Best of
Art-History

2020

The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums... and why we need to talk about it


Alice Procter - 2020
    People are waking up to the seedy history of the world's art collections, and are starting to ask difficult questions about what the future of museums should look like. In The Whole Picture, art historian and Uncomfortable Art Tour guide Alice Procter provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art, and fills in the blanks with the stories that have been left out of the art history canon for centuries. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space:The Palace The Classroom The Memorial The Playground Each section tackles the fascinating and often shocking stories of five different art pieces, including the propaganda painting that the East India Company used to justify its control in India; the Maori mokomokai skulls that were traded and collected by Europeans as 'art objects'; and Kara Walker's controversial contemporary sculpture A Subtlety, which raised questions about 'appropriate' interactions with art. Through these stories, Alice brings out the underlying colonial narrative lurking beneath the art industry today, and suggests different ways of seeing and thinking about art in the modern world.The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

Raphael, Painter in Rome


Stephanie Storey - 2020
    Here, in Raphael, Painter in Rome, Storey tells of its creation as never before: through the eyes of Michelangelo’s fiercest rival—the young, beautiful, brilliant painter of perfection, Raphael. Orphaned at age eleven, Raphael is determined to keep the deathbed promise he made to his father: become the greatest artist in history. But to be the best, he must beat the best, the legendary sculptor of the David, Michelangelo Buonarroti. When Pope Julius II calls both artists down to Rome, they are pitted against each other: Michelangelo painting the Sistine Ceiling, while Raphael decorates the pope's private apartments. As Raphael strives toward perfection in paint, he battles internal demons: his desperate ambition, crippling fear of imperfection, and unshakable loneliness. Along the way, he conspires with cardinals, scrambles through the ruins of ancient Rome, and falls in love with a baker’s-daughter-turned-prostitute who becomes his muse.  With its gorgeous writing, rich settings, endearing characters, and riveting plot, Raphael, Painter in Rome brings to vivid life these two Renaissance masters going head to head in the deadly halls of the Vatican.

Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies


Catherine McCormack - 2020
    Catherine McCormack illuminates the assumptions behind these stereotypes whether writ large or subtly hidden. She ranges through Western art—think Titian, Botticelli, and Millais—and the image-saturated world of fashion photographs, advertisements, and social media, and boldly counters these depictions by turning to the work of women artists like Morisot, Ringgold, Lacy, and Walker, who offer alternative images for exploring women’s identity, sexuality, race, and power in more complex ways.

The Parameters of Our Cage (DISCOURSE Book 1)


Alec Soth - 2020
    

Lady in Ermine — The Story of A Woman Who Painted the Renaissance: A Biographical Novel of Sofonisba Anguissola


Donna DiGiuseppe - 2020
    We watch as Sofonisba struggles to realize her dreams against the backdrop of patriarchal Europe. When Royal tragedy unfolds, we learn the true strength of our heroine.Romance, hardship, bankruptcy, and a legacy of hundreds of paintings that still influence today's artists. An authentic story of what it was like to be a woman of ambition in the Renaissance.History comes dramatically alive as we journey through the Renaissance with Sofonisba Anguissola.This is her story.

The Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook for the Modern Mystic


S. Elizabeth - 2020
    Mystical beliefs and practices have existed for millennia, but why do we still chase the esoteric? From the beginning of human creativity itself, image-makers have been drawn to these unknown spheres and have created curious artworks that transcend time and place – but what is it that attracts artists to these magical realms? From theosophy and kabbalah, to the zodiac and alchemy; spiritualism and ceremonial magic, to the elements and sacred geometry – The Art of the Occult introduces major occult themes and showcases the artists who have been influenced and led by them. Discover the symbolic and mythical images of the Pre-Raphaelites; the automatic drawing of Hilma af Klint and Madge Gill; Leonora Carrington's surrealist interpretation of myth, alchemy and kabbalah; and much more. Featuring prominent, marginalised and little-known artists, The Art of the Occult crosses mystical spheres in a bid to inspire and delight. Divided into thematic chapters (The Cosmos, Higher Beings, Practitioners), the book acts as an entertaining introduction to the art of mysticism – with essays examining each practice and over 175 artworks to discover. The art of the occult has always existed in the margins but inspired the masses, and this book will spark curiosity in all fans of magic, mysticism and the mysterious.

Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style


Christin Geall - 2020
    A charming and erudite mentor, Christin Geall emboldens designers, gardeners, and entrepreneurs to think differently and deeply about their work with flowers as she draws upon fine-art and historical sources—the paintings of the Dutch still-life masters, the proportions of Versailles, or the work of floral innovators like garden designers Gertrude Jekyll and Constance Spry. Covering all aspects of floral design, including choosing plants to grow and arrange, selecting tools and vessels, balancing colour and form, and even photographing and selling arrangements, Cultivated elucidates universal lessons for all levels of practitioners, budgets, and materials. Geall's stunning photographs of her own lush designs illustrate techniques for creating brilliant arrangements that spark the imagination.

