History of art Books
Anomie Publishing Sarah Medway – the River Series
Book SynopsisThis, London-based painter Sarah Medway’s second publication from Anomie Publishing, is devoted to the subject of the River Thames. The publication presents a series of twenty-eight oil paintings created in Medway’s canal-side studio in central London during the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020-21.The Thames is beautiful, terrifying, powerful, alluring and dangerous. Medway captures the river’s eclectic dynamics, rhythms and energy through the language of abstract painting, the ripples, bubbles, eddies and currents, the reflections and refractions denoted through sinuous lines, ellipses and spots, dots and loops, flecks and swirls. Referencing 20th-century modernist movements such as De Stijl, Tachisme and post-war American Abstract Expressionism, Medway’s own, lyrical, often graphic approach to painting the Thames results in a vivid interplay between pattern and colour. The paintings have overt musical resonances – tempo, rhythm and dynamics as might be encountered in an orchestral score. Like the river, the paintings are at times joyous and playful, at other times brooding and menacing, yet always moving, in flux, traveling onwards towards the sea.An introductory text by critic and writer Sue Hubbard takes readers through the series, exploring how the paintings engage with the qualities and complexities of the river. An in-person conversation between Medway and writer, editor and curator Anna McNay provides insight into the artist’s life and work, discussing the processes by which Medway makes her paintings and the thinking behind them. Designed and produced by Peter B. Willberg, this foil-blocked, cloth-bound hardback publication with a special dustjacket also features an illustrated chronology documenting Medway’s life and career.Sarah Medway (b.1955, Seaton Carew, UK) is a painter based in London. As well as group exhibitions at institutions such as Tate Britain, the Whitechapel, the Royal Academy, the World Trade Center and Austin Museum of Art, Medway’s solo shows include Flowers East, London, Chelsea Hotel, New York, Kienbaum Gallery, Frankfurt, The Mandalai, Thailand, and Atelier Gallery, Spain. She has works in many public, private and corporate collections in the UK, US, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Hong Kong and Thailand.
£23.80
Unicorn Publishing Group Niko Pirosmanashvili
Book SynopsisNiko Pirosmanashvili comprehensively tells the story of the life and work of elusive Georgian painter Niko Pirosmanashvili (c.1866-1918), popularly known as Pirosmani, during one of the most interesting epochs in the history of Georgia. Key essays, both recollections by those who knew him and contemporary scholarship, explore his life as an impoverished artist living in Tbilisi. Charting his influence on the Georgian and Russian avant-gardists to the Modernists, including Picasso, and the parallels he holds with Henri Rousseau and Vincent Van Gogh, the artist''s wider cultural impact is also examined from Georgian and international perspectives, past and present. Illustrations of his artwork, alongside a wealth of photographs from Georgia from the beginning of the twentieth century, make this a richly visual resource. With a foreword by Orhan Pamuk, this evocative book is the result of a meticulous process of assemblage by two artists dedicated to broadening Pirosmanashvili's legacy an
£71.25
Unicorn Publishing Group The Battle for Better Design
Book SynopsisPrince Albert was the first Chairman of the first Royal Fine Art Commission, appointed by Queen Victoria to commission art for the new Houses of Parliament. At the age of just twenty-two, he deftly navigated the complex project, leaving a remarkable artistic legacy and honing the skills that made him one of the Renaissance Men of the nineteenth century. Albert then set the template for a second Royal Fine Art Commission, created in 1924 as a priority of Britain's first ever Labour Government. From the aftermath of the Great War to the eve of the Third Millennium, this Commission gave elite architects and designers from Edwin Lutyens to Henry Moore a platform to apply their minds to a democratic cause, putting in countless hours analysing the design of buildings, street furniture, roadsand bridges.The story of the two Commissions, told together for the first time, is a compelling one of civic duty performed freely in the public interest, against the background of high politics, difficul
£28.00
HarperCollins Publishers Van Gogh: in 50 works
Book Synopsis A captivating and highly illustrated introduction to Vincent Van Gogh, told through 50 major works. This new book presents all you need to know about Vincent Van Gogh’s turbulent and prolific creative life, featuring fifty works from the world’s leading art collections and museums. Art historian John Cauman analyses the career and works of, arguably, the best-known artist in the world today. A detailed introduction examines Van Gogh’s development as an artist and explores the themes, methods and driving forces behind his extraordinary paintings and drawings, as well as his relationships with his brother Theo and fellow artists. The book includes both major paintings and lesser-known sketches and artworks. The latest digital technology has been used to ensure that the reproductions are as faithful to the original works as possible. For all art lovers and students interested in Post-Impressionism and 19th-century art, Van Gogh in 50 Works provides a dazzling recreation of the viewing experience. Among the fifty paintings featured, the book includes The Potato Eaters (1885), Père Tanguy (1887), Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel (1888), Sunflowers (1888), Café Terrace at Night (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), Van Gogh’s Chair (1888), Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889), Irises (1889), The Starry Night (1889) and Wheatfield with Crows (1890).Trade Review‘The prefect "greatest hits" compilation.' * Artists & Illustrators *
£17.00
Atlantic Books Get the Picture
Book SynopsisThe acclaimed author of Cork Dork takes readers on a fascinating, hilarious and revelatory journey inside the impassioned, secretive world of art and artists.
