New! John Piper's Brighton Aquatints
New! John Piper's Brighton Aquatints
Originally published in late 1939, John Piper’s Brighton Aquatints celebrated some of the seaside resort’s most iconic architecture, from the Royal Pavilion and West Pier to its stuccoed terraces and Victorian churches. The volume was the only proper ‘artist’s book’ created by Piper and, with its unique use of the aquatint medium throughout, a pivotal work of its time. With help from John Betjeman, Piper hand-coloured 55 special copies of the edition of 250. This new edition brings Piper’s monochrome and coloured prints together for the first time, alongside his quirky descriptions of the scenes. Alan Powers provides an additional commentary on each plate and an introduction exploring the book’s conception and production.
Edition size 1800 copies | Hardback | Quarter cloth binding
ISBN 978-0-9576665-6-6 | 112 pages, 23 × 31 cm
“This slim landscape quarto is a hugely elegant production (beautifully designed by Brian Webb), and reproduces Piper’s sprightly texts, much in the manner of his Shell Guide entries, opposite the colour images, with Powers’ commentary opposite the black and whites. There has always been something rakish about Brighton. The novelist William Plomer described its reputation as ‘a siren among watering places, something between a mermaid and a barmaid’. Piper’s urgent scribbly line and collaged newsprint does the town modern justice.”