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

History

Studio Vista was founded by

Cecil Harmsworth King Cecil Harmsworth King (20 February 1901 – 17 April 1987) was Chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers, Sunday Pictorial Newspapers and the International Publishing Corporation (1963–1968), and a director at the Bank of England (1965–1968). Bio ...

and it was then purchased by the Rev.

Timothy Beaumont Timothy Wentworth Beaumont, Baron Beaumont of Whitley (22 November 1928 – 8 April 2008) was a British politician and an Anglican priest. He was politically active, successively, in the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party ...

, later Baron Beaumont of Whitley, with funding from Beaumont's fortune. In 1961 David Mark Herbert joined the firm, becoming its editorial director and then chief executive.Robert Cross
Obituary: David Herbert
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 22 November 1996. Retrieved 27 January 2020. After Beaumont entered politics, he sold his publishing interests and Studio Vista was bought by the American firm

Collier Macmillan Crowell-Collier Publishing Company was an American publisher that owned the popular magazines '' Collier's'', ''Woman's Home Companion'' and ''The American Magazine''. Crowell's subsidiary, P.F. Collier and Son, published ''Collier's Encyclopedia ...

in 1968. In 1969, the publisher

Frances Lincoln Frances Elisabeth Rosemary Lincoln (20 March 1945 – 26 February 2001) was an English independent publisher of illustrated books. She published under her own name and the company went on to become Frances Lincoln Publishers. In 1995, Lincoln w ...

joined the firm as an editorial assistant, staying for six years and rising to the position of managing editor. In 1975, Frances Lincoln led a strike at the firm after the new owners threatened to make 40 people redundant. In the late 1950s and early 1960s some of Studio Vista's titles (such as William Klein's 1959 photo essay on

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

) and series (such as the Vista Travel guides and The Pocket Poets) were published under the publisher names of "Vista Books" and "

Edward Hulton Sir Edward George Stephen Hulton, 1st Baronet (3 March 1869 – 23 May 1925) was a British newspaper proprietor and thoroughbred racehorse owner. In 1921, he was awarded a baronetcy, of Downside in the parish of Leatherhead in Surrey, for p ...

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 Ken Garland (19 February 1929 – 20 May 2021) was a British graphic designer, photographer, writer and educator. Garland is known for his writing on design and the prolific work of his studio Ken Garland & Associates. Early life and education ...

(1966) (both in the Studio Paperbacks series edited by

John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...

Norman Potter Norman Arthur Potter (17 April 1923 – 22 November 1995) was a cabinetmaker, political dissident, poet and author of ''What is a Designer?'' Life By trade, Potter was a cabinetmaker and designer, a minimalist decades before the term becam ...

'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''Cassell's Directory of Publishing in Great Britain, the Commonwealth, Ireland and South Africa'', London: Cassell, 1970, 6th edition, p. 119. * Blues Paperbacks (edited by

Paul Oliver Paul Hereford Oliver MBE (25 May 1927 – 15 August 2017) was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that aficion ...

) * Christie's South Kensington Collectors Series (in association with

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

Contemporary Art) * City Buildings * Collectors' Blue Books * Creative Sewing Series (in association with the

Singer Company Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac Singer, Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward Cabot Clark, Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing ma ...

) * Elements of Painting Series * Facts of Print * Field Sports Handbooks * Gold Series * Great Ages of World Architecture * Great Drawings of the World * Hadfield Anthologies * Knowing and Doing * Leaders of Modern Thought * Movie Paperbacks (jointly published in the U.S. as Praeger Film Library by

Praeger Publishing Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

and by

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

) * New Directions in Architecture * Picturebacks (also referred to as: Studio Vista , Dutton Picturebacks) (published in the U.S. by

E. P. Dutton E. P. Dutton was an American Publishing, book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group. Creator Edward Payson Dutton ( ...

) * Planning and Cities * Plan Your Home * Pocket How-To-Do-Its (also known as: Pocket How To Do It) (jointly published in the U.S. by

Watson-Guptill Watson-Guptill is an American publisher of instructional books in the arts. The company was founded in 1937 by Ernest Watson, Ralph Reinhold, and Arthur L. Guptill. They also published the magazine ''American Artist''. Their headquarters are at 17 ...

) * The Pocket Poets * Rockbooks * Small Garden Library * Studio Drawing Books * Studio Handbooks * Studio Paperbacks * Vision + Value Series * Vista TravelVista Travel (Studio Vista) - Book Series List
publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 7 March 2020. * Visual History of Modern Britain

References

External links

In praise of Studio Vista, Ken Garland and the good old days
by Rob Waller
Studio Vista at openlibrary.orgSerban Cantacuzino
{{Authority control Publishing companies based in London Publishing companies established in 1961 1961 establishments in England

History

Books

Book series

See also

References

External links