Women Artists A to Z


Melanie Labarge - 2020
    Each spread features a simple line of text encapsulating the creator's iconic work in one word, such as "D is for Dots" (Yayoi Kusama) and "S is for Spider" (Louise Bourgeois), followed by slightly longer text about the artist for older readers who would like to know more. Backmatter includes photos, extended biographies, and discussion questions for budding creatives and trailblazers.Artists featured: Mirka Mora, Betye Saar, Helen Frankenthaler, Yayoi Kusama, Kay Sage, Georgia O'Keeffe, Agnes Martin, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Elizabeth Catlett, Judith Leyster, Leonora Carrington, Carmen Herrera, Edmonia Lewis, Maya Lin, Hilma af Klint, Maria Martinez, Gee's Bend quilters, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, Loïs Mailou Jones, Alice Neel, Helen Zughaib, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Dorothea Lange, Xenobia Bailey, and Maria Sibylla Merian.

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration


Nicole R. Fleetwood - 2020
    Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America's prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them.Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author's own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions--including solitary confinement--these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art.As the movement to transform the country's criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century.

The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution


Dan Hicks - 2020
    They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen.Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections.The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museums, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism.

Artemisia


Letizia Treves - 2020
    Her career spanned more than 40 years, as she moved between Rome, where she was raised and trained by her father, Orazio Gentileschi, to Florence, where she gained artistic independence and became the first female member of the city’s academy of artists, and to Venice, London, and Naples. Often featuring heroic female subjects, her paintings were predominantly intended for private clients. Today they are recognized for their dramatic power and originality, showing Artemisia to be one of the most compelling storytellers of her time. This beautiful book includes essays on her life and career; a discussion of her personal and artistic relationship with her father; a summary of critical writings and an overview of the wide range of approaches to Artemisia’s work since her rediscovery by feminist art historians more than 50 years ago; a more personal insight into Artemisia through her letters; a discussion of the artist’s self-representation in her work; and an essay dedicated to her painting technique.

The Tsarina's Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck


Gerald Easter - 2020
    The vessel was delivering a dozen Dutch masterpiece paintings to Europe’s most voracious collector: Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Among the lost treasures was The Nursery, an oak-paneled triptych by Leiden fine painter Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt’s most brilliant student and Holland’s first international superstar artist. Dou’s triptych was long the most beloved and most coveted painting of the Dutch Golden Age, and its loss in the shipwreck was mourned throughout the art world.  Vrouw Maria, meanwhile, became a maritime legend, confounding would-be salvagers for more than two hundred years. In July 1999, a daring Finnish wreck hunter found Vrouw Maria, upright on the sea floor and perfectly preserved. The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure masterfully recounts the fascinating tale of Vrouw Maria—her loss and discovery—weaving together the rise and fall of the artist whose priceless masterpiece was the jewel of the wreckage. Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees bring to vivid life the personalities that drove (and are still driving) this compelling tale, evoking Robert Massie’s depiction of Russian high politics and culture, Simon Schama’s insights into Dutch Golden Age art and art history, Gary Kinder’s spirit of, danger and adventure  on the beguiling Archipelago Sea.

The Story of Scottish Art


Lachlan Goudie - 2020
    BBC TV broadcaster and artist Lachlan Goudie passionately narrates the joys and struggles of artists striving to fulfill their vision and the dramatic transformations of Scottish society reflected in their art.The Story of Scottish Art is beautifully illustrated with diverse works from Scotland’s long tradition of bold creativity: Pictish carved stones and Celtic metalwork, Renaissance palaces and chapels, paintings of Scottish life and landscapes by Horatio McCulloch, David Wilkie, the Glasgow Boys, and Joan Eardley; designs by master architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh; and collage and sculpture by pop art pioneer Eduardo Paolozzi. Through Scotland’s remarkable artistic history, Goudie tells the story of a small country with an extraordinary creative output that influenced significant global movements, such as art nouveau and pop art, while constantly redefining its own practices.

Haring-isms


Keith Haring - 2020
    Through his signature bold graphic line drawings of figures and forms dancing and grooving, Haring's paintings, large-scale public murals, chalk drawings, and singular graffiti style defined an era and brought awareness to social issues ranging from gay rights and AIDS to drug abuse prevention and a woman's right to choose. Haring-isms is a collection of essential quotations from this creative thinker and legendary artist.Gathered from Haring's journals and interviews, these lively quotes reveal his influences and thoughts on a variety of topics, including birth and death, possibility and uncertainty, and difference and conformity. They demonstrate Haring's deep engagement with subjects outside of the art world and his outspoken commitment to activism. Taken together, this selection reflects Haring's distinctive voice and reminds us why his work continues to resonate with fans around the globe.Select quotations from the book:"Art lives through the imaginations of the people who are seeing it. Without that contact, there is no art.""It's a huge world. There are lots and lots and lots of people that I haven't reached yet that I'd like to reach.""Art is one of the last areas that is totally within the realm of the human individual and can't be copied or done better by a machine.""The artist, if he is a vessel, is also a performer.""No matter how long you work, it's always going to end sometime. And there's always going to be things left undone.""I decided to make a major break. New York was the only place to go.""I came to believe there was no such thing as chance. If you accept that there are no coincidences, you use whatever comes along.""There was a migration of artists from all over America to New York. It was completely wild. And we controlled it ourselves.""I couldn't go back to the abstract drawings; it had to have some connection to the real world."

