History of art Books

Book SynopsisFor Bataille, the absence of myth had itself become the myth of the modern age. In a world that had lost the secret of its cohesion, Bataille saw surrealism as both a symptom and a beginning of an attempt to address this loss. His writings on this theme are the result of a profound reflection in the wake of World War Two.The Absence of Myth is the most incisive study yet made of surrealism, insisting on its importance as a cultural and social phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. Clarifying Bataille’s links with the surrealist movement, and throwing revealing light on his complex and greatly misunderstood relationship with André Breton, The Absence of Myth shows Bataille to be a much more radical figure than his postmodernist devotees would have us believe: a man who continually tried to extend Marxist social theory; a pessimistic thinker, but one as far removed from nihilism as can be.

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Book SynopsisThis beautiful book is packed with Celtic-inspired imaginative drawings to colour. From the triquetra, one of the oldest symbols of spirituality, to many other decorative love knots that represent unbreakable spiritual bonds, there is something for everyone.With over 90 drawings to choose from, carve out some time to yourself and colour your way to calm.

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Book SynopsisA leading authority on the Bayeux Tapestry examines the work "frame by frame" in this profusely illustrated and annotated volume. The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most extraordinary artefacts to survive from the eleventh century: a fragile web of woollen thread on linen, its brilliant colours undimmed after nearly a thousand years. The events of the years 1064 to 1066 surrounding the contested accession to the English throne of William, Duke of Normandy are so vividly portrayed that you can almost watch the artists' minds at work as they created it. This beautiful full-colour reproduction of the entire Tapestry includes a detailed commentary alongside each episode, so you can follow the story blow by blow.Trade Review[A] strikingly illustrated book, which reproduces in colour every centimetre of the surviving embroidery. [...] Admirably balanced and informed. * SUNDAY TIMES *[An] extremely valuable volume. [...] To be valued as both a survey of work on the tapestry and an extremely well presented and coherent analysis of a medieval masterpiece. * TOEBI Newsletter *A magnificently illustrated book, and as such is extremely practical for study, teaching and happy browsing. * FINDS RESEARCH GROUP *[Presents] a new slant, particularly the in-depth analysis of the tapestry's indebtedness to Scandinavia's weaponry, ships, and buildings. Recommended. * CHOICE *Possibly the most authoritative of the many books spawned by the Tapestry. * HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW *Handsome and very reasonably priced. Clearly aimed at the student and the general reader rather than at the specialist, it would be an attractive purchase for all three. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *A very interesting and informative book. * HOBILAR *

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Book SynopsisChristopher White explains why he chose this title for his new book: ‘The often intimate, reflective and personal side to Rembrandt’s work in treating subjects from history or the Bible reveals an increasingly more introspective interpretation than his contemporaries.’ Rembrandt’s sharp eye draws inspiration from the domestic scene, the local street and wherever he went. His subjects include: children, beggars, musicians, dogs, pigs, horses; even elephants and lions. White studies Rembrandt’s technique from an aesthetic rather than a scientific point of view; his willingness to experiment whether drawing, painting or etching is a notable feature of his work, and by discussing examples of the three different media side by side, the author demonstrates their interdependence.Table of ContentsBasic details of the Artist’s life The Artist and his Family Portraits in situ Everyday life in Amsterdam Landscape and the bucolic scene: life in the countryside Narrative subjects

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Book SynopsisCriticism of contemporary art is split by an opposition between activism and the critical function of form. Yet the deeper, more subterranean terms of art-judgment are largely neglected on both sides. These essays combine a re-examination of the terms of judgement of contemporary art with critical interpretations of individual works and exhibitions by Luis Camnitzer, Marcel Duchamp, Matias Faldbakken, Anne Imhof and Cady Noland. The book moves from philosophical issues, via the lingering shadows of medium-specificity (in photography and art music), and the changing states of museums, to analyses of the peculiar ways that works of art relate to time.To give artistic form to crisis, it is suggested, one needs to understand contemporary art's own constitutive crisis of form.Trade ReviewSpritely -- David Beer * The Critic *Praise for Anywhere or Not At All * : *An important achievement. This is the first book known to me that brings contemporary art as a whole to philosophical consideration. One of the orienting points for future work. -- John Rapko * Notre Dame, Philosophical Reviews *A brilliant book -- Blake Stimson * Philosophy of Photography *Osborne's capacity to synthesise the impact of new geopolitical realities on art practices make this book an important one not just for philosophers, art historians and critics, but new media theorists as well. -- Lisa Trhair * Critical Enquiry *An inestimably significant intervention into a range of debates in the history, theory, criticism, and philosophy of contemporary art and its various genealogies and lineages. For the range of thought-provoking and suggestive insights offered, it has few competitors in the field. -- James Lavender * Goodreads *Praise for The Postconceptual Condition * : *Compelling -- Max L. Feldman * Afterimage *Peter Osborne offers a fundamental reflection on the critical potential of art today, but also on its lacunas, an element that gives more value to the work. * Critique d’art *Very little philosophical writing is inspiring enough to catalyse art and bring it into being. Peter Osborne's writing is consistently in this category. -- Hito SteyerlIt is essential reading for anyone serious about contemporary art - or its philosophy. -- Ruth Noack, Curator of documeta 12

