Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look At Making the Magic Real


The Imagineers - 1996
    The Imagineers are like Santa's elves: they are the nuts-and-bolts workers who allow Disney's magic to take flight. Walt Disney Imagineering explains in colorful detail the making of the magic of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disneyland -- the world's most popular vacation "kingdoms" -- from the inside out. From Mickey's Toontown to Blizzard Beach, the wizardry of the Imagineers is brought to life in this book through drawings, models, artwork, and anecdotes; also featured are the now legendary conceptual sketches from Walt Disney's very own pencil. Walt Disney Imagineering is sure to inform and fascinate history buffs, art collectors, graphic designers, architects, engineers, and Disney fans alike.

Envisioning Information


Edward R. Tufte - 1990
    The Whole Earth Review called Envisioning Information a "passionate, elegant revelation."

Illustration Now! Volume 3


Julius Wiedemann - 2009
    A fascinating mix of established master draftsmen and neophytes, working in a vast range of techniques, Illustration Now! Vol. 3 features illustrators from 30 countries, including  information about their career paths, and lists of selected exhibitions. Also included is an introduction by specialist Steven Heller on current trends in the field. This book is perfect for graphic artists, creative professionals and illustration students, as well as anyone with an appreciation for draftsmanship and visual language.

Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane


Andrew Graham-Dixon - 2011
    The worlds of Milan and Rome through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are those of cardinals and prostitutes, prayer and violence. Graham-Dixon puts the murder of a pimp, Ranuccio Tomassoni, at the centre of his story. It occurred at the height of Caravaggio’s fame in Rome and probably brought about his flight through Malta and Sicily, which led to his death in suspicious circumstances off the coast of Naples. Graham-Dixon shows how Caravaggio’s paintings emerged from this extraordinarily wild and troubled life: his detailed readings of them explain their originality and Caravaggio’s mentality better than any of his predecessors.

Creating a New Old House: Yesterday's Character for Today's Home


Russell Versaci - 2003
    In Creating a New Old House, architect Russell Versaci shows you that it is possible to design and create a new house that looks and feels like it has always been there. Versaci explores how architects, builders, and craftsmen are reinterpreting the traditional American house. Through photographs and engaging text, discussions of history and craftsmanship, and sidelong glances at the workings of real old houses, Versaci explains how traditional houses go together and what gives them their unique design appeal. Features 17 new, old-style houses -- from colonials to farmhouses -- from all over the country Versaci identifies Eight Pillars of Traditional Design that create a solid foundation for combining authentic, traditional design with livability to create homes that feel old yet work for the demands of modern family living.

Towards a New Architecture


Le Corbusier - 1923
    The present volume is an unabridged English translation of the 13th French edition of that historic manifesto, in which Le Corbusier expounded his technical and aesthetic theories, views on industry, economics, relation of form to function, the "mass-production spirit," and much else. A principal prophet of the "modern" movement in architecture, and a near-legendary figure of the "International School," he designed some of the twentieth century's most memorable buildings: Chapel at Ronchamp; Swiss dormitory at the Cité Universitaire, Paris; Unité d'Habitation, Marseilles; and many more.Le Corbusier brought great passion and intelligence to these essays, which present his ideas in a concise, pithy style, studded with epigrammatic, often provocative, observations: "American engineers overwhelm with their calculations our expiring architecture." "Architecture is stifled by custom. It is the only profession in which progress is not considered necessary." "A cathedral is not very beautiful . . ." and "Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life."Profusely illustrated with over 200 line drawings and photographs of his own works and other structures he considered important, Towards a New Architecture is indispensable reading for architects, city planners, and cultural historians―but will intrigue anyone fascinated by the wide-ranging ideas, unvarnished opinions, and innovative theories of one of this century's master builders.

You Are an Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation


Sarah Urist Green - 2020
    The result is You Are an Artist, a journey of creation through which you'll invent imaginary friends, sort books, declare a cause, construct a landscape, find your band, and become someone else (or at least try). Your challenge is to filter these assignments through the lens of your own experience and make art that reflects the world as you see it.You don't have to know how to draw well, stretch a canvas, or mix a paint colour that perfectly matches that of a mountain stream. This book is for anyone who wants to make art, regardless of experience level. The only materials you'll need are what you already have on hand or can source for free.You Are an Artist brings together more than 50 assignments gathered from some of the most innovative creators working today, including Sonya Clark, Michelle Grabner, The Guerrilla Girls, Fritz Haeg, Pablo Helguera, Nina Katchadourian, Toyin Ojih Odutola, J. Morgan Puett, Dread Scott, Alec Soth, Gillian Wearing, and many others.

