In seven separate sketches, he presents his picture of a man whose life is the key to his creation.

    Packed with wonderfully entertaining and often outrageous speculations about the nature of art, truth, and value, the world-renowned art forger--who died mysteriously before this book was published--details secrets of his techniques.

    in a literary sense, ever written in Canada."Completed just before Emily Carr died in 1945, Growing Pains tells the story of Carr’s life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. Also here is the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting. She had to earn a living, and did so by running a small apartment-house, and her painful years of landladying and more joyful times raising dogs for sale, claimed all her time and energy. Then, towards the end of her life, came unexpected vindication and triumph when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them. Throughout, the book is informed with Carr’s passionatate love of and connection with nature.Carr is a natural storyteller whose writing is vivid and vital, informed by wit, nostalgic charm, an artist’s eye for description, a deep feeling for creatures and the foibles of humanity--all the things that made her previous books Klee Wyck and Book of Small so popular and critically acclaimed.

    A hotbed for hip hop, underground culture, and unmatched creative energy, it spawned some of the most significant art of the 20th century. It was where Jean-Michel Basquiat became an avant-garde street artist and painter, swiftly achieving worldwide fame. During the years before his death at the age of 27, he shared his life with his lover and muse, Suzanne Mallouk. A runaway from an unhappy home in Canada, Suzanne first met Jean-Michel in a bar on the Lower East Side in 1980. Thus began a tumultuous and passionate relationship that deeply influenced one of the most exceptional artists of our time. In emotionally resonant prose, award-winning author Jennifer Clement tells the story of the passion that swept Suzanne and Jean-Michel into a short-lived, unforgettable affair. A poetic interpretation like no other, Widow Basquiat is an expression of the unrelenting power of addiction, obsession and love.

    What emerges is both a perspective appraisal of his work and a revealing life history of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of all time.

    So writes Kathleen Raine in this classic study of William Blake, a man for whom the arts were not an end in themselves, but expressed his vision of the spiritual drama of the English national being. Profusely illustrated, this volume presents a comprehensive view of Blake's artistic achievements and a compelling and moving portrait of the life and thought of an extraordinary genius.

    

    

    Leanne and Steve Ford share their secrets for how to turn dreams into reality.Leanne and Steve were middle-class kids growing up in Pittsburgh in the 80s and 90s. There was nothing particularly glamorous or unusual about their lives as kids. Leanne was a shy, stubborn child who lived a rich life in her own imagination. Steve was outdoorsy and offbeat and was bullied mercilessly at school for being different. Their parents, grounded in faith and always encouraging of both creativity and hard work, gave them the confidence and the encouragement they needed to pursue the often difficult creative life. Leanne’s slogan as a child was, “My name is Leanne. If I want to, I can.”Leanne studied clothing design and pulled gigs at fashion houses in New York and as a stylist to country music stars in Nashville before she found her true passion: interior design. Steve threw himself into kayaking and snowboarding and opening his own men’s clothing store in Pittsburgh. And then their individual passions converged when Leanne asked Steve to help renovate her bathroom. There was magic in their collaboration, and they began renovating for clients in Pittsburgh—creating unique, authentic spaces that manage to feel both chic and completely obtainable—before catching the eye of producers at HGTV.Leanne and Steve share the details of their journey, including the beliefs that have inspired them and the experiences that have challenged them along the way.

    Containing many unseen pieces of art and comics from the creator who has brought us THB, Heavy Liquid and 100%.

    A visual representation of an extraordinary artistic career, that simultaenously brings to life the spirit of a whole era.The author: Daniel Wildenstein (1917-2001) was an art historian and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts (Paris). From 1939 onwards, he was Director of the Wildenstein Galleries of New York, London, and Tokyo. He edited several international journals, e.g. the magazine Arts from 1956-1962 and the Gazette des Beaux-Arts after 1963. He co-founded the Fondation Wildenstein in 1970 (it was renamed the Wildenstein Institute in 1984), and was a prime mover in many exhibitions of international repute. Daniel Wildenstein also edited the catalogues raisonnés of various 18th, 19th, and 20th century artists. He was a world authority on Impressionism, and published catalogues of the works of Gauguin, Manet, and Monet.

