Robinson, James: Lives of the Great Makers (Victoria & Albert Museum)

Lives of the Great Makers celebrates the aesthetic flair, skills, and technical ingenuity that define exceptional craftspeople whose pioneering masterpieces have, over the centuries, changed the nature and direction of the decorative arts. Featuring biographies of notable European and North American makers--ranging from furniture makers such as Thomas Chippendale, er and entrepreneur Louis Comfort Tiffany, and woodcarvers such as Grinling Gibbons to textile artists including Gunta Stölzl, silversmiths such as Paul Storr, and ceramicists such as Lucie Rie--this richly illustrated book also includes remarkable pieces by glassmakers and engravers, enamellists, jewellers, and others who represent the very pinnacle of their craft. Written by curatorial experts at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the featured lives of some forty women and men from the past 500 years explore how their work was shaped by patronage, trade, migration, war, empire, and the evolution of ideas. Also included are brief introductions to individual periods of history that set the lives in their broader cultural context. This uplifting and fascinating book helps to define the enduring appeal of the objects that surround us and that represent some of the highest achievements of human creativity.