£11.69
Blue Crow Media Modern Berlin Map: Guide to 20th century
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£9.00
Blue Crow Media Modernist New York Map
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£9.95
Blue Crow Media Concrete New York Map: Guide to Concrete and
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£9.37
Blue Crow Media Modern Paris Map: Carte Paris Moderne
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£9.50
Ad Ilissum A History of Arcadia in Art and Literature:
Book SynopsisLong anticipated and hugely welcome, Paul Holberton's A History of Arcadia is a close and thorough examination of a great number of original texts of classical and early and later modern pastoral poetry, literature and drama in ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and English, and of a wide range of visual imagery, ending just before 1800. The book analyses the development of pastoral as a means of representing human happiness on this earth in the requited wooing of girl and boy, to whose feelings early modern pastoral gives voice.This tremendous book is an iconographic study of Renaissance and Baroque pastoral and related subject matter, with an important chapter on the 18th century, both in the visual arts, where pastoral is very poorly understood, and in words and performance, about which many false preconceptions prevail.The study begins with Virgil's use of Theocritus and an analysis of what basis Virgil provided for Renaissance pastoral and what, by contrast, stemmed from the medieval pastourelle. Pastoral developed notably in the Venetian High Renaissance. Its texts incorporated Petrarchist and Neoplatonic ideas of love, of which this book charts the development and evolution with unprecedented precision, considering also the female nude in art. There is a novel and polemical discussion of the development of landscape subjects in art, from Giorgione to Claude. The contributions of the most influential or representative authors - Petrarch, Sannazaro, Montemayor, Tasso, Guarino, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Honoré d’Urfé, Cornelis de Hooft, Shakespeare and lastly Salomon Gessner - are considered beside many interesting more minor ones - Arsocchi, Bernardim Ribeiro, Clément Marot, Cieco d’Adria, John Fletcher, Fontenelle - and the verses of madrigals.There is a chapter on 'Being Rural' - what we can say about the reality of life in the country in the early modern period. There is a chapter on 'Et in Arcadia Ego' that introduces new evidence for the dating of Poussin’s famous work by reference to a neglected work by Sébastien Bourdon in Yale; another on a pastoral composition by Rubens that has not been considered as such. There is an important and bold discussion of self-projection ('metachronic' representation) by monarchs and courtiers across Europe in the 17th century, both within pastoral and without, which illuminates profound differences between Protestant and Catholic culture. Coming from the study of earlier periods, the author is able to throw new light on the Rococo - figures such as John Gay, Watteau, Gessner and Gainsborough - and to explain the termination of pastoral writing and art with the embrace of modernity in form and means of expression.All texts are given in the original language and all translated into English, while the visuals are beautifully reproduced: the book is also an anthology.Trade ReviewRemarkable … This is a substantial publication in every sense: two volumes [available separately] amounting to almost a thousand pages, with lavish colour illustrations throughout … [It has] exceptional range ... so much to praise. * Literary Review *
£47.50
Macat International Limited An Analysis of Griselda Pollock's Vision and
Book SynopsisVision and Difference, published in 1988, is one of the most significant works in feminist visual culture arguing that feminist art history of is a political as well as academic endeavour. Pollock expresses how images are key to the construction of sexual difference, both in visual culture and in broader societal experiences.Her argument places feminist theory at the centre of art history, proffering the idea that a feminist understanding of art history is an analysis of art history itself. This text remains key not only to understand feminine art historically but to grasp strategies for representation in the future and adding to its contemporary value.Table of ContentsWays into the Text Who is Griselda Pollock? What does Vision and Difference say? Why does Vision and Difference matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited
£8.58
Imperial War Museum Visions of War: Art of the Imperial War Museums
Book SynopsisIWM holds one of the most significant collections of British art anywhere in the world - a collection whose artists and artworks have uniquely shaped our understanding of war. Visions of War charts the manifold engagement between artists, art movements and a century-plus of conflict since 1914. Its richly illustrated pages uncover the intricate and changing history of IWM's art collection, from its inception during the First World War to its consideration of the causes, course and consequences of conflict today. It illuminates some of the museums's most powerful stories, from the provocative, heartfelt statement of William Orpen's To the Unknown British Soldier in France to the frontline challenges for contemporary war artists, including Steve McQueen. This book brings together iconic and previously unseen works to tell the authoritative story of modern war art. Artists featured include Paul Nash, C R W Nevinson, David Bomberg, Anna Airy, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Wyndham Lewis, Eric Ravilious, Laura Knight, Henry Moore, Evelyn Dunbar, Linda Kitson, Peter Kennard, Gilbert & George, Colin Self, William Crozier and Rosalind Nashashibi.
