r.ackermann




 * Rudolf Ackermann Publishing House
 * 1807-1808
 * London
 * Repository of Arts Shop No. 101 Strand Beaufort Buildings
 * Ackermann's unknown artist, Joshua Bryant
 * Lithograph printing press



Rudolf Ackermann was a very successful entrepreneur and printer in England. By the end of his lifetime he was earning roughly 30,000 Guinea per year. In 1795, Ackermann leased his first publishing shop at No. 96 Strand in the Beaufort Buildings. He then moved the shop to a larger space at No. 101 Strand. In this space, Ackermann opened a drawing school in addition to his printing business. The downstairs of the shop housed various art supplies and art prints from his engravers, colorists, and draftsmen. He aimed to showcase art by artists who were not accepted into the Royal Academy (Burwick 16). Therefore, he sold prints and published many drawing manuals from unknown artists while his drawing school was still open. It appears that Joshua Bryant, the author of Bryant’s Progressive Lessons in Landscape, was one of Ackermann’s unknown artists.

Out of the manuals printed there is no mention of Bryant's Progressive Lessons in Landscape; this could be due to the rarity of the book. According to Goucher’s records, Joshua Bryant, was the author of Ackermann's New Drawing Book of Light and Shadow, in Imitation of India Ink (1809-12). Some of the manuals he printed were Ackermann's New Drawing Book of Light and Shadow, in Imitation of India Ink (1809-12); Rudiments of Landscape: In Progressive Studies (1813); The First Principles of Landscape Drawing (1813); etc. (Burwick 16). Bryant’s Progressive Lessons in Landscape is not mentioned in Burwick’s encyclopedia. That does not mean that the book was not conceived from Ackermann and Bryant’s working relationship in the Ackermann School. The book was published shortly after Ackermann closed his drawing school in 1806. The school’s closing was to make space for Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts Shop (Burwick 15). Like a person, Bryant’s Progressive Lessons in Landscape has an origin. Its life began in a modest print shop and then went out into the world, and paralleled the lives of the people it came in contact with. Moreover, the fame associated with Ackermann probably gave Bryant’s Progressive Lessons in Landscape some authority as an art book.

In 1809, Ackermann started publishing his most famous work, a literary magazine called The Ackermann Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics. The magazine was better known as Ackermann’s Repository and was printed until 1819 (Burwich 16). The publication was geared toward women. Realizing there was a market in women's interest, Ackermann printed another literary magazine called Forget Me Not from 1823 - 1847 (Burwick 18). In some years he sold more than 20,000 copies. The sheer volume of magazines printed and sold illustrates how successful his publications were and his affluence (Burwick 18). After his death in the 1830s his sons took over the family business and expanded into the United States and Central America (Burwick 18). Ackermann created a printing dynasty. The texts he published had some authority because of Ackermann’s fame. He was the man that spearheaded illustrated books with his innovative lithograph and aquatint press (Burwick 16). Bryant’s Progressive Lessons in Landscape was one of him any publishing children that he sent off into the world. The question is, how many copies and editions were made of Bryant’s?