History of art Books

Book SynopsisAmericans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962 delves into the various circles of artists who lived in France following World War II. Featuring new scholarship and illuminating essays, this groundbreaking volume illustrates many of the paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photos, and films produced during these fertile years. Americans in Paris introduces the story of the American creative community that inhabited the City of Light following World War II. Proposing Paris as decisive for the development of postwar American art, this volume investigates the academies where many of these artists studied, the spaces where their work was exhibited, the aesthetic discourses that animated their conversations, their interactions with European artists, and the overarching issue of what it meant to be an American abroad.

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Book SynopsisHis paintbrush set everything in motion: the landscape of Provence, the colourful still lifes, his portraits and the picturesque coast of southern France. More than any other artist, Paul Cézanne, the “Father of Modernism”, captured the light and the play of colours of the South in his pictures and lent them through his new pictorial language a liveliness and dynamism which continue to fascinate viewers to this day. Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a rocky massif near his birthplace Aix-en-Provence, some 80 times. The artist translated the interplay of sunlight and shadow on the constantly changing stone into pictures on the threshold of abstraction. Today they are seen as icons of art history and they underline Cézanne’s reputation as one of the most important pioneers of Classical Modernism. Countless artists, including Matisse, Derain, Picasso, Braque and Léger found inspiration in Cézanne’s ideas on colour modulation and pictorial composition. In this publication the author Christoph Wagner positions Cézanne as an artistic genius who opened up for future generations a completely new view of the world through his paintings and watercolours.

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Book SynopsisA discovery: Polish Symbolism between decadence and a new beginning The turn of the century was a golden age for Polish art. The publication shows about 130 masterpieces of painting from this era between decadence and a new beginning and describes its roots in Polish history, culture and nature as well as the close connections with the European art scene. Polish painting in around 1900 carries us into a world of myths and legends, into dream-like landscapes, old traditions and customers, into the depths of the human soul. In a nation without its own state – until its independence in 1918 Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary – a young generation of artists emerged to renew painting. They gave it a common identity, but joined forces at the same time with the European avant-gardes. Artists featured: Teodor Axentowicz, Olga Boznańska, Józef Chełmoński, Władysław Czachórski, Julian Fałat, Wojciech Gerson, Aleksander Gierymski, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Vlastimil Hofman, Władysław Jarocki, Konrad Krzyżanowski, Jacek Malczewski, Jan Matejko, Józef Mehoffer, Edward Okuń, Józef Pankiewicz, Władysław Podkowiński, Witold Pruszkowski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Kazimierz Sichulski, Władysław Ślewiński, Kazimierz Stabrowski, Jan Stanisławski, Henryk Szczygliński, Włodzimierz Tetmajer, Wojciech Weiss, Stanisław Witkiewicz, Witold Wojtkiewicz, Leon Wyczółkowski, Stanisław Wyspiański

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Book SynopsisWith the help of scholars, historians and artists, and through a range of diverse media, this book sets out to follow in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (*), retracing his movements during the famous Hijrah ‘migration’, from Makkah to the oasis town of Yathrib soon to become Madinat an-Nabi, the ‘’City of the Prophet”. Situating the Hijrah firmly within the geography in which it unfolded, the book uses the sacred landscape of the Hijrah as a receptacle for its stories, memories and the events that took place along the route, thus providing tangible links between us and this momentous journey as never before experienced. For over fourteen hundred years, al-Hijrah, the famous story of the Prophet Muhammad’s (*) ‘migration’ from Makkah to Madinah, has been told and retold by generations of Muslims throughout the world. This story, one of endurance overcoming adversity in pursuit of religious freedom to establish a nation united by bonds of brotherhood and faith, has continued to be an inspiration from which renewed meanings have been drawn. This book follows in the footsteps of the Prophet (*), retracing his movements during this crucial journey, and examining what occurred as he left his home in Makkah to the oasis town of Yathrib soon to become the “City of the Prophet”. However, unlike anything seen before, this book anchors the Hijrah firmly within the geography in which it unfolded. Acting as a receptacle for its stories, memories and the events that took place along the route, the sacred landscape of the Hijrah provides tangible links between us and this momentous journey as never before, bringing a greater appreciation of the Hijrah story.

