Art: A World History


Elke Linda Buchholz - 2002
    This handy, pocket-sized volume includes 900 illustrations and takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the most spectacular works of art around the world and throughout time.

Alphonse Mucha: Masterworks


Rosalind Ormiston - 2007
    From his early family life in Ivancice right through to his final days in Prague, it delves into every aspect of his career as it developed. Next, beginning with his earliest Parisian posters for the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the second half of the book focuses on Mucha's most intense period of productivity in Paris, and documents his success as an avant-garde artist. Exploring his many decorative panels and commercial posters as well as his illustrations for books and magazines, it takes an in-depth look at his changing artistic styles of the period and reveals his sources of inspiration. The informative text goes hand-in-hand with stunning reproductions of Mucha's most stirring and iconic works, from his "Gismonda" poster of 1894 to his "The Moon and the Stars" series of decorative panels of 1902.Featuring over 150 of his most important graphic works, Alphonse Mucha: Masterworks is the perfect gateway to learning more about this versatile artist - one who was truly successful in producing both commercial pieces and 'high art'. It is an ideal read for those with little knowledge of Mucha as well as those looking to learn more.

Tragedy: The Ballad of the Bee Gees


Jeff Apter - 2015
    For every incredible career high there was a hefty personal downside: divorce, drunkenness, and death seemed as synonymous with the Gibbs as falsetto harmonies, flares, and multi-platinum record sales.Not long before his death, Robin made it clear that he believed the Gibbs had been forced to pay the highest possible cost for their success. "All the tragedies my family has suffered . . . is a kind of karmic price we are paying for all the fame and fortune we've had." This is the story of the brothers' incredible careers and an examination of the Gibb 'curse'--an all-too-human look at the rollercoaster ride of fame.

The Ultimate Biography Of The Bee Gees: Tales Of The Brothers Gibb


Melinda Bilyeu - 2000
    The Bee Gee's journey from Fifties child act to musical institution is one of pop's most turbulent legends. Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb somehow managed to survive changing musical fashions and bitter personal feuds to create musical partnership that has already lasted four times as long as The Beatles. Described by the authors as their objective tribute, this unflinching biography chronicles everything - the good, the bad... and the bushed-up. Youthful delinquency, disastrous marriages, bitter lawsuits, gay sex scandals, serious drug problems and the death of younger brother Andy have sometimes made the personal lives of the Brothers Gibb look as bleak as the low spots of a career that once reduced them to playing the Batley Variety Club. Yet every time the Bee Gees roller coaster seemed derailed for good, they recorded and went on to even greater triumphs. Today they are revered among pop music's all-time great performers, producers and songwriters. But the true story of their success and the high price they paid for it has never been fully revealed... until now. This new edition of The Ultimate Biography incorporates a complete listing of every song written or recorded by the Gibbs.

Gustav Klimt: Art Nouveau Visionary


Eva di Stefano - 2008
    One of the masters of modern European painting, he helped found the popular Viennese Secession, or Art Nouveau, movement. This lushly illustrated volume explores his fascinating artistic career, covering Vienna at the time of Klimt’s creative peak. With more than 300 beautifully reproduced pictures, paintings, and photographs, it presents Klimt’s entire artistic production: posters for exhibitions, erotic drawings, and pictorial masterpieces such as The Kiss, Death and Life, and Tree of Life, along with countless portraits such as the famous Adele Bloch-Bauer I.

Drawings of Mucha


Alphonse Mucha - 1978
    Mucha is most famous for his Sarah Bernhardt posters and his magnificent decorative panels such as "The Seasons," works that continue to grow in popularity, despite the indifferent quality of most modern reproductions. To graphic artists and commercial designers, Mucha is praised for the innovative stylebooks that pioneered the use of Art Nouveau in commercial packaging, design, and ornament. But the primary element in all of Mucha's artistic endeavors — his evocative, highly original draftsmanship — has never been adequately surveyed.This collection of 70 high-quality illustrations — six in black-and-white and nine in full color — offers the first and only comprehensive survey of Mucha's drawings, and as such, provides a unique insight into the aesthetic qualities that were fundamental to all of the artist's work. Reproduced directly from his original drawings, these works span Mucha's entire career and include sketches for his famous book and magazine illustrations, preliminary sketches for paintings, advertising and packaging art, studies for stylebooks, etc. Famous examples include "The Seasons," full-color drawings for the complete set, plus a preliminary charcoal sketch for "Autumn"; St. Louis World's Fair poster, full-color lithograph and preliminary pencil sketch; Sarah Bernhardt, four works in India ink, pencil, etc.; and "Documents décoratifs" and "Figures décoratives," studies from Mucha's two innovative stylebooks.Naturally, many of these drawing are interesting because they reveal the initial thoughts for famous works but most basically these drawings show that Mucha's draftsmanship — highly admired, even by the cantankerous Whistler — was the brilliant underpinning of his entire craft.

Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum


Brook Davis Anderson - 2001
    The trove included massive, multi-volume illustrated manuscripts, double-sided nine-foot-long watercolor murals, photo-enlarged tracings, and hundreds of sketches. Depicting a turbulent world, these works are the product of the fertile yet tormented imagination of a secretive Chicago janitor who has since been recognized as one of the supreme self-taught artists of the 20th century.Cataloguing in full color the American Folk Art Museum's recent acquisition of 37 paintings, among other Darger works, this informative yet affordable volume offers a general introduction to a controversial self-taught artist.

The Painterly Approach: An Artist's Guide to Seeing, Painting and Expressing


Bob Rohm - 2008
    More than painting an appealing landscape, it's about making your viewer feel the wind, experience the dance of shadows and sunlight, and admire the wondrous intermingling of colors that attracted you to your subject in the first place.In this gorgeously illustrated book, Bob Rohm shows you how to see the world from a painterly perspective and translate it into expressive, poetic paintings that elicit an emotional response from your viewer.Clearly illustrates how to choreograph color, value, composition, texture and other fundamental elements to achieve those elusive qualities of mood and emotionFeatures 9 step-by-step demonstrations (in oil, pastel and acrylic) on capturing a vivid sense of time and placeCovers brushstrokes, painting with a palette knife, edge control, shadows and other advanced art techniquesThis book focuses primarily on landscape painting but offers valuable lessons for approaching any subject in a personal and engaging way.

Jesus Christ, Son of Man: The Early Years


Susan Easton Black - 2001
    Now in its third printing.

Jenny Saville


Gagosian Gallery - 2005
    In 1992, the year she completed her studies at Glasgow School of Art, her graduation exhibition sold out. Most notably, one painting was bought by Charles Saatchi and, since then, her international reputation has grown at a rapid and steady pace.Jenny Saville is described as a "New Old Master" for the technical proficiency of her oversize nudes that have earned her comparisons to Rubens and Lucian Freud and universal praise from critics and art historians alike. For the conceptual underpinnings of her work, she has been hailed as one of the most interesting artists of the last decade. Her work has been shown alongside that of Damien Hirst and the other Young British Artists in the acclaimed and seminal survey of new British art Sensation at the Royal Academy (London, 1997) and the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York, 2000).This is the only monograph devoted to the critically acclaimed young artist and features all of Jenny Saville's paintings to date-including many previously unpublished. This volume is being published in association with the Gagosian Gallery in London. The power of her brilliant and relentless embodiment of our worst anxieties about our own corporeality and gender is what distinguishes Saville from other paint-obsessed representers of the naked human body. To my eye, no other artist in recent memory has combined empathy and distance with such visual and emotional impact. -Linda Nochlin, Art in America, March 2000

The Encyclopedia of New Wave


Daniel Bukszpan - 2012
    Originating as a less-aggressive sister movement to punk, New Wave encompassed a wide range of styles, from Brit pub-rock to electronica, synth-pop, and even ska. The Encyclopedia of New Wave comprehensively captures this eclectic music, all of which enthralled the newly emergent MTV generation. With its tendency toward romantic minimalism, dark dance beats, and gender-bending antics, New Wave changed the course of popular musical history, as well as fashion and art.

A Guide To The Louvre


Anne Sefrioui - 2005
    This guide does not aim to cover absolutely everything, but to provide a comprehensive overview with a selection of nearly 600 masterpieces from Antiquity to the mid-19th century.

Brian Eno's Another Green World (33 1/3 Book 67)


Geeta Dayal - 2009
    It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.

The Short Story of Modern Art: A Pocket Guide to Key Movements, Works, Themes, and Techniques


Susie Hodge - 2019
    Simply constructed, the book explores 50 key works – from the realist painting of Courbet to a contemporary installation by Yayoi Kusama – and then links them to the most important movements, themes and techniques. Accessible, concise and richly illustrated, the book reveals the connections between different periods, artists and styles, giving readers a thorough understanding and broad enjoyment of modern art.

The Art Forger's Handbook


Eric Hebborn - 1997
    Packed with wonderfully entertaining and often outrageous speculations about the nature of art, truth, and value, the world-renowned art forger--who died mysteriously before this book was published--details secrets of his techniques.