£24.00
Unicorn Publishing Group Art and Industry: Seven Artists in search of an
Book SynopsisIn seven linked essays, the author discusses paintings of industrial scenes by seven artists working in the period 1780–1830. Their unique and distinct responses to the subject matter reveal a surprisingly coherent message.Trade Review"Art and industry may sound like an unlikely combination, usually we see them almost at the extremes of the spectrum of life. That is to say, Art embodies creativity while industry channels efficiency and standardization. David Stacey, in his book Art and Industry: Seven Artists in Search of an Industrial Revolution in Britain, explores how those extremes can come together." * Daily Art Magazine *"The chapters contain much information about the artists themselves as well as many other people, and this is one of the strengths of the work in that some of this information may be appearing for the first time in the form of a published book. Although each of the essays purports to deal with a single painter more are included and there are a large number of biographical references. For the research worker in this field the book can be highly recommended. . . . This is a detailed scholarly book. . . . It is very-well referenced; there are copious notes, an extensive bibliography and a good index. David Stacey is to be complimented on a fine work." * International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology *
£21.25
Eyewear Publishing Whose Truth, Whose Creativity? A 21st Century Art
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£15.29
Paul Holberton Publishing Ltd Van Gogh. Self-Portraits
Book SynopsisThe myth of Van Gogh today is linked as much to his extraordinary life as it is to his stunning paintings. His biography has often shaped the way that his self-portraits have been (mis)understood. Van Gogh. Self-Portraits reconsiders this aspect of his production and places the artist’s self-representation in context to reveal the role it plays in his oeuvre. It also explores the power and profound emotion of these highly personal paintings.Van Gogh. Self-Portraits is the first time this theme has been exclusively addressed. Self-portraits painted during Van Gogh’s time in Paris (February 1886 – February 1888) have been the subject of two exhibitions (in 1960 at Marlborough Fine Arts in London and in 1995 at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg) but never has the full chronological range been explored. The exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, which this volume accompanies, features paintings from both the Parisian and Provençal periods. It brings together half of Van Gogh’s thirty-five known self-portraits to examine the ways the artist approached this particular subject-matter. On a practical level, painting himself provided Van Gogh with the cheapest and most patient of models and represented an important conduit for stylistic experimentation. He also used self-portraiture as an homage to his illustrious Dutch predecessor Rembrandt, as well as a way of fashioning his own identity and presenting himself to the outside world. Of particular interest is the striking way the evolution of Van Gogh's self-representation over the short years of his artistic activity can be seen as a microcosm of his development as a painter.In addition to the world-famous Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear in The Courtauld’s collection, the exhibition showcases a group of major masterpieces brought together from international collections, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Muse d’Orsay in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes detailed entries on each work, an appendix illustrating all of Van Gogh’s self-portraits and three insightful essays on the theme.
£23.75
Fisher King Publishing Art Class
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£16.19
Sansom & Co Egon Altdorf Poems + Images: Poems + Images
Book SynopsisAltdorf’s earliest poems, written during military service and as a prisoner of war, reflected on nature, poetry and art. Beginning a new life, post-war, as an artist, Altdorf explored how the human figure might be depicted through increasingly abstract representations. Similarly, he refined his poetry to create ‘a new, free, melodic’ language’ with ‘a simple, song-like beauty’. Presenting Altdorf’s poetry alongside his art reveals a powerfully interconnected vision shaped but not defined by war: a humanitarian outlook informed by a profound spiritual belief.