    He spent a large part of his life on the run, leaving a trail of illuminated chaos wherever he passed, most of it recorded in criminal justice records. When he did settle for long enough to paint, he produced works of staggering creativity and technical innovation. He was famous throughout Italy for his fulminating temper, but also for his radical and sensitive humanization of biblical stories, and in particular his decision to include the brutal and dirty life of the street in his paintings. Caravaggio was a rebel and a violent man, but he eyed the world with deep empathy, realism, and an unrelenting honesty.

    Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty examines the full breadth of the designer’s career, from the start of his fledgling label to the triumphs of his own world-renowned London house. It features his most iconic and radical designs, revealing how McQueen adapted and combined the fundamentals of Savile Row tailoring, the specialized techniques of haute couture, and technological innovation to achieve his distinctive aesthetic. It also focuses on the highly sophisticated narrative structures underpinning his collections and extravagant runway presentations, with their echoes of avant-garde installation and performance art.Published to coincide with an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized by The Costume Institute, this stunning book includes a preface by Andrew Bolton; an introduction by Susannah Frankel; an interview by Tim Blanks with Sarah Burton, creative director of the house of Alexander McQueen; illuminating quotes from the designer himself; provocative and captivating new photography by renowned photographer Sølve Sundsbø; and a lenticular cover by Gary James McQueen.Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty celebrates the astounding creativity and originality of a designer who relentlessly questioned and confronted the requisites of fashion.

    In this intimate and revealing memoir, Stein tells us much about the great man (and herself) and offers many insights into the life and art of the 20th century's greatest painter.Mixing biological fact with artistic and aesthetic comments, she limns a unique portrait of Picasso as a founder of Cubism, an intimate of Appollinaire, Max Jacob, Braque, Derain, and others, and a genius driven by a ceaseless quest to convey his vision of the 20th century. We learn, for example, of the importance of his native Spain in shaping Picasso's approach to art; of the influence of calligraphy and African sculpture; of his profound struggle to remain true to his own vision; of the overriding need to empty himself of the forms and ideas that welled up within him.Stein's close relationship with Picasso furnishes her with a unique vantage point in composing this perceptive and provocative reminiscence. It will delight any admirer of Picasso or Gertrude Stein; it is indispensable to an understanding of modern art.

    Now Annie Cohen-Solal, author of the hugely acclaimed Sartre: A Life (“an intimate portrait of the man that possesses all the detail and resonance of fiction”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times), recounts his incalculably influential and astonishing life in Leo and His Circle. After emigrating to New York in 1941, Castelli would not open a gallery for sixteen years, when he had reached the age of fifty. But as the first to exhibit the then-unknown Jasper Johns, Castelli emerged as a tastemaker overnight and fast came to champion a virtual Who’s Who of twentieth-century masters: Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Twombly, to name a few. The secret of Leo’s success? Personal devotion to the artists, his “heroes”: by putting young talents on stipend and seeking placement in the ideal collection rather than with the top bidder, he transformed the way business was done, multiplying the capital, both cultural and financial, of those he represented. His enterprise, which by 1980 had expanded to an impressive network of satellite galleries in Europe and three locations in New York, thus became the unrivaled commercial institution in American art, producing a generation of acolytes, among them Mary Boone, Jeffrey Deitch, Larry Gagosian, and Tony Shafrazi. Leo and His Circle brilliantly narrates the course of one man’s power and influence. But Castelli had another secret, too: his life as an Italian Jew. Annie Cohen-Solal traces a family whose fortunes rose and fell for centuries before the Castellis fled European fascism. Never hidden but also never discussed, this experience would form the core of a guarded but magnetic character possessed of unfailing old-world charm and a refusal to look backward—traits that ensured Castelli’s visionary precedence in every major new movement from Pop to Conceptual and by which he fostered the worldwide enthusiasm for American contemporary art that is his greatest legacy. Drawing on her friendship with the subject, as well as an uncanny knack for archival excavation, Annie Cohen-Solal gives us in full the elegant, shrewd, irresistible, and enigmatic figure at the very center of postwar American art, bringing an utterly new understanding of its evolution.