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Book SynopsisThe artist monograph presents a representative overview of the artistic work of Stéphane Zaech (* 1966). His paintings are technically sophisticated and are created through an investigation of the works of the old masters –Titian, Velasquez and Picasso. At the same time he distorts the “classical” picture types and translates them into contemporary art. Portraits of women artists painting, clad in a denim miniskirt and with flip-flops on their feet: Stephane Zaech’s works skilfully attract our attention – often through the bodies of his mostly female protagonists with their surreal addition of supernumerary arms and eyes. The facial expressions and gestures are invariably self-confident. The impressively designed monograph assembles over 100 paintings which were created in the past 10 years, permitting us to immerse ourselves in the fascinating world of Stephane Zaech.

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Book SynopsisThe youngest member of the Blauer Reiter group was overshadowed for a long time by fellow painters such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, and Paul Klee. But in recent years, Heinrich Campendonk has enjoyed an unparalleled rediscovery and a new critical assessment of his extensive oeuvre. Biermann described Campendonk’s early work as a unique symphony of color and rhythm. Just a few years later, his pictures would be defamed as “degenerate,” driving him into exile in the Netherlands, where he remained until his death in 1957. In this beautiful volume, the author reveals Campendonk to be one the most fascinating artists of the last century, bringing to life the extraordinary overlap of his artist development with his life and times.

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Book SynopsisInspiration Islam – European artists in dialogue with Islamic art and culture. The art and architecture of the Islamic world strongly influenced the development of Western modernism. Some 170 works from the mid-19th century to the present day illustrate this fascinating cultural exchange. Beguiling examples of fine and decorative art reflect the diversity of this lively transfer. During the 19th century, Europe became caught up not only in Orientalism, but also in a real “Islamophilia”. Important collections of Islamic art were established. With the approach of modernism the view of these “foreign” influences changed. Artists of the avant-garde and masters of applied art sought inspiration for their own new style in the wealth of formal language and colourfulness characterized by Islamicate art. Positions of contemporary art to current Islamic discourse round out this multi-faceted publication. ARTISTS INCLUDE: Nevin Aladag Baltensperger and Siepert Marwan Bassiouni Carlo Bugatti Théodore Deck Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo Osman Hamdi Bey Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann Wassily Kandinsky Gulsun Karamustafa Bouchra Khalili Paul Klee J.& L. Lobmeyr Henri Matisse Gabriele Munter Lotte Reiniger et. al.

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Book SynopsisLife and work of the artist and style icon Frida Kahlo in a compact overview. Frida Kahlo has become an icon of art with her powerfully expressive work. Her pictures not only reflect a view of herself, her fears, the biography of her illness, her passions and her joie de vivre; they also take up subjects which were regarded by society as taboo. As a pioneer of the feminist movement, this Mexican artist serves women the world over as a figure of identification. Pride and strength, vulnerability and bitterness all lie close to each other in Frida Kahlo’s art. Her self-portraits, which make up the principal part of her work, not infrequently show a charismatic woman dressed in traditional Tehuana costume, which the artist wore as a visible sign of her culture and her Mexican roots, but also to hide her wounds. Kahlo’s biography had a direct influence on her subjects: her not uncomplicated marriage to the artist Diego Rivera, her tragic accident, and her childlessness, loneliness and grief.

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Book SynopsisThe Portland Vase, the ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been replicated and reinterpreted countless times, becoming a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors, and consumers for centuries. Featuring more than 65 artworks, this book examines the role of brands in our culture and asks why Western Classical traditions dominate the artistic canon, and how that canon might be reconsidered and disrupted. Josiah Wedgwood, Viola Frey, Clare Twomey and Robert Lugo, among others engaged with the cameo-glass masterpiece. Their creative conceptual choices respond to complex histories of transfiguration and representation to create a new set of visual and cultural dialogues.

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Book SynopsisA classic of modernism – a new Feininger retrospective in the light of current knowledge Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) was a painter, graphic artist and caricaturist. From 1919 he served as one of the original masters at the Bauhaus in Weimar and later in Dessau. In 1937 he emigrated to New York, where he worked until the end of his life. In addition to his famous Expressionist images of architecture, the publication presents all the facets of his oeuvre and stations of his life based on the latest research. With some 140 paintings, drawings, caricatures, watercolours, woodcuts, photographs and objects from all creative phases, the volume presents a comprehensive picture of Feininger’s work which is also examined for its topicality. Lines of development and subjects which characterised his work are discussed in detail by means of key works in contributions by international authors. In particular his early paintings are evaluated, alongside the latest research into the significance of photography in the creative work of the Bauhaus artist.

