The first ten journals available in the ReVIEW project are:

The Studio

The Studio was one of the most respected and influential art journals published in Britain. It was international in its coverage, and contained, long, often well-illustrated articles on all aspects of the decorative, fine and applied arts. It included contributions from many of the leading art critics of the day, e.g. Aymer Vallance, Fernand Knopff and A. Lys Baldry.

Each issue of The Studio also contained a round-up of the latest art news, reports on recent exhibitions, and book reviews.

The Studio played an important role in promoting trends and developments in contemporary art and was largely responsible for establishing the reputations of many artists notably Aubrey Beardsley, James McNeill Whistler, and the artists of the Glasgow School.

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, sometime known as “the German Studio”, was launched four years after its British counterpart. It is similar, both in size and format, to The Studio, and like its predecessor, focused on the work of contemporary artists. It also included book and exhibition reviews and news items.

Although international in its coverage, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration had a bias towards German, Austrian, Scandinavian and Central European art.

It included extensive reports on the Exposition Universelle et Industrielle in Paris in 1900, the Esposizione Internale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna held in Turin in 1902, and the work of the Wiener Werkstätte and the Deutsche Werkstätte.

Art et Decoration

Art et Decoration, could be described as “the French Studio”. It was published in Paris and launched the same year as Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration It had the same editorial style as its British and German counterparts, with long, well-illustrated articles on contemporary art together with book and exhibition reviews and news items.

The apparent bias of Art et Decoration is towards French, Belgian and Western European art, and included extensive coverage of the Exposition Universelle et Industrielle in Paris in 1900

The Poster

The Poster was the most important journal in English devoted to the art of the poster. In addition to containing over 3,000 images (several in colour), it included interviews with and profiles of many of the leading names in poster design including Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Alphonse Mucha, Ethel Reed, Maxfield Parrish, Paul Berthon, Will Bradley, Arpad Basch, Jules Chéret, Jack B. Yeats, Aubrey Beardsley, the Beggarstaff Brothers, etc.

The Poster also includes articles on poster art in Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the USA, etc., as well as articles on specific aspects of the poster including bicycle posters, political posters, railroad posters, theatre posters, the poster as a mirror of life, plagiarism in poster design, symbolism in advertising, etc.

In its final year (volume 6) the title was expanded to The Poster and Art Collector, and it began to include articles on related aspects of art including the design of magazine covers, book covers, bookbinding (e.g. a long article on the Guild of Women Binders), pictorial postcards, playbills, and theatrical caricatures.

A complete file of The Poster is exceptionally rare, and because this journal has never been indexed, these articles are little known.

In order to enhance the value of the digitization, we have classified the posters by subject and type. We have also added details of all the artists whose work is reproduced, giving their full name, dates, nationality, etc. In addition we have added over 1,200 links to web sites containing biographical information on the artists and examples of their work.

The Art Workers’ Quarterly

The Art Workers' Quarterly, subtitled, A Portfolio of Practical Designs for Decorative and Applied Arts, was published in five volumes by Chapman & Hall, London, between 1902 and 1906. The editor was W.G. Paulson Townsend, the author of several books and articles on the decorative arts. In his foreword to volume 1, no. 1, he wrote that the object of The Art Workers' Quarterly, was provide a source of inspiration for art workers and “to supply designs in a readily applicable form to those who do not invent, plan, or adapt ornament, and who find difficulty in obtaining good and suitable suggestions for their work. Further, it is his aim to assist those who may have some knowledge of the principles on which ornamental design is constructed, by publishing specimens of good work from the best historical and contemporary examples”.

Like The Craftsman, launched the previous year in the USA, William Morris was the subject of the first article in The Art Workers’ Quarterly. Subsequent articles reported on the work and activities of the leading art schools including the Royal Academy Schools, Royal School of Art Needlework, the Royal College of Art, Central School of Arts and Crafts, Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and Keswick School of Industrial Arts, and the principle craft organizations, guilds and societies such as the Church Crafts League, the Home Arts and Industries Association, the Dress Designers Exhibition Society, the Clarion Guild of Handicrafts, and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. There were also articles on Lace Making in Ireland; the British Section at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904; the Impact of Modern Social and Economic Conditions on the Decorative Arts; the architecture of Letchworth Garden City, etc. These were interspersed with practical, well-illustrated articles on wood block printing, mural decoration, ornamental lettering, metalwork, embroidery, weaving, furniture, ceramics, stained glass, bookbinding, etc.

