Bennett - Oxford Art Book

• Tiffany Black (Artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Oxford Brookes University)
• Rosie Jacobs (Co-Founder of Independent Oxford and Owner of A Rosie Life)
• Esther Lafferty (Festival Director of Oxfordshire Artweeks)
• Andrew McLellan (Head of Education, Pitt Rivers Museum)
• Julia Sadler (Managing Editor, GTI Publishing)
• Lucy Stopford (Chair, Oxford Art Society)

For my Oxfordshire host family thank you to Julia Sadler and Adrian Sadler, and thank you to Annabelle King, Megan Sadler and Carys Sadler for looking at images. Thank you to my brother Andrew and Dad, Peter Birch, for singing in the church choir in days gone by, which meant childhood visits to Keble College Chapel, where I fell in love with the city of Oxford. To Betty and Norman Adams, thanks; you inspired creativity from an early age. To my Mom (Toni), Len and Val, Craig, Molly and William Bennett for boundless enthusiasm and encouragement, I give thanks. For help with all general things book-like (and coffee and cake) thank you to Lynn Fraser, Alison Schuldt, Jen Hurst, Naomi Triggol and all those who helped along the way.

In a comparison of the delightful and varied images collected in these two books, I can continue my joyful (and endless) quest to pin down the cool elegance of Cambridge versus the worldly charm of Oxford. It is being said that we should all turn off our smart phones and wean ourselves from the seductive pinging of incoming messages, but how to break away? This book is a very good place to seek an answer, for The Oxford Art Book is all about the value, the pleasure and the fun of just looking. Dont take a picture on your phone at each landmark but, instead, stand still, look around (or up or down or out!) and feast your eyes. Spend a pure and quiet minute or two noticing and relishing the details of the sunlight on the Radcliffe Camera and Tom Tower from across St Aldates with buses and bicycles whizzing by. Or take a look at the remote Emperors in front of the Sheldonian Theatre and the blossom-strewn streets of North Oxford. Admire St Barnabas Church dreaming the afternoon away across Port Meadow or Magdalen Bridge seen as you deftly wield the pole from a punt on the Cherwell, and you will have stood for a moment in the shoes of an artist.

You will bring a sharpened eye to the wonderful collection of images in this book. Best of all, you will remember these outstandingly lovely places far better than you would if you had taken a snap and dashed on. For as you will immediately realise when you open this pleasing book, Oxford is one of the worlds most wonderful places, right up there with Paris, Venice and Istanbul (as well as Cambridge!) and the eye and the heart can never tire of its beauties. Emma Bridgewater Designer and Founder of Emma Bridgewater

Oxford, a city known and loved across the world, is celebrated here by 65 artists who find creativity in its every spire and doorway. Oxford is a city that inspires: travellers from across the world who marvel at its cobbled streets and architecture; students huddled over great novels in the Bodleian Library; locals who picnic on its river banks and canoe its canals in the summer then hunker down in its cosy pubs in winter. Oxford has a great historical past as well as a modern independent present.

It is all of these things and more that have inspired generations of artists to show Oxford through their eyes. Hidden doorways, bustling streets, punts on the river, the wonder and awe of the Pitt Rivers Museum and the calm of the glasshouses of the Botanical Gardens; it is all here within these pages. Using a huge range of different art techniques, The Oxford Art Book bristles with vibrancy, charm and wit. The map in the book encourages you to walk around the city and see how the artists have interpreted the buildings and the sites that inspired them. Following the huge success of The Cambridge Art Book, it is an honour to bring together another unique collection of artists and images, this time for Oxford, a city close to my heart. To find out more about the artists in the book, the Artists Credits section will give you some useful links to their websites.

The book represents just some of the talented artists working in Oxfordshire. There are many others and I encourage you to use local art networks, galleries and exhibitions to discover them. Emma Bennett Artist and Editor

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