Catalogue: William Kent, Designing Georgian Britain

In his Christmas 2013 review of “this year’s essential art book” Brian Sewell, art critic of London’s Evening Standard, concluded his description of William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain by writing: “This, essentially the catalogue of an exhibition at the V&A next year, must surely be the great art book of 2013.”

Curators of exhibitions in London know that even to be criticised by Sewell is a compliment, so one’s first reaction was to assume “great” to be a dig at the size of the book.

Physically, the 688 illustrated pages amount to the equivalent of five bricks.

Intellectually, the 21 chapters by 15 scholars amount to a major declaration of the status of Britain’s most versatile designer, seen both as a product of his genius and social skills and of a key time in British history.

As a publication, it is also a declaration of faith in the art of making beautiful big books for sale to general readers. But it is big.

This publication does not follow the current trend of exhibition catalogues, of thematic essays followed by a checklist of exhibits. Instead, more than 200 objects in the exhibition are listed with their apparatus in a 30-page catalogue at the back and for discussion of each object the reader is referred to its place of illustration in the chapters.

The book should rather be seen as a full monograph, as the fruition of a research project, launched in 2007 by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the Bard Graduate Center (BGC) New York, where the exhibition was first shown.

Benefits of formality

Yale University Press would not have produced a work of this scale without the support of the BGC and its donors. The V&A has an excellent publications team within V&A Enterprises that produces popular books and full-scale catalogues of the permanent collections.

But when it comes to a joint project with another exhibition venue, involving open-ended investment over several years, an outside publisher can choose to take risks that a museum’s commercial arm may not be able to justify.

An outside publisher can also provide a common ground. Over the years Yale’s central London offices hosted a series of research seminars where the contributors, a dream team of independent international authorities, could meet, relax and speak with the curators from each institution.

An outside publisher can also bring greater formality to the business of managing outside authors. When one has to get tough with a distinguished scholar it can be better if a third-party publisher, rather than a museum, delivers the ultimatum. We lost only two.

Justified risk

As new discoveries were made, so the book grew in ambition. Occasionally, Yale’s encouraging editor, Sally Salvesen, asked if the book really needed to be so big, to which we chorused: “Yes!”

Initial sales have confirmed the wisdom of Yale’s choice as the book was reprinted in the first fortnight of the exhibition opening at the V&A. As a book, William Kent is a gamble few museums’ publishing arms would have taken on.

Julius Bryant is the keeper of word and image at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London