Best of
Art-History

2019

Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018


Peter Schjeldahl - 2019
    From Pablo Picasso to Cindy Sherman, Old Masters to contemporary masters, paintings to comix, and saints to charlatans, Schjeldahl ranges widely through the diverse and confusing art world, an expert guide to a dazzling scene. No other writer enhances the reader’s experience of art in precise, jargon-free prose as Schjeldahl does. His reviews are more essay than criticism, and he offers engaging and informative accounts of artists and their work. For more than three decades, he has written about art with Emersonian openness and clarity. A fresh perspective, an unexpected connection, a lucid gloss on a big idea awaits the reader on every page of this big, absorbing, buzzing book.

Great Women Artists


Phaidon Press - 2019
    Nevertheless, women are just getting started."— The New Yorker Five centuries of fascinating female creativity presented in more than 400 compelling artworks and one comprehensive volumeThe most extensive fully illustrated book of women artists ever published, Great Women Artists reflects an era where art made by women is more prominent than ever. In museums, galleries, and the art market, previously overlooked female artists, past and present, are now gaining recognition and value. Featuring more than 400 artists from more than 50 countries and spanning 500 years of creativity, each artist is represented here by a key artwork and short text. This essential volume reveals a parallel yet equally engaging history of art for an age that champions a greater diversity of voices.

The Art of Looking Up


Catherine McCormack - 2019
    From the lotus flowers of the Senso-ji Temple in Japan, to the religious iconography that adorns places of worship from Vienna to Istanbul, all the way to Chihuly's glass flora suspended from the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas – this book takes you on a tour of the extraordinary artworks that demand an alternative viewpoint. Art historian Catherine McCormack guides you through the stories behind the artworks – their conception, execution, and the artists that visualised them. In many cases, these works make bold but controlled political, religious or cultural statements, revealing much about the society and times in which they were created. Divided by these social themes into four sections – Religion, Culture, Power and Politics – and pictured from various viewpoints in glorious colour photography, tour the astounding ceilings of these and more remarkable locations:Vatican Palace, Rome, ItalyBlenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, UKLouvre Museum, Paris, FranceDali Theatre-Museum, Figueres, CataloniaMuseum of the Revolution, Havana, CubaCapitol Building, Washington, DC, USAFour eight-page foldout sections showcase some of the world's most spectacular ceilings in exquisite detail. First and foremost, this is a visual feast, but also a desirableart book that challenges you to seek out fine art in more unusual places and question the statements they may be making.

Warhol on Basquiat: The Iconic Relationship Told in Andy Warhol’s Words and Pictures (Multilingual Edition)


Michael Dayton Hermann - 2019
    

Fazal Sheikh & Teju Cole: Human Archipelago


Fazal Sheikh - 2019
    

The Palaeoartist’s Handbook: Recreating Prehistoric Animals in Art


Mark P. Witton - 2019
    Such artworks are widespread in popular culture, appearing in documentaries, museums, books, and magazines, and inspiring depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals in cinema. This book outlines how fossil animals and environments can be reconstructed from their fossils, explaining how paleoartists overcome gaps in fossil data and predict "soft-tissue" anatomies no longer present around fossil bones. It goes on to show how science and art can meet to produce compelling, interesting takes on ancient worlds, and explores the goals and limitations of this popular but rarely discussed art genre.

Michelangelo, God's Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece


William E. Wallace - 2019
    Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life.Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter's Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter's project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering. Assessing the situation with his uncompromising eye and razor-sharp intellect, Michelangelo overcame the furious resistance of Church officials to persuade the Pope that it was time to start over.In this richly illustrated book, leading Michelangelo expert William Wallace sheds new light on this least familiar part of Michelangelo's biography, revealing a creative genius who was also a skilled engineer and enterprising businessman. The challenge of building St. Peter's deepened Michelangelo's faith, Wallace shows. Fighting the intrigues of Church politics and his own declining health, Michelangelo became convinced that he was destined to build the largest and most magnificent church ever conceived. And he was determined to live long enough that no other architect could alter his design.

The Short Story of Modern Art: A Pocket Guide to Key Movements, Works, Themes, and Techniques


Susie Hodge - 2019
    Simply constructed, the book explores 50 key works – from the realist painting of Courbet to a contemporary installation by Yayoi Kusama – and then links them to the most important movements, themes and techniques. Accessible, concise and richly illustrated, the book reveals the connections between different periods, artists and styles, giving readers a thorough understanding and broad enjoyment of modern art.

History of Information Graphics


Sandra Rendgen - 2019
    At once nuanced and neat, data graphics can distill abstract ideas, complex statistics, and cutting-edge discoveries into succinct, compelling, and masterful designs. Cartographers, programmers, statisticians, designers, scientists, and journalists have developed a new field of expertise in visualizing knowledge.This far-reaching compendium discovers the rich history of the infographic form, tracing its evolution from the Middle Ages right through to the digital era. Curated by Sandra Rendgen, the author behind TASCHEN's best-selling Information Graphics and Understanding the World, the book offers a stunning and systematic overview of graphic communication, gathering some 400 examples across astronomy, cartography, zoology, technology, and beyond.The collection is expansive in culture and geography, incorporating medieval manuscripts and parchment rolls, elaborate maps, splendid popular atlasses, and early computer-based information design. Highlights include Martin Waldseem�ller's famous world map, Andreas Cellarius's cosmic charts, and the meticulous nature studies of Ernst Haeckel, alongside many unknown treasures. The author's introductory essay and precise captions detail each work's historical and cultural contexts; the selection is framed by four chapters showcasing the special historical collections of infographic specialists David Rumsey, Michael Friendly, Michael Stoll, and Scott Klein.

