HILLIER, Bevis 1940-

PERSONAL: Born March 28, 1940, in Redhill, Surrey, England; immigrated to the United States, 1984; son of Jack Ronald (an author) and Mary Louise (an author; maiden name, Palmer) Hillier. Education: Attended Magdalen College, Oxford, 1959-62. Hobbies and other interests: Piano, collecting antiques.

ADDRESSES: Home—Goldbeaters House, Manette St., London W1, England. Offıce—Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Sq., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Agent— The Maggie Noach Literary Agency, 21 Redan St., London W14 0AB, England.

CAREER: Times, London, England, home news reporter, 1963-65, sale room correspondent, 1965-69, antiques correspondent, 1970-84, deputy literary editor, 1981-84; British Museum, London, editor of Museum Society Bulletin, 1968-70, public relations director, 1969-71; full-time writer, 1971-73; Connoisseur (magazine), London, editor, 1973-76; freelance editor, 1976-80; Telegraph Sunday (magazine), London, features editor, 1980-82; Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, associate editor, 1984—. Guest curator and organizer of Art Deco exhibition, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1971; visiting fellow, Huntington Library, 1983.

MEMBER: Society of Authors, Royal Society of Arts (fellow), English Ceramic Circle, Beefsteak Club (London, England), Garrick Club (London, England).

AWARDS, HONORS: Gladstone Memorial prize, 1961.

WRITINGS:

Master Potters of the Industrial Revolution, Cory, Adams & Mackay (London, England), 1965.

Pottery and Porcelain, 1700-1914, Meredith (New York, NY), 1968.

Art Deco of the Twenties and Thirties, Dutton (New York, NY), 1968, revised edition, Schocken Books, 1985.

Posters, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1969.

Cartoons and Caricatures, Dutton (New York, NY), 1970.

The World of Art Deco, Dutton (New York, NY), 1971.

(Compiler) 100 Years of Posters, Harper (New York, NY), 1972.

(Compiler and author of introduction) Punorama; or,The Best of the Worst: Victorian Puns, illustrated by Peter Mackarell, Whittington Press (Andoversford, England), 1974.
The Decorative Arts of the Forties and Fifties: Austerity Binge, C. N. Potter (New York, NY), 1975, published as Austerity Binge: The Decorative Arts of the Forties and Fifties, Studio Vista (London, England), 1975.

(With Brian Coe, Russell Ash, Helen Varley) VictorianStudio Photographs from the Collections of Studio Bassano and Elliott & Fry, Ash & Grant (London, England), 1975.

(Editor, with Mary Banham) A Tonic to the Nation:The Festival of Britain 1951, prologue by Roy Strong, Thames & Hudson (London, England), 1976.

Travel Posters, Dutton (New York, NY), 1976.

Victorian Studio Photographs, David R. Godine (Boston, MA), 1976.

(Editor) Dead Funny, Ash & Grant (London, England), 1976.

The New Antiques, Times Books (London, England), 1977.

Asprey of Bond Street, 1781-1981, Quartet Books (New York, NY), 1981.

The Simon and Schuster Pocket Guide to Antiques, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1981.

The Style of the Century, 1900-1980, Dutton (New York, NY), 1983, 2nd edition with new chapter by Kate McIntyre published as The Style of the Century, Watson-Guptill Publications (New York, NY), 1998.

(Compiler and author of introduction) John Betjeman:A Life in Pictures, J. Murray/Herbert Press (London, England), 1984.

Young Betjeman, J. Murray (London, England), 1988.

John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love, J. Murray (London, England), 2002.

Also author of introduction to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Memorabilia: The Vintage Years, 1928-1938, Abrams (New York, NY). Regular reviewer for Sunday Times; contributor to Connoisseur, Apollo, Cornhill, Daily Telegraph, and Guardian. Editor, British Museum Society Bulletin, 1968-70.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A third volume on John Betjeman.

SIDELIGHTS: Bevis Hillier is a journalist and antiques expert who is especially knowledgeable about styles of the early twentieth century, such as Art Deco and the art forms of posters, cartoons, and photography of that period. One of his more recent books on Art Deco, 1998's Art Deco Style, was praised by Library Journal critic P. Steven Thomas for its "crisply written" style and "lively discussion" of the 1920s and 1930s.

An authority on the poet and critic John Betjeman, Hillier has written two volumes of a projected trilogy on the poet, including Young Betjeman and John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love. The first book, according to Times Literary Supplement contributor Samuel Hynes, "lingers in the mind as a meticulously detailed catalogue of the slights, humiliations and failures suffered by a shy outsider with a foreign name who desperately wants to be inside." The second volume details the period in which Betjeman achieved recognition; Hynes praised its comprehensiveness, concluding that readers "can sink back in a state of pleasant biographical fatigue, satisfied, after 600 pages, that we must know all there is to know about Betjeman's middle period."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Biography, spring, 2003, Samuel Hynes, review of John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love, p. 348.

Hobbies, February, 1982, review of The Simon and

Schuster Pocket Guide to Antiques, p. 77.

Library Journal, May 1, 1998, P. Steven Thomas, review of Art Deco Style, p. 97.

New Yorker, June 24, 1985, V. S. Pritchett, review of John Betjeman: A Life in Pictures, p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, September 30, 1983, review of TheStyle of the Century, 1900-1980, p. 101; May 3, 1985, review of John Betjeman, p. 57.

Times Higher Education Supplement, April 11, 2003, Timothy Mowl, review of John Betjeman, p. 24.

Times Literary Supplement, January 17, 2003, Samuel Hynes, review of John Betjeman, p. 5.

Yankee, December, 1981, Geoffrey Elan, review of The Simon and Schuster Pocket Guide to Antiques, p. 184.*