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Book SynopsisThe Secessions artist groups at the dawn of modernism in a splendid new volume. At the end of the 19th century the term “Secession” stood for the artistic beginnings of modernism. Art was surging forward towards freedom. Avant-garde artists showed their new creative works in the exhibitions of the Secession. In doing so they introduced innovative art movements to the public and helped Impressionism and Symbolism, for example, to achieve a breakthrough in the German-speaking region. The new alliances of artists in the Secession meant the abandonment of traditional artists’ associations and old-fashioned structures, and a new artistic freedom. The most important Secessions in the German region arose in 1892 in Munich, in 1897 in Vienna and in 1899 in Berlin. They are associated to this day with the figures who helped to shape them: Franz von Stuck, Gustav Klimt and Max Liebermann. This volume illustrates their artistic diversity in over 200 works by some 80 artists of the Secessions in Vienna, Munich and Berlin as well as international guests including Hodler, Munch, Rodin, Segantini and Toorop.

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Book SynopsisDr. Frank Feltens is Curator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art. His publications include Hokusai's Brush (Smithsonian Books, 2019), Ogata Korin: Art in Early Modern Japan (Yale University Press, 2021), with Yukio Lippit, Sesson Shukei: A Zen Monk-Painter in Medieval Japan (Hirmer, 2021). He is also the editor of Japan in the Age of Modernization: The Arts of Otagaki Rengetsu and Tomioka Tessai (Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 2023).

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Book SynopsisHolding up a mirror to the present, the exhibition homes in on our current conflicts – from right-wing populism to identity politics. It allows us to ask, from the distance of a generation, what time we are actually living in. Is Postmodernity really over – or are we in the middle of it? The year 1967 marked the beginning of our present: Modernism, which had presumed that everything could be sorted out through equal housing, furniture and rights for all, was abandoned, and from its ruins a bizarre, eccentric world was born. Architects declared the amusement park the new ideal city; designers shook off the yoke of good taste, and the conflict between the two dominant political systems gave way to the struggle for self-realisation. New media synchronised the globe, and images became the arena in which contests for style and recognition were waged. Showcasing spectacular examples of design, architecture, cinema, pop, philosophy, art and literature, the exhibition chronicles the dawn of the information society, the unleashing of the financial markets, the great age of subcultures, disco, punk and techno-pop, shoulder pads and Memphis furniture. It also chronicles the sudden surge in the construction of museums, the new temples of art and culture, to which we owe the largest exhibit, the Bundeskunsthalle itself. When the Bundeskunsthalle opened in 1992, the Cold War was over, and Francis Fukuyama published his famous book, in which he proclaimed ‘the end of history’ as such. Thirty years later, it is clear that history did not come to an end, and Postmodernism is once again a matter of considerable debate.

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Book SynopsisAlthough less than twenty of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are known to exist today, some of them - the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, along with his drawing of the Vitruvian Man - are among the most identifiable, reproduced, and popular works in the world. This monograph explores Leonardo as not just a painter but also a scientist, naturalist, architect, and engineer, showing how the artist's oeuvre reflected his boundless curiosity and imagination. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details - allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

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Book SynopsisThroughout the history of art most of the world's greatest artists have produced portraits at some point in their careers, whether commissioned by rulers or magnates; created to preserve a cherished friend or relation; or even to capture the artist's own likeness. Arranged chronologically, each of the 50 masterworks in this book exemplifies a moment in history, or a turning point in the artist's career. Van Eyck's A Man in a Turban, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, Sargent's Madame X, Kahlo's Self-Portrait with Necklace, Warhol's Marilyn and many more world-famous paintings are featured in exquisite full-page reproductions accompanied by engaging and enlightening texts. An introductory essay on the history and importance of the portrait in art history and brief biographies of each artist round out this survey that provides valuable information in an attractive and affordable package.Trade Review"Being educated on works of art is just as important as being up on the latest trends in design. Plus, all 50 portraits are super iconic and beautiful, so there's that, too." -Domino