Anja Niemi: In Character


Anja Niemi - 2019
    Niemi’s work has emerged as a distinctive force within the venerable tradition of conceptual self- portraiture.A photo artist who works alone—photographing, staging, and acting out the characters in all of her images—Niemi is a constant presence (in character) in her work, developing complex, nuanced narratives through evocative costume and styling. In her bewitching Darlene Me series she reconfigures the concept of the Hitchcock blond within a pristine Lynchian landscape for her own visual pleasure—and ours—while in She Could Have Been a Cowboy she turns the lens to a life lived under the constraints of conformity.With over one hundred and seventy photographs organized into the six series that have defined Niemi’s career to date, supported by an essay and interview by Max Houghton, Anja Niemi: In Character is the perfect introduction for those encountering Niemi’s work for the first time, and a comprehensive retrospective for her longtime followers.

Don McCullin


Simon Baker - 2019
    1935) is an internationally acclaimed British photojournalist, best known for his war photography and images of urban strife. A Londoner, McCullin began documenting his local community. In 1958, his photograph The Guvnors, a portrait of a notorious Finsbury Park gang involved in the murder of a police officer, was published in the Observer, launching his career as a photojournalist. McCullin went on to become a well-known war correspondent, recognized for his iconic images taken on assignment in Vietnam, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Biafra. He has continued to document poverty in Britain and more recently has turned to landscape photography. This book celebrates McCullin’s work over the decades, including color photographs taken on assignment for the Sunday Times magazine that have rarely been seen.

Anatomy: Exploring the Human Body


Phaidon Press - 2019
    Through 300 remarkable works, selected and curated by an international panel of anatomists, curators, academics, and specialists, the book chronicles the intriguing visual history of human anatomy, showcasing its amazing complexity and our ongoing fascination with the systems and functions of our bodies. Exploring individual parts of the human body from head to toe, and revealing the intricate functions of body systems, such as the nerves, muscles, organs, digestive system, brain, and senses, this authoritative book presents iconic examples alongside rarely seen, breathtaking works. The 300 entries are arranged with juxtapositions of contrasting and complementary illustrations to allow for thought-provoking, lively, and stimulating reading.

A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer


Louise Sandhaus - 2019
    Raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Kavanaugh became in 1952 only the third woman to earn a degree in Cranbrook Academy of Art's design program. After successful stints as one of GM's so-called Damsels of Design and as director of interiors for Victor Gruen's architecture and planning firm, she opened Gere Kavanaugh/Designs. There, Kavanaugh put her unique stamp on textiles, furniture, toys, graphics, store and restaurant interiors, holiday decor, housewares, and public art—even designing and curating exhibitions. But perhaps her most enduring project has been the joyful, open-ended, ongoing experiment of her own lifestyle and homes, a dream of color and handcraft. Kavanaugh was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2016, recognizing her "prodigious and polymathic approach to design."

A Little Feminist History of Art


Charlotte Mullins - 2019
    Using the “female gaze” to articulate socially relevant issues after an era of aesthetic “formalism,” feminist artists, working in a variety of media, have brought attention to ideas surrounding gender, identity, and form. They have critiqued and altered our thinking about the cultural expectations and stereotyping of women, women’s struggle for equality, and the treatment of the female body as a commodity. Fifty outstanding works reflect women’s lives and experience, the changing position of women artists, and the impact of feminist ideals and politics on visual culture. This book is a celebration of one of the most ambitious, influential, and enduring artistic movements to emerge from the 20th century.

Skateboarding and the City: A Complete History


Iain Borden - 2019
    Creative, physical, graphic, urban and controversial, it is full of contradictions – a billion-dollar global industry which still retains its vibrant, counter-cultural heart.Skateboarding and the City presents the only complete history of the sport, exploring the story of skate culture from the surf-beaches of '60s California to the latest developments in street-skating today. Written by a life-long skater who also happens to be an architectural historian, and packed through with full-colour images – of skaters, boards, moves, graphics, and film-stills – this passionate, readable and rigorously-researched book explores the history of skateboarding and reveals a vivid understanding of how skateboarders, through their actions, experience the city and its architecture in a unique way.

Beauty: What It is and Why It Matters


John-Mark L. Miravalle - 2019
     Rich with the wisdom of Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and St. John Paul II, these pages unpack perennial truths about beauty and rivet them into your soul, opening the eyes of your understanding to the beauty all around us. Offering an abundance of accessible examples, author John Mark Miravalle demonstrates that beauty is neither in the eye of the beholder, nor for the cultivated, the dreamer, or the “hopeless romantic” alone. On the contrary, the ability to understand, recognize, and delight in beauty readies all souls for heaven—and makes it easier for us to get there. From these pages, you’ll learn: • Why beauty is not just a matter of opinion • The virtues we need to perceive beauty and to enjoy it • How to determine whether an artwork is truly beautiful • The respective roles of reason and emotion in appreciating beauty • How the beauty of nature testifies to God’s existence . . . while rejection of God obscures nature’s beauty With the help of these pages, you’ll receive fresh eyes to marvel again (or for the first time) at the beauty of nature, music, art, architecture, and, most importantly, the beauty of God, the fountainhead and exemplar of all things on earth that are beautiful.

Pre-Raphaelite Sisters


Jan Marsh - 2019
    Styling themselves the ‘Young Painters of England’, this group of young men aimed to overturn stale Victorian artistic conventions and challenge the previous generation with their startling colours and compositions.Think of the images created by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others in their circle, however, and it is not men but pale-faced young women with lustrous, tumbling locks that spring to mind, gazing soulfully from the picture frame or in dramatic scenes painted in glowing colours. Who were these women? What is known of their lives and their roles in a movement that, in successive phases, spanned over half a century?Some were models, plucked from obscurity to pose for figures in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, whileothers were sisters, wives, daughters and friends of the artists. Several were artists themselves, with aspirations to match those of the men, sharing the same artistic and social networks yet condemned by their gender to occupy a separate sphere. Others inhabited and sustained a male-dominated art world as partners in production, maintaining households and studios and socialising with patrons. Some were skilled in the arts of interior decoration, dressmaking, embroidery, jewellery-making –the fine crafts that formed a supportive tier for the ‘higher’ arts of painting and sculpture. And although their backgrounds and life-experiences certainly varied widely, all were engaged in creating Pre-Raphaelite art.

Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism’s Legendary Art School


Elizabeth Otto - 2019
    In myriad ways, emerging ideas about the body in relation to health, movement, gender, and sexuality were at the heart of art and life at the school. Bauhaus Bodies reassesses the work of both well-known Bauhaus members and those who have unjustifiably escaped scholarly scrutiny, its women in particular. In fourteen original, cutting-edge essays by established experts and emerging scholars, this book reveals how Bauhaus artists challenged traditional ideas about bodies and gender. Written to appeal to students, scholars, and the broad public, Bauhaus Bodies will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern art, architecture, design history, and gender studies; it will define conversations and debates during the 2019 centenary of the Bauhaus's founding and beyond.

Alfred Stieglitz: Taking Pictures, Making Painters


Phyllis Rose - 2019
    This new book from celebrated biographer Phyllis Rose reconsiders Stieglitz as a revolutionary force in the history of American art.   Born in New Jersey, Stieglitz at age eighteen went to study in Germany, where his father, a wool merchant and painter, insisted he would get a proper education. After returning to America, he became one of the first American photographers to achieve international fame. By the time he was sixty, he gave up photography and devoted himself to selling and promoting art. His first gallery, 291, was the first American gallery to show works by Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, and other great European modernists. His galleries were not dealerships so much as open universities, where he introduced European modern art to Americans and nurtured an appreciation of American art among American artists. About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives:  "Excellent" –New York Times "Exemplary" –Wall St. Journal "Distinguished" –New Yorker "Superb" –The Guardian

Cruising the Dead River: David Wojnarowicz and New York's Ruined Waterfront


Fiona Anderson - 2019
    Though many saw only blight, the derelict neighborhood was alive with queer people forging new intimacies through cruising. Alongside the piers’ sexual and social worlds, artists produced work attesting to the radical transformations taking place in New York. Artist and writer David Wojnarowicz was right in the heart of it, documenting his experiences in journal entries, poems, photographs, films, and large-scale, site-specific projects. In Cruising the Dead River, Fiona Anderson draws on Wojnarowicz’s work to explore the key role the abandoned landscape played in this explosion of queer culture. Anderson examines how the riverfront’s ruined buildings assumed a powerful erotic role and gave the area a distinct identity. By telling the story of the piers as gentrification swept New York and before the AIDS crisis, Anderson unearths the buried histories of violence, regeneration, and LGBTQ activism that developed in and around the cruising scene.

Delphi Collected Works of Katsushika Hokusai (Illustrated) (Delphi Masters of Art Book 50)


Katsushika Hokusai - 2019
    His famous print series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” marks the summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print, as epitomised by his world famous design ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’. Hokusai’s determined industry, spanning over seventy years of continuous creation, serves as the prototype of the single-minded artist, striving to complete his given task in the endless pursuit of perfection. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Hokusai’s collected works in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * The collected works of Katsushika Hokusai – over 800 prints, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order * Includes reproductions of rare works * Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information * Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Hokusai’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books * Hundreds of images in colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smart phones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders * Special alphabetical contents table for the prints * Easily locate the prints you wish to view * Features a bonus biography by C. J. Holmes – discover Hokusai's artistic and personal life Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting e-Art books CONTENTS: The Highlights Segawa Kikunojo III as Oren Ichikawa Ebizo as Sanzoku Descending Geese for Bunshichi One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House The Toilet Sudden Rain at the New Yanagi Bridge, the Rainbow at Otakegura Sonobe Saemon Yoritane Hokusai Manga Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife A Fisherman’s Family Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji The Great Wave off Kanagawa Fine Wind, Clear Morning Clear Autumn Weather at Choko The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaido Whaling off the Goto Islands The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchu Provinces The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji Fuji over the Sea Li Bai Admiring a Waterfall The Prints Hokusai’s Prints Alphabetical List of Prints The Biography Hokusai by C. J. Holmes Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to buy the whole Art series as a Super Set

Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle


Elizabeth Hutton Turner - 2019
    The American Struggle explores Jacob Lawrence's radical way of transforming history into art by looking at his thirty panel series of paintings, Struggle . . . from the History of the American People (1954-56). Essays by Steven Locke, Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Austen Barron Bailly, and Lydia Gordon mark the historic reunion of this series--seen together in this exhibition for the first time since 1958. In entries on the panels, a multitude of voices responds to the episodes representing struggle from American history that Lawrence chose to activate in his series. The American Struggle reexamines Lawrence's lost narrative and its power for twenty-first century audiences by including contemporary art and artists. Derrick Adams, Bethany Collins, and Hank Willis Thomas invite us to reconsider history through themes of struggle in ways that resonate with Lawrence's artistic invention. Statements by these artists amplify how they and Lawrence view history not as distant period of the past but as an active imaginative space that is continuously questioned in the present tense and for future audiences.

To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters


Suzanne Fagence Cooper - 2019
    But his writings - on beauty and truth, on work and leisure, on commerce and capitalism, on life and how to live it - can teach us more than ever about how to see the world around us clearly and how to live it.Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper delves into Ruskin's writings and uncovers the dizzying beauty and clarity of his vision. Whether he was examining the exquisite carvings of a medieval cathedral or the mass-produced wares of Victorian industry, chronicling the beauties of Venice and Florence or his own descent into old age and infirmity, Ruskin saw vividly the glories and the contradictions of life, and taught us how to see them as well.

Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings


Volker Manuth - 2019
    Commemorating 350 years of unparalleled legacy, this XXL-sized monograph gathers the artist’s 330 paintings in exquisite reproductions and details that reveal how, in all their forms, Rembrandt’s painted works are built of intricacies—the totality of each subtle wrinkle, gaze, or figure.