£17.00
UEA Publishing Project Translating John Crome
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£23.39
Eiderdown Books Sylvia Pankhurst
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£10.44
Modern Art Press Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints
Book SynopsisA record of every print Freud made, from early linocuts of the 1930s to his last etching published in 2007 This first volume of the Lucian Freud catalogue raisonné focuses on the artist’s prints. The only complete volume of Freud’s prints, the book builds upon the work of earlier cataloguers and adds much new material which has come to light since the artist’s death. The volume records every print Freud made, from the early linocuts of the 1930s to his last etching published in 2007. Each work—including uneditioned etchings and unique proofs—is reproduced and fully catalogued by Toby Treves. Treves’s remarks include clear, precise technical detail for specialists and are informed by his knowledge of the wider oeuvre. An essay by the critic and Freud specialist Sebastian Smee, and an account of working with Freud by his main printmaker, Marc Balakjian, provide further insights into this part of the artist’s oeuvre.Distributed for Modern Art PressTrade Review"It is a handsome production, impeccably designed and produced...A pleasure to read...Publisher and authors have done admirably by one of Britain's most distinguished artists with this impeccable, rigorous and beautiful book."—Alexander Adams, British Art Journal
£118.75
Siglio Press Sophie Calle The Sleepers
Book SynopsisCalle's seminal 1979 series of people sleeping in her bed: now in EnglishIn one of Sophie Calle's first artistic experiments, she invited friends, acquaintances and strangers to sleep in her bed. Twenty-seven people agreed, among them a baker, a babysitter, an actor, a journalist, a seamstress, a trumpet player and three painters. Calle photographed them awake and asleep, secretly recording any private conversations once the door closed. She served each a meal, and, if they agreed, she subjected them to a questionnaire that probed their personal predilections, habits and dreams as well as their interpretations of the act of sleeping in her bed: a curiosity, a game, an artwork, oras Calle intended ita job. The result, comprising her first exhibition in 1979, was a grid of 198 photographs and short texts.Unlike the original installation, this artist's book version of The Sleepers contains not only all the photographs and captions but also her engrossing, novellalike narrative, untranslated until now. From the single, liminal mise-en-scène of her bedroom, Calle reports in text and photos, as if in real time, as sleepers arrive, talk, sleep, eat and leave. Their acute and sometimes startling, sometimes endearing particularities merge into something almost like an eight-day-long dream. Many seeds of Calle's subsequent works are embedded in The Sleepers: her exacting and transgressive methods of investigation, her cultivation of intimacy and remove, and her unrelenting curiosity. In this work, as she observes the sleepers, they observe her toowith reciprocal candor. The Sleepers, clothbound and pillow-like, unfolds as it opens, inviting the reader to join the others in Calle's bed.
£37.80
David Zwirner Pissing Figures
Book SynopsisJean-Claude Lebensztejn’s history of the urinating figure in art, Pissing Figures 1280–2014, is at once a scholarly inquiry into an important visual motif, and a ribald statement on transgression and limits in works of art in general. Lebensztejn is one of France’s best-kept secrets. A world-class art historian who has lectured and taught at major universities in the United States, his work has remained almost entirely in French, his American audience limited to a small but dedicated group of cognoscenti. First introducing the Manneken Pis—the iconic little boy whose stream of urine supplies water to this famous fountain and is also the logo for a Belgian beer company—the author takes the reader through a semi-scatological maze of cultural history. The earliest example is a fresco scene located directly above Cimabue’s Crucifixion from around 1280 at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, in which Lebensztejn’s careful eye locates an angel behind a pillar who looks like he is about to urinate through a hole in his garment. He continues to navigate expertly through cultural twists and turns, stopping to discuss Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Teorema, for example, and Marlene Dumas’s 1996–1997 homage to Rembrandt’s pissing woman. At every moment, Lebensztejn’s prose is lively, his thinking dynamic, and his subject matter entertaining. In this short and poignant cultural history, readers not only find the care for detail that has made Lebensztejn into one of the greatest European art historians, but also the rebelliousness that makes him one of the most interesting intellectuals of our time. The first widely distributed book of Lebensztejn’s in English, Pissing Figures 1280–2014 is simultaneously published in France by Éditions Macula.