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Book SynopsisHistorically, women have been depicted as a projection of male fantasies, prejudices, and relationships. However in the 1970s, there was a tectonic change in the way women portray themselves in art. For the first time, female artists began to investigate visual representations of their own selves. They studied their own bodies and created the alternative views of feminine identity. Editor Gabriele Schor explores the Feminist Avant-Garde to emphasise the role that these artists played for the last four decades. The results are provocative, radical, poetic, ironic, angry, cynical, and heartfelt. Most of all they are honest, sharing a collective consciousness that reassessed, and even rejected, what came before by turning to new ways of expression in the fields of photography, performance, film, and video. Included here are works by Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Nil Yalter, Ketty La Rocca, Birgit Jürgenssen, Renate Bertlmann, Francesca Woodman, and other fearless female artists from around the world. Their work explored the female experience in all its dimensions including pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, sexuality, partnership, beauty standards, rape, and the female body. Each artist is introduced by an essay and the book also includes fascinating interviews with leading curators in the field of feminist art. This groundbreaking book emphasises the accomplishments of women artists who have made a name for themselves while encouraging and inspiring those who have come after them.

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Book SynopsisChickadees amid cherry blossoms, peacocks nestled in wisteria branches, sleeping owls against a moonlit night sky and majestic cranes diving in the ocean waves—these are some of the transcendent pleasures offered in this exquisite collection of plates bound in an accordion style format that honors the Japanese bookbinding tradition. Every major artist of this genre is included—from Keisai, Keibun and Hokusai to Hiroshige and Koson—as the history of Japanese printmaking unfolds in stunning detail. An introductory booklet explores the centuries long role that nature has played in Japanese art, from Chinese influenced works of the Kano school, which depicted the bird as a Buddhist symbol, through to the ukiyo-e, when artists strove to capture fleeting moments of pure joy. Fans of Japanese art, lovers of birds, and anyone who enjoys beautiful depictions of the natural world will cherish this sumptuous, satisfying volume of earthly delights.

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Book SynopsisFollowing World War II, Western painting went in completely new directions. A young generation of artists turned their backs on the dominant styles of the interwar period: Instead of figurative representation or geometric abstraction, painters in the orbit of Abstract Expressionism in the US and Art Informel in Western Europe pursued a radically impulsive approach to form, color, and material. As an expression of individual freedom, the spontaneous artistic gesture gained symbolic significance. Large-scale color-field compositions created a meditative space for ruminating the fundamental questions of human existence. The exhibition and catalogue examine the two sister movements against the background of a vibrant transatlantic exchange, from the 1940s through to the end of the Cold War. This lavishly illustrated volume brings together works by more than 50 artists, amongst them Alberto Burri, Jean Dubuffet, Helen Frankenthaler, K. O. Götz, Franz Kline, Lee Krasner, Georges Mathieu, Joan Mitchell, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Judit Reigl, Mark Rothko, Hedda Sterne, Clyfford Still, and Jack Tworkov.

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Book SynopsisThis definitive appreciation of Kahlo's career features gorgeous full-page reproductions and insightful commentary to illuminate connections between the artist's life and work. Few painters have been as celebrated and adopted into popular culture as Frida Kahlo-often to the detriment of her amazing achievements as a painter. In this striking volume, one of the world's foremost scholars on Kahlo's art looks past the hype to focus on the artist's technique and motifs. Reproductions of Kahlo's paintings, along with selected details, are accompanied by illuminating observations about the role of physical and mental suffering in the creative process, Kahlo's mastery and reinvention of European traditions, and the wealth of coded and metaphorical elements hidden in so much of her work. A rich and rewarding exploration of an artist all too easily reduced to a single narrative, this nuanced study is also an exquisitely produced celebration of Kahlo's genius.

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Book SynopsisInterior design was supremely important to Gustav Klimt, and many of his paintings were created for specific settings or spaces. This aspect of Klimt’s practice comes beautifully to life in this book that illustrates how some of the artist’s most beloved canvases appeared in situ—in private dining rooms and salons, galleries, museums, and public exhibition spaces. Works such as the portraits of Emilie Flöge and Hermine Gallia, the shocking Nuda Veritas, and landscapes A Morning by the Pond and The Tall Poplar I are presented in double-page spreads. Full-color reproductions of paintings by Klimt are juxtaposed with blackand- white vintage photographs of the original interiors with the featured paintings overlaid in color. Thoughtful and personal texts by Klimt scholar Tobias Natter accompany each spread, providing invaluable contextual insight about how these pictures were conceived as part of the interior design of their respective rooms and spaces, and the passionate collectors who first owned these pictures. Meticulously produced and packaged, this book provides a refreshing perspective on Klimt’s oeuvre and artistic vision.