Medieval Illumination: Manuscript Art in England and France, 700-1200


Charlotte Denoel - 2019
    This beautiful new book showcases dozens of the finest examples, many of which have never before been exhibited and are rarely reproduced. It reveals the close artistic and intellectual connections between Anglo-Saxon and Norman England and medieval France, where scribes and illuminators often shared stylistic ideas and subject-matter. Among the manuscripts featured here are gospel-books and saints lives, histories, and herbals. Together they give rich insights into the culture and beliefs of people in medieval Europe, and they are a significant source of evidence for Anglo-Saxon England in particular. Curators from the British Library in London and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris have collaborated on a major project to study these manuscripts in detail this book introduces their findings alongside stunning images.

Andrey Tarkovsky: Life and Work: Film by Film, Stills, Polaroids & Writings


andrey tarkovskyAleksandr Sokurov - 2019
    

Artsy Cats


Mudpuppy - 2019
    The Artsy Cats Board Book from Mudpuppy features clever kitty-inspired artist names and painting credits, from Clawed Monet to Paw Klee.- 28 sturdy pages- Book trim: 7 x 7"

Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver


Catharine MacLeod - 2019
    

The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice


Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh - 2019
    Paul Getty Museum, found itself confronted by a century-old genocide. The Armenian Church was suing for the return of eight pages from the Zeytun Gospels, a manuscript illuminated by the greatest medieval Armenian artist, Toros Roslin. Protected for centuries in a remote church, the holy manuscript had followed the waves of displaced people exterminated during the Armenian genocide. Passed from hand to hand, caught in the confusion and brutality of the First World War, it was cleaved in two. Decades later, the manuscript found its way to the Republic of Armenia, while its missing eight pages came to the Getty.The Missing Pages is the biography of a manuscript that is at once art, sacred object, and cultural heritage. Its tale mirrors the story of its scattered community as Armenians have struggled to redefine themselves after genocide and in the absence of a homeland. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh follows in the manuscript's footsteps through seven centuries, from medieval Armenia to the killing fields of 1915 Anatolia, the refugee camps of Aleppo, Ellis Island, and Soviet Armenia, and ultimately to a Los Angeles courtroom.Reconstructing the path of the pages, Watenpaugh uncovers the rich tapestry of an extraordinary artwork and the people touched by it. At once a story of genocide and survival, of unimaginable loss and resilience, The Missing Pages captures the human costs of war and persuasively makes the case for a human right to art.

Ruskinland: How John Ruskin Shapes Our World


Andrew Hill - 2019
    Ruskin was the Victorian age’s best-known and most controversial intellectual and polymath—an artist, scientist, critic, polemicist, social crusader, philanthropist, and early environmentalist. Two hundred years since his birth in 1819, his ideas have a fierce modern relevance. In Ruskinland, Andrew Hill, the award-winning Financial Times columnist, builds on Ruskin’s pin-sharp appreciation of art and architecture, his extraordinary draughtsmanship, and his insistence that to see and draw the world is the best way to understand it better. The book lays out how Ruskin envisaged radical solutions to social inequality, excessive executive pay, flawed economic orthodoxy, advancing automation, environmental disaster, and meaningless work. It explains the importance of his prescient view of our fragile, interconnected world, and shows how Ruskin’s radical ideas can still help us run our governments, our museums, our galleries, our companies, and our lives. Part travelogue, part quest, part unconventional biography, Ruskinland retraces Ruskin’s steps, telling his exceptional and tragic life story, unearthing his influence, talking to people and visiting places—from Venice to Florida’s Gulf coast—where Ruskin’s foresighted ideas are, sometimes unexpectedly, alive today.

Glimpses of the New Creation: Worship and the Formative Power of the Arts


W. David O. Taylor - 2019
    Every practice of music, every decision about language, every use of our bodies, every approach to visual media or church buildings forms our desires, shapes our imaginations, habituates our emotional instincts, and reconfigures our identity as Christians in contextually meaningful ways, generating thereby a sense of the triune God and of our place in the world.Glimpses of the New Creation argues that the arts form us in worship by bringing us into intentional and intensive participation in the aesthetic aspect of our humanity—that is, our physical, emotional, imaginative, and metaphorical capacities. In so doing they invite the people of God to be conformed to Christ and to participate in the praise of Christ and in the praise of creation, which by the Spirit’s power raises its peculiar voice to the Father in heaven, for the sake of the world that God so loves.

The Art of War: Volume 1 - The British (A collection of 135 British World War Two propaganda posters)


