Eva Neurath was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1908, and worked in publishing, later moving to Vienna, Austria. Following the Anschluss, she fled to England (via the Netherlands), with her husband Wilhelm Feuchtwang, later working at London-based book packager and colour printing specialist, Adprint. In 1949, together with Walter Neurath (whom she afterwards married), she co-founded the celebrated visual arts publishing firm of Thames & Hudson.
Publisher Eva Neurath (née Itzig) was born in Berlin, Germany on 22 August 1908, the youngest of five daughters of Rudolph Itzig, a Jewish clothier, who, after suffering a breakdown, died when she was eight. Eva left school at the age of fourteen, in solidarity with a group of Jewish girls she felt had been unfairly expelled, and worked her way through a succession of odd jobs before being employed by celebrated antiquarian bookseller, Paul Graupe, where she worked on collating data for publications. Graupe also ran auctions and it was Eva's job to check the references and credentials of new bidders. It was while working for Graupe that Eva met her first husband, Ernst Jutrosinski. The marriage lasted only a year and then, in 1934 Eva married Wilhelm Feuchtwang, son of the Chief Rabbi of Vienna. In 1938, on the day of the Anschluss (Hitler's annexation of Austria), fearing persecution at the hands of the Nazis, Eva and Wilhelm fled first to the Netherlands, where they spent a year living in Rotterdam, and then, in 1939, to Britain, with their baby son Stephan.
They arrived in London in March, and, following the introduction of internment for so-called ‘enemy aliens’ in June 1940, Wilhelm was interned on the Isle of Man. Eva, desperate for a source of income, began working as a domestic, before gaining employment at Adprint, a London-based book packager and colour printing specialist, founded by Viennese-Jewish refugee Wolfgang Foges in 1937. There, she later became acquainted with another Viennese-Jewish émigré, Walter Neurath, who, having met her husband in internment had promised him that he would look after Eva, and had found her the position. She worked on Adprint's ambitious and highly-successful Britain in Pictures series, learning how to design layouts and conduct picture research, before taking on further illustrated projects including children's books for the under-fives, published by Collins. Eva and Walter were united in their love of well-produced books and their passion for art, and in 1949, they decided to establish their own publishing company, marrying soon afterwards.
Thames & Hudson, named after the twin capital rivers of London and New York, was one of the first publishing firms to develop the idea of international co-publishing, meaning that it was possible to sell books at a price affordable for all. Thames & Hudson's first book, English Cathedrals was published in 1950. The Neuraths were adept at finding promising titles that other publishers had rejected. Photography and archaeology dominated the house's initial list with art, design and architecture following soon after. The first titles in the affordable World of Art series appeared in 1958. Upon her husband's death in 1967, Neurath became Thames & Hudson's Chair. She was the first exponent of the 'integrated spread' – integrating text and illustrations – and her great expertise was in quality colour reproduction of works of art (she would often go far out of her way to oversee the printing of a book expressly to adjust the colour of the reproductions). Her last great achievements included approving every sheet of the catalogue accompanying Francis Bacon's Tate retrospective in 1985, the same year in which The Burlington Magazine editor, Michael Hall (formerly an employee of Thames & Hudson) assisted her with the publication of The Bayeux Tapestry by then-Director of the British Museum, David Wilson. He recalls: 'It was the sort of technical challenge that she relished: the tapestry was specially photographed and there were endless series of picture proofs that she took to Bayeux to check against the original. I had to sit with her while she made corrections to the layout, usually in the office but occasionally at her home in Highgate, hung with works by Schiele and Kokoschka, – the remains of a collection that she and Walter had sold to support their fledgling firm' (Michael Hall, Apollo Magazine, 30 January 2017). Even into her late eighties, authors would visit Neurath as much at her house in Highgate as in her office and she worked over an entire weekend with art historian Evelyn Silber to perfect the latter’s Gaudier-Brzeska: Life and Art published in 1996. One of Neurath's last major public appearances was to preside over Thames & Hudson's 50th anniversary celebrations at the National Gallery in London. Eva Neurath died aged 91 in London in 1999 and was buried with her husband in Highgate Cemetery.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Eva Neurath]
Publications related to [Eva Neurath] in the Ben Uri Library