£10.76
Distributed Art Publishers René Magritte: The Fifth Season
Book SynopsisRené Magritte (1898–1967) was one of the most intriguing painters associated with Surrealism, but he did not fully find his voice until after breaking ties with the movement. This book, the first to look exclusively at Magritte’s late career, examines his most important bodies of work from the 1940s through the 1960s, and shows how they marked a fundamental shift in painting from Modernism to our own time. Featuring more than sixty artworks, René Magritte: The Fifth Season explores how Magritte balanced irony and conviction, philosophy and fantasy, to illuminate the gaps between what we see and what we know. Subjects explored in this volume include the artist’s Renoir period; the période vache, with its Fauvist- and Expressionist-style paintings that are little known to American audiences; the ‘hypertrophy of objects’ paintings, a series that plays with the scale of familiar objects; and the enigmatic Dominion of Light suite, paintings that suggest the simultaneous experience of day and night. Together, the works reveal Magritte as an artist acutely attuned to the paradoxes at work within reality, and an enduring champion of the role of mystery in life and art.
£999.99
Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers Limited Bamboo Architecture: The work of Vo Trong Nghia
Book Synopsis“I think bamboo is the right material for creating a new architectural language unique to Vietnam.” Vo Trong Nghia. With the climate crisis raging and awareness of humanity’s detrimental impact on the environment now patently apparent, the need for architects to come up with sustainable new solutions has never been more pressing. A key part of any green approach to architecture is the use of local natural materials with a low environmental impact. Bamboo, which has been widely used in Asian architecture for centuries as scaffolding and for bridges, pavilions, houses and other structures, is an ideal material in this context: lightweight, strong and readily available. In an effort to meet the challenges of the 21st century, VTN Architects has developed new ways of working with two species of bamboo in particular: the flexible “Tam Vong” (Thyrsostachys oliveri Gamble) and sturdier “Luong” (Dendrocalamus barbatus), creating a manufacturing workflow that allows for the production of standardized modules, a knitting technique that enables the material to span large distances and environmentally friendly traditional treatments such as mud-soaking and smoking. In Bamboo Architecture we see how these methods have been applied in award-winning, groundbreaking projects such as the Wind and Water Café, Diamond Island Community Center, and the majestic Vedana Restaurant, alongside an illuminating introduction by Masaaki Iwamoto and an interview with the studio principal Vo Trong Nghia who offers an inspiring vision for the future of natural, green architecture.
£44.00
Karma Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface
Book SynopsisThemes and motifs in the art of Kara Walker, from blackface to abjection, by a leading art historian In 2002, Kara Walker was selected to represent the United States at the prestigious São Paulo Art Biennial. Curator Robert Hobbs wrote extended essays on her work for this exhibition, and also for her show later that year at the Kunstverein Hannover. Because these essays have not been distributed in the US and remain among the most in-depth and essential investigations of her work, Karma is now republishing them in this new clothbound volume. Among the most celebrated artists of the past three decades, with over 93 solo exhibitions to her credit, including a major survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker is known for her tough, critical, provocative and highly imaginative representations of African Americans and whites reaching back to antebellum times. In his analysis, Hobbs looks at the five main sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, Stone Mountain’s racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition. Robert Hobbs (born 1946) has written more than 50 books and catalogs, focusing on such artists as Milton Avery, Alice Aycock, Lee Krasner, Robert Smithson and Kehinde Wiley. Since 1991 he has held the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair of American Art in the School of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University. Since 2004 he has served as a visiting professor at Yale University. Now based in New York, Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California, in 1969. She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994; soon afterward, Walker rose to prominence for her large, provocative silhouettes installed directly onto the walls of exhibition spaces.
£29.70
Cameron & Company Inc Japanese Prints in Transition: From the Floating
Book SynopsisA stunning introduction to the history of Japanese printmaking, with highlights from the de Young museum's vast collection In 1868, Japan underwent a dramatic transformation following the overthrow of the shogun by supporters of Emperor Meiji, marking the end of feudal military rule and ushering in a new era of government that promoted modernizing the country and interacting with other nations. Japanese print culture, which had flourished for more than a century with the production of color woodcuts (the so-called ukiyo-e, or “floating world” images), also changed course during the Meiji era (1868–1912), as societal changes and the once-isolationist country’s new global engagement provided a wealth of new subjects for artists to capture. Featuring selections from the renowned Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts’ permanent collection, Japanese Prints in Transition: From the Floating World to the Modern World documents the shift from delicately colored ukiyo-e depictions of actors, courtesans, and scenic views to brightly colored images of Western architecture, modern military warfare, technology (railroad trains, steam-powered ships, telegraph lines), and Victorian fashions and customs.