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Book SynopsisOne of the art world’s most recognizable and popular styles, Impressionism is also one of the most complex. In this sumptuous overview Norbert Wolf lends his attention to all aspects of Impressionism: its historical precursors, contemporary rivals, and the movements it inspired. Over 200 reproductions of entire works and highlighted details introduce readers to the Impressionists’ aesthetics and techniques. Wolf draws insightful parallels between these paintings and other contemporary works of music, photography, and literature. Charting the movement’s expansion from France to the rest of Europe and North America, this volume shines a spotlight on the main protagonists who were key in the development of Impressionism. It highlights not only the French pioneers— Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte, Édouard Manet, Pierre- Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and others—but also Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, and James McNeill Whistler. Authoritative and illuminating, this wide-ranging exploration of Impressionism’s astounding impact on art history will surprise even the most seasoned aficionado.

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Book SynopsisNever before published, this self-curated, intensely personal collection of travel notes and sketches by the world's most revered performance artist offers readers a kind of iconography of Abramovic 's daring and utterly original body of work. An artist's notebooks are arguably the most authentic means of understanding her process, techniques, and impulses. And, for a performance artist, a rare, permanent record of how she develops her craft. Compiled over the course of four decades on stationery from various hotels, and other temporary residences, this collection of Marina Abramovic 's original drawings, collages, poetry, writings, cut-outs, photographs and doodles offers glimpses of a brilliant mind in constant motion. Beautifully produced and packaged, it takes readers on a journey through Abramovic 's thoughts-and traces the evolution of the most fruitful phase of her career. "I believe we humans need to keep moving forward, and my own life was purely nomadic," Abramovic writes of her travel diaries. "My home was everywhere I went because my home was my own body." With the archival material elegantly reproduced in their original size on high-quality paper, this collection offers Abramovic 's enormous fanbase unprecedented access to her creative process.

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Book SynopsisPublished for the first time in book form, this startling and intimate collection of late images by the great twentieth-century photographer comprises the series Private Scenes and Letters from Journeys. One of the most important Japanese photographers of the last century, Masahisa Fukase was known for exploring themes of isolation, loneliness and melancholy and for his transgressive and intimate approach to the medium. This volume includes two of his last and arguably most personal series. Private Scenes features photographs taken over the course of the year 1989 in different locations around the world and in which he is both subject and photographer. He then painted over the prints with colored washes to create an entirely new piece. For this same series, he later photographed scenes from daily life, this time in Tokyo, changing camera and adding the date on his photographs, but still representing himself in the images. This book reproduces for the first time in book form all of the photographs that make up both original series. It charts a turning point in Fukase's work-an artist grappling with his medium and with a compulsion to share his personal experiences with his audience. The photographs are accompanied by a text by Masako Toda, who offers a contextual and historical consideration of Fukase's oeuvre.

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Book SynopsisFrom jewellery designers to scientists, graphic artists to naturalists, the range of people inspired by Ernst Haeckel's illustrations continues to grow. Following up on Prestel's Art Forms in Nature and Art Forms from the Ocean, this new collection features startlingly beautiful images created by Haeckel, who was commissioned to contribute to the report of the HMS Challenger expedition, which circumnavigated the world from 1872-76. The Challenger's achievements were unparalleled, with nearly 5,000 new species discovered and catalogued from the depths of Earth's oceans. Full-page reproductions bring these organisms colourfully to life, drawing readers into a world at once hypnotic and highly ordered. Divided into three sections-Siphonophores, Medusae and Radiolarians-these illustrations display Haeckel's remarkable artistic skill and understanding of the architecture of organic matter. The authors provide a brief history of the Challenger expedition, background on Haeckel's scientific and artistic accomplishments, as well as informative texts on each group of organisms.A guide to the natural world and an inspiration to artists of every stripe, this collection of Haeckel's work is a fitting tribute to a 19th century genius.Trade ReviewHopefully it will introduce a new generation of artists and designers to the forms found in the plankton. Overall it is wonderful book and the authors are to be commended for their efforts. November, 2015 'Book Review' Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

