Books

Nigel Benson has authored and co-written a number of books as well as acting as consultant on others.

In 2000 Miller's published Collecting Modern Design. Nigel Benson acted as Glass Consultant for this Miller’s Publication. It encapsulates a brief history of glass in four separate sections within the book, starting in the early part of the 20th century and finishing with the Studio Glass Movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s, in a given number of ‘spreads’.

Additionally, each essay, or chapter, was conceived to run consecutively, in order to give a narrative covering the pertinent points of glass design through the 20th century, should the reader wish to read those sections alone. Nigel was also responsible for selecting the small number of items that represented each period from specific sources that had not been used in other publications at the time.

In the same year Miller's asked Nigel to write a book in the Miller’s Collector’s Guide series. The resulting book Glass of the 50's and 60's covered collecting glass of the 1950’s and 1960’s from across the world within the tight format of the series. One aspect of the book was that glass was to be available and at a price that any collector could afford.

The brief also required that, if possible, glass that had not been generally acknowledged by collectors be selected as a precursor to future collecting. Although it was also necessary to include some of the more sought after work by designers as a goal to achieve.

The text and captions were written by Nigel, who also selected all the items to be photographed and commissioned specially by the publisher. This small 64pp book has been received well and has sold successfully.

In 2003 Nigel Benson and Jeanette Hayhurst (a fellow glass dealer) held a groundbreaking exhibition on cut glass, entitled Art Deco to Post Modernism – A Legacy of British Art Deco Glass.

The exhibition was to highlight an area of glass collecting that hitherto had been largely ignored by the collecting and museum fraternities. It took some eight years to assemble the items. A 40pp catalogue was produced for the event in which Nigel wrote the essays about each manufacturer and Jeanette took the photographs and wrote the captions. Both undertook original research for the exhibition and its catalogue.

The catalogue is full of information and images that have not before been collated within the covers of a book. Whilst there may be pieces
written and illustrated within other publications there is probably more in this compact volume than in all those publications put together on the period 1920 – 1970 about British cut glass.

The exhibition has since received outside recognition as it won the ‘In-House Exhibition of the Year’ Award given by the British Antiques and Collectables Awards (BACA) in August 2004.