The Honest Art Dictionary: A Jovial Trip through Art Jargon


The Art History Babes - 2020
    Art speak is infamously alienating, strange, and confusing as hell. Think stereotypical, stylish art dealers who describe art as 'derivative' and 'dynamic' – or stuffy auction houses filled with portraits of dead white people called 'Old Masters'. What do these words mean? Where did they come from? And how can you actually use them? Spanning art history, iconic movements, peculiar words, and pretentious phrases – after reading this book, you'll be able to lay down that art jargon with the best of them. From avant-garde to oeuvre, the Harlem Renaissance to New Objectivity, museum fatigue to memento mori – the Babes use their whip-smart humor, on-point knowledge, and a heavy dose of candor to explain even the most complex ideas in bite-sized definitions, as in:ACTION PAINTING (n.) – If Jackie Chan had buckets of paint strapped to his arms and legs in Rush Hour 2, and there just happened to be a blank canvas nearby, you would end up with action painting. […] IMPASTO (n.) – Have you ever gotten up close to a painting, looked at it, and thought: “Those brushstrokes are sensual as hell.”? That’s how I feel about impasto, a painting style that involves applying thick, textured strokes of paint using a brush or palette knife or other tool of your choice. […] UKIYO-E (n.) – Beautiful ladies, kabuki actors, epic landscapes, sumo wrestlers, people navigating city streets, and sex stuff! These are some of the common subjects of ukiyo-e art produced in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868.) […]  With illustrations from Carmen Casado – The Honest Art Dictionary is a valuable starter pack for those new to the study of art history, those re-exploring the discipline, or those simply interested in impressing their friends during a trip to the local art museum.

An Elephant in Rome: Bernini, The Pope and The Making of the Eternal City


Loyd Grossman - 2020
    Thanks to the twin blows of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War, Rome, celebrated both as the Eternal City and Caput Mundi (the head of the world) had lost its pre-eminent place in Europe. Then a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mania for building, determined to restore the prestige of his church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe's intellectual, political and cultural elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gianlorenzo Bernini, already celebrated as the most important living artist: no mean feat in the age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez.Together, Alexander VII and Bernini made the greatest artistic double act in history, inventing the concept of soft power and the bucket list destination. Bernini and Alexander's creation of Baroque Rome as a city more beautiful and grander than since the days of the Emperor Augustus continues to delight and attract.'A total delight' - Simon Jenkins.

Philip Guston Now


Philip Guston - 2020
    His nonlinear career, embrace of "high" and "low" sources, and constant aesthetic reinvention defy easy categorization, and his 1968 figurative turn is one of 20th-century art's most legendary conversion narratives. "I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything--and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?"And so Guston's cross-hatched abstractions gave way to large, cartoonlike canvases populated by lumpy, lugubrious figures and personal symbols in a palette of meaty pinks. That Guston continued mining this vein for the rest of his life--despite initial bewilderment from his peers--reinforced his reputation as an artist's artist; he has become hugely influential as contemporary art has followed Guston into its own antic figurative turn.Published to accompany the first retrospective museum exhibition of Guston's career in 15 years, Philip Guston Now includes a definitive chronology reflecting many new discoveries. It highlights the voices of artists of our day who have been inspired by the full range of his work: Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Essays trace the influences, interests and evolution of this singular force in modern and contemporary art--including a close look at the 1960s and '70s, when Guston gradually abandoned abstraction, returning to the figure and to current history but with a personal voice, by turns comic and apocalyptic, that resonates today more than ever.Born in Canada and raised in Los Angeles, Philip Guston (1913-80) was largely self-taught, reared on Renaissance painters in reproduction, Walter and Louise Arensberg's modern art collection, and the Mexican muralism of Orozco and Siqueiros. After finding success as a New York School painter, in 1968 Guston began painting in a figurative mode, marshaling all those early influences into his iconic, bleakly funny images of midcentury America's violence and anxiety. He died in Woodstock in 1980.

Warhol


Blake Gopnik - 2020
    Blake Gopnik's definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world.Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol's surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist's path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a commercial illustrator and his groundbreaking pivot into fine art, to the society portraiture and popular celebrity of the '70s and '80s, as he reflected and responded to the changing dynamics of commerce and culture.Warhol sought out all the most glamorous figures of his times - Susan Sontag, Mick Jagger, the Barons de Rothschild - despite being burdened with an almost crippling shyness. Behind the public glitter of the artist's Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his life and guarded the privacy of his home. He overcame the vicious homophobia of his youth to become a symbol of gay achievement, while always seeking the pleasures of traditional romance and coupledom. (Warhol explodes the myth of his asexuality.)Filled with new insights into the artist's work and personality, Warhol asks: Was he a joke or a genius, a radical or a social climber? As Warhol himself would have answered: Yes.

Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of Ubuweb


Kenneth Goldsmith - 2020
    What started out as a site to share works from a relatively obscure literary movement grew into an essential archive of twentieth- and twenty-first-century avant-garde and experimental literature, film, and music. Visitors around the world now have access to both obscure and canonical works, from artists such as Kara Walker, Yoko Ono, Pauline Oliveros, Samuel Beckett, Marcel Duchamp, Cecil Taylor, Glenn Ligon, William Burroughs, and Jean-Luc Godard.In Duchamp Is My Lawyer, Goldsmith tells the history of UbuWeb, explaining the motivations behind its creation and how artistic works are archived, consumed, and distributed online. Based on his own experiences and interviews with a variety of experts, Goldsmith describes how the site navigates issues of copyright and the ways that UbuWeb challenges familiar configurations and histories of the avant-garde. The book also portrays the growth of other "shadow libraries" and includes a section on the artists whose works reflect the aims, aesthetics, and ethos of UbuWeb. Goldsmith concludes by contrasting UbuWeb's commitment to the free-culture movement and giving access to a wide range of artistic works with today's gatekeepers of algorithmic culture, such as Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify.

Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective


Paul Martineau - 2020
    Celebrated American artist Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976) enjoyed a long career as a photographer, creating a large and diverse body of work that underscored her unique vision, versatility, and commitment to the medium. An early feminist and inspiration to future generations, Cunningham intensely engaged with Pictorialism and Modernism; genres of portraiture, landscape, the nude, still life, and street photography; and themes such as flora, dancers and music, hands, and the elderly. Organized chronologically, this volume explores the full range of the artist’s life and career. It contains nearly two hundred color images of Cunningham’s elegant, poignant, and groundbreaking photographs, both renowned and lesser known, including several that have not been published previously. Essays by Paul Martineau and Susan Ehrens draw from extensive primary source material such as letters, family albums, and other intimate materials to enrich readers’ understanding of Cunningham’s motivations and work.

More Than A Muse: Creative Partnerships That Sold Talented Women Short


Katie McCabe - 2020
    Katie McCabe shines a light on the women who deserved credit in their time, revealing the true stories of talents like Dora Maar (the photographer, painter and writer who was reduced to the role of 'Picasso's lover') and Alma Reville (the backseat director of Hitchcock's films). By exploring a broad scope of art movements and artists (from surrealism to silent film), she moves past the well-worn narratives in order to give wronged female creatives the credit they deserve. Delve into the stories of sculptor Camille Claudel, playwright and civil rights activist Shirley Graham Du Bois, painter Jo Hopper, jazz pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong and photographer Lucia Moholy.More than a Muse re-examines our history through the lens of artistic partnership, and locates women solidly in the foreground.

The Giant: A Novel of Michelangelo's David


Laura Morelli - 2020
    Fresco painter Jacopo Torni longs to make his mark in the world. But while his peers enjoy prestigious commissions, his meager painting jobs are all earmarked to pay down gambling debts.When Jacopo hears of a competition to create Florence's greatest sculpture, he pins all his hopes on a collaboration with his boyhood companion, Michelangelo Buonarroti. But will the frustrated artist ever emerge from the shadow of his singularly gifted friend?

Writing in Space, 1973–2019


Lorraine O'Grady - 2020
    A firsthand account of O'Grady's wide-ranging practice, this volume contains statements, scripts, and previously unpublished notes charting the development of her performance work and conceptual photography; her art and music criticism that appeared in the Village Voice and Artforum; critical and theoretical essays on art and culture, including her classic "Olympia's Maid"; and interviews in which O'Grady maps, expands, and complicates the intellectual terrain of her work. She examines issues ranging from black female subjectivity to diaspora and race and representation in contemporary art, exploring both their personal and their institutional implications. O'Grady's writings—introduced in this collection by critic and curator Aruna D'Souza—offer a unique window into her artistic and intellectual evolution while consistently plumbing the political possibilities of art.

Mid-Century Modern: A Complete Sourcebook: A Complete Sourcebook


Dominic Bradbury - 2020
    With rich and diverse examples of everything from furniture and lighting to ceramics and textiles to graphics and posters to interior design and architecture, this sleek compendium of mid-century style includes over 1,000 illustrations representing classic designs and little-seen rarities, as well as entries on nearly 100 major creators, such as Dieter Rams, Robin Day, Isamu Noguchi, Lucie Rie, Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, and Oscar Niemeyer. An additional illustrated dictionary features hundreds more influential mid-century designers, manufacturers, organizations, schools, and movements.Organized into three parts—“Media and Masters,” with six sections on applied arts; “Houses and Interiors,” featuring twenty seminal homes and their furnishings; and an “A–Z of Designers and Makers”—and complete with thirteen specially commissioned essays by renowned experts, this illustrated book is a must-have for collectors, design aficionados, and anyone seeking inspiration for their home.