Artemis Design - 2019
    INCLUDES A FOREWORD BY HISTORIAN M. J. TROW. Propaganda during the Second World War was an unavoidable aspect of daily life. It must be a situation that is hard to relate to for those of us in the West born too late or too young to remember the war or the decades afterwards. The idea that you must always be alert to the ominous drone of the air-raid sirens as you went about your business, or that your home could be destroyed in an aerial bombardment at any moment is very hard to comprehend. But those who lived through the war knew it was perfectly possible that the Wehrmacht could soon be marching through the streets, with all the chaos, fear, death and destruction that that would imply. Against this backdrop we can understand why propaganda was so vital to all sides of the conflict. For those interested in the psychology of the past, propaganda posters are a great glimpse into the (understandable) paranoia, hysteria and concerns of those who created them, and the message they thought it was necessary to promote to everyone else. All of these posters served some sort of purpose, and modern cynicism means it is often hard not to scoff at some of them, because to us they are now often unintentionally humorous or offensive. Those in government at the time knew that war had evolved. The Great War had changed much, and this latest conflict with Germany would create a huge strain, both in terms of morale and in the nation’s resources, and it was vital to have and maintain full support for the war at home. While propaganda was nothing new, it came into its own during the Second World War. British posters were, in the main, created by the controversial Ministry of Information, a government department that was dissolved soon after the war and probably one of George Orwell’s inspirations for ‘Big Brother’. Many contemporary members of parliament were very disturbed by the agenda of this department and protested that there was a very real danger that Britain could ironically sleep-walk into becoming the fascist, brain-washed state with which they were at war. The messages behind most of these posters is overt and obvious. The well-known, but never actually distributed, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ posters are still recognisable to us today, over 70 years later. Other messages may verge on the bizarre to those who never knew the horrors of the conflict first-hand. One poster shows a soldier and his partner on a sofa with the message ‘Keep mum (stay silent), she might not be so dumb’, implying that his girlfriend may, at best, be a loudmouth who will report his military operations to everyone in town and, at worst, be a Gestapo agent who had been planted into his home. This isn't to mock the sentiment, but simply to point out how difficult it is for a modern mind to understand. Other posters urging mothers to evacuate their children away from towns as refugees to find safety in the countryside, or even abroad to the security of Canada or other parts of the empire are quite shocking. Still more so are those which implied that people taking a day off work due to sickness could be shirking, or that those who lost a tool at work were aiding Hitler, are quite unsettling even now. American propaganda was often racist, showing rat-like Japanese. One dramatic poster, featuring two creepy children in their gas masks and proclaiming ‘Dear God, keep them safe!’ is still striking. On the Axis side, they were oddly obsessed with reminding Allied soldiers, particularly Americans, that their women were back at home, probably sleeping with someone else and that ‘the negroes’ were now running the country.

A Textile Traveler's Guide to Guatemala


Deborah Chandler - 2019
    A Textile Traveler’s Guide to Guatemala is an excellent resource for discovering artisans, markets, shops, and those storied regional textile traditions. Geared to independent-minded travelers, this guide presents the safest and most accessible methods of travel, where and when to go, where to stay, and what to eat. Expert advice helps the traveler know what to look for, how to distinguish high-quality work, and how to bargain intelligently and ethically. With abundant photographs, this guide celebrates the color, joy, and energy of folklife in Guatemala.

A Forest of Symbols: Art, Science, and Truth in the Long Nineteenth Century


Andrei Pop - 2019
    The symbolists saw art not as a social revolution, but a revolution in sense and in how we conceptualize the world. At the same time, the concerns of symbolist painters and poets were shared to a remarkable degree by theoretical scientists of the period, especially by mathematicians and logicians who were dissatisfied with the strict empiricism dominant in their disciplines, and which made shared knowledge seem unattainable. A crisis of sense made art and science look for conceptual foundations underlying the diverging subjective responses and perceptions of individuals.Unlike other studies of this period, Pop’s focus is not on how individual artists may have absorbed bits of scientific theories, but rather on the philosophical questions that were relevant to both domains. The problem of subjectivity in particular, of what in one’s experience can and cannot be shared, was crucial to the possibility of collaboration within science and to the communication of artistic innovation. Pop’s brilliant close readings of the literary and visual practices of Manet and Mallarmé, of drawings by Ernst Mach, William James and Wittgenstein, of experiments with color by Bracquemond and Van Gogh, and of the philosophical systems of Frege and Russell add up to a startling but coherent picture of the symbolist heritage of modernity and its consequences.

Buried by Vesuvius: The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum


Kenneth Lapatin - 2019
    The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, the model for the Getty Villa in Malibu, is one of the world’s earliest systematically investigated archaeological sites. Buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, the Villa dei Papiri was discovered in 1750 and excavated under the auspices of the Neapolitan court. Never fully unearthed, the site yielded spectacular colored marble floors and mosaics, frescoed walls, the largest known ancient collection of bronze and marble statuary, intricately carved ivories, and antiquity’s only surviving library, with more than a thousand charred papyrus scrolls. For more than two and a half centuries, the Villa dei Papiri and its contents have served as a wellspring of knowledge for archaeological science, art history, classics, papyrology, and philosophy.  After Vesuvius: Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri offers a sweeping yet in-depth view of all aspects of the site. Presenting the latest research, the essays in this authoritative and richly illustrated volume reveal the story of the Villa dei Papiri’s ancient inhabitants and modern explorers, providing readers with a multidimensional understanding of this fascinating site.   Published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa June 26 to October 28, 2019.

Impressionism in the Age of Industry


Caroline Shields - 2019
    

The Ultimate Book of Royal Portraits: Volume One: A Kindle Coffee Table Book


Douglas DeLong - 2019
    The portraits have been grouped according to the royal house to which the subjects belonged. In some cases, subjects from affiliated houses have been included within the main house. Each portrait includes some basic biographical information, presented on the page immediately preceding the portrait. Keep in mind that this is primarily an art book, not a history book. All the portraits have been selected based solely on their artistic merit. It will be left to others to provide a comprehensive history of the royals. Royal portraiture has been around for centuries and has always been one of the perks of being rich and famous. The lowly peasants of the world were certainly not able to afford to have a world-renowned painter create a lavish portrait that presented them in their very best light. It was the ancient Egyptians who first began to create portraits as a stylized profile. That sort of portraiture continued through the Greek and Roman periods. Around the 1500s, however, that begins to change. The subject of the portrait begins to turn to face the viewer. We see more of the person’s face and body as well as surrounding objects, and as you’ll see from the portraits in this book, we see what they are wearing - the lavish, extravagant and gorgeous clothes and costumes that let the viewer know that this is a very special and very important person. But most importantly, perhaps, is the way that their eyes meet those of the viewer. It is their eyes that really draw you into the portrait and allow you to make a connection with a person from a time and place far removed from your 21st-century life. It was the Stuart royal family (1603-1714) who first began to understand the importance of the royal portrait as a way to promote their reign and their policies. Their reign coincided with the explosion of a print culture that allowed them to cheaply reproduce their portrait images in pamphlets that could be distributed among the public as a way to promote and brand the monarchy. The portraits could also be found hanging on the walls of palaces, government buildings and in the homes of the aristocracy. Most of the portraits in this book have a certain photorealistic quality to them, although in many cases, it was not necessarily considered important to have an authentic likeness. It was often more important that the portrait show a version of how the royal person wished to be seen; a kind of early photoshopping. The royal would often demand that the painter present him in the most flattering light which would, in many cases, severely limit the painter’s ability to express his creativity. In some cases, it was nearly impossible to create a flattering portrait because generations of inbreeding had created deformities in many of the family members. The most famous example of this phenomenon was the “Habsburg jaw,” a protruding jaw shared by many members of the House of Habsburg, which is evident in some of the portraits in this book. Occasionally a painter would sabotage the royal person by painting him or her in an unflattering light in order to make a political statement. The Spanish painter Francisco Goya was known to have deliberately painted some of his royal subjects as, shall we say, less than beautiful in order to express his contempt for how common folk were treated by the royals. This may have limited his ability to find work as a royal portraitist.

Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art


David Bomford - 2019
    The narrative begins with Van Gogh’s drawings, which were the foundation of his early practice, and describes how he transitioned into painting by consulting instructional handbooks and copying images. Written by a team of international experts, the book follows his moves from the landscapes and peasant life of his native Holland to Antwerp, Paris, Provence, and finally the countryside north of Paris. In the brilliant light of southern France, he began painting portraits and landscapes while refining his characteristic style of rhythmic brushstrokes and expressive impasto in vivid colors. In addition to the main essay with its overview of Van Gogh’s shifting techniques and artistic concerns, the publication features a pair of essays highlighting two museums with exceptional collections of the artist’s work: the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. Beautifully reproduced images showcase approximately 50 outstanding pieces from these and other institutions, from rough drawings to vibrant late-career canvases.

Tudor and Jacobean Portraits


Charlotte Bolland - 2019
    This book presents portraits of key individuals from this period, from the monarchs and members of the ruling elite to the writers, artists and artisans that characterised the literary and artistic flourishing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.An introductory essay provides important historical context, and the ninety works selected from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and National Trust are accompanied by extended captions exploring the sitter and artist’s significance to the period and technical information about the portrait. The publication features sections on Tudor monarchs, the Stuarts, courtiers, the family in portraiture, and iconography.

Global Art and the Cold War


John J. Curley - 2019
    Curley presents the first synthetic account of global art during the Cold War. Through a careful examination of artworks drawn from America, Europe, Russia and Asia, he demonstrates the inextricable nature of art and politics in this contentious period. He dismantles the usual narrative of American abstract painting versus figurative Soviet Socialist Realism to reveal a much more nuanced, contradictory and ambivalent picture of art making, in which the objects themselves, like spies, dissembled, housed and managed ideological differences.

A Tale of Two Women Painters: Sofonisba Anguissola & Lavinia Fontana


Leticia Ruiz Gómez - 2019
    These artists represent two different models of creators whose personality, recognition, and life story played a decisive role in blazing new trails for subsequent female painters to follow. They were both born in Italy, an environment that was advantageous to women’s art and where there was furthermore considerable concern throughout the sixteenth century with dignifying and educating women in settings other than convents, the main centres for their cultural enrichment and artistic development since the Middle Ages. Likewise, they both received essential encouragement from their fathers, who viewed their daughters’ artistic talent as a source of family livelihood.This catalogue analyses the features common to both women as well as the differences stemming from their social backgrounds. The early fame achieved by the noble-born Sofonisba Anguissola as a painter infused women’s practice of the art with dignity and led to her appointment as lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabel de Valois, though her post at the Spanish court conditioned and constrained her artistic career. Back in Italy, her long, eventful life was accompanied by a recognition that has lasted until the present, earning her mythical status. Lavinia Fontana’s life story is more in keeping with that of other female artists: she trained with her father, a prominent painter, who helped her become the first professional woman artist with a workshop of her own.

Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide


Boreth Ly - 2019
    The magnitude of violence and human loss, the execution of artists and intellectuals, the erasure of individual and institutional cultural memory all caused great damage to Cambodian arts, culture, and society. Author Boreth Ly explores the “traces” of this haunting past in order to understand how Cambodians at home and in the diasporas deal with trauma on such a vast scale.Ly maintains that the production of visual culture by contemporary Cambodian artists and writers—photographers, filmmakers, court dancers, and poets—embodies traces of trauma, scars leaving an indelible mark on the body and the psyche. Her book considers artists of different generations and family experiences: a Cambodian-American woman whose father sent her as a baby to the United States to be adopted; the Cambodian-French filmmaker, Rithy Panh, himself a survivor of the Khmer Rouge, whose film The Missing Picture was nominated for an Oscar in 2014; a young Cambodian artist born in 1988—part of the “post-memory” generation. The works discussed include a variety of materials and remnants from the historical past: the broken pieces of a shattered clay pot, the scarred landscape of bomb craters, the traditional symbolism of the checkered scarf called krama, as well as the absence of a visual archive.Boreth Ly’s poignant book explores obdurate traces that are fragmented and partial, like the acts of remembering and forgetting. Her interdisciplinary approach, combining art history, visual studies, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, religion, and philosophy, is particularly attuned to the diverse body of material discussed, including photographs, video installations, performance art, poetry, and mixed media. By analyzing these works through the lens of trauma, she shows how expressions of a national trauma can contribute to healing and the reclamation of national identity.

The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy


Barbara Boehm - 2019
    The cache – known as the Colmar Treasure – is thought to have been concealed by a Jewish family prior to the outbreak of the Plague in 1348, when Jews across the region were tragically scapegoated and put to violent death. This exquisite volume, published to accompany an exhibition at The Met Cloisters, examines their legacy through the lens of the Colmar treasure, shedding light on what it reveals about the work, homes, worship and values of its owners.

