This beautifully produced catalogue, designed by the renowned Danish graphic designer Michael Jensen, features deluxe tritone printing and varnish on premium paper. It includes 125 reproductions of Avedon's greatest work from the entire range of his oeuvre--including fashion photographs, reportage and portraits--and spans from his early Italian subjects of the 1940s to his 2004 portrait of the Icelandic pop star Bjork. It also features a small number of color images, including what must be one of the most famous photographic portraits of the twentieth century, -Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent- (1981). Texts by Jeffrey Fraenkel, Judith Thurman, Geoff Dyer, Christoph Ribbat, Rune Gade and curator Helle Crenzien offer a sophisticated and thorough composite view of Avedon's career.

    The Meaning of Tango traces the development of the dance, from its birth in poverty-stricken Buenos Aires, through the craze of the early 20th century, right up to its recent revival today thanks to Broadway shows such as Tango Argentino. It also explains the techniques behind the dance and shows why mastering the tango is more like learning a language than a routine. For beginners or experts, dancers or armchair fans, this wonderful book is the perfect partner for enjoying the world's favorite dance.

    Can you imagine being a struggling musician back then? It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently.’ —Actor/comedian Fred Armisen, from his foreword to this book Just what is ‘yacht rock,’ you ask? Perhaps the easiest description is music that would not sound out of place being played while carousing aboard a yacht back in the good old days. But these songs were also some of the top pop gems of the 1970s and '80s. And while some associate yacht rock’s biggest songs with one-hit wonder artists, several of rock’s most renowned artists fall under this category, too - including Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, and more. Yacht rock seemed to have become extinct by the early twenty-first century … until a comedic video series, simply titled Yacht Rock, went viral and introduced captain’s hats and blazers to a whole new generation - as well as the emergence of a popular cover band, the Yacht Rock Revue, and of course, Jimmy Fallon’s on-air admiration of all things yacht rock. Now, yacht rock is one of the most celebrated ‘yesteryear’ styles of pop music, and has resonated with a new generation of musicians (including the Fred Armisen/Bill Hader-led Blue Jean Committee and soul/funk/electronica crossover act Thundercat). But despite all the hoopla, there has never been a book that told the entire story of the genre. Until now. Featuring interviews with many of the heavy hitters of the genre, including John Oates, Kenny Loggins, and Don Felder, The Yacht Rock Book leaves no sail unturned. This is the definitive story of the yacht rock’s creation, rise, chart-smashing success, fall, and stunning rebirth.

    challenges designed to really get you to think about your life, your art, yourself. In this book, the authors showcase some of the best challenges from their site along with over 25 new challenges to get your creative juices flowing. And the layouts inspired by the Dares, created by the authors and their amazing contributing artists, are the perfect jumpstart to get you thinking about your scrapbooking in a whole new way.

    Throughout his life, Churchill painted to relieve his mind from the demands of leadership—and to stave off depression. Included in this volume are Churchill’s meditations on painting as a salve for the spirit and an important method of relaxation—particularly for people under considerable stress over a long period of time. In addition, it includes 18 reprints of Churchill’s original work in oil, giving the reader a window into the little-known creative and artistic talent of this prominent figure in contemporary history. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sir Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” Over a 64-year span, Churchill published over 40 books, many multi-volume definitive accounts of historical events to which he was a witness and participant. All are beautifully written and as accessible and relevant today as when first published. During his fifty-year political career, Churchill served twice as Prime Minister in addition to other prominent positions—including President of the Board of Trade, First Lord of the Admiralty, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Home Secretary. In the 1930s, Churchill was one of the first to recognize the danger of the rising Nazi power in Germany and to campaign for rearmament in Britain. His leadership and inspired broadcasts and speeches during World War II helped strengthen British resistance to Adolf Hitler—and played an important part in the Allies’ eventual triumph. One of the most inspiring wartime leaders of modern history, Churchill was also an orator, a historian, a journalist, and an artist. All of these aspects of Churchill are fully represented in this collection of his works. ABOUT THE SERIES When the Conservative government was defeated in Britain’s 1929 general election, Winston Churchill was exiled from the party—chiefly because of his disagreements with party leaders over Indian Home Rule and protective tariffs, as well as his connections with financiers, press barons, and others who were not trusted by Conservative leadership. This period, between 1929 and 1939, came to be known as Churchill’s “wilderness years.” During this time, he focused on his writing—and served as an important voice for British armament against the rise of Hitler. Many of his works published during this time—including collections of newspaper articles and one very rare short story—are considered lost classics in the Churchill canon.

