Book picks similar to
Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks by Stephen Farthing
art
film
biography
non-fiction
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí - 1942
On its first publication, the reviewer of Books observed: "It is impossible not to admire this painter as writer ... (Dalí) succeeds in doing exactly what he sets out to do ... communicates the snobbishness, self-adoration, comedy, seriousness, fanaticism, in short the concept of life and the total picture of himself he sets out to portray." Superbly illustrated with over eighty photographs of Dalí and his works, and scores of Dalí drawings and sketches.
The Kenneth Williams Letters
Kenneth Williams - 1994
Following the bestselling publication of 'The Kenneth Williams Diaries', the devastating self-portrait of one of our most loved and complex performers is completed with this selection of his letters.
Pocket Frida Kahlo Wisdom: Inspirational Quotes and Wise Words from a Legendary Icon
Hardie Grant - 2018
From a young age, Kahlo forged her own path, overcoming polio as a child, and stoically battling the after-effects of a tragic road accident that left her with lifelong injuries. Pocket Frida Kahlo Wisdom is an inspiring collection of some of her best quotes on love, style, life, art and more, and celebrates the Mexican icon's immense legacy."Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.""The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.""I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better."
The Making of Pink Floyd: The Wall
Gerald Scarfe - 2010
All three were created in close collaboration with renowned cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe. Here, for the first time, Scarfe shares his experiences with the band and reveals the inside story behind The Wall's development in the studio, on the stage, in front of the camera, and for the 2010 tour.Beautifully illustrated, The Making of Pink Floyd: The Wall contains hundreds of unseen photos as well as exclusive interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and more. The result is a book Waters calls "brilliant" and "absolutely amazing."
Brian May's Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar that Rocked Queen and the World
Brian May - 2014
In 1963, Brian May and his father Harold started to build the Red Special, an electric guitar meant to outperform anything commercially made. "My dad and I decided to make an electric guitar. I designed an instrument from scratch, with the intention that it would have a capability beyond anything that was out there, more tunable, with a greater range of pitches and sounds, with a better tremolo, and with a capability of feeding back through the air in a 'good' way'." (Brian May). Brian used the Red Special guitar on every Queen and solo album that he recorded and at the vast majority of his live performances: the roof of Buckingham Palace, Live Aid, the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics . . . and beyond. Here, Brian talks about his one-of-a-kind instrument, from its creation on. Along with original diagrams, sketches, and notes, May has included a great selection of photographs of himself with the guitar, in action from the last 40 years, and photographs of every stage of the Red Special's creation, which was fully dismantled and photographed inside and out just for this book, as well as close-ups and X-rays, and Brian will be commenting on it all. It is a unique guitar with unique sound. Any fan of Queen, Brian, or electric guitars will find this book utterly fascinating. 200 clr and b&w illus.
Composition
David Präkel - 2006
Whatever other technical skill is involved, if the formal organization of an image is lacking, there is little to hold the interest of the viewer. But what makes a winning composition? Is it about following the rules-or about breaking them?Basics Photography: Composition is divided into six core chapters that cover everything the beginner needs to know to improve their composition, including the basics of composition, exploring the formal elements, how to organize space and time, learning the real world 'rules' and, beyond that, how to use the ideas presented in the book to create original, compelling images. The book is illustrated throughout with photography to inform the mind and inspire the eyes.Includes work by:Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, James Nachtwey, Martin Parr, Marc Riboud, David Hockney, Duane Michals, Harry Callahan and John Darwell, and many more.Includes the following subjects:The basic rules of composition, including viewpoint, perspective and scale; the formal elements, such as point, line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone and color; how to organize space using frames, balance and space; capturing the passing of time and specific moments, the decisive moment and sequences; applications of composition, featuring landscape, still life, portraiture, documentary, the figure, action and sports, fine art and advertising; finally, finding your own view and the specific considerations of digital imaging.
