Commercial galleries and companies
Over the years a wide range of commercial publications have been designed: the most recent gallery
catalogue, Janet Boulton’s Paper Relief Works, Redfern Gallery, London; since 2004 the design of the
annual property catalogue for Lyme Bay Holidays, Dorset; publications for the scenic artists Eastwood
and Cook, London; Step by Step, a desk diary for 1992 in collaboration with Hamish Fulton for Starkmann
Library Services, London; and earlier, the design of publicity and catalogues for Victoria Miro Gallery,
London and Florence, from 1987 to 1992.
Several important books were realised in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the French architect and
landscapist Bernard Lassus, including his proposal for the transformation of the Jardin des Tuileries in
Paris, and Villes-paysages, couleurs en Lorraine, an extensive photo survey of his work in the decorative
rehabilitation of the facades of social housing for the construction company Batigere.
Public galleries and museums
Some recent projects have been the catalogue accompanying the large-scale survey of Irish art and craft,
Forty Shades of Green, for the Crafts Council of Ireland, 2005; the book for the international ceramics
exhibition To Hold, in 2006, in collaboration with the photographer Jan Baldwin and the curator Peter Ting;
and the section of artists pages in Hamish Fulton’s catalogue for the retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain,
London in 2002.
Amongst many institutions in the UK and Europe, design and production of publications has been carried
out for the Baltic, Gateshead; Centre des Livres d’Artistes, Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche; Christ Church Picture
Gallery, Oxford; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds; the ICA, London;
Kunsthaus, Nürnberg; Spacex Gallery, Exeter; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; and the overall graphic
design of publicity, catalogues and signage for Le Capitou, Art Contemporain Fréjus in the early 1990s.
Artists books
Since the 1980s an ongoing concern with the concept and realisation of the ‘artists book’ has led to practical
associations with many artists, notably Les Coleman, Bill Culbert, Ian Hamilton Finlay (see below), Hamish
Fulton, Andy Goldsworthy, Paul Etienne Lincoln, Richard Long, Yoko Terauchi, Richard Tuttle, and Stephen
Willats.
Several publications in recent years have been with the Research Group for Artists Publications, formerly
based at the University of Derby; projects include a monograph on the printed and performance work of
Brian Lane; and two critical essays by artist Michael Gibbs. There has been occasional involvement with
public galleries in the selection of exhibitions of examples of this work, as well as the design and production
of catalogues and publicity for specialist book fairs.
Poetry and literature
There have been many design and production projects with publishers of poetry and texts, including several
uniform books for Tom & Laurie Clark’s Cairn Editions; Stuart Mills’ imprint Aggie Weston’s, notably Ian
Hamilton Finlay’s Domestic Pensees, and his series Poets Poems which ran to 20 numbers from 2000 to
2005; and in the series of Scottish ‘pocketbooks’, the complicated typographies of both the anthology of
concrete poetry The Order of Things and Hamish Fulton’s Wild Life.
Coracle 1980s–present
The continual working relationship with Coracle Press began in 1981, with Simon Cutts and John Bevis at
the gallery in Camberwell, south London; devising formats and production methods for catalogues,
collaborative publications with artists and writers, and publicity material. With the closing of the fixed
gallery space in the late 1980s the imprint has been located variously in London, and since 1998 in Ireland,
all the while producing a unique accumulation of printed projects.
During this twenty-five year period the range and variety of design and production work for Coracle has
been enormous—a few recent publications include the catalogue for the large-scale installation project Vinyl
for Cork 2005; Made in English, the collected poems of Stuart Mills; Some Forms of Availability, critical
writings by Simon Cutts; several works of the bibliographer and critic Jim Mays; and a detailed
photographic book documenting a project by the New York artist Paul Etienne Lincoln.
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Wild Hawthorn Press 1990s
In 1992 Ian Hamilton Finlay asked for assistance in the production of an edition of a small casebound book,
the proposal for a work for a sculpture park in the United States. This was the beginning of a series of some
thirty collaborative projects during the next ten years—the process of the origination of maquettes and
typography to the production of finished books. The publications ranged from (seemingly) simple booklets,
to a series of large screenprints with accompanying catalogue. Although varying considerably in style, extent,
and format, the majority of the editions consisted of 250–350 casebound books, printed either letterpress or
offset litho, and sewn and bound by hand.
For most of these works Finlay utilised the book as a primary form, but also included was the elaborate
proposal for the work commissioned for the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London; and
publications to accompany major exhibitions at the Miro Foundation, Barcelona; the Städtische Galerie,
Munich; the Arts Club of Chicago; and Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; as well as the documentation of works
installed in the garden at Little Sparta.