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Book SynopsisNo artistic education is complete without a healthy dose of Impressionism. Here fifty of the most important works from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries are gorgeously reproduced, including the best of Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Renoir, Cézanne, Cassatt, Manet, Seurat, and Pisarro. Each piece is given a brief overview establishing its place in the Impressionist pantheon as well as in its artist’s oeuvre. An introductory text explains the Impressionistic style, tracing the movement’s development, while an appendix offers biographies of the artists. The result is a veritable tour on Impressionism, offering an enjoyable and practical art history lesson that everyone can enjoy.

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Book SynopsisShedding new light on the renowned Renaissance artist, this book examines all of da Vinci's known paintings using recent advances in technology and the latest art historical research. While Leonardo da Vinci is one of history's most studied and renowned artists, there are many myths surrounding his work. Beginning with his birth and early maturity in the workshops of the Florentine masters, Alessandro Vezzosi delves into the provenance of disputed works such as Madonna Litta and La Bella Principessa. He demonstrates how recent advances in technology have aided researchers in studying and restoring da Vinci's art--including uncovering forgeries--and he explores the artist's scientific achievements in the fields of optics and paint composition. An exquisitely produced plate section looks at the most significant aspects of da Vinci's work, and offers numerous comparative examples in the form of archival documents, preparatory studies, and contemporary paintings. A fitting tribute to da Vinci, this wide ranging book applies 21st-century knowledge to help answer centuries-old questions about the Renaissance genius.Trade Review…With only 18 reliable attributed extant paintings, how are we still talking about the painter today? Complete Paintings presents an in-depth catalog of those 18 works, plus a stylistic and historical reevaluation, including new theories based on current technology and recently discovered historical documents." –Library Journal

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Book SynopsisAnyone studying a Van Gogh painting with its heavily articulated brushstrokes, dazzling color, and hypnotic perspective will wonder about the artist who created such masterpieces. Although some details of the Dutch artist’s brief and tragic life have been mythologized into popular culture, this book takes a deeper look at Van Gogh’s personal history and oeuvre. Drawing on Van Gogh’s personal correspondence, this book allows readers to experience the artist’s life and work simultaneously, with brilliant reproductions of his most famous and lesser-known works. In addition, it provides valuable information about where readers can view Van Gogh’s work in museums throughout the world. Art lovers will find much to discover in this appealing and accessible overview of one of the world’s most compelling figures.

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Book SynopsisEgon Schiele left an enormous artistic legacy that is all the more powerful for the brevity of his career. Isabel Kuhl’s lively text follows Schiele’s trajectory from an artist in the Art Nouveau style to a powerful interpreter of human sexuality and considers the many hardships, including exile and even imprisonment, faced by Schiele as a young and rebellious artist with a singular vision. Gorgeous reproductions of his most emblematic works are presented chronologically, allowing readers to appreciate the evolution of Schiele’s radical style, his uncanny use of colour and line, and his willingness to confront an oppressive society. From unflinching portraits to precisely detailed landscapes, Schiele’s artistry shines through on every page.

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Book SynopsisThis spellbinding look at the history and development of illusionistic art reveals wide-ranging techniques that have piqued the public’s fascination with this medium. Beautifully reproduced, the images featured in the book includes centuries-old work such as the scenery at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, and the ceiling frescos at the Würzburg Residence in Germany, that showcase processes such as trompe l’oeil and anamorphosis. It also features work from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Rene Magritte’s classic surrealist works; M. C. Escher’s magical and mathematically precise drawings; the seemingly undulating paintings of Bridget Riley; the manipulated photography of Andreas Gursky; Duane Hanson’s eerily lifelike sculptures; JR’s larger-than-life portrait photographs; and George Rousse’s mind- bending constructions. The book also has examples of amazing street art including subway graffiti and a sidewalk painting that makes pedestrians think twice. This extraordinary and informative guide to all kinds of artistic trickery will satisfy scholars as well as everyday fans.

