My Books

Is a watch ever a work of art? Is a watchmaker ever an artist? To answer these questions and many more, Michael Clerizo spent months listening to eleven of the world’s most renowned watchmakers. From the Isle of Man to the Left Bank of the Seine, from Barcelona to Dresden, from the Jura Mountains to Lake Geneva, these extraordinary individuals told their stories.We hear of lives heavily laced with setbacks but sustained by an all conquering passion and suffused with the sweet satisfaction of mastering the skills of mechanical watchmaking, and crowned with the invigorating success of finding others willing to buy and treasure their work. Few books have such a safe, captive and targeted audience as this one; and few are so revealing of the supreme heights of ingenuity and perfection that exist in a high-tech era.

Master watch designer and inventor George Daniels was regarded as the finest exponent of his craft in the world. Over the course of his career he laboriously constructed just 25 watches using antiquated tools, creating almost every component by hand. Experts appreciate these watches as milestones in the art of watchmaking, and the timepieces now change hands for sums of up to £200,000. This volume features comprehensive images of all of the unique watches Daniels produced in his career. Meticulous photography captures not only each masterpiece’s distinctive face, but also the detail behind the dial and the intricate workings that power the watch itself. Rare and previously unseen images from Daniels’s own archive of photographs and working drawings are also reproduced. Michael Clerizo worked closely with George Daniels in the preparation of this book, the craftsman recounting his life and career over their innumerable conversations at his home on the Isle of Man. That ample biography is also contained herein, ensuring that the book is a fitting and authentic tribute to the greatest watchmaker of the twentieth century.