332 Magazine Covers


Norman Rockwell - 1979
    Although technically Norman Rockwell was an academic painter, he had the eye of a photographer and, as he became a mature artist, he used this eye to give us a picture of America that was famliar�astonishingly so�and at the same time unique. Rockwell best expressed this vision of America in his justly famous cover illustrations for magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. 332 of these cover paintings, from beloved classics like "Marbles Champion" to lesser-known gems like "Feeding Time," are reproduced in stunning full color in this large-format volume, which is sure to be treasured by art lovers everywhere.

The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting: Techniques for Rendering Sky, Terrain, Trees, and Water


Suzanne Brooker - 2015
    In The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, established Watson-Guptill author and noted instructor/painter Suzanne Brooker presents the fundamentals necessary for mastering landscape oil painting, breaking landscapes down into component parts: sky, terrain, trees, and water. Each featured element builds off the previous, with additional lessons on the latest brushes, paints, and other tools used by artists. Key methods like observation, rendering, and color mixing are supported by demonstration paintings and samples from a variety of the best landscape oil painters of all time. With The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, oil painters looking to break into landscape painting or enhance their work will find all the necessary ingredients for success.

Paintings in the Louvre


Lawrence Gowing - 1994
    Superbly reproduced in full color, here are all of the most important paintings in the Louvre. The works of the great French masters - which amount to over half of the collection - are well represented, with paintings by Poussi, Fragonard, David, Gericault, Delacroix, Ingres, and Corot, to name only a few. The Mona Lisa is included, together with a good selection of Leonardo da Vinci's other paintings. Many other great Italian masterpieces are reproduced - from the early gilded panels of Giotto to altarpieces by Fra Angelico, from frescoes by Botticelli to canvases by Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, and their successors. Here too are fine examples from the Flemish, Dutch, German, English, and Spanish schools, including Bosch, Durer, Vermeer, Turner, and El Greco.

Breakfast at Sotheby's: An A-Z of the Art World


Philip Hook - 2013
    Based on Philip Hook’s thirty-five years’ experience of the art market, Breakfast at Sotheby’s explores the artist and his hinterland (including definitions for -isms, middle-brow artists, Gericault, and suicides), subject and style (from abstract art and banality through surrealism and war), “wall-power,” provenance, and market weather. Comic, revealing, piquant, splendid, and occasionally absurd, Breakfast at Sotheby’s is a book of pleasure and intelligent observation, as engaged with art as it is with the world that surrounds it.

Norman Rockwell


Thomas S. Buechner - 1970
    A study of the artist and illustrator, Norman Rockwell, which reproduces 600 of his best illustrations, providing a panorama of nearly 60 years of American social history.

Women Who Read Are Dangerous


Stefan Bollmann - 2005
    There was a time, however, when female literacy was a radical idea, and women have certainly not always been free to read whatever they want, whether for pleasure or instruction. This highly acclaimed book presents a compelling selection of paintings, drawings, prints and photographs of women reading through the ages. Works by a diverse range of artists, from Vermeer, Manet and Whistler to Edward Hopper and photographer Eve Arnold, are accompanied by commentaries that explain the context in which each image was created. Also featuring a foreword by the novelist Karen Joy Fowler and an engaging introduction exploring reading as a female pursuit, Women Who Read Are Dangerous will appeal to book lovers everywhere.

The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish


Linda Przybyszewski - 2014
    We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true.In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.

Costume and Fashion: A Concise History


James Laver - 1969
    The concluding chapter by Amy de la Haye, covering the second half of the twentieth century, has now been updated by Andrew Tucker. He discusses the reinvention in the 1990s of the luxury label Gucci, the rise of houses such as Prada and Tommy Hilfiger, and the appointments of relatively avant-garde British, American, and European designers to head classic French houses. All the late-twentieth-century and turn-of-the-century style innovations are included, such as the appropriation of utility clothing by designers like Helmut Lang—who spearheaded the predominantly unisex urban sportswear look—and the impact of workplace dressing down on masculine fashion. The phenomenon of the must-have accessory—the pashmina shawl and the Fendi baguette, for example—is also considered.