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Ruskin book wins award for Book of the Year
Published on Monday 30 November 2015
Carrying off the Palaces: John’s Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes has won the Apollo Award for Book of the Year 2015.
‘The Apollo Book of the Year Award recognises publications that have contributed significantly to their field, both advancing scholarly research and extending its public reach.’
Apollo is a monthly international art magazine that was founded in 1925 and covers ‘everything from antiquities to contemporary work.’
The award was presented to Ken & Jenny Jacobson in London at an annual awards dinner in the Great Room at the RSA, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce (founded in 1754). The book was selected from a diverse shortlist that included a study of Renaissance sculptor Tullio Lombardo, a biography of American abstract painter Agnes Martin, a study of post-war English architecture and a history of British Museums and exhibitions from 1800–1915.
Presenting the award, editor Thomas Marks stated, ‘our winner this year is a volume that captures the romance and adventure of research – there may indeed be such a thing – as well as the excitement of that type of discovery that rearranges a particular field, and the contours of others that lie beyond it … The resulting volume transforms our understanding of Ruskin’s critical methods and of his photographic pursuits, and is a major contribution to the history of early photography.’
The December issue of Apollo Magazine features the Apollo Awards and Michael Hall reports on the Book of the Year: Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes …
‘Just occasionally a major work of scholarship carries a memorable emotional charge. Here is a book of great significance for both the history of photography and an understanding of one of the most influential of all art critics that is also a gripping detective story and a tale of the survival against all the odds of a remarkable artistic legacy. As Marcus Waithe wrote in his review in May, ‘this book haunts the imagination'.’