It is hard enough to find thesequalities in trained photographers with the benefit of schooling and mentors and a community of fellow artists and aficionados supporting and rewarding their efforts. It is incredibly rare to find it in someone with no formal training and no network of peers.Yet Vivian Maier is all of these things, a professional nanny, who from the 1950s until the 1990s took over 100,000 photographs worldwide—from France to New York City to Chicago and dozens of other countries—and yet showed the results to no one. The photos are amazing both for the breadth of the work and for the high quality of the humorous, moving, beautiful, and raw images of all facets of city life in America’s post-war golden age.It wasn’t until local historian John Maloof purchased a box of Maier’s negatives from a Chicago auction house and began collecting and championing her marvelous work just a few years ago that any of it saw the light of day. Presented here for the first time in print, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer collects the best of her incredible, unseen body of work.

    A compendium of the life and work of Maxfield Parrish, it is an essential part of a Parrish library. For the collector, the publisher has included a value guide to some of the products that bear Parrish images. Examples of Parrish's most famous book illustrations are shown, including selections from Mother Goose in Prose and the Arabian Nights. Also included are his famous magazine covers-from Life, Collier's, Harper's Weekly, etc., as well as all the landscapes that he painted for Brown and Bigelow, who reproduced them as calendars every year from 1936 to 1963. One of the highlights of the book is the chapter on Parrish's technique, examining in depth his materials, favorite methods, and unique way of painting. In addition, there is a lengthy excerpt from an unpublished manuscript by Maxfield Parrish, Jr., explaining step-by-step his father's glazing technique and use of photography in his work. This definitive study also contains numerous revealing excerpts from Parrish's unpublished correspondence with family, friends, and clients.

    Among graphic artists and commercial designers, Mucha is praised for the innovative style books that pioneered the use of Art Nouveau in commercial packaging, design, and ornament.The most important of these style books was Documents Décoratifs, published in 1901 at the height of Mucha's fame as the high priest of the Art Nouveau movement. While the artist's fame rests largely on his posters, it is in the smaller works of the style books, or design portfolios, that the refinement of his technique can best be appreciated. The present volume, carefully reproduced from an extremely rare and valuable set of originals, contains all 72 plates of the Documents Décoratifs portfolio. Included are designs for jewelry, wallpaper, stained glass, furniture, and tableware; figure and botanical studies; and a selection of Mucha's famous panneaux décoratifs. Eighteen of the plates are in full color, while the remaining 54 are reproduced in two or more color tones.In addition to numerous innovative designs for practical and decorative objects, the elegant draftsmanship and meticulous execution that characterized all of Mucha's work is evident in studies of langorous nudes, portrait sketches, delicately rendered plant and animal motifs, exquisite modeling of drapery and cloth, and the flowing, fantastic forms created as experiments in pure design. In the Foreword by Gabriel Mourey, specially translated for this edition, Mucha's own philosophy of art, and the relation of the Documents to the rest of his work, receive an appreciative and informative discussion.Hitherto available only in scattered sources, or in the libraries of wealthy collectors, the complete Documents Décoratifs is now available in this inexpensive one-volume edition. Lovers of Mucha's work, admirers of Art Nouveau, and the application of that style to the decorative arts, will want to own this fine royalty-free collection by one of the greatest masters of the technique."[Documents Décoratifs is] . . . an encyclopedic source for Mucha's style in every branch of decorative and applied art and one of the few books on design where even individual plates are sought after by collectors." — Marina Henderson, The Graphic Style of Alphonse Mucha

    Artist's Journal Workshop provides all the guidance, structure and inspiration you need to create a meaningful art-journaling practice. Starting with the question, What do you want from your journal? you'll build a sound journaling concept that will serve your unique creative needs and give you the freedom to practice, play and develop as an artist. Featuring rich visual examples on every page, you'll receive continual guidance and inspiration from:- 27 international artists who share pages and advice from their own art journals - More than 25 hands-on exercises to help you personalize your journal while developing new ideas and techniques - Journal pages featuring travel sketching, nature studies and celebrations of daily life - Prompts for visually commemorating life events and milestones - Support for working through creative doubts and blocks - A range of artistic styles and perspectives to study and admire - Instruction for trying your hand at new methods and materialsThis is the perfect opportunity for you to begin realizing your artistic potential--one page at a time. Begin the journey today!

    Page after page of rich reproductions capture his use of intense, glowing colors and the unique world he created full of magic, enchantment and fantasy.