Seen But Not Seen: Influential Canadians and the First Nations from the 1840s to Today


Donald B. Smith - 2020
    The ultimate objective was assimilation into the dominant society.Seen but Not Seen explores the history of Indigenous marginalization and why non-Indigenous Canadians failed to recognize Indigenous societies and cultures as worthy of respect. Approaching the issue biographically, Donald B. Smith presents the commentaries of sixteen influential Canadians - including John A. Macdonald, George Grant, and Emily Carr - who spoke extensively on Indigenous subjects. Supported by documentary records spanning over nearly two centuries, Seen but Not Seen covers fresh ground in the history of settler-Indigenous relations.

Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde


Félix Fénéon - 2020
    A rhythmic and angular pose. A decorative F�lix, entering with his hat or a flower in his hand." With these words, in 1890, Paul Signac described to F�lix F�n�on the extraordinary portrait he was dedicating to him. In it, Signac paid homage to F�n�on's distinctive appearance, his generous but enigmatic personality and his innovative approach to modernism.Signac's portrait spotlights a figure who often chose to remain behind the scenes. But F�n�on's impact--as a writer, dealer, publisher, curator, collector and anarchist--was tremendous. F�n�on helped define the movement known as neoimpressionism, a term he himself coined in the 1880s; he helped launch the careers of Seurat, Signac, Bonnard, Matisse and Modigliani; he was the first editor of the work of Rimbaud and Lautr�amont; and he was active in anarchist circles, notoriously so in 1894, following the bombing of a restaurant popular among politicians and financiers, for which he was arrested and acquitted.F�lix F�n�on: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde accompanies the first exhibition tracing F�n�on's extraordinary, unsung impact on the development of early modernism, a major international event. The publication traces F�n�on's career through a selection of major works that F�n�on admired, championed and collected, alongside contemporary letters, documents and photographs, and offers a long-overdue celebration of this singular, catalytic figure in art history.In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in an age of revolutionary change, French polymath F�lix F�n�on (1861-1944) was at the center of Paris' literary, artistic and anarchist circles. His Novels in Three Lines was translated by Luc Sante and published in 2007.

Kara Walker: Hyundai Commission


Clara Kim - 2020
    1969) have been featured prominently in exhibitions around the world since the mid-1990s. Walker is renowned for her candid explorations of race, gender, sexuality and violence, from drawings, prints, murals, shadow puppets, cut-paper silhouettes, and projections to large-scale sculptural installations, often referencing the history of slavery and the antebellum American South. Now, Walker is creating the latest Hyundai Commission in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Documenting the work’s creation, this book includes images of the work in process as well as the final installation. Walker introduces a personal selection of archival images and artworks that have influenced her during the genesis of this work. Essays by curator Clara Kim and a specially commissioned piece by the celebrated writer Zadie Smith offer fresh and intriguing insights into Walker’s life and career.

The Bloomsbury Look


Wendy Hitchmough - 2020
    . . . Will be enjoyed by both Bloomsbury aficionados and newcomers alike.”—Lucinda Willan, V&A Magazine The Bloomsbury Group was a loose collective of forward-thinking writers, artists, and intellectuals in London, with Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and E. M. Forster among its esteemed members. The group’s works and radical beliefs, spanning literature, economics, politics, and non-normative relationships, changed the course of 20th-century culture and society. Although its members resisted definition, their art and dress imparted a coherent, distinctive group identity. Drawing on unpublished photographs and extensive new research, The Bloomsbury Look is the first in-depth analysis of how the Bloomsbury Group generated and broadcast its self-fashioned aesthetic. One chapter is dedicated to photography, which was essential to the group’s visual narrative—from casual snapshots, to amateur studio portraits, to family albums. Others examine the Omega Workshops as a design center, and the evidence for its dress collections, spreading the Bloomsbury aesthetic to the general public. Finally, the book considers the group’s extensive participation in 20th-century modernism as artists, models, curators, critics, and collectors.

Talking to a Portrait: Tales of an Art Curator


Rosalind Pepall - 2020
    Few people are aware of the work, the emotion, and the obsessions of a curator's job. Exhibitions come and go; they are forgotten after a few years, but they live on in the curator's memory. In these fifteen essays we encounter artists falling in and out of love, family tragedies, the creation of the Stanley Cup, the secrets of Tiffany, Antiques Roadshow, a rootless baroness, the design craze for aluminum, small Japanese boxes called kogos, watercolour sketchbooks of the Canadian north, a beautiful prayer room in Montreal, gondolas flying through windows in Venice, and Moscovites who love Goldfinger. Archival black and white photographs and colour plates—including Edwin Holgate’s Ludivine, one of the most beloved and recognizable Canadian portraits ever painted—make this book a must-have for art lovers, students, academics, museum-goers, and readers interested in the role art plays in the creation of our lives.

