Going beyond the practical application of techniques, Whyte helps new artists capture not just the model's physical likeness, but their unique personality and spirit. Richly illustrated, the book features Mary Whyte's vibrant empathetic watercolors and works by such masters of watercolor as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

    There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a series of deceptively simple photographs that Frank took on a trip through America in '55 and '56, pictures of normal people, everyday scenes: lunch counters, bus depots, cars, and the stangely familiar faces of people we don't quite know but have seen somewhere. They are pictures that saw the "American way of life" as we hadn't yet quite been able to see it ourselves, photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today, forty years and several generations later.

    During the following ten years they were lovers, worked closely together and she became mother to two of his children, Claude and Paloma. Life with Picasso, her account of those extraordinary years, is filled with intimate and astonishing revelations about the man, his work, his thoughts and his friends - Matisse, Braque, Gertrude Stein and Giacometti, among others. Francois Gilot paints a compelling portrait of her turbulent life with the temperamental (and even abusive) genius that was Picasso. As one of the few intimate witnesses to Picasso as a human being and as an artist, her account of him is invaluable for assessing him on both counts.

    His amazing, unprecedented collection of animals, plants and insects from all around the world gained international fame during his lifetime. In 1731, after decades of collecting, Seba commissioned illustrations of each and every specimen and arranged the publication of a four-volume catalog detailing his entire collection?from strange and exotic plants to snakes, frogs, crocodiles, shellfish, corals, insects, butterflies and more, as well as fantastic beasts, such as a hydra and a dragon. Seba's scenic illustrations, often mixing plants and animals in a single plate, were unusual even for the time. Many of the stranger and more peculiar creatures from Seba's collection, some of which are now extinct, were as curious to those in Seba's day as they are to us now. This reproduction is taken from a rare, hand-colored original. The introduction offers background information about the fascinating tradition of the cabinet of curiosities to which Seba's curiosities belonged.

    This date has gone down in the annals of art history because it marks the birth of the Impressionism. Impressionistic paintings now rank among the most popular works of art and are the pride of any museum or collection worldwide. However, in 1874 the public response to the exhibition, and to Impressionist painting, was not adoration but rather shock and even outrage. The Impressionists and the succeeding Neo-Impressionists were avant-gardist and revolutionary, paving the way for modern art. Present-day viewers, hardly realizing this revolutionary potential, can be content to enjoy the aesthetic of light and color. Artists featured in detail include: Frederic Bazille, Marie Braquemond, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassat, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Armand Guillaumin, Max Liebermann, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Guiseppe de Nittis, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Medardo Rosso, Giovanni Segantini, John Singer Sargent, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Walter Richard Sickert, Alfred Sisley, Max Slevogt, Fritz von Uhde, and Federico Zandomeneghi. Each book in TASCHEN's "Basic Genre" series features: a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period; and a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations.

    Yet unsanctioned public art remains the problem child of cultural expression, the last outlaw of visual disciplines. It has also become a global phenomenon of the 21st century. Made in collaboration with featured artists, Trespass examines the rise and global reach of graffiti and urban art, tracing key figures, events and movements of self-expression in the city's social space, and the history of urban reclamation, protest, and illicit performance. The first book to present the full historical sweep, global reach and technical developments of the street art movement, Trespass features key works by 150 artists, and connects four generations of visionary outlaws including Jean Tinguely, Spencer Tunick, Keith Haring, Os Gemeos, Jenny Holzer, Barry McGee, Gordon Matta-Clark, Shepard Fairey, Blu, Billboard Liberation Front, Guerrilla Girls and Banksy, among others. It also includes dozens of previously unpublished photographs of long-lost works and legendary, ephemeral urban artworks. Also includes: • Unpublished images of street art by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat • Unpublished photographs by Subway Art luminary Martha Cooper • Unpublished photos from the personal archives of selected artists • Incisive essays by Anne Pasternak (director of public arts fund Creative Time) and civil rights lawyer Tony Serra • Special feature: exclusive preface by Banksy

    But had this bold and spirited beauty really descended into prostitution, drunkenness, and early death--or did her life, hidden from history, take a different course altogether? Eunice Lipton's search for the answer combines the suspense of a detective story with the revelatory power of art, peeling off layers of lies to reveal startling truths about Victorine Meurent--and about Lipton herself.

