Celebrated by some for his naturalism and his revolutionary pictorial inventions, he was considered by others to have destroyed painting. Few other artists have provoked such controversy and so many contradictory interpretations right up to modern times.  On the heels of Caravaggio year 2010, this work offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio’s entire oeuvre, with a catalogue raisonné of his works. Five introductory chapters analyze his artistic career from his training in Lombard Milan and his triumphal rise in papal Rome, up to his dramatic final years in Naples, Malta, and Sicily. The spotlight thereby falls upon the radical nature and innovative force of Caravaggio’s art and its influence in all of Europe.   Our understanding of Caravaggio’s work has been substantially broadened in recent decades by major exhibitions, restoration campaigns, new attributions and archival discoveries. The new catalogue raisonné offers a detailed overview of the artist’s entire oeuvre based on the latest research. Every painting is reproduced in large-scale format, with spectacular details that offer dramatic close-ups and set new standards in print quality. A new photographic campaign has been undertaken, enabling the smallest details to be reproduced on a large scale for the first time.They reveal all the more clearly Caravaggio’s virtuosity and his enormous ability to capture the viewer’s attention and to build a communicative bridge between the worlds of picture and viewer. Sequences of spectacular details grouped by subject allow us to experience Caravaggio’s ingenious rhetoric of looks and gestures and their theatrical staging in paint.

    The rest of us just show up and get to work."Chuck CloseInside an art gallery, it is easy to forget that the paintings there are the end products of a process involving not only creative inspiration, but also plenty of physical and logistical details. It is these "cruder," more mundane aspects of a painter's daily routine that motivated Brooklyn artist Joe Fig to embark almost ten years ago on a highly unorthodox, multilayered exploration of the working life of the professional artist. Determined to ground his research in the physical world, Fig began constructing a series of diorama-like miniature reproductions of the studios of modern art's most legendary painters, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. A desire for firsthand references led Fig to approach contemporary artists for access to their studios. Armed with a camera and a self-made "Artist's Questionnaire," Fig began a journey through the workspaces of some of today's most exciting contemporary artists.Inside the Painter's Studio collects twenty-four remarkable artist interviews, as well as exclusive visual documentation of their studios. Featured artists were asked a wide range of questions about their day-to-day creative life, covering everything from how they organize their studios to what painting tools they prefer. Artists open up about how they set a creative mood, how they choose titles, and even whether they sit or stand to contemplate their work. Also included are a selection of Fig's meticulously detailed miniatures. In this context Fig's diminutive sculpturesreproducing minutiae of the studio, from paint-tube labels and paint splatters on the floor to the surface texture of canvasesbecome part of a fascinating new form of portraiture as diorama. Inside the Painter's Studio offers a rare look into the self-made universe of the artist's studio. Inside the Painter's Studio features interviews with Gregory Amenoff, Ross Bleckner, Chuck Close, Will Cotton, Inka Essenhigh, Eric Fischl, Barnaby Furnas, April Gornik, Jane Hammond, Mary Heilmann, Bill Jensen, Ryan McGinness, Julie Mehretu, Malcolm Morley, Steve Mumford, Philip Pearlstein, Matthew Ritchie, Alexis Rockman, Dana Schutz, James Siena, Amy Sillman, Joan Snyder, Billy Sullivan, and Fred Tomaselli.

     Working alongside skilled photographers, Rockwell acted as director, carefully orchestrating models, selecting props, and choosing locations for the photographs -- works of art in their own right -- that served as the basis of his iconic images. Readers will be surprised to find that many of his most memorable characters -- the girl at the mirror, the young couple on prom night, the family on vacation -- were friends and neighbors who served as his amateur models. In this groundbreaking book, author and historian Ron Schick delves into the archive of nearly 20,000 photographs housed at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Featuring reproductions of Rockwell's black-and-white photographs and related full-color artworks, along with an incisive narrative and quotes from Rockwell models and family members, this book will intrigue anyone interested in photography, art, and Americana.

    In the process, he created a classic, but was left feeling less than satisfied. Ever the completist, the gaping omissions in the first book gnawed at him and drove him to envision compiling the ultimate encyclopedia of Skateboard decks. While Disposable was beautiful, capturing the essence of the aesthetic, The Disposable Skateboard Bible sets out to be the ultimate guide. The author's industry insider status (in 1989 he landed his first job as a designer at Powell-Peralta) allows him to guide readers through the culture and experience, the art and the mania of the skate world with authority and expertise. While the boards take center stage, fascinating vignettes and recollections by an A-list of skateboarding personalities from Tony Hawk to Mike Vallely, Mark Gonzales to Stacy Peralta and more.

    An expert and comprehensive reference book on the life and works of influential Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh.

    The book proceeds chronologically, accompanied by a timeline to offer helpful historical context. Each artist's entry includes a concise biography, beautiful reproductions of major works, and lively texts that speak directly to young readers. Games, quizzes and other activities help readers learn about the significant contributions of each artist in a way that is both fun and inspiring. Additional information about museums, suggestions for further reading, and online resources will satisfy the most curious minds.

    "Provides a picture-by-picture introduction to 35 of the world's best-known, best-loved paintings -- from oil paintings to prints -- all beautifully reproduced and explained in a simple, engaging way"--Back cover.

    Five hundred great works of art from all periods and regions in the world have been carefully selected and are arranged in chronological order, breaking through the usual geographical and cultural boundaries of art history to celebrate the vast range of human artistry.

    He rose to fame in 2003 when he won the prestigious Turner Prize and collected the award wearing a lilac babydoll dress and red pumps. His hard-hitting yet exquisite work, which includes prints, embroidery, sculpture, drawings, and ceramics, references his own upbringing and his life as a transvestite as well as engaging with broader issues such as war, religion, and sex.This lavishly illustrated monograph explores Perry’s work through a discussion of his major themes and subjects, and the text is complemented by a series of intimate, insightful commentaries on individual pieces by the artist himself. The book features some 150 of Perry’s works as well as a rich selection of the visual material that has inspired him, from Afghan war rugs, medieval altarpieces, and satirical prints to the paintings of Pieter Brueghel, Anselm Kiefer, and the American Outsider artist Henry Darger. With an up-to-date biography, bibliography, and exhibition history, this definitive book is the first to explore fully the achievements of Perry’s twenty-five-year career.

    Selected from more than 8,000 entries by the distinguished art critic, historian, and professor Glen R. Brown—an elected member of the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva—these exquisite works will inspire both beginning and professional ceramists, as well as collectors and enthusiasts. They include Esther Shimazu’s hand-built, Asian-influenced nudes; Von Venhuizen’s mixed-media, wheel-thrown stoneware, and Katy’s Rush’s slip-cast and press-molded porcelain. Every work is amazing.

    Photo-realism, landscape, still-life, portraiture, neo-expressionism, installation painting and the Leipzig school are just some of the areas of this thriving art medium explored by Tony Godfrey. Organized by themes, Painting Today showcases the broad range of styles, materials and methods that comprise contemporary painting. Insightful and accessible, Painting Today's approach will appeal to scholars and newcomers to the subject alike.

    Her extravagant lifestyle, eccentric personality, and scandalous escapades captivated and inspired some of the most influential artists of her time. She was painted by Boldini and Augustus John, sketched by Drian and Alastair, and photographed by Man Ray and Cecil  Beaton, among others. Jean Cocteau praised her strange beauty; Jack Kerouac dedicated poems to her; Fortuny, Poiret, and Erte dressed her. She continues to inspire top designers today, including John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld.The Marchesa Casati is a visual biography, telling Casati's captivating life story alongside the art and designs she has inspired, featuring 200 images covering her lifetime and beyond. Personal family momentos, paintings, sculptures, and photographs, some never before seen, illustrate the artistic and cultural legacy she left behind. Runway images, sketches, and advertorials show her continuing impact on the present-day fashion community."The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse explores Casati's heart and soul. It's a wonderfully complete portrait of a style icon, during her life and afterward, lavishly illustrated with more than 200 images, including personal mementos, and the art and designs she has inspired even today."�Booth Moore, Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2009"The story of the Marchesa Luisa Casati's life resembles a fable for our times. Ryersson and Yaccarino present a compelling collection of images to tell the story of Italy's richest heiress at turn of the last century, whose married aristocratic life and progeny were cast aside to indulge in a dramatically theatrical existence...She emerges a heroine, living the fantasy, all the way to the end."�Glass Magazine"With incredible passion for the Marchesa Casati, Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino have worked tirelessly to create a stunning homage and a visual biography to this legendary woman who continues to inspire fashion and style." --Diane von Furstenberg

    In this new edition, bead expert Lois Sherr Dubin updates all chapters with the latest archeological discoveries, opens a new chapter on contemporary adornment since the 1980s, with a focus on glass beads, and best of all, adds 200 beads to what is considered by many to be the piece de resistance: the eight-page gatefold timeline that guides readers through the remarkably rich history of the world's first form of adornment. The latest revisions include the oldest bead ever discovered, dating to 108,000 b.c. and explain why beads worn on the human body were the original media communication system. Updates include the numerous maps scattered throughout, which have been modernized and are now in color; 72 formerly black-and-white images have been replaced with full color; and 125 new photographs were added to this edition. Beautifully packaged with a new cover, this revised and expanded edition is a must-have for devotees of the first edition and for the next generation of bead obsessives and aficionados.

