Walter and Eva Neurath Their Books Married Words with Pictures Tom Rosenthal

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The immigrants* Walter and Eva Neurath Their books married words with pictures Tom Rosenthal

Having joined Thames & Hudson in 1959, Tom Rosenthal eventually became Managing Director of Thames & Hudson International, the co-publishing arm of the company, and a Director of the main Board. He left in 1971 to run Secker & Warburg and became Chairman of that firm and of William Heinemann. In 1984 he acquired André Deutsch Limited and retired in 1996 to become a full-time writer. Since then he has published two art Walter and Eva Neurath dining with a guest at the Frankfurt books with Thames & Hudson. Book Fair in the late 1950s

his is the story of two remarkable people and one eight, when he founded his own business as a whole- Tgreat publishing house. The story of Thames & sale importer of tea, coffee and luxury foods. Walter Hudson is to a large extent the story of Walter and spent his entire childhood in Vienna, where he was Eva Neurath and, as they met only as mature adults, educated at the Volksschule and the Realgymna- each becoming the third spouse of the other, it is neces- sium, from which he matriculated with distinction. sary to begin with their two separate life stories before At the University of Vienna he studied Art dealing with the history of the publishing house which History, Archaeology and History, becoming, in they founded, and in which their lives were inextricably 1922, a member of the Institute for Art History. mingled. At the same time, he worked for the art book Walter Neurath was born in Vienna on publisher Würthle & Sohn and organized art October 1, 1903, the only child of Alois Neurath exhibitions, including one in Paris of 19th and Gisela Neurath (née Frölich). The Neurath century French paintings from Viennese collec- family came from Bratislava in Czechoslovakia. tions. He also lectured on art history to the Alois Neurath had arrived in Vienna, aged twenty- Austrian equivalent of the Workers’ Educational one, and worked in a bank until he was twenty- Association.

*Third in a series depicting the impact of European émigrés on British and American publishing in the 20th century.

WALTER AND EVA NEURATH

He was a founder member of Neustift (New England as an alien was Frances Margesson, wife of Foundations), a small left-wing commune of intel- Captain, later Viscount, Margesson. The Neuraths lectuals with a radical approach to both life and stayed with the Margessons at Boddington, near culture, which included the future world-famous Rugby, for some five years, and their son Thomas psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, whose seminal was born there. work on the German Concentration Camps, The Neurath could not of course spend all his time Informed Heart, Neurath was to publish with great in the country and was soon offered work by a success nearly forty years later. company called Adprint, run by a fellow refugee, In 1925 he married Lilly Kruk and, because of Wolfgang Foges. He soon became the Production his father’s ill health, joined and ran the family firm, Manager and designed and produced the cele- thus acquiring business skills which were of great brated King Penguin series. It was originally value in his later career. On his father’s recovery in intended to print this series in Czechoslovakia but 1929, Neurath turned to full-time publishing, with Germany’s invasion of that country meant that the a strong interest in printing and typography. He books, published by Allen Lane of Penguin Books, joined the Verlag für Kulturforschung (Publishing were printed in England. House for Cultural Research) and Zinner Verlag, Neurath belonged to a European tradition of which published fiction and where, after six months, publishing where the series, or what the French he was made Production Director. There he call a collection, was the norm if not the rule. Thus, published a number of illustrated books and also the after the success of what were in effect Penguin’s German-language translations of such British and first hardcover books, the beautifully-made jewel- American books as The Water Gypsies by A P like King Penguins, he developed a larger and Herbert, Mutiny on the Bounty by Nordhoff & Hall more ambitious series called Britain in Pictures, and The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck. edited by W J Turner. The rise to power of the Nazi party in A formidably scholarly and erudite man, Germany effectively closed the main German- Neurath had a genius for making illustrations an language market for this Jewish firm, which there- integral part of a book, ie, placing them promi- fore decided to close down. From 1935 to 1937, nently on the page together with the words to Walter worked as an educational publisher, devel- which they were related, rather than banishing oping new illustration techniques and creating, as them to the “plates” section in the centre or, worse General Editor, a series of illustrated textbooks for still, to the back of the book. He knew how to children, designed as an educational counter-influ- enhance pictures which asked to be looked at with ence to the all-pervasive Nazi ideology. The books words that demanded to be read. Thus Britain in had a strong democratic and anti-totalitarian bias Pictures married skilful picture research and fine and were translated into seven foreign languages design and printing with significant texts from by like-minded publishers abroad. writers such as George Orwell (The English People), In 1937 Neurath was appointed Manager of Rose Macaulay (Life Among the English), John the Wilhelm Frick publishing house, where he Piper (British Romantic Artists), Michael Ayrton continued to commission and publish both illus- (British Drawings), Jacquetta Hawkes (Early trated books on the arts and anti-Nazi propaganda. Britain), etc. The series eventually comprised more Upon the occupation of Austria by the Nazis, he than a hundred volumes. was ordered to cease his activities immediately, As the series became ready to launch, World and a Nazi-approved “Commissar” was appointed War II arrived and so did paper rationing which, to run the publishing house. reasonably enough, was based on publishers’ output Because of his anti-Nazi publishing activities, in preceding years. Adprint, being a new firm, had he was soon on the Gestapo lists. After several no track record with which to get any paper ration. near misses and a period in hiding, he managed to This led to the concept of “book packaging”, get to England on June 1, 1938, along with his which was to become a significant part of book second wife, Marianne. (His first marriage had publishing in the second half of the 20th century. been dissolved in 1933.) His sponsor for entry into The “packager” puts together author and subject