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Book SynopsisDuring the 1960s and 1970s, Workerism and Autonomia were prominent Marxist currents. However, it is rarely acknowledged that these movements inspired many visual artists such as the members of Archizoom, Gordon Matta-Clark and Gianfranco Baruchello. This book focuses on the aesthetic and cultural discourse developed by three generations of militants (including Mario Tronti, Antonio Negri, Bifo and Silvia Federici), and how it was appropriated by artists, architects, graphic designers and architectural historians such as Manfredo Tafuri. Images of Class signposts key moments of this dialogue, ranging from the drawings published on classe operaia to Potere Operaio's exhibition in Paris, the Metropolitan Indians' zines, a feminist art collective who adhered to the Wages for Housework Campaign, and the N group's experiments with Gestalt theory. Featuring more than 140 images of artworks, many published here for the first time, this volume provides an original perspective on post-war Italian culture and new insights into some of the most influential Marxist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries worldwide.Trade ReviewA tremendous achievement: through critically exploring what it terms "visual practices and communicative strategies", Images of Class uncovers crucial, hitherto ignored dimensions of the workerist adventure. -- Steve Wright, author of Storming Heaven Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist MarxismThe 1970s in Italy were a decade of social conflicts and intense cultural and aesthetic innovation, but only now, thanks to the Galimberti's book we can have a glimpse of the visual dimension of the movement of Autonomia and of the cultural field that is generally known as "operaismo". -- Franco "Bifo" BerardiMasterful in sweep and molecular in detail, Jacopo Galimberti's volume draws upon thorough archival work and a nuanced understanding of Italy's post-war extraparliamentary left. As the book's incisive case studies reveal, the period's proliferating images of class were matched by an assault upon established classes of imagery. The defiance of capitalist wage relations found an equivalent not merely in the iconography of social contestation, but new formats and forums, new means of circulation and dissemination, from architectural interventions to graphic novels to ephemera which refused institutionalization. Galimberti shows us a time and place when the collective "class vernacular" of operaismo and autonomia had not yet ceded to something else. We can still rail against that something else, in Italy and elsewhere: urban gentrification, critical grandstanding, a bloated art market, the aesthetic apotheosis of the individual. But this book helps us remember what came first and what might, one day, come again. -- Ara H Merjian, New York UniversityRich in innovative insights, Images of Class proposes a fresh approach to a tumultuous historical period that generated original political theories and social movements. This inspiring and beautiful volume is a must-read. -- Leopoldina Fortunati, author of The Arcane of ReproductionA very significant contribution in the English language to the historicization of operaismo...Images of Class performs novel research on the development of these Marxian and dissident tendencies alongside visual, literary, and architectural production and theory. -- Andreas Petrossiants * Social Text *

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Book SynopsisAt the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was the centre for an avant-garde movement of art and design innovation in Europe, which we now refer to as The Glasgow Style. While the "Glasgow Boys" group of painters has been widely written about, their female contemporaries have received far less attention. In this work, the editor redresses this imbalance, bringing together research from 18 scholars on the work of an astonishing number of female artists from this period.Trade ReviewGlasgow Girls is likely to remain the last word on Glaswegian Art Nouveau for many years to come - the standard reference book on Glaswegian women artists of the period, * * The Sunday Times * *"The Book is a substantial, beautifully illustrated and fascinating document which does justice to its subject and will, one hopes, make it impossible for future curators and historians to ignore the obvious" * * The Scotsman * *The wealth of work shown here is remarkable * * The Artist * *...A brilliant book...which brings together for the first time original research by twenty scholars from Britain and North America * * Arts Review * *

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Book SynopsisThis is leading British sporting and wildlife artist Rodger McPhail’s retrospective collection of his most accomplished paintings and portraits of the last 20 years. As a keen naturalist who has spent countless hours tracking and observing his wildlife subjects, Rodger has selected these works on the basis that they truly capture his fondness and enthusiasm for the natural world. With an extraordinary versatility, Rodger is equally at home in watercolours as he is in oils — a master of the finest detail, his remarkably fluid and evocative paintings pay homage to his impressive and multifaceted career. This sumptuous, hardbound coffee table book seeks to shed a light on how his genius works, and Rodger has concluded the book with a chapter that addresses the questions he’s most frequently asked, such as how long it takes him to paint an average picture, or whether he can only paint when the mood strikes — featured alongside plenty of other stories about his life and his art. Appreciated and sought after from all corners of the globe, his paintings and portraits are to be found in some of the most important collections worldwide.Trade ReviewThe detail is stunning. This sumptuous, hardbound coffee table book seeks to shed a light on how his genius works.This elegant coffee-table book relates the life and times of one of our foremost wildlife and sporting artists, whose talents stretch to many other subjects, too. Rodger McPhail’s eye for detail is simply astounding.You could call this volume a ‘coffee table book’ but I have little doubt that when you start to read it you will become so engrossed in both the art and the narrative that your coffee will be cold before the cup is finished.

