Her lifelong friend, Ingrid, has asked her to do the impossible -- authenticate the painting from a photograph. The photograph in question was passed down to Ingrid by her grandfather, Klaus Rettke a key member of the German Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the Nazi organization appointed to confiscate art from the Jews. Obscure references in Klaus Rettke's diary convince Maggie that Rettke stole the painting from the Nazis. Now she must use science to verify that the painting in the photo is genuine, something that has never been done before. From the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to the Musee du Jeu de Paume in Paris, Maggie searches for answers. Finally, she confronts the possibility that there is not one painting, but the original and several forgeries. With tens of millions of dollars at stake and a killer at large, she is determined to find the authentic Van Gogh. To do so, Maggie must stay alive . . . something that's proving difficult to do.

    In his own time, Kilmt (1862-1918) was a highly successful painter, draftsman, muralist, and graphic artist; in the intervening years, iconic works such as The Kiss have been elevated to nothing less than cult status. Klimt's unfading popularity attests to the appeal of not only his aesthetic sensibilities but also that of the recurrent universal themes in his work: love, feminine beauty, aging, and death. He once wrote, "I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night...Who ever wants to know something about me...ought to look carefully at my pictures." With this overview of Klimt's work, readers will delight in taking up that challenge.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

    Images from Ryden's acclaimed Japanese Snow Yak Show are reproduced in large 11" x 14" format, & include many detail images & drawings. Features all of the works, as well as photographs of the work on display.

    Marilyn Monroe: A Life in Pictures is the only book to bring together all of the most iconic images of the legendary bombshell. Glamorous shots by celebrity photographers mix with casual snapshots and childhood portraits to span Marilyn's luminous but too-short life. Hundreds of evocative images, both lush and poignant, are interwoven with quotations by and about Marilyn to create an elegant collective portrait like no other. Aesthetically arresting throughout, this volume illuminates the life of a legend, both onscreen and off.

    More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way. Influenced by the popular underground youth subcultures of the day, such as skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent music, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine and Ed Templeton began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Many had no formal training and almost no conception of the inner workings of the art world. They learned their crafts through practice, trial and error, and good old-fashioned innovation. Not since the Beat Generation have we seen a group of creative individuals with such a unified aesthetic sense and varied cultural facets. The world of art has been greatly affected by their accomplishments as have the worlds of fashion, music, literature, film, and, ironically, athletics. Beautiful Losers is a retrospective celebration of this spirit, with hundreds of artworks by over two dozen artists, from precursors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Larry Clark, to more recent adherents Ryan McGinness, KAWS and Geoff McFetridge. Work in all conceivable mediums is included, plus reproductions of reams of ephemera. The accompanying essays are contributed by a half-dozen writers who have championed these beautiful losers from the start. This paperback reprint includes more pages, more images, an exhibition checklist, installation shots from a variety of exhibitions and an interview with Beautiful Losers advocate Agnes B.

    No longer relegated to designer's sketchbooks, hand-drawn type has emerged from the underground as a dynamic vehicle for visual communicationfrom magazine, book, and album covers to movie credits and NFL advertisements. As the practice and appreciation of hand-drawn type grows, its time to celebrate the work of those typographers whose every letterform is a work of art.Hand Job collects groundbreaking work from fifty of today's most talented typographers who draw by hand. Graphic designer and hand typographer Michael Perry selects work representing the full spectrum of design methods and styles. Each hand-drawn work is entirely shaped by the artist's unique processevery one a carefully executed composition enhanced by unplanned "accidents" of line, color, and craft. Hand Job also includes photographs of found type,artists studios, and the tools that help make typography come to life. Whether you are looking to invigorate your design work or are just in need of a little offbeat inspiration, Hand Job will have you reaching for your favorite pen.

    He makes a compelling argument for its history and value, much as E. H. Gombrich tackled representation fifty years ago in "Art and Illusion," another landmark A. W. Mellon Lectures volume. Realizing that these lectures might be his final work, Varnedoe conceived of them as a statement of his faith in modern art and as the culminating example of his lucidly pragmatic and philosophical approach to art history. He delivered the lectures, edited and reproduced here with their illustrations, to overflowing crowds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the spring of 2003, just months before his death. With brilliance, passion, and humor, Varnedoe addresses the skeptical attitudes and misunderstandings that we often bring to our experience of abstract art. Resisting grand generalizations, he makes a deliberate and scholarly case for abstraction--showing us that more than just pure looking is necessary to understand the self-made symbolic language of abstract art. Proceeding decade by decade, he brings alive the history and biography that inform the art while also challenging the received wisdom about distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, and minimalism and pop. The result is a fascinating and ultimately moving tour through a half century of abstract art, concluding with an unforgettable description of one of Varnedoe's favorite works.

    Published on the occasion of a new display at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 3 December - August 2012.Eight internationally acclaimed authors have invented imaginary biographies and character sketches based on fourteen unidentified portraits.Who are these men and women, why were they painted, and why do they now find themselves in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery?With fictional letters, diaries, mini-biographies and memoirs, 'Imagined Lives' creates vivid stories about these unknown sitters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

    A centuries-old tradition developed in Europe during the Renaissance, cabinets of wonder (also known as curiosity cabinets) are once again in fashion. Shops, restaurants, and private residences echo these cabinets in their interior design, by making use of the eclectic vintage objects commonly featured in such collections. "Cabinets of Wonder "showcases exceptional collections in homes and museums, with more than 180 photographs, while also explaining the history behind the tradition, the best-known collections, and the types of objects typically displayed. Offering both a historical overview and a look into contemporary interior design, this extravagantly illustrated book celebrates the wonderfully odd world of cabinets of wonder.