Come and Be Shocked: Baltimore Beyond John Waters and the Wire


Mary Rizzo - 2020
    Whether it's the small-town eccentricity of Charm City (think duckpin bowling and marble-stooped row houses) or the gang violence of "Bodymore, Murdaland," Baltimore has figured prominently in popular culture about cities since the 1950s.In Come and Be Shocked, Mary Rizzo examines the cultural history and racial politics of these contrasting images of the city. From the 1950s, a period of urban crisis and urban renewal, to the early twenty-first century, Rizzo looks at how artists created powerful images of Baltimore. How, Rizzo asks, do the imaginary cities created by artists affect the real cities that we live in? How does public policy (intentionally or not) shape the kinds of cultural representations that artists create? And why has the relationship between artists and Baltimore city officials been so fraught, resulting in public battles over film permits and censorship?To answer these questions, Rizzo explores the rise of tourism, urban branding, and citizen activism. She considers artists working in the margins, from the East Baltimore poets writing in Chicory, a community magazine funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity, to a young John Waters, who shot his early low-budget movies on the streets, guerrilla-style. She also investigates more mainstream art, from the teen dance sensation The Buddy Deane Show to the comedy-drama Roc to the crime show The Wire, from Anne Tyler's award-winning book The Accidental Tourist to Barry Levinson's movie classic Diner.

The Louvre: All the Paintings


Anja Grebe - 2020
    The Louvre Museum houses many of the world's most celebrated and important art of all time -- from da Vinci's Mona Lisa to Vermeer's The Lacemaker -- making it also the most visited art museum in the world. The Louvre: All the Paintings allows you to experience every painting currently on display in the permanent collection in Paris, without ever having to step on a plane. Divided and organized into the four main painting collections of the museum -- the Italian School, the Northern School, the Spanish School, and the French School -- the paintings are then presented chronologically by the artists' date of birth. Four hundred of the most iconic and significant paintings are illuminated with 300-word discussions by art historians Anja Grebe and Vincent Pomarède on the key attributes of the work, what to look for when viewing, the artist's inspirations and techniques, biographical information on the artist, the artist's overall impact on history, and more. Immerse yourself in the wonder and dazzling display of the Louvre without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home. Learn more about each artist and painting, and tour the realms of sensational masterpieces with this new paperback edition.

The Business of Tomorrow: The Visionary Life of Harry Guggenheim: From Aviation and Rocketry to the Creation of an Art Dynasty


Dirk Smillie - 2020
    Decades later came the Guggenheim museum, which would become the hub of the world’s most powerful art brand.But who was behind this transformation? It took three generations of Guggenheims to build the wealth and power in its first era. Yet it was the singular force of Harry Guggenheim who would guide the family’s next generation of businesses in to modernity. Part angel investor, part entrepreneur, part technologist, Harry launched businesses whose impact on 20th century America went far beyond the Guggenheims’ mines or museum.His visionary investments continue to profoundly influence our world and hold valuable business lessons for billionaire dynasty builders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who can only aspire to match Harry’s lasting, multigenerational impact.A flawed but brilliant man, Harry Guggenheim was the confidante to six U.S. presidents and a key financial force behind commercial aviation and space exploration, two innovations that catapulted the nation into the future. Epic and intimate, The Business of Tomorrow reveals the groundbreaking life of an American icon.

Dora Maar


Damarice Amao - 2020
      Dora Maar (born Henriette Théodora Markovitch, 1907–1997) was active at the height of Surrealism in France. She was recognized as a key member of the movement and maintained professional relationships with many of its prominent figures, such as André Breton, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Man Ray. However, her standing as the one-time muse and mistress of Pablo Picasso—his famous “Weeping Woman”— has long eclipsed her creative output and minimized her influence.   Richly illustrated with 240 key works showcasing Maar’s inimitable acumen as a photographer, this book examines the full arc of her career for the very first time. Subjects include her innovative commercial and fashion photography, approach to the nude and eroticism, engagement with political groups, interest in socially concerned photography, affiliation with the Surrealist movement, and hitherto unknown work from her reclusive late career, providing a dynamic and multifaceted examination of an important artist.   This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the Centre Pompidou Paris, France June 5 to July 29, 2019; the Tate Modern London, United Kingdom November 19, 2019, to March 15, 2020; and the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center April 21 to July 26, 2020.

Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe


Mary D. Garrard - 2020
    Her art addressed issues that resonate today, such as sexual violence and women’s problematic relationship to political power. Her powerful paintings with vigorous female protagonists chime with modern audiences, and she is celebrated by feminist critics and scholars.   This book breaks new ground by placing Gentileschi in the context of women’s political history. Mary D. Garrard, noted Gentileschi scholar, shows that the artist most likely knew or knew about contemporary writers such as the Venetian feminists Lucrezia Marinella and Arcangela Tarabotti. She discusses recently discovered paintings, offers fresh perspectives on known works, and examines the artist anew in the context of feminist history. This beautifully illustrated book gives for the first time a full portrait of a strong woman artist who fought back through her art.

The Dialectics of Art


John Molyneux - 2020
    Going beyond a crude interpretation of explicitly political art, the book instead looks at art itself as a distinct kind of human activity, and asks what it tells us about society and human relations.

