With over ninety illustrations, this book traces the history of the chair as we know it from its crudest beginnings up through the modern office variety. Drawing on anecdotes, literary references, and famous designs, Galen Cranz documents our ongoing love affair with the chair and how its evolution has been governed not by a quest for comfort or practicality, but by the designation of status.Relating much of the modern era's rampant back pain to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle spent in traditional seating, Cranz goes beyond traditional ergonomic theory to formulate new design principles that challenge the way we think and live. A farsighted and innovative approach to our most intimate habitat, this book offers guidelines that will assist readers in choosing a chair-and designing a lifestyle-that truly suits our bodies. Praise for The Chair:  "[A] concise, multidisciplinary gem."—Publishers Weekly "Cranz is no sedentary historian. The Chair is a call to action."—Jonathan Levi, Los Angeles Times "Galen Cranz has written a provocative book. Pull up a comfortable chair-if you can find one-and read it."—Witold Rybczynski

    The latest in the best-selling Isms series, which includes Isms: Understanding Art, Isms: Understanding Architectural Styles and Isms: Understanding Religion, is Isms: Understanding Fashion. Concisely written, this book packs loads of detail into a handy small format, tracing the evolution of costume history and fashion through a series of interconnected trends and movements (a.k.a. "isms") from the Greco-Roman toga and the antebellum hoop skirt to the latest from the runway. This guide is organized chronologically and covers the evolution of costume, the beginning of haute couture, and the rise of fashion as we know it— documented throughout with a combination of line drawings, costume illustration, and fashion photography. It includes an overview of designers from the classic—Coco Chanel, Dior—to the contemporary design greats, such as Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs. While the book traces the influences and links between designers, it also includes patrons, from Marie-Antoinette to Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana, as well as fashion muses from Sarah Bernhardt to Sarah Jessica Parker. Related topics such as accessories and accoutrements are included as well. Anyone interested in costume and fashion will delight in this book.

    Updated by Jan Eaton, it pictures and describes over 400 embroidery stitches arranged by usage, ranging from basic outline and border stitches to more complex detached-filling and pulled-fabric stitches. This is an outstanding reference book that will enable all needle-workers to master the art of embroidery.

    Americans embraced these visions and incorporated fantasy into reality: mid-century fashion, popular music, eating and drinking, and even architecture were influenced by the Tiki trend. With unfettered enthusiasm—ignoring scholarly authenticity and political correctness—American artisans molded the Tiki into their own image, creating a mid-century pop culture genre that was forgotten until the 2000s, when urban archeologist Sven Kirsten wrested the figure of the Tiki from obscurity with his pioneering TASCHEN books The Book of Tiki and Tiki Modern. This book traces the development of Tiki as romantic vision and kitschy cultural appropriation, from its earliest beginnings when James Cook “discovered” the Pacific Islands in the second half of the 18th century to Herman Melville’s South Sea adventure stories like Moby Dick and Gauguin’s exuberant, exotic paintings to the jungle fantasies of the Hollywood dream factory. Published in connection with an exhibition at the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris, Tiki Pop the culmination of Sven Kirsten’s research efforts. With his widely lauded visual style, the author places venerable ancient godheads next to their Polynesian pop counterparts. With hundreds of previously unpublished images, the story of Tiki the 20th-century pop icon unfolds from its earliest beginnings to its spectacular downfall in the dawning awareness of the Western world’s colonial misdeeds.

    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.

    It’s a bargain, too – Sunday TimesThis comprehensive, vibrant book leads you through the world’s iconic images – those that we encounter every time we open a newspaper, visit a gallery, or look at the front cover of a novel.Art: The Whole Story traces the development of art period by period, with the illustrated text covering every genre, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art and performance art. Cultural timelines are there too, to help to the reader with historical context.• The most accessible history of world art ever assembled• More than 1,100 colour illustrations of iconic pieces• Covers every genre of art, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art• Designed in an easily navigable and user-friendly fashionWritten by an international team of artists, art historians and curators, this absorbing and beautiful book will give you insight into the world’s most iconic images.Masterpieces that epitomize each period or movement are highlighted and analysed in detail. Everything from use of colour and visual metaphors to technical innovations is explained, enabling you to interpret the meanings of world-famous masterpieces – Mughal miniatures; Japanese prints in the nineteenth century; the colour theories behind Seurat’s remarkable La Grande Jatte; and why Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon was so shocking in its day.

    Learn the basics of this simple and beautiful craft with valuable information on basic stitches, tools needed, and even how to make your own looms. Split by loom type—circular, rectangular, and even found objects—24 lush, bohemian, and uniquely modern projects for the home and to wear draw deeply on the nostalgic quality of vintage textiles. In addition to the how-to, this is the ultimate resource for finding your own creativity and style through this medium, from learning which materials to use for different effects to discovering how to use color to create vintage-inspired projects with a modern twist.