Behind The White Ball
Jimmy White - 1998
Aged 16, White was the youngest player to win the English Amateur Championship. At 18, he won the World Amateur title. By 1984, he's a professional success, married but not at all settled. He's the kind of man who goes out for a packet of cigarettes and comes home two weeks later. Gambling, women, marathon binges with showbiz friends like Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, have threatened the stability of his marriage. But somehow White has survived, to tell in candid detail, a most unusual, often outrageous story of a very sporting life.
Paul Newman: A Life
Shawn Levy - 2009
But Newman was also an oddity in Hollywood: the rare box-office titan who cared about the craft of acting, the sexy leading man known for the staying power of his marriage, and the humble celebrity who made philanthropy his calling card long before it was cool. The son of a successful entrepreneur, Newman grew up in a prosperous Cleveland suburb. Despite fears that he would fail to live up to his father’s expectations, Newman bypassed the family sporting goods business to pursue an acting career. After struggling as a theater and television actor, Newman saw his star rise in a tragic twist of fate, landing the role of boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me when James Dean was killed in a car accident. Though he would joke about instances of “Newman’s luck” throughout his career, he refused to coast on his stunning boyish looks and impish charm. Part of the original Actors Studio generation, Newman demanded a high level of rigor and clarity from every project. The artistic battles that nearly derailed his early movie career would pay off handsomely at the box office and earn him critical acclaim. He applied that tenacity to every endeavor both on and off the set. The outspoken Newman used his celebrity to call attention to political causes dear to his heart, including civil rights and nuclear proliferation. Taking up auto racing in midlife, Newman became the oldest driver to ever win a major professional auto race. A food enthusiast who would dress his own salads in restaurants, he launched the Newman’s Own brand dedicated to fresh ingredients, a nonprofit juggernaut that has generated more than $250 million for charity.In Paul Newman: A Life, film critic and pop culture historian Shawn Levy gives readers the ultimate behind-the-scenes examination of the actor’s life, from his merry pranks on the set to his lasting romance with Joanne Woodward to the devastating impact of his son’s death from a drug overdose. This definitive biography is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinarily gifted man who gave back as much as he got out of life and just happened to be one of the most celebrated movie stars of the twentieth century.
Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life
Roxana Robinson - 1989
"A profoundly human treatment of O'Keeffe and all the people who figured prominently in her life."-- "Los Angeles Times"
The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait
Frida Kahlo - 1995
This passionate, often surprising, intimate record, kept under lock and key for some forty years in Mexico, reveals many new dimensions in the complex persona of this remarkable Mexican artist.Covering the years 1944-45, the 170-page journal contains Frida's thoughts, poems, and dreams, and reflects her stormy relationship with her husband, Diego Rivera, Mexico's famous artist. The seventy watercolor illustrations in the journal - some lively sketches, several elegant self-portraits, others complete paintings - offer insights into her creative process, and show her frequently using the journal to work out pictorial ideas for her canvases.The text entries, written in Frida's round, full script in brightly colored inks, add an almost decorative quality, making the journal as captivating to look at as it is to read. Frida's childhood, her political sensibilities, and her obsession with Diego are all illuminated in witty phrases and haunting images.Although much has been written recently about this extraordinary woman, Frida Kahlo's art and life continue to fascinate the world. This personal document, published in a complete full-color facsimile edition, will add greatly to the understanding of her unique and powerful vision and her enormous courage in the face of more than thirty-five operations to correct injuries she had sustained in an accident at the age of eighteen. The facsimile is accompanied by an introduction by the world-renowned Mexican man of letters Carlos Fuentes and a complete translation of the diary's text. An essay on the place of the diary in Frida's work and in art history at large, as well as commentaries on the images, is provided by Sarah M. Lowe.