    More than twenty-four hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist.No story captured the imagination of the world quite like this one. Thousands flocked to the Louvre to see the empty space where the painting had hung. They mourned as if Mona Lisa were a lost loved one, left flowers and notes, and set new attendance records. For more than two years, Mona Lisa’s absence haunted the art world, provoking the question: Was she lost forever? A century later, questions still linger.Part love story, part mystery, Vanished Smile reopens the case of the most audacious and perplexing art theft ever committed. R. A. Scotti’s riveting, ingeniously realized account is itself a masterly portrait of a world in transition. Combining her skills as a historian and a novelist, Scotti turns the tantalizing clues into a story of the painting’s transformation into the most familiar and lasting icon of all time.

    With its wealth of exclusive photographs, this stunning book is a unique look into the world of the film.

    The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton’s highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock’s days as a student under Benton. Pollock’s first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock. In true Oedipal fashion, Pollock even fell in love with Benton’s wife.Pollock later broke away from his mentor artistically, rocketing to superstardom with his stunning drip compositions. But he never lost touch with Benton or his ideas—in fact, his breakthrough abstractions reveal a strong debt to Benton’s teachings. In an epic story that ranges from the cafés and salons of Gertrude Stein’s Paris to the highways of the American West, Henry Adams, acclaimed author of Eakins Revealed, unfolds a poignant personal drama that provides new insights into two of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.

    Art as Therapy is packed with 150 examples of outstanding art, with chapters on Love, Nature, Money, and Politics outlining how these works can help with common difficulties. For example, Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter helps us focus on what we want to be loved for; Serra's Fernando Passoa reminds us of the importance of dignity in suffering; and Manet's Bunch of Asparagus teaches us how to preserve and value our long-term partners.De Botton demonstrates how art can guide and console us, and along the way, help us to better understand both art and ourselves.

    After she crumbled under the combined weight of social reproof, deprivations, and art world prejudices, her family had her committed to an asylum, where she died 30 years later. Although Claudel's life has been romanticized in print and on film, a fully researched biography has never been written until this one. The book draws upon much unpublished material, including letters and photographs that confirm the brilliance of her sculpture, clarify her relationship with Rodin (who did not exploit her, but, in fact, supported her work throughout his life), and reveal the true story of her confinement in a mental institution. Claudel's fascinating life touches many aspects of women's issues: creativity, struggle for recognition, conflict with social values, and art world inequities. Illustrated with personal family photographs, this is an intimate and moving tribute to an artist whose life and work have, until now, been misinterpreted and undervalued.

    This is the book Haring wanted to make, based on the outline of a monograph that was never completed due to his untimely death in 1989.

    Her innovative ideas are now collected and elaborated on in this unique volume. Carla offers a year's worth of assignments, projects, ideas, and techniques that will introduce more creativity and nonsense into your art and life. Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists offers readers a fun way to learn and gain expertise in drawing through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, yet, the readers gain new skills and confidence, allowing them to take their work to a new level.

    What followed was a whirlwind childhood spent among art and artists in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Gabrielle grew up in a home full of the most celebrated artists of the day: Rothko, de Kooning, Tinguely, Giacometti, and Christo, among others.Poignant and candid, Unstill Life is a daughter’s memoir of the art world and a larger-than-life father known to the world as Mr. Modern Art. Selz offers a unique window into the glamour and destruction of the times: the gallery openings, wild parties and affairs that defined one of the most celebrated periods in American art history. Like the art he loved, Selz’s father was vibrant and freewheeling, but his enthusiasm for both women and art took its toll on family life. When her father left MoMA and his family to direct his own museum in California, marrying four more times, Selz’s mother, the writer Thalia Selz, moved with her children into the utopian artist community Westbeth. Her parents continued a tumultuous affair that would last forty years.Weaving her family narrative into the larger story of twentieth-century art and culture, Selz paints an unforgettable portrait of a charismatic man, the generation of modern artists he championed and the daughter whose life he shaped.