Townsend was successful in attracting many of the leading commentators on the decorative arts to write pieces for The Art Workers’ Quarterly, including May Morris, Walter Crane, J. Illingworth Kay, Alexander Fisher, Lawrence Weaver, Bernard Rackham, Silvester Sparrow, Alfred Stevens, A. Romney Green, and James Guthrie.

Among artists and designers whose work featured in The Art Workers’ Quarterly were some of the major figures in the English Arts and Crafts movement including Ambrose Heal Jr., Walter Crane, C.F.A. Voysey, Alexander Fisher, May Morris, R.A. Dawson. W.J. Neatby, Harold Stabler, Allan Vigers, W. Curtis Green, A. Romney Green. Heywood Sumner, Charles E. Dawson, Edward Spencer, Bernard Cuzner, Arthur Gaskin, Charles Spooner, C.R. Ashbee, Paul Woodroffe, Ernest Gimson, Mary Seton Fraser Tytler (Mrs G.F. Watts), Ernestine Mills and Sidney Barnsley

An additional two special issues of The Art Workers’ Quarterly were published in August and December 1908. These contained the papers and extracts of papers read at the Third International Art Congress for the development of Drawing and Art Teaching and the Application to Industries held in London, August, 1908, as well as a record of the Retrospective Exhibition of Students’ Works, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, in connection with the Congress. Together with volumes 1-5 of The Art Workers’ Quarterly, these have also been digitized for ReVIEW.

The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art

The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art was published by the London and New York offices of The Studio magazine in London and New York from 1906. The years digitized by designinform are 1906-1922.

The Studio Yearbook was an annual review of some of the finest examples of contemporary architecture and applied art. Among the architects, designers and companies whose work feature in these issues are C.R. Ashbee, M.H. Baillie Scott, Liberty & Co., the Guild of Handicraft, Heal & Son, Ambrose Heal, Ernest Gimson, Edwin Lutyens, C.F.A. Voysey, the Scottish Guild of Handicraft, Jessie M. King, William Morris & Co., Arthur Sanderson & Sons, Ann Macbeth, Mintons Ltd., Doulton & Co., Walter Crane, Frank Brangwyn, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, George Walton, Heywood Sumner, Peter Behrens, Josef Urban, Josef Hoffmann, Parker & Unwin, the Deutsche Werkstätten, the Wiener Wekstätten, Richard Riemerschmid, Louis Majorelle, Murice Dufrène, Henry Holiday, Koloman Moser, W.A.S. Benson, Alexander Fisher, René Lalique, Ernestine Mills, Hermann Muthesius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Michael Powolny, Jacques Ruhlmann, Otto Prutscher, Carl Czeschka, Rookwood Pottery, Gio Ponti, Carl Malmsten, Gunnar Asplund, Edward Hald, Wilhelm Kåge, Simon Gate, Orrefors Glasbruk, Sue et Mare, Bing & Grøndahl, Georg Jensen, etc.

Das Plakat

Das Plakat is considered to have been the most influential journal ever produced on the art of the poster. It was the official publication of the Verein der Plakat Freunde (The Society for Friends of the Poster) and published in Berlin between 1910-1921. The founder and driving force behind the journal was Hans Josef Sachs (1881-1974), a Berlin dentist with a passionate interest in the poster.

Das Plakat is extensively illustrated with numerous colour plates. The issues digitized for designinform cover the years 1912-1921 [we hope to digitize 1910 and 1911 at a later date].

Nearly every major poster designer active during the years of its publication are represented in Das Plakat. For the significance of this journal see the 2004 essay by Steven Heller, ‘Graphic Design Magazines: Das Plakat’ .