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Book Synopsis16th-century Europe was a time of unprecedented economic expansion, cross-cultural trade, religious upheaval, warring empires, and scientific advancement. With unfettered access to the court of Henry VIII, Hans Holbein had a front-row seat to the royal drama and intrigue, and his detailed, highly narrative portaits tell us much about aristocracy. This volume features dozens of full-page reproductions of Holbein's key works accompanied by extensive commentary that explores his masterful portraits of prominent European figures such as Thomas More, Erasmus, and Thomas Cromwell. It also reveals the artist's talent in other media, such as woodcuts, frescoes, jewelry, and metalwork. Reproductions of these items, as well as Holbein's exquisite, palm-sized miniatures and his highly detailed studies in pencil, chalk, and ink illuminate an artist of unparalleled versatility and impressive commercial acumen.

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Book SynopsisThe story of Klimt's astonishing artistic career is told in this beautifully produced collection of reproductions, photographs and drawings with an accompanying text that places the artist in a unique historical moment and reflects his fierce appetite for life and beauty. Gustav Klimt's career straddled the last gasps of Vienna's golden age and the birth of modernism. When seen through this bifurcated lens, it is easy to understand why his relatively small oeuvre created such a lasting impact. This gorgeously illustrated biography explores the unique environment in which Klimt worked-a society in which the schooling of artists was both appreciated and encouraged; a city that was pouring money into magnificently ornate architecture and portraiture; a population that was both experimenting with and suppressing freedom of thought. The full breadth of Klimt's accomplishments is represented here-history and symbolist paintings, building decorations, murals, posters, magazine illustrations, portraits, and landscapes. Readers will learn how Klimt navigated the complex architecture of fin-de-sie cle Vienna and helped found the Vienna Secession and they will see how Klimt's style and motifs changed extensively through the years. Dozens of key works allow for close inspection of Klimt's dazzling artistry, his profound appreciation of female sensuality and his brilliant application of color and mosaic. The author draws out the importance of the relation between the plane surfaces of Klimt's paintings and the spaces they represent, thereby raising surprising connections between his painting and his skills in the applied arts. Compact and satisfying, this book traces a singular artist's trajectory across an ever-changing cultural landscape.

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Book SynopsisThroughout his career, Magritte subverted expectations about artists in the world by disguising himself as an unremarkable member of the bourgeoisie. While the public mined his work for symbolism and deep meaning, the truth is, that with Magritte, what you see is what you get. What readers will get with this gorgeous volume is a deeply engaging overview of Magritte’s entire career, and an eloquent argument that his Surrealist masterpieces were simply an extension of the Romantic tradition. Chronologically arranged, this volume features full- page reproductions of thirty-five works, each paired with a concise text that highlights its significance in Magritte’s catalog. In addition to greatest hits, such as Time Transfixed, 1938; The Treachery of Images, 1929; and The Lovers, 1928, the inclusion of several lesser-known works provides an overview of the range and character of Magritte’s art. Readers will become acquainted with the main figures in the artist’s life, including relatives, colleagues, rivals, and they will see how Magritte’s relationships with collectors and dealers led to the production of particular works, as well as how his theories about painting evolved over the years. Across this compact but utterly satisfying book, Magritte’s exquisite use of color, his grasp of collage and composition, and his superb gifts for invention and mood are luminously and thrillingly in evidence.

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Book SynopsisNow enlarged and updated, this introduction to the greatest and famous women photographers of all time features the most important works of sixty artists, along with in-depth biographical and critical assessments. Since the inception of photography as an art form nearly two hundred years ago, women have played an important role in the development of the genre, often pushing boundaries and defying social convention. This comprehensive volume features sixty of the most important women photographers-including, new to this edition, Annette Kelm, Miho Kajioka, and Ming Smith. Every artistic style and genre is represented here: moody and haunting portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron and Diane Arbus; highly personal images from Nan Goldin and Sally Mann; world- changing documentary photographs by Dorothea Lange and Berenice Abbot; scenes of everyday life from Lisette Model and Helen Levitt; fashion shoots from Lillian Bassman and Ellen von Unwerth. Splendid reproductions of key works and an in-depth overview of each artist's career and their contributions to the art of photography are featured along with biographical information and a contextual essay focusing on the impact of women in the history of the medium, which makes this an excellent illustrated reference.

