Frida Kahlo: The Paintings


Hayden Herrera - 1991
    Included among the illustrations are more than eighty full–color paintings, as well as dozens of black–and–white pictures and line illustrations. Among the famous and little–known works included in Frida Kahlo: The Paintings are The Two Fridas, Self–Portrait as a Tehuana, Without Hope, The Dream, The Little Deer, Diego and I, Henry Ford Hospital, My Birth, and My Nurse and I. Here, too, are documentary photographs of Frida Kahlo and her world that help to illuminate the various stages of her life.About the Author:Hayden Herrera is an art historian. She has lectured widely, curated several exhibitions of art, taught Latin American art at New York University, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews for such publications as Art in America, Art Forum, Connoisseur, and the New York Times, among others. Her books include Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo; Mary Frank; and Matisse: A Portrait. She is working on a critical biography of Arshile Gorky. She lives in New York City.

Pre-Raphaelites


Heather Birchall - 2010
    Fascinated by the romantic aspects of medieval culture and the vivid, jewel-like colors of Quattrocento art, the movement abhored the Classical poses and composition of Raphael and those influenced by him—hence the group's name—and the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the original Pre-Raphaelites were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form a seven-member "brotherhood". Its influence on many later British artists was extensive, and Rossetti's work is now seen as a precursor of the wider European Symbolist movement. This book examines the group's emergence, development, influence, and subsequent demise.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations

Dictator Style: Lifestyles of the World's Most Colorful Despots


Peter York - 2005
    Running with the idea that our homes are where we are truly ourselves, Peter York's wildly original and scathingly funny look at the interior decorating tastes of some of history's most alarming dictators proves that absolute power corrupts absolutely, right down to the drapes. Mining rare, jaw-dropping photographs of interiors now mostly (thankfully) destroyed, York's hilarious profiles of 16 inner sanctums of the scary leaves no endangered tiger pelt unturned, from Saddam Hussein's creepy private art collection to General Noriega's Christmas tree to the strange tube and knob contraption in the Ceausescu bathroom. All your favorite dictators are here: Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Tito, Mussolini, Mobutu, Idi Amin, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos—each with their own uniquely frightful chic. An interior decorating book like no other, Dictator Style is a welcome tonic for a world in need of a good laugh at the expense of the all-powerful.

Fushigi Circus


Mark Ryden - 2006
    Features works prior to the Tree Show, including Blood, Sweat, Tears, and The Creatrix. A survey of 55 of Ryden s most impressive works from past shows to the present. A gem of a book, presented in a beautiful hardcover, clothbound format. Text in Japanese.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative


Austin Kleon - 2012
    That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

Interaction of Color


Josef Albers - 1971
    Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this timeless book presents Albers’s unique ideas of color experimentation in a way that is valuable to specialists as well as to a larger audience.Originally published by Yale University Press in 1963 as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates, Interaction of Color first appeared in paperback in 1971, featuring ten representative color studies chosen by Albers. The paperback has remained in print ever since and is one of the most influential resources on color for countless readers.This new paperback edition presents a significantly expanded selection of more than thirty color studies alongside Albers’s original unabridged text, demonstrating such principles as color relativity, intensity, and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusions of transparency and reversed grounds. Now available in a larger format and with enhanced production values, this expanded edition celebrates the unique authority of Albers’s contribution to color theory and brings the artist’s iconic study to an eager new generation of readers.

The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution


Denis Dutton - 2008
    Human tastes in the arts, Dutton argues, are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just "socially constructed."Our love of beauty is inborn, and many aesthetic tastes are shared across remote cultures—just one example is the widespread preference for landscapes with water and distant trees, like the savannas where we evolved. Using forceful logic and hard evidence, Dutton shows that we must premise art criticism on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." He restores the place of beauty, pleasure, and skill as artistic values.Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and uproar in the art world, The Art Instinct offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.

Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures


Mark Fisher - 2014
    Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carré, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial and many others.

This Is Not a Pipe


Michel Foucault - 1968
    Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction.

The Shape of Content


Ben Shahn - 1957
    He talks of the creation of the work of art, the importance of the community, the problem of communication, and the critical theories governing the artist and his audience.

All Consuming Images: The Politics Of Style In Contemporary Culture


Stuart Ewen - 1988
    A provocative, compelling, and entertaining look at how the power of images dominates every aspect of our lives.

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain


Sathnam Sanghera - 2021
    In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the Covid crisis. And yet empire is a subject, weirdly hidden from view.The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to understanding Britain. However, even among those who celebrate the empire there seems to be a desire not to look at it too closely - not to include the subject in our school history books, not to emphasize it too much in our favourite museums.At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera's book urges us to address this bewildering contradiction. For, it is only by stepping back and seeing where we really come from, that we can begin to understand who we are, and what unites us.

Andy Goldsworthy


Andy Goldsworthy - 1990
    The many-pointed star formed from large icicles balances on a rock in a quiet Dumfriesshire valley, a delicate bamboo screen stands on a Japanese beach, a great serpentine ridge of earth extends along a disused railway cutting on Tyneside, four massive snow rings mark the position of the North Pole.

How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More


Nicholas Mirzoeff - 2015
    From the funny memes that we send to our friends to the disturbing photographs we see in the news, we are consuming and producing images in quantities and ways that could never have been anticipated. In the process, we are producing a new worldview powered by changing demographics -- one where the majority of people are young, urban, and globally connected. In How to See the World, visual culture expert Nicholas Mirzoeff offers a sweeping look at history's most famous images -- from Velezquez's Las Meninas to the iconic "Blue Marble" -- to contextualize and make sense of today's visual world. Drawing on art history, sociology, semiotics, and everyday experience, he teaches us how to close read everything from astronaut selfies to Impressionist self-portraits, from Hitchcock films to videos taken by drones. Mirzoeff takes us on a journey through visual revolutions in the arts and sciences, from new mapping techniques in the seventeenth century to new painting styles in the eighteenth and the creation of film, photography, and x-rays in the nineteenth century. In today's networked world, mobile technology and social media enable us to exercise "visual activism" -- the practice of producing and circulating images to drive political and social change. Whether we are looking at pictures showing the effects of climate change on natural and urban landscapes or an fMRI scan demonstrating neurological addiction, Mirzoeff helps us to find meaning in what we see. A powerful and accessible introduction to this new visual culture, How to See the World reveals how images shape our lives, how we can harness their power for good, and why they matter to us all.

Alchemy & Mysticism


Alexander Roob - 1996
    This unique selection of illustrations with commentaries and source texts guides us on a fascinating journey through the representations of the secret arts.