BARNETT FREEDMAN
Jonathan Mayne

Jonathan Mayne: BARNETT FREEDMAN. London: Art And Technics, 1948. First edition [English Masters Of Black And White series]. A very good hardcover book in a good dustjacket that has multiple chips and closed tears on the edges. The endpapers are lightly discolored. Interior unmarked and clean. Out-of-print.

7.25 x 9.25 hardocver book with 96 pages and 92 illustrations ( many reproduced from limited editions, ephemera, advertisements and other publications with one previously unpublished drawing & hand-lettered titling for the dust jacket). "Barnett Freedman is one of the most celebrated living English draftsmen, whose distinctive and original style is to be recognized on countless book-jackets."

Excellent volume in the 'English Masters of Black and White' series which includes a list of books and dustjackets illustrated by Freedman.

Barnett Freedman (1901-1958) was born in the East End of London, the child of Russian Jewish immigrant parents. He attended the Royal College of Art (1922). Freedman became a designer and illustrator, and was a pioneer in the revival of colour lithography and auto-lithography. in the 1930s he worked for Frank Pick at London Transport, and for Shell-Mex in the 30s. In 1936 he designed the Silver Jubilee stamp, and later became an Official War Artist. His illustrations included work for Faber and Faber, such as Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1931), The Folio Society, and the Baynard and Curwen Presses.

By the time of his death Freedman had established an enviable reputation as an illustrator and designer of posters, stamps, books and book-jackets. He believed that there was no such thing as commercial art, 'only good art and bad art'. His first exhibition was held in 1929 at the Literary Bookshop, Bloomsbury. A memorial exhibition was organised by the Arts Council in 1958. Manchester Polytechnic, which holds the Freedman archive, held a major show in 1990. Examples of his work are in the collection of the Tate Gallery.

out of stock