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Book SynopsisAmerican painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era. With his groundbreaking use of industrial production techniques and trivial, quotidian imagery such as cartoons, comic strips, and advertising, Lichtenstein joined contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist to reflect and satirize American mass media and consumer culture. Works such as Look, Mickey! (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and Whaam! (1963) deployed mass production techniques, particularly Ben-Day dots printing, to create a blow-up effect and pixelated “dot” style, with which Lichtenstein has become synonymous. This book provides an essential overview of Lichtenstein’s career, tracing his earliest Pop statements through to later “brushstroke” retorts to Abstract Expressionism and reinterpretations of modern masterpieces. We look at his leading position in midcentury modernism, and the ways in which his works both critique and chronicle 20th-century America.

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Book SynopsisCourt painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 1599 – August 6, 1660) is not only a leading light of the Spanish Golden Age, but among the most celebrated masters in all Western art history. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí all hailed his influence. Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Velázquez’s importance is found particularly in his naturalist approach, in contrast to the more ubiquitous idealized manner of his age. Early works included numerous “bodegones”, genre scenes of everyday life in early 17th century Spain, in which warm, rich tones and textures set off the most ordinary of subjects and humble of faces, such as Old Woman Frying Eggs. Later, his portraiture for the Royal Court brought the same naturalism to the highest echelons of society, marking a profound shift in the depiction of royalty with softer, more relaxed poses that offered his subjects a human warmth and character as much as a sense of grandeur. Velázquez’s most famous work, Las Meninas, was also painted in the royal court, but in its enigmatic composition raises many broader questions about reality and illusion and the relationship between the painter, painting, and viewer. This fresh TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 edition introduces Velázquez through key works from throughout his career. From humble genre scenes to the royal portraits, the exquisite Rokeby Venus nude, and the ever-mysterious Las Meninas, we explore his exceptional attention to composition, masterful handling of tone, and his remarkable influence as, in Manet’s words, “the greatest painter of all.”

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Book SynopsisLampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Manet’s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city’s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Déjeuner sur l’herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal. This richly illustrated book introduces Manet’s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.

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Book SynopsisBefore reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) had already sculpted Pietà and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the achievements of this Italian master are unique—no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multifaceted, and wide-ranging œuvre. This fresh TASCHEN edition traces Michelangelo’s ascent to the cultural elite of the Renaissance. Ten richly illustrated chapters cover the artist’s paintings, sculptures, and architecture, including a close analysis of the artist’s tour de force frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.Full-page reproductions and enlarged details allow readers to appreciate the finest details in the artist’s repertoire, while the book’s biographical essay considers Michelangelo’s more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor.Trade Review“If a visit to the Sistine Chapel is not on the cards, this magnificent book is the next best thing…” * The Sunday Express Magazine *

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Book SynopsisWhether you’re thinking of getting a tattoo or just want to see to what lengths others have gone in decorating their bodies, this is the book to check out.1000 Tattoos explores the history of the art worldwide via designs and photos—from 19th-century engravings to tribal body art, from circus ladies of the ’20s to classic biker designs.Trade Review“A fascinating book for hardcore ink collectors and art appreciators alike.” * uncrate.com *“TASCHEN’s 1000 Tattoos explores the history of body art around the world, from Maori facial engravings to skinhead markings to '20s circus ladies to awful drunken mistakes (hello, ankle dolphin tattoo).” * Fast Company *“This visually exceptional compendium treats tattooing with the artistic respect it deserves.” * huffingtonpost.com *“Both a trip down memory lane and a study in the evolution of cover art, this is a sweeping look at an under-appreciated art form.” * The Gentleman’s Journal *“A fascinating and disconcerting book in which, on every page, the human body is displayed to fire the imagination of each of us …” * Connexion *

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Book SynopsisIn this essential TASCHEN introduction to Tadao Ando we explore the hybrid of tradition, modernism, and function that allows his buildings to enchant architects, designers, fashion designers, and beyond. Through key projects including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces, we explore a uniquely monumental yet comforting aesthetic that draws as much on the calm restraint of Japanese tradition as the compelling modernist vocabularies of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. With featured projects in Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States, we see not only Ando's global reach but also his refined sensitivity for the environs: the play of light through windows, and, in particular, the interaction of buildings with water. From the mesmerizing Church of the Light in Osaka to the luminous Punta della Dogana Contemporary Art Center in Venice, this is a radiant tour through a distinctly contemporary form as much as a timeless appeal of light, elements, and equilibrium.

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