International Autograph Auctions Ltd.
Lot 289
PIPER JOHN: (1903-1992) English Painter. Typed Manuscript Signed, John Piper, one page, 4to, Henley-on-Thames, 16th June 1975. The manuscript, with several holograph corrections, is Piper’s foreword to Stained Glass in England 1150-1550 by Brian Coe, and states, in part, ‘I welcome this enlightened and well-informed book. When I was nineteen or twenty I began to try to study the art of English medieval stained glass. Books about the craft existed all right….Otherwise, one could scuffle through Methuen’s Little Guides to individual counties, or Murray’s Handbooks, or the few volumes of the Victoria County History then existing. Adequate illustrations were extremely rare. Much less has happened since the early 1920s to alter this situation than one might think. Herbert Read’s book of 1926 showed - almost for the first time in Great Britain - that stained glass was art, or could be so; not just craft. Baker and Lammer’s book of 1960 has fine coloured illustrations….But there is plenty of room for this book, and I find myself delighted by the splendour of the colour photography, by the care of the author’s topographical research….I hope this work will stimulate deans of cathedrals and incumbents of churches in the production of more and better reproductions, posters, books and postcards of English stained glass….’ Signed and dated at the foot. Together with an A.L.S., John Piper, two pages, 8vo, Henley-on-Thames, 16th June 1975, to Mr. Mills. Piper states that he hopes his correspondent will find the foreword adequate, and explains ‘I mention Baker and Lammer’s book, because this is how I know it, rather than Baker & Herbert Read, as Mr. Coe calls it in his Bibliog. Would you be kind enough to check this with him - and call it anything he fancies?’, concluding by remarking that he looks forward to the production. Also including a contemporary photocopy of Piper’s manuscript with several additional ink corrections in an unidentified hand. VG, 3
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