    From her opulent, bohemian childhood in Italy to her debut in a group exhibition at the age of seventeen and her rise in the international art world, Fini was legendary for both her vivacious personality and her ethereal subjects.  This is the first comprehensive look at Finis life and art.Fini’s figures—sphinxes, felines, nymphs, priestesses, nudes— are bold proclamations of female sexuality that convey a powerful feminine subconscious. Also renowned for her theatrical set-design, costumes and posters, the artist developed close relationships with other avant-garde Surrealists including Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Max Ernst, who became her lover. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s nude portrait of Fini in a pool, taken while they were vacationing together, recently sold at auction for a record sum. Sphinx is a fascinating portrait of a magnetic woman who lived her life with panache and elegance, deftly wrapping drama into her art.   “Fêted for her paintings, illustrations, theatre designs and, above all, her flamboyant bohemian lifestyle.” ~ The Sunday Telegraph: Stella Magazine “One of the most flamboyantly potent female artists of the mid-20th century — outspoken, provocative and willfully contrary.” ~ The Times “A sort of female Dalí—colourful, extravagant, as famous in her heyday for her personal appearance as her art.”~ Malkin Towers Media blog“This opulent tome befits her perfectly.” Grazia“Dreamlike paintings.” ~ ELuxury  “One of those artists whose life may have been her greatest work.” ~ The Philadelphia Inquirer “Glamorous Surrealist.” ~ Vogue  “A sensuous celebration of female sexuality.” ~ Dangerous Minds  “Her story is certainly fantastic.” ~ Spectator  “Compellingly individual.” ~ Bloomberg.com  “A fascinating subject.” ~ The Art Newspaper  “Gorgeous.” ~ Nothing Elegant blog  “A wonderful visual survey of an extraordinary career.” ~ The Independent “Exquisite.” ~ The Vintage Academe Blog

    It includes all of the important art movements, from Renaissance to Rococo, as well as the great painters from all these eras. However, the approach is to look at art as an international exchange of ideas, not a straight history of western art. The book includes art from all countries, from aboriginal art to totem poles.

    This elegant book pairs spectacular reproductions of some of his most important paintings with his own words to create a uniquely personal look at the work of one of the worlds most renowned artists. The poetic text introduces readers to the Impressionists' goal of capturing a fleeting moment and makes this an art book perfect for the young and the young at heart.

    Based on extensive fieldwork and research, this work maps out the regional crafts identified across the country on the basis of prevailing craftwork patterns. It is closely woven with images to reveal the array of crafts in India, enabling the reader to discern subtle, sometimes unusual, differences in the same craft practiced by distinct regions or communities. Some of these are well known, like the woodwork of Kashmir, blue pottery of Jaipur, and the bamboo craft of Assam. The authors also describe lesser-known crafts like stitched boots from Ladakh, paintings from Jharkhand, and tinsel printing in Ahmedabad.With its extensive photography, this unique volume will be a tremendous resource for product and textile designers, artists, architects, interior designers, collectors, development professionals, and connoisseurs alike.

    Divided into three sections - the movement, its fashion and advertising - the reader gains great insight into the artists and innovators that helped popularize the Art Deco movement, such as Georges Barbier, Erte, Cassandre and Paul Colin. Though the focus for this intriguing book is based on the graphic arts, there are numerous examples of their impact upon other facets of the Art Deco movement. Nestled amongst posters and paintings, sculpture and jewellery assert their similarity, whether through line, form or theme.

    Mucha went on to design hundreds of pieces in the decorative arts field, but later distanced himself from the style he pioneered, devoting his time and energy to painting. This book presents the full array of Mucha's artistic contributions-not only his posters and jewelry designs but also his design for the pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 1900 World's Fair. The book also includes his works on canvas, which include pastels and frescoes, and his magnum opus, The Slavic Epic, a series of 20 paintings depicting the history of his native people. A stunning selection of 700 color illustrations is accompanied with essays that explore Mucha's style and inspirations, his transition away from the decorative arts, and his forays into photography. Fans of Art Nouveau will treasure this dazzling and unique study of the artist and his contributions to design and illustration.

    Self-portraits catch your eye. They seem to do it deliberately. Walk into any art gallery and they draw attention to themselves. Come across them in the world's museums and you get a strange shock of recognition, rather like glimpsing your own reflection. For in picturing themselves artists reveal something far deeper than their own physical looks: the truth about how they hope to be viewed by the world, and how they wish to see themselves. In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book, Laura Cumming, art critic of the Observer, investigates the drama of the self-portrait, from Durer, Rembrandt and Velazquez to Munch, Picasso, Warhol and the present day. She considers how and why self-portraits look as they do and what they reveal about the artist's innermost sense of self -- as well as the curious ways in which they may imitate our behaviour in real life. Drawing on art, literature, history, philosophy and biography to examine the creative process in an entirely fresh way, Cumming offers a riveting insight into the intimate truths and elaborate fictions of self-portraiture and the lives of those who practise it. A work of remarkable depth, scope and power, this is a book for anyone who has ever wondered about the strange dichotomy between the innermost self and the self we choose to present for posterity -- our face to the world.

    The most comprehensive and up-to-date survey available about women Surrealists features an outstanding array of artists from the early twentieth century to modern times.

    Beautifully designed, accessible, and informative, these little books are a repository of ideas and inspiration for designers of all kinds. Included in each volume is a CD of all the images shown within--to be redrawn, reworked, or even licensed for further use.  The books are available individually or in a beautiful decorative slipcase. INDIAN FLORALSLuscious patterns derived from plants and flowers have been used in India for centuries. Lotus flowers and floral meanders are seen in third-century Buddhist sites, and were given an additional dimension by European prints and books that made their way to the sub-continent in the early seventeenth century

    Beginning with charcoal drawings made in 1915, which were among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time, O’Keeffe sought to transcribe pure emotion in her work. While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the 1950s with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America’s first abstractionists.In addition to rethinking O’Keeffe’s role in the development of a uniquely American abstract style, this book chronicles the shifts and changes in subject matter and style over the span of her long career. It adds significant new insight into her life, reproducing excerpts of previously sealed letters written by O’Keeffe to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, whom she married in 1924. These previously unpublished letters, along with other primary documents referenced by the authors, offer an intimate glimpse into her creative method and intentions as an artist.

    This extensively illustrated volume is published in conjunction with the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the arts of the samurai. It includes the finest examples of swords—the spirit of the samurai—as well as sword mountings and fittings, armor and helmets, saddles, banners, and paintings. The objects in the catalogue, drawn entirely from public and private collections in Japan, feature more than 100 officially designated national treasures and important cultural properties. Dating from the 5th to the 19th century, these majestic works offer a complete picture of samurai culture and its unique blend of the martial and the refined. Many of the greatest Japanese blade makers are represented in this volume, from the earliest koto ("old sword") masters such as Yasuie (12th century) and Tomomitsu (14th century) to the Edo-period smiths Nagasone Kotetsu and Kiyomaro. These blades, cherished as much for their beauty as for their cutting effectiveness, were equipped with elaborate hilts and scabbards prized for their exquisite craftsmanship and materials, including silk, rayskin, gold, lacquer, and alloys unique to Japan, such as shakudo and shibuichi. Japanese armor is also fully surveyed, from the rarest iron armor of the Kofun period (5th century) to the inventive ceremonial helmets made toward the end of the age of the samurai.

