Reynolds Stone: A Memoir

A fresh look at the life and work of the artist Reynolds Stone CBE RDI (1909-1979) has long been overdue. A distinguished wood engraver, he helped champion the renaissance in good printing and type design, and was an accomplished watercolour painter and letter cutter in stone. His legacy endures in much that remains familiar, including the coat of arms on a British passport. After an apprenticeship with Cambridge University Press, Stone’s career quickly blossomed. Commissions poured in for bookplates, designs and illustrations. In 1953 Reynolds and his wife Janet bought a house in Litton Cheney in the Bride Valley. The Old Rectory’s ponds and wild garden provided Reynolds with the inspiration and seclusion he needed. His work over the years that followed bore an individuality and style uniquely his own: the masthead for The Times, Winston Churchill’s Memorial in Westminster Abbey, postage stamps, the £5 and £10 notes, as well as private commissions, watercolours, two typefaces, and numerous bookplates. Reynolds Stone is richly illustrated with 365 engravings, drawings, watercolours and photographs. Yet its principal delight is that its author is Reynolds’ younger son and a distinguished typographer and designer in his own right, giving this memoir an intimacy a more formal biography would lack.

Large format hardback (280 x 220 mms)