    He had a talent for drawing and an interest in birds, and he would spend the next thirty-five years traveling to the remotest regions of his new country–often alone and on foot–to render his avian subjects on paper. The works of art he created gave the world its idea of America. They gave America its idea of itself. Here Richard Rhodes vividly depicts Audubon’s life and career: his epic wanderings; his quest to portray birds in a lifelike way; his long, anguished separations from his adored wife; his ambivalent witness to the vanishing of the wilderness. John James Audubon: The Making of an American is a magnificent achievement.

    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.

    Giger's multi-faceted career: From surrealistic dream landscapes to album cover designs and sculpturesFor decades H.R. Giger (1940--2014) reigned as one of the leading exponents of fantastic art. After he studied interior and industrial design for eight years at the School of Commercial Art in Zurich, Switzerland, from 1962 till 1970, he was soon gaining attention as an independent artist, with endeavors ranging from surrealistic dream landscapes created with a spray gun and stencils, to album cover designs for famous pop stars, and sculptures. In addition, Giger's multi-faceted career includes designing two bars, located in Tokyo and Chur, as well as work on various film projects--his creation of the set design and title figure for Ridley Scott's film Alien won him not only international fame but also an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects (1980).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 importancea concise biographyapproximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

    Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials to bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist: his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; and his move to Provence, where he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art. The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh’s inner world: his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; his bouts of depression and mental illness; and the cloudy circumstances surrounding his death at the age of thirty-seven.   Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius.

    Delicate watercolors shine like jewels set into each page of this exquisite book. In tones of sea and morning sky, stucco and brick, olive leaf and apricot, rose and geranium, sara Midda captures the land, the people, the shimmering air—the whole feeling of Provence and the Côte d'azur, and the spell they cast over even those who haven't visited. Interspersed throughout are photographic collages and charming observations. The whole book is printed on uncoated stock to convey the feeling of an artist's sketchbook.

    Combining a sensitive use of line and subdued watercolors, he skillfully depicted forests of startling trees with claw-like roots, wholesome fairy maidens, monsters, and demons, and backgrounds filled with obscure figures. His inspired illustrations for the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900) brought him his first great success, with a long and distinguished career to follow.This collection of 55 full-color plates, reproduced from rare early editions, contains a rich selection of Rackham's best fairy tale images: a giant terrorizing the inhabitants of an isolated village in English Fairy Tales, a wicked witch greeting two lost children on her doorstep in Hansel and Gretel, a young maiden beset by snarling wolves in Irish Fairy Tales, and many more, including illustrations from Snowdrop and Other Tales, Little Brother and Little Sister, and The Allies' Fairy Book.

    The book opens with an introductory essay by Gian Carlo Calza presenting an overview of the changing world into which Hokusai was born and through which he lived. This is followed by a series of essays, composed by distinguished Western and Japanese scholars, that present new research on a range of crucial areas of interest in Hokusai studies.These form a context for the core of the book, which embodies a retrospective of Hokusai's entire career, divided into seven chapters. Each chapter provides a succinct account of a phase in Hokusai's life, followed by a series of the finest and most representative works of that period. Great care has been taken throughout to choose for reproduction the best-preserved original prints that reveal Hokusai's mastery of line and colour to full advantage.This magnificent pictorial survey of Hokusai's prints, paintings and drawings is the first publication in English to make such a rich selection widely available, and to demonstrate the extraordinary range and quality of Hokusai's achievement. The final component of the book is a detailed scholarly commentary on each illustration that provides not only the necessary technical information but also a revealing analysis of style, color, composition and motif.

    This lavishly illustrated volume offers practical, step-by-step instruction for creating professional quality colored pencil illustrations of flowers, foliage, fruits, and other botanical subjects. Colored pencils serve as an excellent alternative to the traditional practice of rendering botanical art in watercolors because pencils are far easier to use and control, yet can produce equally outstanding results. The author instructs in the use of both water-soluble and oil-based colored pencils, and presents progressive illustrations that demonstrate the rendering of an artwork from start to completion. She advises on choosing materials and offers guidelines for getting to know each flower or plant before starting an illustration. All aspects of working with colored pencils are covered, including underpainting, layering and burnishing, mixing and building up color, and adding those finishing touches that bring a botanical subject fully to life. She also presents works by other botanical artists to show students a wide range of styles. The book features approximately 200 beautiful and instructive color illustrations.

    Written by arts educator Steven Aimone, it’s packed with solid, friendly, hands-on instruction, as well as inspiring images, and backed by the trusted AARP name. Aimone teaches an accessible style called expressive drawing that emphasizes line and mark, rather than rendering a specific object, which for many people, can create barriers to self-expression. Exercises start off simple and quick, encouraging readers to work on instinct and feeling, while the later ones focus on detail and refinement. The book features hundreds ofimages of work by well-known artists from Debuffet to Jim Dine—and each chapter includes a profile of someone who came to drawing late in life and achieved recognition.