World of Art is a long established series of pocket-sized art books from the British publisher Thames & Hudson, comprising over 300 titles as of 2021. The books are typically around 200 pages, but heavily illustrated. Unlike some concise or popular art books, the layout is traditional with text and pictures often on the same page, but segregated. The series was launched in 1958, and over 300 titles have been published in all; according to Christopher Frayling, former Principal of the Royal College of Art, "there are paint-stained copies in every art school in the land".
Evolution of the cover design. 1, Herbert Read's A Concise History of Modern Painting, originally published in 1959 in the series, which became a foundational text for art students everywhere. 2, Michael Levey's A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne. 3, Whitney Chadwick's Women, Art, and Society. 4, Richard J. Powell's Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. 5, Patrick Waldberg's Surrealism. 6, James H. Rubin's Monet.
Some earliest hardbacks with glossy dust jackets, spanning the period 1961–1980, the majority of these publications date back to the 1960s.
Sir Herbert Edward Read, was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. As well as being a prominent English anarchist, he was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism. He was co-editor with Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler of the British edition in English of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.
Herbert Read in 1966