    Their diverse taste ranged from manuscripts and musical instru­ments to paintings by Old Masters and the avant-garde. But their stigma as Jews in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe doomed them to exile or death in Hitler’s concentration camps. Here, after years of meticulous research, Melissa Müller (Anne Frank: The Biography) and Monika Tatzkow (Nazi Looted Art) present the tragic, compelling stories of 15 Jewish collectors, the dispersal of their extraordinary collections through forced sale and/or confiscation, and the ongoing efforts of their heirs to recover their inheritance. For every victory in the effort to return these works to their rightful heirs, there are daunting defeats and long court battles. This real-life legal thriller follows works by Rembrandt, Klimt, Pissarro, Kandinsky, and others. Praise for Lost Lives, Lost Art: <!--StartFragment--> “A heartbreaking and enthralling story of the brutal and mindless Nazi destruction of a singularly cultivated caste of rich German and Austrian Jews and the pillage of their great art collections: a world that was lost and could never be recreated.” ~ Louis Begley"Each chapter focuses on a single collector. . . the adulatory profiles [are] matched with an attractive layout and an abundance of well-selected images." ~ Wall Street Journal "The book is meticulously researched, brilliantly and dispassionately written, and is in all likelihood a game changer in the world of art, art provenance, and art restitution that will resound for years to come."~ ForeWord Reviews"Richly illustrated with excellent art reproductions and family photographs, this is a solid addition to works on Nazi art plundering and the world of art restitution, ownership, and property rights. This will be of great interest to readers wanting to know more about upper-class Austrian and German Jews. Recommended." ~ Library Journal

    He often imbued these subjects with highly expressionistic light, creating at times a clear-eyed description of the world and at other times, a unique mystical and visionary experience of nature. The book includes drawings from his 1917 sketchbook, Conventions for Abstract ThoughtsA"; watercolors from 1916-18 that were the focus of the first one-person exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Germany, in 1930; camouflage designs from his tour in the army and wallpaper designs from the 1920s; watercolors from the 1940s showing the artist's unique technique of expanding and reworking earlier works by pasting large strips of paper around them to dramatically increase their size; and finally Burchfield's large, transcendental watercolours from the 1950s and 1960s.

    These paintings and ten others are featured in the book in large reproductions with accompanying details. The readable text offers biographical information about each artist and important facts about the painting's technical and historical aspects. Games, quizzes, and coloring exercises provide additional opportunities for young readers to interact with the artworks, while a timeline throughout the book allows for easy historical orientation. Readers will return again and again to these works, which provide continued opportunities for contemplation and discovery.

    Enduring battles such as those at Loos and Vimy Ridge, Len survives with a mixture of whimsical humour, bravery and sheer good luck. Len enlisted as an infantryman in the City of London Regiment on his 23rd birthday, 22 September 1914. During the war years he kept a journal on scraps of paper which he hid in his trousers to smuggle home at the end of the war. At the same time, he added to his thoughts with colour sketches of the people and places he encountered. His drawing skills were also put to good use to gather and record intelligence on German army positions which he did under great personal risk; they were later used to help plan military strategy. One of his many ingenious contributions to the war was to camouflage a watch tower in no man's land as a living tree. He had crept within yards of an enemy headquarters and drawn a tree so accurately that a hollow steel replica could be created. In the dead of night the real tree was removed and the fake one put in its place, with the enemy none the wiser. He also spent four days avoiding enemy fire to produce a two-yard long panoramic view of enemy troop lines at Vimy Ridge. Len, who was never honoured for his actions during the war, was extremely humble about his adventures - after delivering a message through heavy fire a General remarked that his efforts were worthy of a VC. With characteristic good humour Len writes, "I'd like to have assured him in that ordeal a WC would have been more appropriate." The diary as a whole creates a tremendous sense of being at his side during his extraordinary experiences.

    This lavishly illustrated book presents all the luminous masterworks that Sargent completed during that fertile fifteen-year period: oils and watercolors that reveal his taste for the Renaissance, Baroque, and high style in art and architecture as they were seen in the city’s unique light. The book reproduces and documents 141 works, including several that are published for the first time. An authoritative essay explores the aesthetics of Sargent’s Venetian work, places it in the context of his oeuvre as a whole, explains Sargent’s relationships with his patrons in Venice, and discusses the exhibitions and marketing of this work in London and New York. The book also provides a map of Venice marking every known location that Sargent painted and displays dozens of contemporary color photographs of the sites.

    Venice was then among Europe's richest cities, and its plentiful commissions fostered an exceptionally fertile and innovative climate. In it, the three artists--brilliant, ambitious and fiercely competitive--vied with one another for primacy, employing such new media as oil on canvas, with its unique expressive possibilities, and such new approaches as a personal and identifiable signature style. They also pioneered the use of easel painting, a newly portable format that led to unprecedented fame in their lifetimes. With more than 150 stunning examples by the three masters and their contemporaries, this volume elucidates the technical and aesthetic innovations that helped define the uniquely rich Venetian style, as well as the social, political and economic context in which it flourished. Essays range from examinations of seminal new techniques to such crucial institutions as state commissions and the patronage system. Most of all, by concentrating on the lives and careers of Venice's three greatest painters, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese paints a vibrant human portrait--one brimming with savage rivalry, one-upsmanship, humor and passion.

    Their work enjoyed a popular national success that no other group of artists has achieved since. This seminal survey of the artists marks the first presentation of the outstanding collection at the New-York Historical Society. It features works by all the greatest artists of the group, including Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Church. Accompanying a major traveling exhibition, the book is also timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s first voyage up the Hudson River.

    In modern times, we have divorced color from its origins, using it for commercial advantage. Spike Bucklow shows us how in medieval times, color had mystical significance far beyond the enjoyment of shade and hue.Each chapter demonstrates the mindset of medieval Europe and is devoted to just one color, acknowledging its connections with life in the pre-modern world. Colors examined and explained in detail include a midnight blue called ultramarine, an opaque red called vermilion, a multitude of colors made from metals, a transparent red called dragonsblood, and, finally, gold.Today, “scarlet” describes a color, but it was originally a type of cloth. Henry VI's wardrobe accounts from 1438 to 1489 show that his cheapest scarlet was £14.2s.6d. and that scarlets could fetch up to twice that price. In the fifteenth century, a mid-priced scarlet cost more than two thousand kilos of cheese or one thousand liters of wine. This expense accounts for the custom of giving important visitors the "red carpet treatment."The book looks at how color was “read” in the Middle Ages and returns to materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists' version of the philosopher's stone. The penultimate chapter considers why everyone has always loved gold.Spike Bucklow is a conservation scientist working with oil paintings at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.

    From his earliest work, such as the Home and Studio in Oak Park, IL, of 1889, to the wonderfully evocative textile block houses of Los Angeles of the mid-1920s, to such seminal masterpieces as Fallingwater, of 1935, in the Pennsylvania wilderness, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, of 1956, in New York, the book offers an extraordinarily abundant trove of architectural riches. Featuring more than a hundred discrete works, from the well known to the obscure, expertly discussed in the text of highly respected Wright scholar Kathryn Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright weaves a gorgeous tapestry that will engage the mind and delight the eye.

    

    Published to accompany a traveling exhibit opening at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Slash: Paper Under the Knife examines the resurgence of traditional handcraft materials and techniques in contemporary art and design. Highlighting the work of forty-five international artists, among them Olafur Eliasson, Tom Friedman, William Kentridge, and Kara Walker, the book features not only cut but also burned, torn, laser-cut, shredded and sculpted paper art.In addition, the book includes cut paper animation, as well as cut paper incorporated in photography and fashion. Works range from small-scale intricate cuttings to large-scale architectural inventions and sculptures. With an essay by well-known decorative arts expert  David Revere McFadden, this singular book reveals that, with ingenuity and craftsmanship, one of our most familiar implements can be transformed into unforgettable works of art.

    In 1872, he famously helped settle a bet for former California governor Leland Stanford by photographing a galloping horse. Muybridge invented a complex system of electric shutter releases that captured freeze frames--proving conclusively, for the first time, that a galloping horse lifts all four hooves off the ground for a fraction of a second. For the next three decades, Muybridge continued his quest to fully catalog many aspects of human and animal movement, shooting hundreds of horses and other animals--and of nude or draped subjects engaged in various activities such as running, walking, boxing, fencing, and descending a staircase (the latter study inspired Marcel Duchamp's famous 1912 painting). This resplendent book traces the life and work of Muybridge, from his early thinking about anatomy and movement to his latest photographic experiments. The complete 781 plates of Muybridge's groundbreaking Animal Locomotion (1887) are reproduced here. In addition, Muybridge's handmade and extremely rare first illustrated album, The Attitudes of Animals in Motion (1881) is reproduced in its entirety. A detailed chronology by British researcher Stephen Herbert throws new light on one of the most important pioneers of photography. Text in English, French, and German