    It often begins in childhood in a darkened theater, grows into something more serious for high school actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward.Structured like a musical, The Secret Life of the American Musical begins with an overture and concludes with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales. The ultimate insider, Viertel has spent three decades on Broadway, working on dozens of shows old and new as a conceiver, producer, dramaturg, and general creative force; he has his own unique way of looking at the process and at the people who collaborate to make musicals a reality. He shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically.The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel as though you’ve been there in the rehearsal room, in the front row of the theater, and in the working offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit.

    This reader for lovers of the piano distils his musical and linguistic eloquence and vast knowledge, and will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the technique, history and repertoire of the piano. Erudite, witty, enlightening and deeply personal, A Pianist's A to Z is the ideal book for all piano lovers, musicians and music aficionados: rarely has the instrument been described in such an entertaining and intelligent fashion.

     Ingrid Bergman emerges as a devoted artist whose refusal to be a caricature caused her endless trouble - but also produced brilliant performances, from her early role opposite Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca to her profound and final appearance as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. In between, there were four children (including actress Isabella Rossellini), three husbands, and passionate affairs with war photographer Robert Capa, Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming, and Spellbound co-star Gregory Peck. She was perhaps the most international star in the history of entertainment, and, without a doubt, one of the most misunderstood. In a career that spanned six decades, two Academy Awards, and ten Oscar nominations, Bette Davis became one of the greatest screen legends of all time. But, as her epitaph says, "She did it the hard way." She was in constant battles with co-stars, directors, and studios and struggled with addictions to alcohol and cigarettes. She had four stormy marriages, and even her three children brought pain and controversy - one wrote a scathing tell-all book, another had a severe mental disability, and a third was the subject of a prolonged custody battle. But in her iconic film roles, Davis transcended her troubles to leave an indelible mark on American cinema. Possessing none of the glamorous beauty of Greta Garbo, she had something more powerful and lasting: a restless, incandescent energy that made her mesmerizing to watch on the big screen. Katharine Hepburn was far more than an iconic movie star who won four Academy Awards for best actress and made classic films that still rank among the greatest of all time. She also exerted a unique influence on American popular culture, challenging rigid assumptions about how women should behave - and almost single-handedly gave them permission to wear pants. The list of adjectives used to describe Hepburn - bold, stubborn, witty, beautiful - only begin to hint at the complex woman who entranced audiences around the world. So here is the full, epic story of "the patron saint of the independent American female," as one critic described her. Hepburn always lived life strictly on her own terms. And oh, what a life it was. For a time, Elizabeth Taylor was the world's biggest star, but it was her off-screen life - eight stormy marriages, a jewel-encrusted lifestyle, and struggles with weight and various addictions - that provided the most riveting drama. Long before the age of reality television, Taylor showed how fame could take on a volatile life of its own, obscuring the real person behind the media façade. Now, in this compelling biography, we meet the real Elizabeth Taylor as she grows from precocious child star to "the most beautiful woman in the world" to serious actress to pop-culture punch line, and finally, successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and HIV/AIDS activist. Along the way, she is vilified by fans for stealing singer Eddie Fischer from Debbie Reynolds, becomes trapped in a cycle of destructive affairs with Richard Burton, and desperately tries to recapture the childhood she never had with the eccentric pop star Michael Jackson. "I've always admitted that I'm ruled by my passions," she once said - and those passions make for a gripping, epic tale of tribulation and triumph.

    Set in the aftermath of Halo 3, it marks the beginning of a new trilogy as the Master Chief confronts an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe.Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 will give gamers an in-depth look behind the scenes at the creation of the stunning worlds of Halo 4, with commentary from the art director and game designers throughout. Concept art, character sketches, detailed environments and an additional section on the forthcoming multiplayer game make this the definitive guide to 343 Industries' take on the Halo universe.

