Apollo Book Competition
Our last competition prize was 'Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago', edited by Judith A. Barter (Yale University Press; £35). Inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and pride in craftsmanship, the Arts and Crafts movement in architecture, decorative arts and interior design reached its peak between 1880 and 1910 in Britain and North America. The movement enjoyed special resonance in Chicago, the home of Jane Addams's Hull House, where its initial revivalist characteristics evolved into the more streamlined, modern style of the city's Prairie school of architecture. The book showcases superb examples of works by the movement's British originators, as well as the greatest American practitioners such as Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright. Over 200 objects – ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, photographs and textiles – from the University of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Crab Tree Farm and numerous private collections are illustrated, providing a thematic tour of the movement.
We asked you:
In which year was the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society founded?
Answer: 1887
Congratulations to Mary Costello, winner of this competition, drawn at random from all of the correct answers that we received over the last few weeks.
This week our competition prize is 'From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern', by Richard R. Brettell and C.D. Dickerson III (Yale; $65). This lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanied the Kimbell Art Museum's 2009 exhibition presenting the first comprehensive survey of the history of private art collecting in Texas. The book tells the stories of seminal Texas collectors – including Marion Koogler McNay, John and Dominique de Menil, and Raymond and Patsy Nasher – and introduces many of the most important collectors still active in the state. Focusing on the art of Europe and the ancient Mediterranean from around 700 BC to the 1940s, this survey offers a spectacular look at the way that Texans have built a tradition of collecting since the oil boom of the 1920s. Comprehensive discusssions of each of the 113 works in the exhibition are included – many of which have never before been studied or published – together with historic and contemporary photography of home interiors.
For your chance to win, simply answer the following question:
In 1935 Kay and Velma Kimbell became private art collectors. In which year did they establish the Kimbell Art Foundation?
Email your answers to offers@apollomag.com using 'Texas' as the subject of your email. Only answers received before midday on 15 January will be entered into the competition draw.
Good luck!
LATEST NEWS & COMMMENT
Around the galleries
Now in its 30th year, the London Park Lane Arms Fair returns with its annual array of fine arms and armoury. Elsewhere in the capital, impressive surveys of Freud, Hirst and mid-century British art can be found.
Architecture
George Gilbert Scott described the dome as ‘the noblest of all forms’, and it appears as a powerful symbol in secular and religious architecture throughout history. On the island of Malta, however, the craze for dome-building reached astonishing heights.