    Its frame of analysis is absorbed with historical transitions: from the end of the postcolonial utopias of the sixties during the 1980s to the geopolitical, economic, technological, and cultural shifts incited by globalization. This book is both narrower in focus in the periods it reflects on, and specific in the ground it covers. It begins by addressing the tumultuous landscape of contemporary Africa, examining landmarks and narratives, exploring divergent systems of representation, and interrogating the ways artists have responded to change and have incorporated new aesthetic principles and artistic concepts, images and imaginaries to deal with such changes. Organized in chronological order, the book covers all major artistic mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, drawing, collage. It also covers aesthetic forms and genres, from conceptual to formalist, abstract to figurative practices. Moving between discursive and theoretical registers, the principal questions the book analyzes are: what and when is contemporary African art? Who might be included in the framing of such a conceptual identity? It also addresses the question of globalization and contemporary African art.The book thus provides an occasion to examine through close reading and visual analysis how artistic concerns produce major themes. It periodizes and cross references artistic sensibilities in order to elicit multiple conceptual relationships, as well as breaks with prevailing binaries of center and periphery, vernacular and academic, urban and non-urban forms, indigenous and diasporic models of identification. In order to theorize how these concerns have been formulated in artistic terms and their creative consequences Contemporary African Art Since 1980 examines a range of ideas, concepts and issues that have shaped the work and practice of African artists within an international and global framework. It traces the shifts from earlier modernist strategies of the sixties and seventies after the period of decolonization, and the rise of pan-African nationalism, to the postcolonial representations of critique and satire that evolved from the 1980s, to the postmodernist irony of the 1990s, and to the globalist strategies of the 21st century.The main claim of this book is that contemporary African art can be best understood by examining the tension between the period of great political changes of the era of decolonization that enabled new and exciting imaginations of the future to be formulated, and the slow, skeptical, and social decline marked by the era of neo-liberalism and Structural Adjustment programs of the 1980s. These issues are addressed in chapters covering the themes of "Politics, Culture, Critique," "Memory and Archive," "Abstraction, Figuration and Subjectivity," and "The Body, Gender and Sexuality." In addition, the book employs sidebars to provide brief and incisive accounts of and commentaries on important contemporary political, economic and cultural events, and on exhibitions, biennales, workshops, artist groups and more. Rather than a comprehensive survey, this richly illustrated book presents examples of ambitious and important work by more than 160 African artists since the last 30 years. This list includes Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Luis Basto, Candice Breitz, Moustapha Dim�, Marlene Dumas, Victor Ekpuk, Samuel Fosso, Jak Katarikawe, William Kentridge, Rachid Koraichi, Mona Mazouk, Julie Mehretu, Nandipha Mntambo, Hassan Musa, Donald Odita, Iba Ndiaye, Richard Onyango, Ibrahim El Salahi, Issa Samb, Cheri Samba, Ousmane Sembene, Yinka Shonibare, Barthelemy Toguo, Obiora Udechukwu, and Sue Williamson.Okwui Enwezor, a leading curator and scholar of contemporary art, is the Dean of Academic Affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute, and founding publisher and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.Chika Okeke-Agulu is Assistant Professor of Art and Archeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.

    In her close examination of four seminal figures of the period—American artists Carl Andre, Robert Morris, and Hans Haacke, and art critic Lucy Lippard—Bryan-Wilson frames an engrossing new argument around the double entendre that “art works.” She traces the divergent ways in which these four artists and writers rallied around the “art worker” identity, including participating in the Art Workers' Coalition—a short-lived organization founded in 1969 to protest the war and agitate for artists' rights—and the New York Art Strike. By connecting social art history and theories of labor, this book illuminates the artworks and protest actions that were central to this pivotal era in both American art and politics.A Best Book of 2009, Artforum Magazine

    The protagonists of these works, derived from pictures in magazines or scientific books, are captured while engaging in activities whose exact nature seems both mundane and mysterious ("they're just sitting there breathing," Borremans told an interviewer), but the artist manages to freight these protagonists, and the air around them, with great emotional tension. Similarly, his apparently sober palette of beiges, browns and greys sometimes gives way to a small flourish of brighter color--a white bow or a ruddy-cheeked face--that breaks into and energizes the whole image. Such sleights of hand, by which paint discreetly but completely incarnates mood, are the crux of Borremans' art, and are what makes him one of the finest contemporary painters in Europe, an heir to the suspended enigmas of Manet and Velazquez and the indoor atmospherics of Chardin and Vermeer. This volume, with its engaging essay by Jeffrey Grove and abundance of color plates, is the first to present all of Borremans' paintings, and thus constitutes the standard survey of his significant accomplishments. Trained in photography and graphic design, the Belgian artist Micha�l Borremans (born 1963) turned to painting at the age of 30. He has had solo shows--of paintings and films--at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the David Zwirner gallery in New York, La Maison Rouge in Paris, Gallery Koyanagi in Tokyo and the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover.

    Michelangelo Buonarroti never wanted to paint the Sistine Chapel, though. Appointed by the temperamental Julius II, Michelangelo believed the suspiciously large-scale project to be a plot for failure conspired by his rivals and the "Warrior Pope." After all, Michelangelo was not a painter—he was a sculptor. The noble artist reluctantly took on the daunting task that would damage his neck, back, and eyes (if you have ever strained to admire the real thing, you know). Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story behind the famous painted ceiling over which the great artist painfully toiled for four long years. Linking Michelangelo's personal life to his work on the Sistine Chapel, Graham-Dixon describes Michelangelo's unique depiction of the Book of Genesis, tackles ambiguities in the work, and details the painstaking work that went into Michelangelo's magnificent creation. Complete with rich, full-color illustrations and Graham-Dixon's articulate narrative, Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel is an indispensable and significant piece of art criticism. It humanizes this heavenly masterpiece in a way that every art enthusiast, student, and professional can understand and appreciate.

    This stunning book draws on the major collection at the V&A to focus on the heart of the Medieval period from 1100 to 1500.Royalty and the nobility wore gold, silver, or precious gems, while humbler ranks wore base metals, copper or pewter, sometimes set with colored glass, in imitation of gems. This richly illustrated book, one of very few on this subject, looks at the jewels themselves—rings, bracelets, necklaces, amulets, crosses and crucifixes—as well as contemporary portraits and sculpture to place the jewelry in its cultural context.

    From his early text-and-image paintings to his more recent photo collages and installations, Baldessari has continued to make art that addresses the social impact of mass culture, often playfully through strategies of appropriation and deconstruction. Baldessari's lifelong interest in language, written and visual, and the interaction between the two, raises questions about the nature of communication and perception. More than 400 illustrations are presented in full colour in this monograph published in conjunction with a major exhibition organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Tate Modern in London. Eleven essays by critics, curators, art historians, and an artist and former student of Baldessari's round out this volume. Few contemporary artists have achieved the range and relevance of Baldessari's oeuvre, which is finally given its due in this elegant retrospective book.

    1955) has offered a fresh and distinctive glimpse of the daily lives of South Africans - both during the apartheid regime and after its collapse.This extraordinary catalog, produced in close collaboration with the artist, investigates the five primary themes that have engaged Kentridge over the course of his career such as: Soho and Felix: works featuring Kentridge's best-known characters, the businessman Soho Eckstein and his alter ego, the anxiety-ridden Felix Teitlebaum; Ubu and the Procession: inspired by Ubu Roi, these projects reflect the excitement, conflict, and rapid social changes in post-apartheid South Africa; Artist in the Studio: an examination of Kentridge's practice and his emergence as an installation artist; The Magic Flute: work related to the artist's set designs for Mozart's opera; and, The Nose: Kentridge's most recent production, including work inspired by his staging of the Shostakovich opera for New York's Metropolitan Opera in spring 2010.Kentridge has created a DVD especially for this publication; it includes fragments from significant film projects (both known and newly completed) as well as commentary that sheds further light on the artist's work. This is the first time that Kentridge has produced a DVD for one of his books.

    Mixing theory and practice, the personal and the political, she tackles questions about the place of feminism in art and political discourse, the aesthetics and values of contemporary painting, and the influence of the market on the creation of art. Schor writes across disciplines and is committed to the fluid interrelationship between a formalist aesthetic, a literary sensibility, and a strongly political viewpoint. Her critical views are expressed with poetry and humor in the accessible language that has been her hallmark, and her perspective is informed by her dual practice as a painter and writer and by her experience as a teacher of art.In essays such as “The ism that dare not speak its name,” “Generation 2.5,” “Like a Veneer,” “Modest Painting,” “Blurring Richter,” and “Trite Tropes, Clichés, or the Persistence of Styles,” Schor considers how artists relate to and represent the past and how the art market influences their choices: whether or not to disavow a social movement, to explicitly compare their work to that of a canonical artist, or to take up an exhausted style. She places her writings in the rich transitory space between the near past and the “nextmodern.” Witty, brave, rigorous, and heartfelt, Schor’s essays are impassioned reflections on art, politics, and criticism.

    Following the successful reception of Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting, Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing and Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, Vitamin 3-D aims to create a lively and informative survey of contemporary sculpture and installation from around the globe.  With 120 artists selected by 40 nominators, Vitamin 3-D will be an up-to-the-minute guide to the best artists working in three dimensions.