    Short chapters can be read in any order, with new vocabulary defined on the page as it occurs. Eight “Gateways to Art” images (from around the world and all eras) support the common course goal of learning to interpret art in multiple ways and help students build on what they already know. The text is balanced and global, with over 1,000 illustrations—from around the world, and from everyday life.

    The last occult (automatic) writing of Austin Osman Spare, the founder of Sigil Magic.

    Yet in 1979, the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, daringly commissioned him to do just that.The resulting 1985 exhibition and book, In the American West, was a milestone in American photography and Avedon's most important body of work. His unflinching portraits of oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, miners, waitresses, drifters, mental patients, teenagers, and others captured the unknown and often-ignored people who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs. Making no apologies for shattering stereotypes of the West and Westerners, Avedon said, "I'm looking for a new definition of a photographic portrait. I'm looking for people who are surprising—heartbreaking—or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself."Photographer Laura Wilson worked with Avedon during the six years he was making In the American West. In Avedon at Work, she presents a unique photographic record of his creation of this masterwork—the first time a major photographer has been documented in great depth over an extended period of time. She combines images she made during the photographic sessions with entries from her journal to show Avedon's working methods, his choice of subjects, his creative process, and even his experiments and failures. Also included are a number of Avedon's finished portraits, as well as his own comments and letters from some of the subjects.Avedon at Work adds a new dimension to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant series of portraits. For everyone interested in the creative process it confirms that, in Laura Wilson's words, "much as all these photographs may appear to be moments that just occurred, they are finally, in varying degrees, works of the imagination."

    She married three of them--the composer Gustav Mahler, the architect Walter Gropius, and the writer Franz Werfel--and had a host of admirers andlovers, including the painters Oscar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Gustav Klimpt. The composer Alban Berg dedicated his opera Wozzeck to her and a violin concerto to the memory of her daughter, Manon, who died of polio. In Alma Mahler, Francoise Giroud provides a spirited portrait of one of Europe's great femme fatales, ranging from her childhood (she was raised on a steady diet of Nietzche) to her heyday as a leading figure in Europe's art scene, to her later life as an exile in California and New York. We meeta woman of remarkable beauty and unconventional mind, the possessor of a fine, demanding intelligence, who was highly conscious of herself as a member of the elite, a woman never truly conquered by her lovers. Her last husband, Franz Werfel, called her one of the very few sorceresses of our time.And indeed when she appeared, her presence attracted all eyes as she moved like a queen through a room. And what eyes she drew. Virtually all the great figures of 19th-century Vienna march through these pages, including Sigmund Freud, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schonberg, Hugo van Hofmannsthal, KarlKraus, and Elias Canetti, and Giroud pens striking portraits of each. There are also many memorable scenes: Franz Werfel singing Verdi arias with James Joyce in a Paris cafe; the young Gropius, having an affair with then-married Alma, chased from the Mahler home by guard dogs and taking refuge undera bridge; Kokoschka, after his affair with Alma has died, commissioning a life-sized doll, a faithful reproduction of his former lover. But the heart of the book is Alma's marriage to Mahler. We read Alma's own first impression of Mahler--He is terribly nervous. He paced around the room like a wildanimal. He's pure oxygen. You get burnt if you go too near. Unfortunately for Mahler, his attempt to subjugate his young wife to his will--you have only one profession from now on: to make me happy--led to disaster, and he himself was burnt. Alma Mahler stood at the center of the creative world, the intimate friend (if not lover) of the major artists of her age, and Giroud paints an unforgettable portrait. It was awarded France's Grand Prix litteraire de la femme in 1988.

    It focuses on critical analysis of the subject through a workbook section and self-quizzes along with prompts to explore the chapter's images and topics through the ArtStudy 2.0 CD-ROM, Web Site, and WebTutor? supplements.

    Walker is one of the most exciting photographers of our time, and his flamboyant style—often tongue-in-cheek but always exquisitely executed—places him in the line of brilliant eccentrics from Cecil Beaton to David LaChapelle. Showcasing 170 photographs through Walker’s most recent work, the book features many A-listers in fashion and Hollywood, including Tilda Swinton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alber Elbaz. The book includes a foreword by Kate Bush, an introduction by writer Robin Muir, and an afterword by Tim Walker.Praise for Tim Walker: Story Teller:“You’ll delight in the fashion photographer’s visual daydreams.” —DuJour magazine