£24.64
Rutgers University Press Poverty and Antitheatricality
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£28.12
Editions Flammarion Dalis Mustache
Book SynopsisCult classic and collector’s item, Dali’s Mustache is the result of the astonishing artistic collaboration between surrealist Salvador Dalí and experimental photography pioneer Philippe Halsman. Dalí and Halsman were friends as well as professional collaborators for more than three decades. Subtitled A Photographic Interview, the concept of the book is one short question presented to Dalí, which Dalí answers, followed by a corresponding black-and-white photograph by Halsman. The photographs are intentionally absurd and hilarious. Early editions of this book came with a warning on the back that said “Warning! This book is preposterous.” Question: I have the feeling, to have discovered your secret, Salvador. Could it be that you are crazy? Answer: I am certainly saner than the person who bought this book.
£9.45
Editions Flammarion Berthe Morisot: Compact paperback edition
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£19.12
Editions Flammarion Anatomy of Style
Book SynopsisSophie Gachet, former Elle fashion journalist, is a veritable trend barometer. She coauthored, with Ines de la Fressange, the New York Times bestseller Parisian Chic, Parisian Chic City Guide, Parisian Chic Look Book, and The Parisian Field Guide to Men's Style.
£9.48
Editions Skira Paris PostImpressionism
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£28.00
JRP Ringier Valentin Carron: Learning from Martigny
Book SynopsisNeither authentic nor kitsch, readymade nor traditional craft, the works of Swiss artist Valentin Carron (born 1975) play with material ambiguity--fake wood, fake concrete, fake bronze--to unpack the iconography of power and authority. Learning from Martigny offers photographic source material intertwined with images of his sculptures and paintings.
£20.70
JRP Ringier Allan McCollum
Book SynopsisSince the late 1970s, Allan McCollum (born 1944) has addressed the anthropology of art: its distribution, acquisition, display and interpretation. From his first Surrogate Paintings (1978-82) to his Individual Works (1987-89) or recent Shapes Project(since 2005), through his famous series of Plaster Surrogates (begun in 1982), Perpetual Photos (since 1981) and Perfect Vehicles (since 1986), McCollum has revealed art''s mechanisms as a status-generating economy. In the 1990s, his art objects were replaced by found objects belonging to a situated context and community, in an effort to explore local micro-politics and to develop projects with specific milieus. His use of multiples, of museums and display aesthetics as compositional elements, all stem from this displacement of context. Working with regional museums, heterogeneous audiences, and references going from paleontology to mineralogy, McCollum today has built a truly unique and intriguing body of work that receives its first comprehensive overview in this monograph.
£36.00
JRP Ringier Ai Weiwei: Fairytale: A Reader
Book SynopsisIn 2007, Ai Weiwei (born 1957) presented a surprising new project titled Fairytale at Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. He invited 1001 Chinese citizens of different ages and from various backgrounds to travel to Germany, all expenses paid, to experience their own fairytale holiday for 28 days. The logistics for this project were complex and entailed a hefty budget, as the artist later recalled, enumerating the considerations: to design the trip and activities for the tourists, to hope to get their passports, their visas, their insurance and air tickets, to organize the place where they can live in Kassel, to hire cooks, make products which are connected to the journey and would be needed for it... Happily, Fairytale was a runaway success for the artist, the participants and for Documenta. It was judged by critics to be one of the most sensational artworks at Documenta that year, and led to an acclaimed documentary and global media coverage. This publication offers critical analyses of the project from Roger M. Buergel, Daniel Birnbaum, Christian Höller, Raphael Gygax and Ai Weiwei himself.
£17.10
Lars Muller Publishers Hard Life
Book SynopsisBy what means did so much beauty and ingenuity appears in articles of everyday rural life in Portugal? How did the shape of these objects balance necessity and formal perfection so skillfully? This book explores the effect that generations of trial and error, individual craftsmanship, and an instinct to carve out the essential with the slenderest of means brought to objects that made life both livable and meaningful to a pre-industrial society. The objects photographed and described by designer Jasper Morrison may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest.