    These two regions developed their own distinct styles and techniques but were also influenced by one another in fascinating ways. In essays that focus on the intriguing relationship between artists working in Italy and northern Europe, renowned specialists analyze the notion of likeness––which, during this time, was based not only on accurate reference for posterity but also incorporated all aspects of human life, including propaganda, power, courtship, love, family, ambition, and hierarchy––through magnificent works by artists including Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Titian, among many others.The authors address different portrait types, styles, techniques, and iconographies, and discuss the connections between painting and sculpture and portrait medals. This stunning book also addresses the evolution of the full-length portrait and the “anti-ideal” in counter-portraits, which depict court jesters and dwarves. In these often satirical representations, painters could show off their skills as recorders of likeness without the restrictions imposed by idealization.

    This is an indispensable reference for museums, galleries, collectors, artists and academics, covering some 50 artists, with over 300 colour plates and many never-before-published works on American Tonalism.

    Includes more than 90 plates illustrating Park's development and career Park's paintings have seen a resurgence of interest among collectors and institutions, with 2009 exhibitions at Washington's Phillips Collection and Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center; pieces recently auctioned for $2.7 million at Christie's and $1.4 million at Sotheby's David Park, Painter: Nothing Held Back chronicles the brief but remarkably prolific career of this American artist, who died in 1960 at age 49. He was an integral part of the San Francisco Bay art community from the early 1930s on, and is counted as one of the group of immensely gifted artists who made up the Bay Area Figurative Painting movement in its nascent years of the 1950s. A painter deeply committed to humanity as a subject in an era that exalted abstraction, Park's work can be startling for its depth of feeling even today. Writing about him recently, San Francisco critic Kenneth Baker noted: Park's freedom from irony will strike anyone sated by postmodernist flippancy as enviable and almost beyond achievement today."

    Along the way, the signature feminine silhouettes of each era evolved beyond recognition: House of Worth crinolines gave way to Vionnet’s bias-cut gowns, Dior’s New Look to Quant’s Chelsea Look, Halston’s white suit to Frankie B.’s low-rise jeans. In menswear, ready-made suits signaled the demise of bespoke tailoring, long before Hawaiian shirts, skinny ties or baggy pants entered the fore. 20th Century Fashion offers a stylish retrospective of the last hundred years, via 400 fashion advertisements from the Jim Heimann Collection. Using imagery culled from a century of advertising, this book documents the unrelenting pace of fashion as it was adopted into the mass culture, decade by decade. An in-depth introduction, chapter text, and illustrated timeline detail the style-makers and trend-setters, from couture to the mass market; and how the historic events, design houses, retailers, films, magazines, and celebrities shaped the way we dressed—then and now.

    For at least five thousand years, from the fourth millennium BCE to the early twentieth century, Chinese people devoted an extraordinary amount of wealth and labor to building tombs and furnishing them with exquisite objects and images. In art history these ancient sites have mainly been appreciated as "treasure troves" of exciting and often previously unknown works of art. New trends in Chinese art history are challenging this way of studying funerary art: Now an entire memorial site--rather than its individual components--has become the focus of both observation and interpretation. The Art of Yellow Springs expands on this scholarship by making interpretive methods the direct subject of consideration. It argues that to achieve a genuine understanding of Chinese tombs we need to reconsider a host of art-historical concepts, including visuality, viewership, space, formal analysis, function, and context.

    One of the first American designers to mix graffiti and a punk aesthetic with fashion, Sprouse manipulated conventional notions of style, and his unique sensibility has inspired designers from John Galliano to Raf Simmons to Marc Jacobs. Sprouse’s career started in the late seventies, when, after working for Halston, he migrated to a warehouse on the Bowery and started making outfits for his neighbor, Debbie Harry. The fashion world quickly embraced his innovative, culturally relevant sensibility and downtown edge. But Sprouse’s inability to compromise his artistic vision for the rigid fashion business compromised his commercial success. The Padilhas possess the largest private collection of Sprouse’s work, and were given exclusive access to his archives by his family for this project. They also obtained never-before-published images from photographers such as Steven Meisel, Bob Gruen, and Mert and Marcus. The book features a foreword by the novelist Tama Janowitz, one of Sprouse’s closest friends. The release of this book coincides with a retrospective at Deitch Projects. The book will be available with four different jackets, each featuring a different Day-Glo color, an homage to Sprouse’s iconic album cover for Debbie Harry’s Rockbird.

    Ranging from Giotto’s 14th-century painting of the Last Judgment to the 19th-century symbolist Gustave Moreau’s depiction of Jupiter and Semele, each work has been selected for its own symbolic enigma. This book’s innovative design pairs each painting with a page of die-cut windows that help the reader focus on specific aspects of each painting and features captions that highlight the most important symbols. Other works in this unique and fascinating book include Renaissance masterpieces such as Botticelli’s Primavera and The Birth of Venus, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment.

    Institutional critique" is an artistic practice that reflects critically on its own housing in galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Such concerns have always been a part of modern art but took on new urgency at the end of the 1960s, when--driven by the social upheaval of the time and enabled by the tools and techniques of conceptual art--institutional critique emerged as a genre. This anthology traces the development of institutional critique as an artistic concern from the 1960s to the present by gathering writings and representative art projects of artists from across Europe and throughout the Americas who developed and extended the genre. The texts and artworks included are notable for the range of perspectives and positions they reflect and for their influence in pushing the boundaries of what is meant by institutional critique. Like Alberro and Stimson's Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology this volume will shed new light on its subject through its critical and historical framing. Even readers already familiar with institutional critique will come away from this book with a greater and often redirected understanding of its significance.Artists represented includeWieslaw Borowski, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel, Hans Haacke, Robert Smithson, John Knight, Graciela Carnevale, Osvaldo Mateo Boglione, Guerilla Art Action Group, Art Workers' Coalition, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Michael Asher, Mel Ramsden, Adrian Piper, The Guerrilla Girls, Laibach, Silvia Kolbowski, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Maria Eichhorn, Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau d'�tudes, WochenKlausur, The Yes Men, Hito Steyerl, Andreas Siekmann.

    The few studies that do cover these neglected areas have tended to be quite general, focusing upon garments rather than the wearers. As such this present volume fills an important gap by providing a detailed analysis of not only what people wore in Henry's reign, but why. The book describes and analyses dress in England through a variety of documents, including warrants and accounts from Henry's Great Wardrobe and the royal household, contemporary narrative sources, legislation enacted by Parliament, guild regulations, inventories and wills, supported with evidence and observations derived from visual sources and surviving garments. Whilst all these sources are utilised, the main focus of the study is built around the sumptuary legislation, or the four 'Acts of Apparel' passed by Henry between 1509 and 1547. English sumptuary legislation was concerned primarily with male dress, and starting at the top of society with the king and his immediate family, it worked its way down through the social hierarchy, but stopped short of the poor who did not have sufficient disposable income to afford the items under consideration. Certain groups - such as women and the clergy - who were specifically excluded from the legislation, are examined in the second half of the book. Combining the consideration of such primary sources with modern scholarly analysis, this book is invaluable for anyone with an interest in the history of fashion, clothing, and consumption in Tudor society.

    Inspired by his many muses, Vettriano’s paintings frequently focus on women, who have formed the subject of some of his most popular and significant works, including The Singing Butler and Mad Dogs. This astounding compendium features the finest examples of Vettriano’s women, all of them mysterious, seductive, beautiful, languid, passionate, and powerful. Whether relaxing on a beach, reclining in a bar, or dancing through the night, the ladies in this gorgeous anthology represent Vettriano’s vision of women throughout his career.

    Our selection features a wide variety of works by pioneering artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marlene Dumas, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Albert Oehlen, Richard Prince, Charles Ray, Cindy Sherman, and Christopher Wool alongside outstanding artists of a younger generation like Glenn Brown, Natalie Djurberg, Tom Friedman, Mark Grotjahn, or Terence Koh. The artists include: Franz Ackermann, Ai Wei Wei, Doug Aitken, Darren Almond, Francis Alys, Banksy, Matthew Barney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cosima von Bonin, Monica Bonvicini, Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, Andr?? Butzer, Cai Guo-Qiang, Maurizio Cattelan, George Condo, John Currin, Thomas Demand, Rineke Dijkstra, Nathalie Djurberg, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey Emin, Urs Fischer, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, G??nther F??rg, Walton Ford, Tom Friedman, Ellen Gallagher, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Mark Grotjahn, Subodh Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Keith Haring, Mona Hatoum, Thomas Hirschhorn, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Anish Kapoor, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Terence Koh, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Won Ju Lim, Sarah Lucas, Vera Lutter, Marepe, Paul McCarthy, Jonathan Meese, Beatriz Milhazes, Mariko Mori, Sarah Morris, Takashi Murakami, Wangechi Mutu, Yoshitomo Nara, Shirin Neshat, Ernesto Neto, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Albert Oehlen, Chris Ofili, Gabriel Orozco, Tony Oursler, Jorge Pardo, Raymond Pettibon, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Phillips, Richard Prince, Neo Rauch, Charles Ray, Tobias Rehberger, Jason Rhoades, Daniel Richter, P

    Providing a wealth of new evidence, Professor Kaldellis argues that the Parthenon became a major site of Christian pilgrimage after its conversion into a church. Paradoxically, it was more important as a church than it had been as a temple: the Byzantine period was its true age of glory. He examines the idiosyncratic fusion of pagan and Christian culture that took place in Athens, where an attempt was made to replicate the classical past in Christian terms, affecting rhetoric, monuments, and miracles. He also re-evaluates the reception of ancient ruins in Byzantine Greece and presents for the first time a form of pilgrimage that was directed not toward icons, Holy Lands, or holy men but toward a monument embodying a permanent cultural tension and religious dialectic.