Comic Book History of Animation #1


Fred Van Lente - 2020
    The team behind IDW’S Comic Book History of Comics returns with a brand-new series! From Aardman to Zoetrope, Disney to Miyasaki, Hanna-Barbera to Pixar, and everything in between! Part One: Silent…but Deadly (Funny!) shows how the animated cartoon began with the first movies under the lawsuit-happy watch of Thomas Edison… cartoonist Winsor McCay shows how ‘toons can make you feel as well as laugh… the Fleischer Brothers revolutionize the technology of animation… and an obscure filmmaker from Kansas City named Walt Disney gets his first big break! The perfect companion piece to CBHoC, the Comic Book History of Animation focuses on the filmmakers and beloved characters of the past century and a half, and is essential for fans of the medium and “toon newbies” alike.

The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde


Alyce Mahon - 2020
    In this groundbreaking cultural history, Alyce Mahon traces how artists of the twentieth century turned to Sade to explore political, sexual, and psychological terror, adapting his imagery of the excessively sexual and terrorized body as a means of liberation from systems of power.Mahon shows how avant-garde artists, writers, dramatists, and filmmakers drew on Sade’s “philosophy in the bedroom” to challenge oppressive regimes and their restrictive codes and conventions of gender and sexuality. She provides close analyses of early illustrated editions of Sade’s works and looks at drawings, paintings, and photographs by leading surrealists such as André Masson, Leonor Fini, and Man Ray. She explains how Sade’s ideas were reflected in the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire and the fiction of Anne Desclos, who wrote her erotic novel, Story of O, as a love letter to critic Jean Paulhan, an admirer of Sade. Mahon explores how Sade influenced the happenings of Jean-Jacques Lebel, the theater of Peter Brook, the cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the multimedia art of Paul Chan. She also discusses responses to Sade by feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, and Angela Carter.Beautifully illustrated, The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde demonstrates that Sade inspired generations of artists to imagine new utopian visions of living, push the boundaries of the body and the body politic, and portray the unthinkable in their art.

Death and Mortality: An Image Archive for Artists and Designers


Kale James - 2020
    These images can be used in art and graphic design projects, or printed and framed to make stunning decorative artworks. We promise you will be impressed with this impressive pictorial archive.  About the author: This book was curated and authored by the creative director of Vault Editions, Kale James. Kale has published over 12 acclaimed books within the art design space and has worked with brands including Nike, Samsung, Adidas and Rolling Stone. Kale's artwork is published in numerous titles including No Cure, Semi-Permanent, Vogue and more.This collection of vintage illustrations is an essential resource for all artist, collage artists and graphic designers looking to take their artwork to the next level. Only a limited number of copies of this publication have been made, so download your files now and start creating today before they are gone forever.

Interior Design Since 1900: Fourth Edition


Anne Massey - 2020
    From William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement to expressionism, postmodernism, and green design, Interior Design Since 1900 charts them all.Featuring more than two hundred color illustrations of interiors from around the world, this book reveals the fundamental changes in style that occurred throughout the century. The 1900s saw the emergence of professional designers and a growing appetite to redesign homes to keep up with popular fashion. In recent decades, the focus has shifted toward public spaces and sustainable design. In this survey, Anne Massey explores the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of these developments.This book has been a classic introduction to interior design for almost thirty years. The new, fourth edition is brought up-to-date with a chapter on transnational design, encompassing mid-century modernist work in Singapore and Sri Lanka, as well as more recent interior spaces, including luxury hotels in Dubai and a contemporary art museum in Cape Town. Through this book, Massey shows how a shared language of design and cutting-edge technology are reshaping interiors around the globe.

The Story of Contemporary Art


Tony Godfrey - 2020
    H. Gombrich set out to answer in his magisterial The Story of Art. Contemporary art seems totally unlike what came before it, departing from the road map supplied by Raphael, D�rer, Rembrandt, and other European masters. In The Story of Contemporary Art, Tony Godfrey picks up where Gombrich left off, offering a lively introduction to contemporary art that stretches from Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes to Marina Abramovic's performance art to today's biennale circuit and million-dollar auctions. Godfrey, a curator and writer on contemporary art, chronicles important developments in pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, installation art, performance art, and beyond.Godfrey's narrative, lavishly illustrated, traces a series of debates over what art is or should be: object versus sculpture, painting versus conceptual, local versus global, gallery versus wider world. He presents multiple voices--not only critics, theorists, curators, and collectors but also artists and audiences. Key to Godfrey's account is the upending of the once widespread perception that art is made almost exclusively by white men from North America and Europe. The Story of Contemporary Art is an essential guide to this radical transformation.

Abstract Art: A Global History


Pepe Karmel - 2020
    Moving beyond the canonical terrain of abstract art, the author demonstrates how artists from around the world have used abstract imagery to express social, cultural, and spiritual experience.Karmel builds this fresh approach to abstract art around  five inclusive themes: body, landscape, cosmology, architecture, and man-made signs and patterns. In the process, this history develops a series of narratives that go far beyond the established  figures and movements traditionally associated with abstract art. Each narrative is complemented by a number of featured abstract works, arranged in thought-provoking pairings with accompanying extended captions that provide an in-depth analysis. This wide-ranging examination incorporates work from Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America, as well as Europe and North America, through artists ranging from Wu Guanzhong, Joan Miró, Jackson Pollock, to Hilma af Klint, and Odili Donald Odita. Breaking new ground, Karmel has forged a new history of this key art movement.