Angelina Jolie: The Biography
Rhona Mercer - 2007
Unlike many Hollywood stars who do their best to avoid the press, her openness about her complicated and often outlandish life has endeared her to fans worldwide. Her most famous screen roles are covered in this biography, from Gia to Lara Croft, which established her as one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood. Also explored is her reputation for living on the edge, and Angelina's refreshing honesty around tempestuous romantic relationships, bisexuality, wild partying, and breakdowns and thoughts of suicide. Finally, her recent roles as philanthropist, mother, and half of a Hollywood golden couple with Brad Pitt, are also discussed in this inspiring must-read book for fans of this continually fascinating global superstar.
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
Mary Gabriel - 2018
Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting -- not as muses but as artists. From their cold-water lofts, where they worked, drank, fought, and loved, these pioneers burst open the door to the art world for themselves and countless others to come. Gutsy and indomitable, Lee Krasner was a hell-raising leader among artists long before she became part of the modern art world's first celebrity couple by marrying Jackson Pollock. Elaine de Kooning, whose brilliant mind and peerless charm made her the emotional center of the New York School, used her work and words to build a bridge between the avant-garde and a public that scorned abstract art as a hoax. Grace Hartigan fearlessly abandoned life as a New Jersey housewife and mother to achieve stardom as one of the boldest painters of her generation. Joan Mitchell, whose notoriously tough exterior shielded a vulnerable artist within, escaped a privileged but emotionally damaging Chicago childhood to translate her fierce vision into magnificent canvases. And Helen Frankenthaler, the beautiful daughter of a prominent New York family, chose the difficult path of the creative life. Her gamble paid off: At twenty-three she created a work so original it launched a new school of painting. These women changed American art and society, tearing up the prevailing social code and replacing it with a doctrine of liberation. In Ninth Street Women, acclaimed author Mary Gabriel tells a remarkable and inspiring story of the power of art and artists in shaping not just postwar America but the future.
The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education
Peter Coyote - 2015
For Coyote, the twin forces Dylan identifies as Texas Medicine and Railroad Gin – represent the competing forces of the transcendental, inclusive, and ecstatic world of love with the competitive, status-seeking world of wealth and power. The Rainman’s Third Cure is the tale of a young man caught between these apparently antipodal options and the journey that leads him from the privileged halls of power to Greenwich Village jazz bars, to jail, to the White House, lessons from a man who literally held the power of life and death over others, to government service and international success on stage and screen.Expanding his frame beyond the wild ride through the 1960’s counterculture that occupied so much of his lauded debut memoir, Sleeping Where I Fall, Coyote provides readers intimate portraits of mentors that shaped him—a violent, intimidating father, a be-bop Bass player who teaches him that life can be improvised, a Mafia consiglieri, who demonstrates to him that men can be bought and manipulated, an ex game-warden who initates him into the laws of nature, a gay dancer in Martha Graham’s company who introduces him to Mexico and marijuanas, beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduces him to Zen practice, and finally famed fashion designer Nino Cerruti who made the high-stakes world of haute monde Europe available to him.What begins as a peripatetic flirtation with Zen deepens into a life-long avocation, ordination as a priest, and finally the road to Transmission---acknowledgement from his teacher that he is ready to be an independent teacher. Through Zen, Coyote discovers a third option that offers an alternative to both the worlds of Love and Power’s correlatives of status seeking and material wealth. Zen was his portal, but what he discovers on the inside is actually available to all humans. In this energetic, reflective and intelligent memoir, The Rainman’s Third Cure is the way out of the box. The way that works.
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
Edith Holden - 1977
We are very pleased to be the first U.S. publisher to offer Ediths timeless watercolors.
The Red Book: Liber Novus
C.G. Jung - 2009
Here he developed his principle theories—of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation—that transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with treatment of the sick into a means for higher development of the personality. While Jung considered The Red Book to be his most important work, only a handful of people have ever seen it. Now, in a complete facsimile and translation, it is available to scholars and the general public. It is an astonishing example of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake. This publication of The Red Book is a watershed that will cast new light on the making of modern psychology. 212 color illustrations.