    1904–1948) was one of the central figures in American art’s shift toward abstraction during the first half of the 20th century. Accompanying the first major retrospective of his work in almost thirty years, this stunning book traces the evolution of Gorky’s arresting visual style. Nearly 200 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints from all phases of his career, a number of which are published here for the first time, are beautifully reproduced, including a large figurative painting from 1927 known previously only through its preparatory studies. Throughout the volume, some of Gorky’s best-known and most powerful works are paired with related pieces or with meticulous preliminary studies, shedding new light on his artistic process. Illustrated essays incorporating recently discovered biographical information and photographs examine his experience of the Armenian genocide (during which he witnessed the death of his mother), his collaboration with the Works Progress Administration, and his early explorations of abstraction and Surrealism, providing important reassessments of his life and career. Admired by many of his contemporaries and hugely influential on subsequent generations of artists, Gorky created a complex and deeply moving body of work that encompasses styles ranging from Impressionism to Cubism, Surrealism, and the beginnings of Abstract Expressionism.

    These works reflect key historical and cultural developments, including the growth of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration; changing gender roles; and the shifting location and meaning of the frontier. Focusing on leading artists, from John Singleton Copley to John Sloan, the authors address narrative content in colonial and early national portraits; genre scenes of the Jacksonian period; images from the Civil War era; and works by American Impressionists and realists in the decades before and after 1900. Like the exhibition it accompanies, the book reflects transformations in artists’ aspirations and viewers’ expectations as America evolved from isolated British outpost to leading independent participant in international affairs.

    When Art Worked focuses on the consequences of the art and architecture created and its efficacy in enhancing the nation’s sense of itself during this debilitating time. With an astoundingly high unemployment rate in the country—at 25 percent—New Deal policies provided food, work, and, with the aid of art, hope grounded in common purposes. Art became a vital tool in rallying pride, illuminating common necessities, arousing an awareness of the suffering of people, and drawing attention to the need for natural resource conservation. This had an indelible impact on public policy. New construction and renovations of post offices, schools, and government buildings reinspirited communities. When Art Worked also focuses on the objectives of the leaders who shaped the New Deal programs, and features some of the era’s most remarkable achievements. The text is accompanied by approximately 450 rarely seen or published color and black-and-white illustrations and newly commissioned photographs of some of the incredible works produced.

    

    This handsome book—a historical and critical study of Palermo’s painting from the time he entered Joseph Beuys’s now famous class at the Düsseldorf academy in 1964 to his death in 1977—explores his significance for postwar and abstract art. Christine Mehring notes that over the course of Palermo’s brief career he created five concurrent but distinct bodies of work: objects, cloth-pictures, wall-paintings, metal-pictures, and collaborative projects, primarily with his friend and colleague Gerhard Richter. Mehring shows how each of these groups demonstrates Palermo’s efforts to lead German art out of its international isolation and to transform modernist painting into historically resonant abstraction by incorporating artifice, humor, period colors, and play.

    Nearly one hundred and fifty paintings, by eighty-four artists, are reproduced in full color to present a sweeping overview of the evolution of plants worldwide. The paintings cover a wide range of plants, including ferns, fungi, conifers, algae, mosses, and a rich bounty of flowering plants; accompanying each painting is up-to-date evolutionary information—drawn from recent DNA analysis—plus observations by each of the artists and details about modern plant classification. Written for the nonspecialist, The Art of Plant Evolution is sure to enchant inquisitive green thumbs and gardeners.

    Yet as long ago as the sixteenth century, British monarchs deployed what we might now describe as “spin.” In this book a leading historian reveals how Tudor kings and queens sought to enhance their authority by presenting themselves to best advantage. Kevin Sharpe offers the first full analysis of the verbal and visual representations of Tudor power, embracing disciplines as diverse as art history, literary studies, and the history of consumption and material culture.The author finds that those rulers who maintained the delicate balance between mystification and popularization in the art of royal representation—notably Henry VIII and Elizabeth I—enjoyed the longest reigns and often the widest support. But by the end of the sixteenth century, the perception of royalty shifted, becoming less sacred and more familiar and leaving Stuart successors to the crown to deal with a difficult legacy.

    

    Aiming to rethink the form of modern life, the Bauhaus became the site of a dazzling array of experiments in the visual arts that have profoundly shaped the world today. Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, published to accompany a major multimedia exhibition, is The Museum of Modern Art's first comprehensive treatment of the subject since its famous Bauhaus exhibition of 1938, and offers a new generational perspective on the twentieth century's most influential experiment in artistic education. Organized in collaboration with the three major Bauhaus collections in Germany (the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and the Klassic Stiftung Weimar), Bauhaus 1919-1933 examines the extraordinarily broad spectrum of the school's products, including industrial design, furniture, architecture, graphics, photography, textiles, ceramics, theater and costume design, painting and sculpture. Many of the objects discussed and illustrated here have rarely if ever been seen or published outside Germany. Featuring approximately 400 color plates, richly complemented by documentary images, Bauhaus 1919-1933 includes two overarching essays by the exhibition's curators, Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman, that present new perspectives on the Bauhaus. Shorter essays by more than 20 leading scholars apply contemporary viewpoints to 30 key Bauhaus objects, and an illustrated narrative chronology provides a dynamic glimpse of the Bauhaus' lived history.

    This unique cross-cultural account highlights the accomplishments of women writers and educated women, and provides beautiful reproductions of renowned artworks that illustrate their achievements, thereby also tracing the social functions of the portraits of reading women as well as the types of books they read. The book further explores the changing circumstances of women's access to literature and education throughout the centuries in different cultures and societies. Chronologically arranged, the volume opens in ancient times, exploring civilizations as diverse as Mesopotamia, Greece and China. Artworks featuring reading women range from Pompeii frescoes to important works by artists through thecenturies. The result is abeautifully illustrated cultural history of women reading, asfascinating and inspiring as the accomplishments it honors.

    Her work was sought out by such diverse figures as the aunts of Louis XVI and the future American president Thomas Jefferson. Yet, unlike her contemporary and fellow Academy member,Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Labille-Guiard remained in France during the Revolution and participated in the reinvention of the country, its art, and its women. Tracing the fascinating story of her rise and fall in the context of her tumultuous times, Laura Auricchio fills major gaps in the scholarship on art in the age of the French Revolution, on women artists, and particularly on the intriguing figure of Labille-Guiard herself. The artist is represented in the J. Paul Getty Museum by one of her finest works, the 1779 pastel Delightful Surprise; her paintings are held in a number of important museums in America and Europe.

    "Well, if you don't believe me just come along," replied her traveling companion. Levine, having recently relocated to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, could not resist and was soon en route to La Buhardilla Antiquarios (The Attic Antiques).Down an arched stone corridor in a small back room sat two wooden chests, a metal trunk, a wooden box, and a battered old suitcase. On the lid of the suitcase was the name "Sra. KAHLO DE RIVERA." The shop owners opened the five cases to reveal a jumble of objects, including paintings, drawings, keepsake boxes, annotated books, clothing, a diary, and other assorted items and ephemera. Levine picked up one of ten airmail letters, inscribed with the words "personal archive of Frida K. and personal archive of my private life."Finding Frida Kahlo presents, for the first time in print, an astonishing lost archive of one of the twentieth century's most revered artists. Hidden from view for over half a century, this richly illustrated, intimate portrait overflows with fascinating details about Kahlo's romances, friendships, and business affairs during a three-decade period, beginning in the 1920s when she was a teenager and ending just before she died in 1954. Full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humor, Finding Frida Kahlo is a rare glimpse into an exuberant and troubled existence: A vivid diary entry records her sexual encounter with a woman named Doroti; a painted box contains eleven stuffed hummingbirds, concealed beneath a letter in which she laments her discovery that her husband, Diego Rivera, had been monstrously dissecting "these beautiful creatures" to extract an aphrodisiac; an altered French medical book describes the pain she was suffering from the amputation of her right leg, written by Kahlo upon pages that illustrate an amputation technique; a letter to a friend expresses her loneliness, and a simple request for coconut candies. Frida Kahlo never wrote an autobiography. Instead, she left behind a much more complex material universe. Finding Frida Kahlo offers scholars and fans alike an opportunity to examine firsthand Kahlo's secret world and draw their own conclusions about how she imagined her place in it.