The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture


Susan Stewart - 2020
    Stewart takes us on a sweeping journey through founding legends of broken covenants and original sin, the Christian appropriation of the classical past, and images of decay in early modern allegory. Stewart looks in depth at the works of Goethe, Piranesi, Blake, and Wordsworth, each of whom found in ruins a means of reinventing his art. Lively and engaging, The Ruins Lesson ultimately asks what can resist ruination—and finds in the self-transforming, ever-fleeting practices of language and thought a clue to what might truly endure.

The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World


Anne Gerritsen - 2020
    Many of these were made in the kilns in and surrounding Jingdezhen. Found in almost every part of the world, Jingdezhen's porcelains had a far-reaching impact on global consumption, which in turn shaped the local manufacturing processes. The imperial kilns of Jingdezhen produced ceramics for the court, while nearby private kilns manufactured for the global market. In this beautifully illustrated study, Anne Gerritsen asks how this kiln complex could manufacture such quality, quantity and variety. She explores how objects tell the story of the past, connecting texts with objects, objects with natural resources, and skilled hands with the shapes and designs they produced. Through the manufacture and consumption of Jingdezhen's porcelains, she argues, China participated in the early modern world.

Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture


Eleanor Jones Harvey - 2020
    A Prussian-born geographer, naturalist, explorer, and illustrator, he was a prolific writer whose books graced the shelves of American artists, scientists, philosophers, and politicians. Humboldt visited the United States for six weeks in 1804, engaging in a lively exchange of ideas with such figures as Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale. It was perhaps the most consequential visit by a European traveler in the young nation's history, one that helped to shape an emerging American identity grounded in the natural world.In this beautifully illustrated book, Eleanor Jones Harvey examines how Humboldt left a lasting impression on American visual arts, sciences, literature, and politics. She shows how he inspired a network of like-minded individuals who would go on to embrace the spirit of exploration, decry slavery, advocate for the welfare of Native Americans, and extol America's wilderness as a signature component of the nation's sense of self. Harvey traces how Humboldt's ideas influenced the transcendentalists and the landscape painters of the Hudson River School, and laid the foundations for the Smithsonian Institution, the Sierra Club, and the National Park Service.Alexander von Humboldt and the United States looks at paintings, sculptures, maps, and artifacts, and features works by leading American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, Frederic Church, and Samuel F. B. Morse.Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DCExhibition ScheduleSmithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DCMarch 20-August 16, 2020

Van Eyck


Till-Holger Borchert - 2020
    With his unprecedented technique, scientific knowledge, and unparalleled powers of observation, Van Eyck lifted oil painting to previously unknown heights and helped determine the course of Western art.In 2020 the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent will host the largest ever exhibition of Van Eyck s work. An Optical Revolution includes artworks by Van Eyck, several pieces from his studio and international masterpieces from the late Middle Ages, which makes the world of Van Eyck more tangible than ever. This tie-in exhibition catalogue unravels some of the myths that surround Van Eyck and his technique while showing his complete oeuvre and his influence in a new perspective. Central to the exhibition are the eight restored exterior panels of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a highly exceptional loan from St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. After the exhibition the panels will return to their original place in the cathedral and never again be shown elsewhere. Including essays by leading experts from around the world, this book will be an indispensable resource for van Eyck fans and scholars alike.

Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne: The Original


Aby Warburg - 2020
    His goal was to show how certain gestures and icons repeated themselves across history, constituting what he called a "pathos formula"--that is, an enduring emotional metaphor. Warburg had the panels photographed, conceiving of their ultimate incarnation as being in book form--but never completed the atlas.Warburg has become famed for many things--founding the discipline of iconology (what would now be called visual studies); his incredible library (and its idiosyncratic organization); his photographs of Hopi Indians; and the august institute in London that bears his name. But the greatest, most mythical aspect of his legacy is the Mnemosyne Atlas, which is to art history what Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project is to cultural history--an incomplete, collaged modernist epic attempting to comprehend the patterns of history and human emotion through flashes of insight that circumvent discursive thought.Artists, theorists, writers and curators as various as Gerhard Richter, R.B. Kitaj, Joan Jonas, Charlene von Heyl, Giorgio Agamben, Marina Warner, Ernst Gombrich and Hans Ulrich Obrist have all paid homage to this mythic entity in different ways; many books have been written about it, and many exhibitions themed around it. Since Gombrich was tasked with its recreation in 1937, several scholars have attempted editions of the Atlas, all using Warburg's indistinct, nearly illegible photographs. Now, for this major publishing event, Roberto Ohrt and Axel Heil have done what long seemed impossible, searching the 400,000 images in the archives of the Warburg Institute, identifying those from the Atlas and reconstructing Warburg's panels, rendering the Atlas visually accessible to the world for the first time.