Nicolas McDowall, who has died aged 84, spent a lifetime creating beautiful books, for the last 40 years through the private press that he established with his wife, Frances, which they named (after a footpath stile) the Old Stile Press.
Among dozens of artists who worked directly with them were Natalie d’Arbeloff, Glenys Cour, John Elwyn, Garrick Palmer and Peter Reddick. They published historical texts and worked with contemporary writers including Ted Hughes, George Mackay Brown and Kevin Crossley-Holland. Each book was a beautiful object that brought word, image, type, paper, binding and slipcase into a creative unity, ranging from miniatures and pamphlets to a folio of Philip Sutton’s woodcuts nearly half a metre square.
Nicolas was born in Emsworth, Hampshire. His father, Toby McDowall, was a doctor and his mother, Nell (nee Kewley), was a full-time mother. Nicolas was unhappy at Winchester college but studying philosophy at the University of St Andrews was a joyous contrast and it was there he met his future wife, Frances Pickering.
They married in 1964, by which time both were working in publishing, Frances at OUP and Nicolas at Edward Arnold. He began as a sales rep then moved into commissioning, eventually as a director, promoting bold design in books for schools.
In the 1970s Nicolas took classes in typesetting and bookbinding and built a studio in their garden at Blackheath, south London. With Robin and Heather Tanner as crucial friends and mentors, the first Old Stile Press book came out in 1981. In the late 1980s, they moved to a house beside the River Wye upstream of Tintern Abbey.
Peace, natural surroundings and creative work were a tonic to the debilitating depression that Nicolas had had periodically since his schooldays; while Frances toured the international book fairs he enjoyed spending day after day at his presses and roaming a garden that stretched from river to woods. This Arcadian idyll was shared by like-minded artists and writers (I was one), and visitors to their collection of work by neo-romantic artists, an exhibition of which toured public galleries between 2015 and 2019.
Frances died in 2019. Nicolas is survived by their son, Daniel, and daughter, Cressida, and six grandchildren. The books of the Old Stile Press are in collections across the world and its archive has been acquired by the University of Indiana.