    J. T. Mitchell, we need to reckon with images not just as inert objects that convey meaning but as animated beings with desires, needs, appetites, demands, and drives of their own. What Do Pictures Want? explores this idea and highlights Mitchell's innovative and profoundly influential thinking on picture theory and the lives and loves of images. Ranging across the visual arts, literature, and mass media, Mitchell applies characteristically brilliant and wry analyses to Byzantine icons and cyberpunk films, racial stereotypes and public monuments, ancient idols and modern clones, offensive images and found objects, American photography and aboriginal painting. Opening new vistas in iconology and the emergent field of visual culture, he also considers the importance of Dolly the Sheep—who, as a clone, fulfills the ancient dream of creating a living image—and the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which, among other things, signifies a new and virulent form of iconoclasm.What Do Pictures Want? offers an immensely rich and suggestive account of the interplay between the visible and the readable. A work by one of our leading theorists of visual representation, it will be a touchstone for art historians, literary critics, anthropologists, and philosophers alike.   “A treasury of episodes—generally overlooked by art history and visual studies—that turn on images that ‘walk by themselves’ and exert their own power over the living.”—Norman Bryson, Artforum

    Illustrated throughout in full color.

    The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary--one who was equally ambitious but possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were close associates whose personal bond frayed after Degas painted a portrait of Manet and his wife. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso swapped paintings, ideas, and influences as they jostled for the support of collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein and vied for the leadership of a new avant-garde. Jackson Pollock's uninhibited style of "action painting" triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. After Pollock's sudden death in a car crash, de Kooning assumed Pollock's mantle and became romantically involved with his late friend's mistress. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s, when Bacon was being hailed as Britain's most exciting new painter and Freud was working in relative obscurity. Their intense but asymmetrical friendship came to a head when Freud painted a portrait of Bacon, which was later stolen.Each of these relationships culminated in an early flashpoint, a rupture in a budding intimacy that was both a betrayal and a trigger for great innovation. Writing with the same exuberant wit and psychological insight that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism, Sebastian Smee explores here the way that coming into one's own as an artist--finding one's voice--almost always involves willfully breaking away from some intimate's expectations of who you are or ought to be.Praise for The Art of Rivalry"Gripping . . . Mr. Smee's skills as a critic are evident throughout. He is persuasive and vivid. . . . You leave this book both nourished and hungry for more about the art, its creators and patrons, and the relationships that seed the ground for moments spent at the canvas."--The New York Times"With novella-like detail and incisiveness [Sebastian Smee] opens up the worlds of four pairs of renowned artists. . . . Each of his portraits is a biographical gem. . . . The Art of Rivalry is a pure, informative delight, written with canny authority."--The Boston Globe"Bacon liked to say his portraiture aimed to capture 'the pulsations of a person.' Revealing these rare creators as the invaluable catalysts they also were, Smee conveys exactly that on page after page. . . . His brilliant group biography is one of a kind." --The Atlantic "Perceptive . . . Smee is onto something important. His book may bring us as close as we'll ever get to understanding the connections between these bristly bonds and brilliance."--The Christian Science Monitor"In this intriguing work of art history and psychology, The Boston Globe's art critic looks at the competitive friendships of Matisse and Picasso, Manet and Degas, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. All four relationships illuminate the creative process--both its imaginative breakthroughs and its frustrating blocks."--Newsday

    Rackham's illustrations for such works as Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Rip Van Winkle have attained the classic status of the writings themselves—and indeed, in some cases, they have become synonymous with them. His works were also included in numerous exhibitions in his lifetime, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. Rackham himself, however, has previously remained a shadowy figure. As well as featuring exquisite illustrations and sketches, extracts from Rackham's correspondence and insightful commentary shed new light on this much-collected illustrator.

    A critically acclaimed and prize-winning memoir

    Charles Faudree's Country French Living features his newest room designs. From the entryway to the dressing room to walls, dining rooms, and outdoor spaces, Charles teaches principles of design that make a house a Country French home:The importance of the bedroom and how to make it a soothing sanctuary, deserving as much attention to beauty and detail as the rest of the home.How to identify a pivotal fabric, a dominant color, or one magnificent antique that will dictate the style and design for a whole room.How books can create an inviting atmosphere and add a warmth all their own.How a valance is the ultimate decorating deceit, and how window treatments express the personality of a room and add a proper finish.How to use walls as they are meant--as a stage on which to display one's favorite collections.How to use symmetrical groupings that provide a sense if balance and order in a roomCharles Faudree's Country French Living also shows how to make the most of accessories like lamps, pillows, baskets, paintings, and more to finish a room and provide the charm and character so important in a well-designed French Country setting. Country French Living reveals that the true test of a beautiful room is in the details.Charles Faudree's clients are found throughout America as well as in Spain and Jamaica. Five individual homes designed by Charles, including his own, have been featured on HGTV. During his twenty-five-year career as an interior designer, his work has appeared in many design magazines and decorating books. Six of his own homes have been featured in Traditional Home magazine, where he was a Design Award Winner in 1995. He has also been featured in Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publications, Renovation Style, Veranda, Southern Accents, and House Beautiful. In 2002 he was named one of America's top 100 interior designers.