Vienna, Austria (relocated to London, 1938; now London & New York) · Est. 1923 · Founded by Béla Horovitz, Fritz Ungar & Ludwig Goldscheider
In 1923 three Viennese intellectuals -- Béla Horovitz, Fritz Ungar, and Ludwig Goldscheider -- founded a press named after Phaedo of Elis, a pupil of Socrates, with a single conviction: that great art books should be beautiful, affordable, and available to everyone. In 1938 they fled the Nazis with help from Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann, rebuilt in London, and in 1950 published The Story of Art -- still the most successful art history book ever written, with over eight million copies sold. A Phaidon book on a registry is a hundred years of that conviction, sitting on your shelf.
Phaidon was born in Vienna in 1923 from a love of Socrates. Béla Horovitz, Fritz Ungar, and Ludwig Goldscheider named their new press after Phaedo of Elis, a pupil of Socrates who appears in Plato's dialogue on the immortality of the soul -- a fitting name for a house that believed beautiful books could outlast almost anything. Their logo is the Greek letter phi, symbol of the golden ratio, used by artists and architects since the fourth century BC.
Their vision was radical for the time: large-format, generously illustrated, affordably priced art books that brought the world's greatest works to a mass audience. In 1936 they published the first -- a monograph on Van Gogh that changed what an art book could look like. When the Nazis occupied Vienna in 1938, the founders fled, with help from Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann, and with financial guidance from British publisher Stanley Unwin who purchased their entire stock to protect it from Aryanization. They rebuilt in London.
In 1950 they published The Story of Art by Ernst Gombrich -- still the most successful art history book ever written, with over eight million copies sold in more than 30 languages. In 1951 they pioneered the first color-plate art book, making artists' work available in color at an affordable price for the first time. One hundred years later Phaidon has over 1,500 titles in print covering art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, food, and culture -- the books that live on the shelves of the most considered homes in the world. On a registry, a Phaidon title is the one guests pull off your shelf before dinner and don't put down until dessert.