£31.50
Hatje Cantz Renoir: Rococo Revival
Book SynopsisLike hardly any other artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir has shaped our understanding of the atmospheric figure paintings of Impressionism. His painting La fin du déjeuner, which has been in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt since 1910, is now the starting point for a far-reaching examination of an important source of inspiration that accompanied him throughout his life: the Rococo. Considered frivolous and immoral after the French Revolution, this style of painting experienced a renaissance in the 19th century and was widely celebrated during Renoir’s lifetime. Published on the occasion of the Städel Museum’s major exhibition, this comprehensive volume explores Renoir’s multifaceted connection to tradition through illuminating juxtapositions of his art with 18th-century works and contemporaries.
£45.00
Hatje Cantz Zusammen / Together (Bilingual edition):
Book SynopsisThe publication Zusammen / Together is a comprehensive recollection of the exhibition highlights of the years 2015 to 2022 at Museum Haus Konstruktiv and brings together what is separated in space and time. A series of insightful conversations with the artists Etel Adnan, Claudia Comte, Elisabeth Goldring-Piene, Brigitte Kowanz, Alicja Kwade, Dóra Maurer, Amalia Pica, Tomás Saraceno, as well as in-depth texts on Imi Knoebel and William Kentridge are accompanied by numerous exhibition views. Many of the conversations and exhibition views have not been published before; some of the texts reprinted here in slightly modified form are taken from books that have long been out of print today and are given their well-deserved new visibility.
£35.20
Hatje Cantz Verlag Opening the Archive The ABCs of ZERO
Book SynopsisThe ZERO Art Movement from A to Z Challenging traditional concepts of art, for the ZERO avant-garde, the atelier became the exhibition space, books were a way to disseminate art; they made friends with the representatives of Concrete Poetry. A diagram visualizes who they thought to be part of the movement: those who were open to experimentation, who were not afraid to work with fire; even in the galleries, few of which were willing to pay homage to the avant-garde. International thinking united the young artists of the 1950s and 60s, whose network extended from Düsseldorf to Milan, Brussels, Paris, and Zagreb. Kinetics and light replaced brush and canvas, and new music played in the background. They tried to get closer to nature with the concept of the Open Artwork. In The ABCs of ZERO, writers, scholars, and authors from the fields of art, music, sociology and theater tell the story of this art movementfrom A for atelier to Z for ZERO. Featuring a wealth of photos and documents from an era just emerging from the ruins, but facing the future with optimism, this book recalls a moment in time of peaceful utopia in Europe.
£46.40
Hirmer Verlag Willem De Kooning
Book SynopsisIn 1926 22 year - old Dutchman Willem de Kooning (1904 – 1997) travelled to the USA on a British freighter – without papers and hidden in the machine room. The young art student eked out a living by painting houses, signs and façades, before he was able aft er eight years to dedicate himself entirely to painting. In the United States he established contacts with the art scene and forged friendships with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clifford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Today De Ko oning belongs to the outstanding painters of Abstract Expressionism and together with Jackson Pollock is regarded as a pioneer of Action Painting. This publication vividly examines De Kooning’s life, marked by self - doubts, successes, new beginnings, excess es, and scandalous paintings, as well as the evolution of his artistic work. In addition, author Corinna Thierolf opens up exciting perspectives on De Kooning’s work by revealing entirely new, surprising relationships with the works of fellow artists such as Franz Marc, Piet Mondrian, or Wassily Kandinsky.
£9.95
Hirmer Verlag Johannes Itten & Thun: Nature in Focus
Book SynopsisThe Bauhaus master Johannes Ittenis one of the prominent protagonists of early Modernism in twentieth-century art. Few people are aware of the close links between his beginnings as an artist and his experience of landscape and nature in the town of Thun and Lake Thun. Johannes Itten gained decisive impulses for the development of his concept of art and his path towards abstraction through various stations and sojourns in Thun and its surroundings. By means of examples of the representations of nature in his early work the publication shows in scholarly depth how Itten discovered his own, very personal and later internationally famous approach to art and painting style and presents his pictorial transformation of natureextending through to the artist’s late works.
£25.60
Hirmer Verlag Harriet Backer (Norwegian edition)
Book SynopsisThe grande dame of Norwegian Painting – teacher of Nikolai Astrup and Harald Sohlberg. Harriet Backer (1845–1932) was one of Norway’s most prominent painters of the 19th century and a pioneer among women artists in Europe. In 1880, she debuted in the Paris Salon and lived in Munich and Paris. Back in Oslo, she established a successful school for painters. This catalogue presents Backer to an international audience, thus giving her back the place she deserves in art history. Harriet Backer’s richly coloured interior scenes, sensitive portrayals of simple rural life, her portraits and still lifes are characterised by plein-air painting, realism and Impressionism. Her works stand out, not only in Norway, but also in the European context, when it comes to originality, scope and quality. The publication highlights her artistic achievements and places her oeuvre in the European context.
