A new version of Phaidon classic published in 1937, this evocative and fascinating book presents 500 of the world's greatest self portraits, arranged in a simple chronological sequence from ancient time to the late 20th century.

    Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.

    1922) has built up a reputation as one of the most distinctive contemporary figurative artists. Freud's startling and disconcerting portraits and nudes have a haunting quality that makes them impossible to forget. This stunning book -- which accompanies a major retrospective showing at Tate Britain in London, Fundacio"la Caixa" in Barcelona, and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles -- brings together key works from Freud's entire career, including over 140 paintings, drawings, and etchings, some new, and many never before exhibited.Richly illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs from the artist's personal archives, this volume contains a detailed analysis of Freud's work by curator William Feaver along with a contribution from the artist's friend, painter Frank Auerbach. Unprecedented in scope and providing an exciting opportunity to view the exceptionally productive period of the last 20 years in the context of earlier decades, this book celebrates the lifetime achievements of a powerful artist, one of the greatest realist painters of our time.

    From how to look at works by great masters to explaining key movements, styles, and techniques, this monumental book is the quintessential visual guide to more than 2,500 of the world's most revered paintings and sculptures.DK

    While it embodies the entire system of his teaching, with much technical advice and critical comment for the student, it also contains inspiration for those to whom the happiness to be found through all the arts is important.No other American painter attracted such a large, intensely personal group of followers as Henri, whose death in 1929 brought to an end a life that has been completely devoted to art. He was an inspired artist and teacher who believed that everyone is vitally concerned in the happiness and wisdom to be found through the arts. Many of his paintings have been acquired by museums and private collectors. Among them are the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wichita Art Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery.

    The unquestionable appeal of Vincent's paintings and drawings is enhanced by his own account of his life and thought, as contained in his letters. This selection includes more than 230 of his paintings and drawings - all reproduced in full color - as well as extracts of the artist's correspondence to friends and family members.

    Gathers previously unpublished color photographs of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Mount McKinley, Mono Lake, Death Valley, and White Sands National Monument.

    Surveys the origins, development, techniques, approaches, principles, motifs, and major paintings of the nineteenth-century British school, relating the painters and their works to their society.

    What makes the Book of Kells such an extraordinary example of the illuminated manuscript? Why is Durer's self-portrait so iconic? How did Turner's Rain, Steam, Speed turn the art world on its head? What's so great about Jasper Johns's Flag? And who was Whistler's mother, anyway? Art history is filled with paintings that shocked, intrigued, enraged, and mystified their audiences--paintings that exemplified the period in which they were created and forever changed the way we think. Here, 100 examples of these icons of art are presented in beautiful, high-quality reproductions. Each spread features comparative illustrations and details as well as an engaging text that explains why that particular painting belongs in the pantheon of world-changing art.

    Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America.But why--and how and by whom--does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries, Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world.White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists--and who walk the fine line between "assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity.From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.

    Mark Cousins’s chronological journey through the worldwide history of film is told from the point of view of filmmakers and moviegoers. Weaving personalities, film technology, and production with engaging descriptions of groundbreaking scenes, Cousins uses his experience as film historian, producer, and director to capture the shifting trends of movie history. We learn how filmmakers influenced each other; how contemporary events influenced them; how they challenged established techniques and developed new technologies to enhance their medium. Striking images reinforce the reader’s understanding of cinematic innovation, both stylistic and technical. The images reveal astonishing parallels in global filmmaking, thus introducing the less familiar worlds of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cinema, as well as documenting the fortunes of the best Western directors. The Story of Film presents Silent (1885-1928), Sound (1928-1990), and Digital (1990-present), spanning the birth of the moving image; the establishment of Hollywood; the European avant-garde movements, personal filmmaking; world cinema; and recent phenomena like Computer Generated Imagery and the ever-more “real” realizations of the wildest of imaginations. The Story of Film explores what has today become the world’s most popular artistic medium.

    Ateliers, popular in the nineteenth century, teach emerging artists by pairing them with a master artist over a period of years. The educational process begins as students copy masterworks, then gradually progress to painting as their skills develop. The many artists at every level who learned from Classical Drawing Atelier have been clamoring for more of this sophisticated approach to teaching and learning. In Classical Painting Atelier, Aristides, a leader in the atelier movement, takes students step-by-step through the finest works of Old Masters and today’s most respected realist artists to reveal the principles of creating full-color realist still lifes, portraits, and figure paintings. Rich in tradition, yet practical for today’s artists, Classical Painting Atelier is ideal for serious art students seeking a timeless visual education.

    During the eighty-six years of his life, Monet never rested, and was always driven by the urge to paint. And more than two thousand paintings survive from six highly creative decades. Despite being a celebrity among France's political and cultural elite, Monet never became complacent. Even in his seventies and eighties he was still producing paintings that astounded the art world. Monet's work remains highly influential—his abstraction, gestural strokes and expressive color capturing the imagination of generation after generation of artists.This title is appropriate for ages 14 and up

    Seeing them in museums around the world, viewers are transported by the power of Monet's brush into a peaceful world of harmonious nature. Monet himself intended them to provide “an asylum of peaceful meditation.” Yet, as Ross King reveals in his magisterial chronicle of both artist and masterpiece, these beautiful canvases belie the intense frustration Monet experienced at the difficulties of capturing the fugitive effects of light, water, and color. They also reflect the terrible personal torments Monet suffered in the last dozen years of his life.Mad Enchantment tells the full story behind the creation of the Water Lilies, as the horrors of World War I came ever closer to Paris and Giverny, and a new generation of younger artists, led by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, were challenging the achievements of Impressionism. By early 1914, French newspapers were reporting that Monet, by then 73 and one of the world's wealthiest, most celebrated painters, had retired his brushes. He had lost his beloved wife, Alice, and his eldest son, Jean. His famously acute vision--what Paul Cezanne called "the most prodigious eye in the history of painting"--was threatened by cataracts. And yet, despite ill health, self-doubt, and advancing age, Monet began painting again on a more ambitious scale than ever before. Linking great artistic achievement to the personal and historical dramas unfolding around it, Ross King presents the most intimate and revealing portrait of an iconic figure in world culture--from his lavish lifestyle and tempestuous personality to his close friendship with the fiery war leader Georges Clemenceau, who regarded the Water Lilies as one of the highest expressions of the human spirit.

    He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. This is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" (San Francisco Chronicle).