    Learn to sew traditional and silk ribbon embroidery, make raised stitches, and embellish with beads, charms, buttons, and mirrors. Step-by-step photo instructions show exactly how to sew 85 different stitches. Learn how to combine and place stitches to enhance a finished piece and how to work with embroidery threads, ribbons, fabrics, laces, beads, buttons, and other embellishments.Includes 8 complete embroidery projects to stitch and embellish. An essential embroidery reference for everyone from beginners to experts.

    What is the voyeuristic impulse behind our attraction to the gruesome and the horrible? Where does the magnetic appeal of the sordid and the scandalous come from? Is ugliness also in the eye of the beholder?Eco's encyclopedic knowledge and captivating storytelling skills combine in this ingenious study of the Ugly, revealing that what we often shield ourselves from and shun in everyday life is what we're most attracted to subliminally. Topics range from Milton's Satan to Goethe's Mephistopheles; from witchcraft and medieval torture tactics to martyrs, hermits, and penitents; from lunar births and disemboweled corpses to mythic monsters and sideshow freaks; and from Decadentism and picturesque ugliness to the tacky, kitsch, and camp, and the aesthetics of excess and vice. With abundant examples of painting and sculpture ranging from ancient Greek amphorae to Bosch, Brueghel, and Goya among others, and with quotations from the most celebrated writers and philosophers of each age, this provocative discussion explores in-depth the concepts of evil, depravity, and darkness in art and literature.

    Drawing on exclusive access to Mark Rothko's personal papers and over one hundred interviews with artists, patrons, and dealers, James Breslin tells the story of a life in art—the personal costs and professional triumphs, the convergence of genius and ego, the clash of culture and commerce. Breslin offers us not only an enticing look at Rothko as a person, but delivers a lush, in-depth portrait of the New York art scene of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—the world of Abstract Expressionism, of Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, and Klein, which would influence artists for generations to come."In Breslin, Rothko has the ideal biographer—thorough but never tedious, a good storyteller with an ear for the spoken word, fond but not fawning, and possessed of a most rare ability to comment on non-representational art without sounding preposterous."—Robert Kiely, Boston Book Review"Breslin impressively recreates Mark Rothko's troubled nature, his tormented life, and his disturbing canvases. . . . The artist's paintings become almost tangible within Breslin's pages, and Rothko himself emerges as an alarming physical force."—Robert Warde, Hungry Mind Review"This remains beyond question the finest biography so far devoted to an artist of the New York School."-Arthur C. Danto, Boston Sunday Globe"Clearly written, full of intelligent insights, and thorough."—Hayden Herrera, Art in America"Breslin spent seven years working on this book, and he has definitely done his homework."-Nancy M. Barnes, Boston Phoenix"He's made the tragedy of his subject's life the more poignant."—Eric Gibson, The New Criterion"Mr. Breslin's book is, in my opinion, the best life of an American painter that has yet been written . . . a biographical classic. It is painstakingly researched, fluently written and unfailingly intelligent in tracing the tragic course of its subject's tormented character."—Hilton Kramer, New York Times Book Review, front page reviewJames E. B. Breslin (1936-1996) was professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of From Modern to Contemporary: American Poetry, 1945-1965 and William Carlos Williams: An American Artist.

    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.

    Peter Burkholder has meticulously revised and restructured the text to make it more accessible for today's students. This revision places a stronger emphasis on social and historical context and adds substantially expanded pedagogy and striking four-color design.

    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.

    This striking book showcases the treasures from first ladies throughout history, ranging from Martha Washington's silk dress and dressing mirror to Michelle Obama's 2009 inaugural gown and jewelry. These and many other unforgettable objects--including gowns, tableware, and invitations from beloved first ladies such as Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Barbara Bush, Hilary Clinton, and more--tell the story of the first ladies as public and private figures. They illustrate how these women, thrust into an influential and visible role by happenstance of marriage, adapted themselves and the role of first lady by taking on responsibilities as campaigners, hostesses, and policy advocates.The Smithsonian First Ladies Collection features many treasures not on view at the exhibit. Complete with an insider's look at the acquisition, conservation, and exhibition of the pieces as well as a timeline of all forty-six first ladies, this is a must-have for anyone fascinated by these incredible women and their roles in American culture and political life.

    Legends about Cornell abound--as the shy hermit, the devoted family caretaker, the artistic innocent--but never before Utopia Parkway has he been presented for what he was: a brilliant, relentlessly serious artist whose stature has now reached monumental proportions. Cornell was haunted by dreams and visions, yet the site of his imaginings couldn't have been more ordinary: a small house he shared with his mother and invalid brother in Queens, New York. In its cluttered basement, he spent his nights arranging photographs, cut-outs and other humble disjecta into some of the most romantic works to exist in three dimensions. Cornell was no recluse, however: admired by successive generations of vanguard artists, he formed friendships with figures as diverse as Duchamp, de Kooning, and Warhol and had romantically charged encounters with Susan Sontag and Yoko Ono--not to mention unrequited crushes on countless shop girls and waitresses. All this he recorded compulsively in a diary that, along with his shadow boxes, forms one of the oddest and most affecting records ever made of a life. It is from such documents, and from a decade of sustained attention to Cornell, that Deborah Solomon has fashioned the definitive biography of one of America's most powerful and unusual modern artists.