Dimensions
297 x 201 x 21mm
Maurice de Sausmarez set up the Department of Fine Art at the University of Leeds where he was Head, later he also became Head of Fine Art at Hornsey College of art, and then Principal of the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting in London. He was an outspoken critic of post-war art education, and was integral to the formation and implimentation of the national Art Diploma in the early 1960s, defining standards of teaching for a subject that he loved.
He was also an artist and an art critic, and his writings show a shrewd understanding and knowledge of his passion. In 1964, he wrote Basic Design: the Dynamics of Visual Form, a book that has never been out of print, and has cemented de Sausmarez's name within the education of generations of visual arts students, even into the 21st Century. Sir James Dyson, a student at Byam Shaw, credits de Sausmarez with setting him on the path of industrial design (Desert Island Discs, June 25th, 1999)