Edith and Kim

Edith and Kim
Author: Charlotte Philby
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2022-03-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0008466394

One of ‘the heirs to John le Carré’ The Times ‘A tremendous achievement’ WILLIAM BOYD ‘Behold the new Golden Age of Spy Kings’ Sunday Times

Soaking Up the Rays

Soaking Up the Rays
Author: Tania Woloshyn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017
Genre: Electronic book
ISBN: 9781784995126

There is an Open Access edition of this book with a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Soaking up the rays forges a new path for exploring Britain's fickle love of the light by investigating the beginnings of light therapy in the country from c. 1890-1940. Despite rapidly becoming a leading treatment for tuberculosis, rickets and other infections and skin diseases, light therapy was a contentious medical practice. Bodily exposure to light, whether for therapeutic or aesthetic ends, persists as a contested subject to this day: recommended to counter skin conditions as well as Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression; closely linked to notions of beauty, happiness and well-being, fuelling tourism abroad and the tanning industry at home; and yet with repeated health warnings that it is a dangerous carcinogen. By analysing archival photographs, illustrated medical texts, advertisements, lamps, and goggles and their visual representation of how light acted upon the body, Woloshyn assesses their complicated contribution to the founding of light therapy.

The Lawn Road Flats

The Lawn Road Flats
Author: David Burke (Historian of intelligence and international relations)
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1843837838

The Isokon building, Lawn Road Flats, in Belsize Park on Hampstead's lower slopes, is a remarkable building. The first modernist building in Britain to use reinforced concrete and architecture, its construction demanded new building techniques. But the building was as remarkable for those who took up residence there as for the application of revolutionary building techniques. There were 32 Flats in all, and they became a haunt of some of the most prominent Soviet agents working against Britain in the 1930s and 40s. A number of British artists were also drawn to the Flats, among them the sculptor and painter Henry Moore; the novelist Nicholas Monsarrat; and the crime writer Agatha Christie, who wrote her only spy novel N or M? in the Flats. The Isokon building boasted its own restaurant and dining club, where many of the Flats' most famous residents rubbed shoulders with some of the most dangerous communist spies ever to operate in Britain. Agatha Christie often said that she invented her characters from what she observed going on around her. With the Kuczynskis - probably the most successful family of spies in the history of espionage - in residence, she would have had plenty of material.

Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain

Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain
Author: Leyla Daybelge
Publisher: Batsford Books
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2024-08-15
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1849945985

In the mid-1930s, three giants of the international Modern movement, Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, fled Nazi Germany and sought refuge in Hampstead in the most exciting new apartment block in Britain. The Lawn Road Flats, or Isokon building, was commissioned by the young visionary couple Jack and Molly Pritchard and designed by aspiring architect Wells Coates. Built in 1934 in response to the question 'How do we want to live now?' it was England's first modernist apartment building and was hugely influential in pioneering the concept of minimal living. During the mid-1930s and 1940s its flats, bar and dining club became an extraordinary creative nexus for international artists, writers and thinkers. Jack Pritchard employed Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy in his newly formed Isokon design company and the furniture, architecture and graphic art the three produced in pre-war England helped shape Modern Britain. This book tells the story of the Isokon, from its beginnings to the present day, and fully examines the work, artistic networks and legacy of the Bauhaus artists during their time in Britain. The tales are not just of design and architecture but war, sex, death, espionage and infamous dinner parties. Isokon resident Agatha Christie features in the book, as does Charlotte Perriand who Jack Pritchard commissioned for a pavilion design in 1930. The book is beautifully illustrated with largely unseen archive photography, and includes the work of photographer and Soviet spy Edith Tudor-Hart, as well as plans and sketches, menus, postcards and letters from the Pritchard family archive. In Spring 2018, the Isokon building and Breuer, Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were honoured with a Blue Plaque from English Heritage.

Strange and Familiar

Strange and Familiar
Author: Alona Pardo
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 9783791382326

Twenty-three photographers from countries around the world offer their own perspectives on British society. British photographer Martin Parr has selected works, dating from the 1930s to today, that capture the social, cultural, and political identity of the UK through the camera lens. These images range from social documentary and street photography to portraiture and architectural photography and offer a reflection of how Britain is perceived by those outside its borders.

Arts in Exile in Britain 1933-1945

Arts in Exile in Britain 1933-1945
Author: Shulamith Behr
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2005
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9042017864

"This volume focuses on the contribution of refugees from Nazism to the Arts in Britain. The essays examine the much neglected theme of art in internment and address the spheres of photography, political satire, sculpture, architecture, artists' organisations, institutional models, dealership and conservation. These are considered under the broad headings 'Art as Politics', 'Between the Public and the Domestic' and 'Creating Frameworks'. Such categories assist in posing questions regarding the politics of identity and gender, as well as providing an opportunity to explore the complex issues of cultural formation. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of twentieth-century art history, museum and conservation studies, politics and cultural studies, in addition to those involved in German Studies and in German and Austrian Exile Studies."--BOOK JACKET.

Camoupedia

Camoupedia
Author: Roy R. Behrens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2009
Genre: Art
ISBN:

An encyclopedic sourcebook for camouflage enthusiasts in all research areas who want to explore the history and development of camouflage (artistic, biological and military) since the 19th century. Richly illustrated with historic photographs, diagrams and drawings. Includes subject timeline, bibliography and index.

Émigré Voices

Émigré Voices
Author: Bea Lewkowicz
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2021-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004472894

In Émigré Voices Lewkowicz and Grenville present twelve oral history interviews with men and women who came to Britain as Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s, many of whom known for their enormous contributions to British culture.

A Double Life

A Double Life
Author: Charlotte Philby
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020-07-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0008365199

The Times Thrillers of the Year 2020 ’Superbly crafted with heart-stopping twists and chills galore. A new star has arrived in the thriller firmament’ The Times, Book of the Month

Strapless

Strapless
Author: Deborah Davis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2004-05-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781585423361

The subject of John Singer Sargent's most famous painting was twenty-three-year-old New Orleans Creole Virginie Gautreau, who moved to Paris and quickly became the "it girl" of her day. A relative unknown at the time, Sargent won the commission to paint her; the two must have recognized in each other a like-minded hunger for fame. Unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon, Gautreau's portrait generated the attention she craved-but it led to infamy rather than stardom. Sargent had painted one strap of Gautreau's dress dangling from her shoulder, suggesting either the prelude to or the aftermath of sex. Her reputation irreparably damaged, Gautreau retired from public life, destroying all the mirrors in her home. Drawing on documents from private collections and other previously unexamined materials, and featuring a cast of characters including Oscar Wilde and Richard Wagner, Strapless is a tale of art and celebrity, obsession and betrayal.