We are delighted to spread the news that the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation have announced Philippa Brewster, Senior Visual Culture Editor at I.B.Tauris, as the 2014 Outstanding Contribution to Publishing recipient.

In a career spanning more than 40 years working for some of the biggest book publishers, Philippa Brewster’s contribution to the visual publishing industry is impressive in terms of both its scope and its impact.

Her career began at Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1971 where she was responsible for starting the cinema list. Books here included: Cahiers du Cinema, a four volume collection of writing from Cahiers in conjunction with the BFI (1986); Spaghetti Westerns by Christopher Frayling (1981) and Old Mistresses by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock (1980), the first ever exploration of how women artists have been critically constructed.

In 1981 Brewster set up the imprint Pandora Press at Routledge to concentrate on publishing feminist non-fiction. Some titles from this period include: Let Us Now Praise Famous Women by Andrea Fisher, Women’s Pictures by Annette Kuhn and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985).

Brewster joined Jonathan Cape in 1991 and in 1993 moved to I.B.Tauris. While here she has built up the visual culture list from scratch, particularly focusing on the moving image and photography. Highlights at  I.B.Tauris, which now has visual culture at its core, include Land Matters by Liz Wells and Eisenstein on the Audiovisual by Robert Robertson (winner of the KKF Moving Image book award, 2009), plus series such as the World Cinema Series and Reading Contemporary Television.

Brewster has also instigated and championed academic publishing on Doctor Who, and one of these books, Inside the Tardis by James Chapman, was our bestselling book of 2013. She is now working on the ‘Behind the Silver Screen: A New History of Filmmaking’ series of ten volumes focusing on the collaborative nature of filmmaking; the first books, on Cinematography and Art Direction, are to be published in September 2014.

Speaking to the World Photography Organisation about receiving the award, she said:

I was completely shocked. I was speechless because I think we spend our time as editors thinking about our authors and their success. I haven’t really thought about my career as being something as particularly of note because the success is about what you do with books, the stimulation and excitement. I’m so fortunate to be an editor in these areas, which I’ve been working in right from the start. So to have this visibility to me is extraordinary.

An award that we all think in the office is totally deserved, we would like to offer our congratulations to Philippa. It’s a pleasure working with her and we can’t wait to see what projects she brings in the future.

You can read Philippa’s interview with the World Photography Organisation in full over on their website, while more details about the The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards can be found here. ■