Artists' Letters: Leonardo da Vinci to David Hockney


Michael Bird - 2019
    Letters and notes from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Kahlo, Warhol and Yayoi Kusama are reproduced, some of which include sketches, drawings and decorative flourishes, together with a transcript of the correspondence and some background details. Arranged thematically, it includes writings and musings on love, happiness, work, daily life, money, politics, travel and the creative process, and shows us the treasures to be found in a simple letter.

The Elizabethan Image: An Introduction to English Portraiture, 1558–1603


Roy Strong - 2019
    Enriching previous perceptions and ways of seeing the Elizabethans in their world, he reveals an age parallel in many ways to our own—a country aspiring professionally and changing socially. The gaze is from the inside, capturing the knights, melancholy lovers, poets (including Sidney, Donne and Sir John Davies), court favourites and their ‘Gloriana’—as they mirrored and made themselves. Beginning with the great portrait of the Queen in grand procession with her Garter Knights, Strong pinpoints the characters and key motifs that run through the rest of the book: chivalry, changes to the social order, emblems and imagery – the full richness of the Elizabethan imagination. These pictures were intimate—personal commissions by private individuals, and not necessarily for public view. As such they are a glimpse into private worlds and sentiments and speak eloquently for the people who paid for, painted and lived amongst them, reversing an academic tendency to treat the portraits as if they had a life of their own, not grounded by the real people who commissioned them.Roy Strong concludes this richly illustrated volume with the famous and complex Rainbow Portrait, unpicking the iconography of this final painting of an ageless Elizabeth in her ‘Mask of Youth’. Within a year of its completion the queen was dead—her portraits increasingly demoted and replaced by Mary Stuart’s—as the splendour of the Elizabethan age and ‘the cult of the queen’ made way for new monarch James VI, who was to rule over a united England and Scotland.

Pablo Fandango


James Kelly - 2019
    Marty settles in Calgary for a time—his family slowly disintegrating under the strain—while what's left of Matt's family tries to come to grips with their loss and make a new start in nearby St. Catharines. Five years later, Matt and Marty cross paths again in Toronto and pick up their friendship where they left off. Now tough, brash, and quick on their feet, the two of them are soon living off their wits and up to their necks in small-time scams, the occasional well-planned heist, and anything that can make them a quick buck. But when Marty comes up with a scam that will land them more money than either of them have ever seen, they know it will mean upping their game. It will also mean enlisting the help of heavy Hamilton mafia connections they'd previously avoided. Set in the fall of 1990—and drawing loose inspiration from real life events—Pablo Fandango is the first in a series of Marty Ronan novels.

Mentors: The Making of an Art Historian


Francis M Naumann - 2019
    Francis M. Naumann, a distinguished expert on Dada and Marcel Duchamp reflects upon his mentors, including Leo Steinberg, John Rewald, and perhaps his greatest influence: Beatrice Wood, a renowned ceramic artist and one of the most prominent participants in New York Dada. Wood set Naumann upon a course of original research that would define him, but also provided a moral platform for what an art historian could be. Artwork by Kathleen Gilje; French flaps.

Surrealism: Inside the Magnetic Fields


Penelope Rosemont - 2019
    Penelope Rosemont draws on a lifetime of such experiences in her collection of essays, Surrealism: Inside the Magnetic Fields. From her youthful forays as a radical student in Chicago to her pivotal meeting with Andr� Breton and the Surrealist Movement in Paris, Rosemont--one of the movement's leading exponents in the United States--documents her unending search for the Marvelous.Surrealism finds her rubbing shoulders with some of the movement's most important visual artists, such as Man Ray, Leonora Carrington, Mimi Parent, and Toyen; discussing politics and spectacle with Guy Debord; and crossing paths with poet Ted Joans and outsider artist Lee Godie. The book also includes scholarly investigations into American radicals like George Francis Train and Mary MacLane, the myth of the Golden Goose, and Dada precursor Emmy Hennings.Praise for Surrealism: Rosemont is not delivering dry abstractions, as so many academic 'specialists, ' but telling us about warm and exciting human encounters, illuminated by the subversive spirit of Permanent Enchantment.--Michael L�wy, author of EcosocialismThis compelling and well-drawn book lets us see the adventures, inspirations, and relationships that have shaped Penelope Rosemont's art and rebellion.--David Roediger, author of Class, Race, and MarxismThe broad sampling of essays included here offer a compelling entry point for curious readers and an essential compendium for surrealist practitioners.--Abigail Susik, professor of art history, Willamette UniversityRosemont's welcome memoir has a double virtue, as testament to the enduring radiance of Surrealism, and as a memento to the Sixties, revealing a sweetly beating wonderment at the heart of that absurdly maligned decade.--Jed Rasula, author of Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth CenturyArtist, historian, and social activist, Rosemont writes from the inside out. Like a rare, hybrid flower growing out of the earth, she complicates, expands, and opens the strange and beautiful meadow where Surrealism continues to live and thrive."--Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Wild MilkIn this wide-ranging collection of essays, Penelope Rosemont, long a keeper of surrealism's revolutionary flame, shows how a penetrating look into the past can liberate the future.--Andrew Joron, author of The Absolute LetterRosemont recreates the feverish antics and immediate reception her close-knit, sleep-deprived, beat-attired squad find in the established, moray-breaking Parisian and international surrealists. Revolution is here, between the covers.--Gillian Conoley, author of A Little More Red Sun on the Human: New and Selected Poems and translator of Thousand Times Broken: Three Books by Henri Michaux

The Women of Atelier 17: Modernist Printmaking in Midcentury New York


Christina Weyl - 2019
    Weyl focuses on eight artists—Louise Bourgeois, Minna Citron, Worden Day, Dorothy Dehner, Sue Fuller, Alice Trumbull Mason, Louise Nevelson, and Anne Ryan—who bent the technical rules of printmaking and blazed new aesthetic terrain with their etchings, engravings, and woodcuts. She reveals how Atelier 17 operated as an uncommonly egalitarian laboratory for revolutionizing print technique, style, and scale. It facilitated women artists’ engagement with modernist styles, providing a forum for extraordinary achievements that shaped postwar sculpture, fiber art, neo-Dadaism, and the Pattern and Decoration movement. Atelier 17 fostered solidarity among women pursuing modernist forms of expression, providing inspiration for feminist collective action in the 1960s and 1970s. The Women of Atelier 17 also identifies for the first time nearly 100 women, many previously unknown, who worked at the studio, and provides incisive illustrated biographies of selected artists.