£31.96
Hirmer Verlag What Is Enlightenment
Book Synopsis
£31.96
Hirmer Verlag Permanent Attraction Man Ray Chess
Book SynopsisAuthorised by The Man Ray Trust, Permanent Attraction: Man Ray & Chess, is the first and only book on Man Ray's chess-themed works in all media. With experience in studio art, chess, photography, cartography, prototyping and scholarly research, the author offers a comprehensive interpretation of when, how, and why Man Ray created these timeless works. Man Ray's chess set designs are as sought after as his innovative photography, collected by everyone from the Maharajah of Indore to Igor Stravinsky, Artie Shaw and David Bowie. Today, Man Ray's chess-themed works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and numerous other institutions, as well as being highly prized by private collectors the world over.
£31.96
Prestel Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Book SynopsisThroughout his career, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner employed a highly inventive and original use of colour. He favoured novel applications of paint in unusual matte finishes. For Kirchner, colour was of primary importance, coupled with technique and style. He was one of the leading Expressionist painters of the time and was one of the founding members of the Brücke. In his deeply personal depictions, he focused on the places where he lived and worked and his close friends and associates. This book, accompanying a major exhibition at the Neue Galerie New York, provides a visual survey of Kirchner’s oeuvre and offers an in-depth analysis of different aspects of the artist’s output. Essays by leading experts examine Kirchner’s approach to colour, his interest in the decorative arts, how electric light affected his treatment of colour, the impact of Nietzsche on his work, and how he was profoundly changed by World War I. This book includes illustrations of nearly 40 paintings, 30 prints, as well as drawings, sketchbooks, photographs, and decorative work.
£36.00
Prestel A Butterfly Journey: Maria Sibylla Merian. Artist
Book SynopsisA woman ahead of her time, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was an intrepid explorer, naturalist and scholar, as well as a magnificent artist. This lovely, impeccably designed book tells Merian's incredible life story alongside colourful reproductions of her engravings and watercolours of the butterflies she encountered during her lifetime in Germany and the Netherlands and her seminal trip to the Dutch colony of Surinam. The book recounts Merian's monumental expedition, her work as an advocate for the slave laborers of Surinam and her important studies of the anatomy and life cycle of the butterfly. Author Boris Friedewald employs Merian's favourite insect as a metaphor for the artist's own pioneering evolution from budding entomologist to educator, activist and artist. A visual treasure as well as a satisfying read, this exquisite volume is the perfect gift for anyone interested in Merian's amazing life and groundbreaking body of work.
£13.49
Prestel 50 Paintings You Should Know
Book SynopsisSpanning seven centuries, this selection of fifty iconic paintings offers readers a crash course in art history while presenting gorgeous color reproductions that are a pleasure to contemplate. Starting with Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes and continuing through Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, as well as works by Monet, van Gogh, Cassatt, Cezanne, Dali, Kahlo, Hopper, Pollock, Rothko, and O'Keeffe, nearly every important painter is represented in this book. It features works that may be familiar to the eye, but whose histories are even more fascinating. Readers will learn about the painters who created them, the reasons for their importance and the places the paintings can be found. As entertaining as it is informative, this beautiful book is the perfect introduction to great paintings that have stood the test of time.
£13.49
Prestel 50 Women Artists You Should Know
Book SynopsisThis beautifully produced, richly detailed, and comprehensive survey of fifty influential women artists from the Renaissance to the Post-Modern era details their vast contributions to the art world. From the Early Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi and the seventeenth-century illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian to Impressionist Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, and to modern icons such as Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, the most important female artists are profiled in this book in chronologically arranged double-page spreads. There is a succinct biography for each artist, together with information outlining her accomplishments and influence, additional resources for further study, and, best of all, brilliant full-color reproductions of the artist's works. Packed with information, this stunning and absorbing book showcases the remarkable artistic contributions of women throughout history
£14.24
Prestel Gustav Klimt: Erotic Sketchbook
Book SynopsisThroughout his career, Gustav Klimt completed hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings of delicate beauty, many of them featuring the female form. Designed to imitate an artist's sketchbook, this gorgeous volume reproduces Klimt's most beautiful erotic sketches and watercolors. The experience of viewing them will awaken the senses and afford the reader the guilty pleasure of leafing through an artist's most private visions.
£15.29