L’Image

L’Image, subtitled Revue Mensuelle Artistic et Litteraire and as Revue Mensuelle Litteraire et Artistic, was published monthly in Paris between December 1896 and December 1897 by Henri Floury on behalf of the Corporation Française des Graveurs sur Bois. The editor was the engraver Tony Beltrand, who also provided art direction in collaboration with Léon Ruffe and Auguste Lepère

The aim of L’Image was to promote and encourage the art of wood engraving. It featured original work by many of the leading engravers, illustrators, graphic artists and painters then active in France including Jules Chéret, Eugène Carrière, Fantin-Latour, Victor Prouvé, Henri Bellery-Desfontaines, Puvis de Chavannes, Jean Émile Laboureur, Alphonse Mucha, Maurice Denis, Eugène Froment, Léon Perrichon, Georges de Feure, Auguste Rodin, Kees van Dongen, Edgar Degas, Frédéric Florian, Georges Jeanniot, Clément Bellenger, Eugène Carrière, Lucien Pissarro, Jacques Beltrand, Adolphe Hervier, Eugène Dété, Paul César Helleu, Théodule Ribot Félix Vallotton, Albert Besnard, Félix Bracquemond, Daniel Vierge, Louis Dunki, Henri Rivière, Jean Veber. Eugène Béjot, Jean Jacques Drogue, Georges D'Espagnat and Armand Seguin.

Among artists who were commissioned to design covers for L’Image were Alphonse Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Bellery-Desfontaines, Victor Prouvé, Paul Berthon, Georges de Feure, and Marcel Lenoir.

The Imprint

The Imprint was a short-lived but seminal journal devoted to the arts of printing, typography, illustration and lettering. It was published in London between January and November 1913. The editors were the influential English typographic designers F. Ernest Jackson, Edward Johnston, J. H. Mason, and Gerard T. Meynell, who were assisted by an Advisory Committee of over 30 artists and individuals from the realms of art, printing and publishing that included Joseph Pennell, W.R. Lethaby, Douglas Cockerell, Arthur Waugh, F. Morley Fletcher, R.A. Austen-Leigh, and Sidney Colvin.

The Imprint contains articles on Poster Advertising on the London Underground; Children’s Book Illustration by Walter Crane; Decorative Lettering by Edward Johnston; Art and Workmanship by W.R. Lethaby; Current Trends in Illustration by Joseph Pennell; the Wood Engravings of Lucien Pissarro by J.B. Manson; Liturgical Books by Stanley Morison; the 1913 Arts and Crafts Exhibition by B. Newdigate; Post-Impressionism, with some personal recollections of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, by A.S. Hartrick; Honoré Daumier by Frank Rinder; the International Colour Printing and Poster Exhibition of 1913; etc.

L’Exposition de Paris de 1889

L’Exposition de Paris de 1889 was published in 40 issues between 15 October 1888 and 2 October 1889. It documents in detail the preparations for and course of the Exposition Universelle held in Paris between May and October 1889. The journal is an invaluable record of one of the most important cultural events in France during the nineteenth century. It is illustrated extensively with photo engravings and contains numerous reports on every aspect of the Exposition, notably the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the abiding symbol of the Fair.

Among titles we will be adding over the next two years are:

L’Art Décoratif [France] 1898-1912

Art et Décoration [France] 1897-1922

Art Journal [UK] 1880-1912

Art Workers Quarterly [UK] 1902-1906

L'Artista Moderno. Rivista illustrata d'arte applicata [Italy] 1904-1922

Artistic Japan [UK] 1888-1890

Arts & Crafts [UK] 1904-1906

Brush and Pencil [USA] 1898-1907

Colour [UK] 1914-1922

The Craftsman [USA] 1901-1916

Das Plakat [Germany] 1912-1921

Dekorative Kunst [Germany] 1897-1922

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration [Germany] 1897-1922

L’Exposition de Paris de 1889 [France] 1888-1889

The House [UK] 1897-1901

L’Image [France] 1896-1897

The Imprint [UK] 1909

Innen-Dekoration [Germany] 1904-1920

International Studio [USA] 1907-1922

Kunstgewerbeblatt [Germany] 1897-1917

Magazine of Art [UK] 1880-1904

Our Homes and Gardens [UK] 1919-1922

The Poster/The Poster and Art Collector [UK] 1898-1901

The Studio [UK] 1893-1922

The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art [UK/USA] 1906-1922

The Yellow Book [UK] 1894-1897