    Edgerton brings fresh insight to a subject of perennial interest to the history of art and science in the West: the birth of linear perspective. Edgerton retells the fascinating story of how perspective emerged in early fifteenth-century Florence, growing out of an artistic and religious context in which devout Christians longed for divine presence in their daily lives. And yet, ironically, its discovery would have a profound effect not only on the history of art but on the history of science and technology, ultimately undermining the very medieval Christian cosmic view that gave rise to it in the first place. Among Edgerton's cast of characters is Filippo Brunelleschi, who first demonstrated how a familiar object could be painted in a picture exactly as it appeared in a mirror reflection. Brunelleschi communicated the principles of this new perspective to his artist friends Donatello, Masaccio, Masolino, and Fra Angelico. But it was the humanist scholar Leon Battista Alberti who codified Brunelleschi's perspective rules into a simple formula that even mathematically disadvantaged artists could understand.By looking through a window the geometric beauties of this world were revealed without the theological implications of a mirror reflection. Alberti's treatise, On Painting, spread the new concept throughout Italy and transalpine Europe, even influencing later scientists including Galileo Galilei. In fact, it was Galileo's telescope, called at the time a perspective tube, that revealed the earth to be not a mirror reflection of the heavens, as Brunelleschi had advocated, but just the other way around. Building on the knowledge he has accumulated over his distinguished career, Edgerton has written the definitive, up-to-date work on linear perspective, showing how this simple artistic tool did indeed change our present vision of the universe.

    The title is illustrated throughout with over 250 of the most famous works of each artist and of the movement being presented. The superb colour photographs are reproduced to the highest quality. Each title also includes an illustrated fold out timeline which details both the key moments in each of the subjects lifetime as well as the most important historical and cultural events of the era.

    Between 1899 and 1927 he acquired eighty extraordinary works of art directly from the artist. Today, these are conserved in an exclusive space inside the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. This unrepeatable collection of jewelery, art objects, artistic glass, and drawings, being published for the first-time in a large format catalogue gives the reader a complete and exhaustive idea of the entire artistic activity of Lalique.

    Even as the Education Acts of 1870, 1880, and 1891 extended the privilege of print literacy to greater numbers of the populace, stitching samplers continued to be a way of acculturating girls in both print literacy and what Kortsch terms dress culture. Kortsch explores nineteenth-century women's education, sewing and needlework, mainstream fashion, alternative dress movements, working-class labor in the textile industry, and forms of social activism, showing how dual literacy in dress and print cultures linked women writers with their readers. Focusing on Victorian novels written between 1870 and 1900, Kortsch examines fiction by writers such as Olive Schreiner, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Margaret Oliphant, Sarah Grand, and Gertrude Dix, with attention to influential predecessors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Bront�, and George Eliot. Periodicals, with their juxtaposition of journalism, fiction, and articles on dress and sewing are particularly fertile sites for exploring the close linkages between print and dress cultures. Informed by her examinations of costume collections in British and American museums, Kortsch's book broadens our view of New Woman fiction and its relationship both to dress culture and to contemporary women's fiction.

    Obelisks--giant standing stones, invented in Ancient Egypt as sacred objects--serve no practical purpose. For much of their history their inscriptions, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, were completely inscrutable. Yet over the centuries dozens of obelisks have made the voyage from Egypt to Rome, Constantinople, and Florence; to Paris, London, and New York. New obelisks and even obelisk-shaped buildings rose as well--the Washington Monument being a noted example. Obelisks, everyone seems to sense, connote some very special sort of power. This beautifully illustrated book traces the fate and many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries--what they meant to the Egyptians, and how other cultures have borrowed, interpreted, understood, and misunderstood them through the years. In each culture obelisks have taken on new meanings and associations. To the Egyptians, the obelisk was the symbol of a pharaoh's right to rule and connection to the divine. In ancient Rome, obelisks were the embodiment of Rome's coming of age as an empire. To nineteenth-century New Yorkers, the obelisk in Central Park stood for their country's rejection of the trappings of empire just as it was itself beginning to acquire imperial power. And to a twentieth-century reader of Freud, the obelisk had anatomical and psychological connotations. The history of obelisks is a story of technical achievement, imperial conquest, Christian piety and triumphalism, egotism, scholarly brilliance, political hubris, bigoted nationalism, democratic self-assurance, Modernist austerity, and Hollywood kitsch--in short, the story of Western civilization.

    This fascinating edited collection of art historian Titus Burckhardt's most important writings on Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist art is lavishly illustrated with 140 superb examples of Oriental art, architecture, statuary, and painting.The selections presented here are taken from four of Burckhardt’s books: Sacred Art in East and West, Moorish Culture in Spain, Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, and Mirror of the Intellect: Essays on Traditional Science and Sacred Art, the latter being a collection of his essays published in various journals.

    Public Works of Art Program, created in 1934 against the backdrop of the Great Depression. The 55 paintings in this volume are a lasting visual record of America at a specific moment in time; a response to an economic situation that is all too familiar.

    - Times Online, 1/30/09

    With his rugged looks and measured demeanor, Oates crafted complex characters that were at once brazen and thoughtful, wild and subdued. Warren Oates: A Wild Life is the first book-length look at the actor whom friends remember as a hard-living, hard-drinking man who was kind and caring, but also as mean as a blue-eyed devil.Born in the small town of Depoy in rural western Kentucky, Oates began his career in the late 1950s with bit parts in television westerns. During this time he met infamous director Sam Peckinpah, establishing a creative relationship and destructive friendship that would spawn some of Oates’s most celebrated and unforgettable roles in films such as Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Parts in Major Dundee (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967) Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Badlands (1973), and Stripes (1981) show Oates’s penchant for working with seminal filmmakers—directors as diverse and talented as Monte Hellman, Terrence Malick, Ivan Reitman, and Steven Spielberg.With remarkable range and depth he created colorful characters onscreen even as his life offscreen was full of drama, alcohol and drugs. With an engaging style and through careful research, author Susan Compo skillfully captures the nuances of Oates’s life in the first biography of this beloved actor.

    Recognized figures such as Anni Albers—the first textile artist to be exhibited at the MoMA—and Marianne Brandt—whose elegant geometric tableware have become classic Alessi designs—are showcased alongside previously unknown artists such as Gertrud Grunow, who taught "Harmonizing Science"; Helene Börner, who led the textile workshop; and Ilse Fehling, a sculptor and the most sought-after set and costume designer of her generation. Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus and most of its students were poor and lacking in just about everything. What it did have, however, was an abundance of enthusiasm, talent, and innovative creativity. Furthermore, over half of those seeking to enroll at the school were women. This tornado of the "fairer sex" was initially seen as a threat, and the weaving mill was quickly turned into a separate "women’s facility." Nevertheless, over the years the mill became a hotbed of groundbreaking production, whose impact far surpassed national borders, as demonstrated by the international acclaim of photographers Lucia Moholy, Florence Henri, and Grete Stern.

    In colourful spreads that feature important works as well as portraits of the artists themselves, children will learn how Sofonisba Anguissola, the Renaissance painter and pupil of Michelangelo, mastered portraiture in the Spanish Court; how the exquisitely wrought illustrations of Maria Sybilla Merian advanced the study of nature in the seventeenth century; and how Mary Cassatt's paintings depicted the lives of women in the nineteenth century. Modern and contemporary artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, and Cindy Sherman round out this introduction to women artists for children.

    Each volume explains the background to and the work of one of the major influences on twentieth- and twenty-first-century performance.Marina Abramovic is the creator of pioneering performance art which transcends the form's provocative origins. Her visceral and extreme performances have tested the limits of both body and mind, communicating with audiences worldwide on a personal and political level. The book combines:a biography, setting out the contexts of Abramovic's work an examination of the artist through her writings, interviews and influences a detailed analysis of her work, including studies of the Rhythm series, Nightsea Crossing and The House with the Ocean View practical explorations of the performances and their originsAs a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

    All areas of ceramic practice have been revitalized as a result—the creative possibilities that artists, lured by the plastic and tactile qualities of clay, have brought with them into ceramics have influenced ceramists of all backgrounds.Analyzing work from the last ten years, this book covers every aspect of contemporary ceramic practice and includes work of all sizes—from a few inches to large-scale installations. It is organizedinto five main chapters:Beyond Utility: original yet functional ceramicsDefining Space: wheel-thrown shapes, slip-cast forms, and hand-built structuresMind the Gap: sculptural work from precise and mechanical to freely modeled formsA Sense of Space: installations, both site-specific and environmentalThe Line of Beauty: collaborations between art and industry that result from advances in technologyContemporary Ceramics also includes biographies of the featured ceramists and a directory of museums and galleries.