Bauhaus Gals


Patrick Rossler - 2019
    While the institution provided women with new opportunities in education, along the way they were forced to deal with unreasonable family expectations, the ambiguous attitude of the faculty and administration, outdated social conventions, and ultimately the political repression of the Nazi regime.Women of the Bauhaus assembles recent archival discoveries, including portraits published for the very first time, alongside 78 biographies, rendering this a definitive pictorial overview of their artistic and design work and legacy. The artists and artisans celebrated here include the designer, photographer, painter, sculptor, and first woman to be admitted to the Bauhaus metalworking program Marianne Brandt, whose designs of lamps, ashtrays, and other household objects are used by Alessi to this day; Gertrud Arndt who, dissuaded by the faculty from studying architecture, instead shone through her photography and rug design; and Grete Reichardt, whose abstract textile design led to later experiments with new fibers, fabrics, and industrial materials.Full-page illustrations document the significant innovations and achievements of these trailblazers, while the text sheds light on both the struggles they encountered during their careers, and their incredible accomplishments regardless. Gathering these artists' sense of modernity, persistence in the face of adversity, and fight for women's emancipation, this collection is a celebration of how far we have come, and a striking reminder of how far there is yet to go.Text in English French, and German

Dancer: Wim Vanlessen


Michael James Gardner - 2019
    "Ballet is a mirror that I stand in front of to discover what drives, inspires, excites, scares and surprises me. Creating this book has been a way to turn the mirror outward and to share the many words, images, experiences and reflections with you." - Wim Vanlessen. This book is an ode to dance. It's a tribute to the very precise, timeless form of physical expression, known as ballet, told from the perspective of a man who has spent more than thirty years of his life devoted to the art that many try, yet few master. This book answers the question: Who does a dancer need to be? Part memoir, part visual history and pure joy, this book offers insight into the life and career of Wim Vanlessen, principal dancer for the Royal Ballet of Flanders. On the cusp of his farewell to the company after more than two decades in the spotlight, Wim recounts key moments from his personal life that have shaped him as a dancer and a man. He's a person that has placed his passion above all else, with an unflinching and unforgiving drive to become the best ballet dancer he can be. Featuring special contributions from stars in the worlds of fashion, dance and photography: Raf Simons, Kathryn Bennetts, Stephan Vanfleteren, Willy Vanderperre, Wendy Whelan, Stephen Galloway, and many others. This book is published on the occasion of Wim Vanlessen's last show at the Royal Balles of Flanders: B�jart's Bol�ro.

Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt


Marisa Anne Bass - 2019
    Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked havoc on the region's creative and intellectual community, compelling its members to seek solace in intimate exchanges of art and knowledge. At its center is a neglected treasure of the late Renaissance: the Four Elements manuscripts of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), a learned Netherlandish merchant, miniaturist, and itinerant draftsman who turned to the study of nature in this era of political and spiritual upheaval. Presented here for the first time are more than eighty pages in color facsimile of Hoefnagel's encyclopedic masterwork, which showcase both the splendor and eccentricity of its meticulously painted animals, insects, and botanical specimens.Marisa Anne Bass unfolds the circumstances that drove the creation of the Four Elements by delving into Hoefnagel's writings and larger oeuvre, the works of his friends, and the rich world of classical learning and empirical inquiry in which he participated. Bass reveals how Hoefnagel and his colleagues engaged with natural philosophy as a means to reflect on their experiences of war and exile, and found refuge from the threats of iconoclasm and inquisition in the manuscript medium itself. This is a book about how destruction and violence can lead to cultural renewal, and about the transformation of Netherlandish identity on the eve of the Dutch Golden Age.

Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity


Rachel Epp Buller - 2019
    Over the past two decades, the maternal body has gained currency in popular culture and the contemporary art world, with many books and exhibitions foregrounding artists' experiences and art historical explorations of maternity that previously were marginalized or dismissed. In too many instances, however, the maternal potential of female bodies-whether realized or not-still causes them to be stigmatized, censored, or otherwise treated as inappropriate: cultural expectations of maternity create one set of prejudices against women whose bodies or experiences do align with those same expectations, and another set of prejudices against those who do not. Support for mothers in the paid workforce remains woefully inadequate, yet in many cultural contexts, social norms continue to ask what is 'wrong'; with women who do not have children. In these essays and conversations, artists and writers discuss how maternal expectations shape creative work and designed environments, and highlight alternative ways of existing in relation to those expectations.

Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America


Joan Kee - 2019
    In the 1960s, artists began to engage conspicuously with legal ideas, rituals, and documents. The law—a primary institution subject to intense moral and political scrutiny—was a widely recognized source of authority to audiences inside the art world and out. Artists frequently engaged with the law in ways that signaled a recuperation of the integrity that they believed had been compromised by the very institutions entrusted with establishing standards of just conduct. These artists sought to convey the social purpose of an artwork without overstating its political impact and without losing sight of how aesthetic decisions compel audiences to see their everyday world differently. Addressing the role that law plays in enabling artworks to function as social and political forces, this important book fills a gap in the field of law and the humanities, and will serve as a practical “how-to” for contemporary artists.