cassell, 1970, 6th edition, p. 119.
  11. Christian O'Connell, Blues, How Do You Do?: Paul Oliver and the Transatlantic Story of the Blues, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016, p. 216. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  12. Malte Hagener and Michael Töteberg, Film: An International Bibliography, Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2002, p. 201. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  13. Studio Vista | Dutton Picturebacks - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  14. Vista Travel (Studio Vista) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
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