    Wind your way through Paris via pages shimmering with seductive stairwells, irresistible bistros and patisseries, beguiling back streets, beautiful boulevards, enticing courtyards and must-see interiors. A modern guide for the urban aesthete - and perfect for either those who have already fallen in love with Paris, or those planning a memorable first visit - it is both an insightful travel resource and an architectural study capturing Paris's elegance and atmosphere in spectacular detail.

    Wooden sculptures of the saints, the Immaculate Conception, or the Passion of Christ were painstakingly carved, gessoed, and intricately painted, even embellished with glass eyes and tears and ivory teeth. Some were shockingly graphic in their depiction of Christ's sufferings; others, beautifully clothed, appeared to bring saints to glorious life. These were objects of divine inspiration to the faithful, whether displayed on altars or processed through the streets on holy days. Featuring new photography, this book reappraises the unique form of Spanish painted wooden sculpture. In addition to examining the sculptures’ religious roles, it also explores the unique creative relationship of sculptor and painter: Velazquez's teacher and father-in-law Francisco Pacheco, for example, often painted the flesh and drapery of wood carvings by the celebrated sculptor Juan Martinez Montañès, and taught a generation of students. The skill of painting these hyper-realistic sculptures was an integral part of an artist's training, enhancing his sensitivity to visual impact and physical presence—evident in paintings of the period.

    Through beautiful paintings and intimate poems, you will learn about the lives of these amazing animals and why they are in danger. Pole to pole and across all continents, this book includes species from the green sea turtle to the giant panda, the Chinese alligator to the Mexican spotted owl. If the stunning art and poignant poetry move you to learn more about these intriguing species, there are activities and organizations listed to help you in your search.

    Offers a look at the life and work of Luis Melendez, one of eighteenth-century Europe's greatest still-life painters.

    But because Symbolism, more than the two movements it links, emphasizes ideas over objects and events, it has suffered from vague and conflicting definitions. In Symbolist Art in Context, Michelle Facos offers a clearly written, comprehensive, and accessible description of this challenging subject. Reaching back into Romanticism for Symbolism's origins, Facos argues that Symbolism enabled artists (including Munch and Gauguin) to confront an increasingly uncertain and complex world—one to which pessimists responded with themes of decadence and degeneration and optimists with idealism and reform.

    Alongside such illustrious names as Hokusai and Hiroshige, he dominated the 19th-century production of the popular genre of woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e, literally, "pictures of the floating world."The only major book to illustrate the entirety of the artist's work, Kuniyoshi explores his extraordinary imagination across an impressive range of subject matter, from his portraits of Japanese warrior heroes and fashionable beauties to his satirical themes and innovative landscape prints. Published to accompany a spectacular exhibition, Kuniyoshi is an essential reference for Japanese art collectors and enthusiasts.

    Alastair Duncan celebrates art deco's rich variety of form and its diverse international roots as the very factors that make it a perennial favourite of modern collectors and designers.

    In this first major work on the art of the silhouette, art historian Emma Rutherford draws from dozens of American and European sources to create a fascinating history of the art form—and to illuminate the compelling social history hidden behind its shadows.

    

    

    They have been described as the 'hidden face of contemporary art'. Once marginalised and seen very much as a minority interest, these forms of art are now the subject of important international exhibitions and even have specially dedicated museums on both sides of the Atlantic. Hidden, secret, or reclusive this art may have been, but today its large international following stands as a testimony to its unique power and individuality. This second and enlarged edition of the Outsider Art Sourcebook is the first international publication to act as a comprehensive guide through this fascinating field. It leads its readers to make their own discoveries, showing where collections and exhibitions of Folk Art and Outsider Art can be found and how to visit the most sensational of the visionary environments self-built architecture and large scale sculpture gardens. With detailed full page entries on 130 artists and 50 visionary environments, this guide encompasses a full view of the most important areas of a field that still has discoveries to make. Students, scholars and art followers are introduced to the principal theorists of Art Brut, guided through important literature on the subject and given an introduction the most important artists and the most stunning visionary environments. With additional listings of specialist art galleries, museums and collections, publications, organisations and relevant websites, the Outsider Art Sourcebook is essential reading for enthusiasts and beginners alike.

    Indiana Jane strikes again: another painting has been salvaged from centuries of decay; another woman artist rescued from oblivion. From the lofty halls of the Uffizi to the attic storerooms of the Pitti Palace, Jane Fortune leads the reader on a quest whose aim is the restoration, recuperation and rediscovery of famous or unknown works by women artists in Florence s museums. In a city of indisputable masters, Fortune opens a window on the trials and triumphs of remarkable women whose lives and works remain an unfamiliar but fascinating part of Florence s cultural heritage. With historical episodes and modern-day milestones, Invisible Women is a celebration of creativity, a protest against indifference, a race against time and a daring dream for the future.

    In an era when technology, biology & culture are becoming ever more closely connected, 'The Dada Cyborg' explains how the cyborg as we know it today developed between 1918 & 1933 as German artists gave visual form to their utopian hopes & fantasies in a fearful response to World War I.

    This Pocket Guide explains how coloured pigments are combined with a medium to form a paint layer, and how this affects our perception of the appearance of colour. It not only describes the materials of colour but also explains colour theories and examines writings about colour, including painters’ treatises.Through a selection of superb pictures from the National Gallery, London, including works by Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, Titian, Caravaggio, Canaletto, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Monet, and Seurat, the authors demonstrate how painters through the centuries have exploited the characteristics of colour in paint.

    More than a hundred stunning statues, reliefs, vases, bronzes, coins, and gems drawn from major American and European collections highlight how heroes were represented, why they were important, and what encouraged individuals to seek them out. To contemporary eyes, Greek heroes embody contradiction: they might have superhuman powers, but their mortality was what made them heroic. Many were regarded as benevolent ancestors with powers to protect and heal, but others were dangerous and haunted spirits of the dead, who had to be appeased. Although epic, drama, and the visual arts abound in representations of heroes whose fame has carried over into modern times, cult and funerary architecture commemorate many more individuals whose names and deeds are entirely lost to us.  Featuring essays by leading authorities in the field, this book draws on recent archaeological, literary, and art historical research to explore such issues as gender, cult, and iconography, as well as overlooked aspects of familiar (Herakles, Achilles, and Odysseus) and unfamiliar heroes (Helen of Troy).

    Anthony," now in The Museum of Modern Art's collection, established the artist as one of the boldest painters of all his contemporaries. Ensor (1860-1949) was a major figure in the Belgian avant-garde of the late nineteenth century and an important precursor to the development of Expressionism in the early twentieth, yet his work is underappreciated in the United States, and far too little seen. This striking volume, published on the occasion of Ensor's major 2009 exhibition in New York, gives the artist the attention he so greatly deserves. It presents approximately 90 works, organized thematically, examining Ensor's Modernity, his innovative and allegorical approach to light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance and, finally, his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty and role-playing. Works in the full range of his media--painting, printing and drawing--are presented in an overlapping network of themes and images to produce a complete picture of this daring body of art. The most comprehensive volume on the artist available in English, this remarkable, scholarly volume reveals Ensor as a socially engaged and self-critical artist involved with the issues of his times and contemporary debates on the very nature of Modernism.

    By 1933, when the Nazis forced the school to close, Albers had become one of its best-known artists and teachers. Having migrated with his wife Anni to the U.S., where he taught at Black Mountain College and at Yale, Albers began to experiment with the optical effects of simple color combinations. The experimentation blossomed into a lifelong obsession that would culminate in his best-known series of paintings, Homage to the Square, in which he painted several differently-colored squares within larger squares in order to illustrate his theory that alterations in environment, shape and light would produce changes in color. This edition contains impeccable reproductions of Albers' famous series, which beautifully illustrate the artist's primary thesis, that the discrepancy between visual information received by the retina and what the mind perceives proves that this information is not intrinsic to color itself, but is dependent on its relationship with its surroundings.

    As pioneers of the Constructivist movement, Rodchenko and Popova created an astonishing array of iconic work that reflected the new political and cultural landscape of their nation. In this groundbreaking book, leading authorities on Constructivism and the Russian avant-garde shed new light on the artists' achievements and examine the extent of their influence on twentieth-century graphic design, fashion, theater, and film.For the first time, the issue of gender in the Constructivist movement is explored in-depth, with the artists' extensive network of colleagues and collaborators considered in the discussion. Extensively illustrated with striking examples of the artists' work, including previously unpublished works, Rodchenko and Popova is a comprehensive account of their creative development, from their movement through different mediums to their passionate rejection of "art for art's sake." Published to accompany a major exhibition at Tate Modern, this is an indispensable guide to a fascinating period in art history.