Books—old and new

Apollo, March, 2004 by Nigel McKinley

Art in Renaissance Italy by Evelyn Welch. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019284279X

Arcadia and Metropolis: Masterworks from the Nationalgalerie Berlin by Roland Marz. Prestel Publishing, 25 [pounds sterling]. (US $39.95, Can.$65) ISBN 3-7913-3041-1

Art and Patronage in 18th--century Portugal by Angela Delaforce. Cambridge University Press. 130 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 0 521 57130 8

Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings by Susan Barnes, Nora de Poorter, Oliver Millar and Horst Vey. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press. 125 [pounds sterling].

The coming month sees two contrasting book fairs in the UK both being held outside of London. One is part of something larger; the other is joined at the hip with another. The Art History Book Fair is part of the Association of Art Historians Conference, which takes place this year at the University of Nottingham from Thursday 1st to Saturday 3rd April. The Edinburgh Antiquarian Book Fair is two book fairs in one place at the same time. The PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Association) and ABA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association) are holding joint book fairs in the gracious Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th March: the ABA in the ballroom and the PBFA in the Music Room.

The Association of Art Historians was founded in 1974 and has since then grown to include over 1000 members worldwide. In order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Association, sessions at the 2004 annual conference are focusing on the theme of Old/New. The conference includes papers that cover a wide range of periods, media, artistic practices and geographical locations and coincides with Graceful and True, Drawing in Florence around 1600 an exhibition at the Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham of over 80 works drawn from major British museums and collections including the Ashmolean Museum, previously shown in Oxford and in London at P & D Colnaghi (See the cover of Apollo, January 2004 and the review within by Minna Moore Ede.) There will also be conference visits to Newstead Abbey and Southwell Minster. If you are interested in attending the conference please contact the AAH on 44 (0)20 7490 3211 or e-mail admin@aah.org.uk. The delegates at the conference all have many opportunities to visit a book fair devoted to mainly new books on art, architecture and design in the university's Pope Building. Apollo will be exhibiting alongside many other well known art publishers, many of which are advertising in these pages. These include Prestel, Yale University Press, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Thames and Hudson. A few recent titles are illustrated here.

The Edinburgh Antiquarian Book Fair will be the largest book fair in Scotland in 2004 and has attracted a large number of exhibitors from both organisations involved. Exhibitors are coming from all over the British Isles with such well-known names as Peter Harrington, Adrian Harrington, Jarndyce and Jonathan Potter with his world renowned collection of antique maps travelling from London. Edinburgh itself has many bookshops and booksellers exhibiting include Ron Wilson's Old Town Bookshop and Elizabeth Strong's McNaughtan's Bookshop; both with specialist areas in art, architecture and children's illustrated (see illustrations). The subject matter of the exhibited books for sale has no limits from Scottish literature to French antiquarian, from modern first editions to medieval manuscripts. Not only that, but there will also be a selection of etchings, illustrations, ephemera and maps on many of the stands. The fair also has the added attraction of a loan exhibition that throws the spotlight on Edinburgh as a City of Literature with not only first editions on display by the more obvious native sons of the city such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott but also works and authors that are inspired by and feature this Athens of the North. These can be as diverse as Muriel Spark's Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Roland Searle's St Trinians and Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.