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Book SynopsisThe first fully illustrated account of the life and work of English painter Christopher Wood (1901-30), this authoritative work, which includes over 150 images, provides extensive visual analysis of individual paintings, set designs and drawings created by Wood in both Britain and France so bringing fresh perspective to his unique artistic development on both sides of the Channel.Wood's short career drew on a multitude of influences, all of which contributed to the development of his faux-naive style. His oscillation between diverse artistic reference points is borne out in Katy Norris' fascinating narrative that analyses Wood's engagement with the Parisian avant-garde on the one hand, and the attraction of the simpler life he encountered in Cornwall, Cumbria and Brittany on the other. The emotional turmoil of his final years underlines the tensions between the two worlds that Wood inhabited and which he was ultimately was unable to reconcile.Filling a surprising gap in the published literature about this early 20th-century painter, Christopher Wood will appeal to readers who are yet to encounter Wood's work, as well as collectors and enthusiasts.Trade Review'A rhythmic energy pulses through these pictures.' Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The TimesTable of ContentsChronology; Introductory Essay: Positioning Christopher Wood's Art; PART 1: Paris and the South of France (1921 - 27); Chapter 1: Innocence vs. Experience: Formative Years in Paris; Chapter 2: Christopher Wood and Diaghilev's Ballet Russes; PART 2 - Cumberland, Cornwall and Brittany (1928 - 1930); Chapter 3: `Genius Loci': Cumbria and Cornwall; Chapter 4: Final Years (1929-30); Epilogue; Works in Public Collections; List of Exhibitions; Bibliography; Credits; Index

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Book SynopsisThe private collector’s museum has become a phenomenon of the 21st century. There are some 400 of them around the world, and an astonishing 70% of those devoted to contemporary art were founded in the past 20 years. Although private museums have been accused of being tax-evading vanity projects or ‘tombs for trophies’, the picture is far more complex and nuanced, as art-market journalist Georgina Adam (author of best-selling Big Bucks and Dark Side of the Boom) shows in her compelling new book. Georgina Adam’s investigation into this extraordinary proliferation, based on her recent visits to over 50 private spaces across the US, Europe, China and elsewhere, delves into the reasons behind this boom, the different motivations of collectors to display their art in public, and the various ways in which the institutions are financed. Private museums can add greatly to the cultural life of a community, giving a platform to emerging artists, supplying educational programmes and revitalising declining or neglected regions. But their relationship with public institutions can also be problematic. Should private museums step in to fill a gap left by declining public investment in culture, and what are the implications for society and the arts? At a time of crisis in the museums sector, this book is an essential and thought-provoking read.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction; 1. What is a private museum?; 2. The founders and their motivations; 3. Financing the private museum; 4. What explains the Chinese museum boom?; 5. From private to public - partnerships; 6. Legacy, sustainability, and why private museums sometimes die; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first comprehensive overview of the career to date of British artist Hurvin Anderson (b.1965). Anderson is known for painting loosely rendered ‘observations’ of scenes and spaces loaded with personal or communal meaning.Anderson’s painting style is notable for the ease with which he slips between figuration and abstraction, playing with the tropes of earlier landscape traditions and 20th-century abstraction. His paintings of barbershop interiors, country tennis clubs and tropical roadsides teem with rich brushwork and multitudes of decorative patterns or architectural features, at once obscuring and adding to underlying ruminations on identity and place.Drawing on interviews with the artist, Michael J. Prokopow offers a critical assessment of Hurvin Anderson’s painting practice to date that will be enlightening for all students, dealers and collectors of contemporary painting.Trade Review'Hurvin Anderson is in many ways a painter both of our time and for our time, able to lend abstraction and representation in equal measures of surety and wonder. Prokopow offers the first substantial exploration of Anderson's nearly three-decade practice in a manner that replicates the deep examination that his paintings require of and ignite for the viewer. This is a thoughtful, careful text that has superbly brought forth a painter of similar description.' -- Courtney J. Martin * Director, Yale Center for British Art *'Written with clarity, care and precision, this monograph is hugely welcome. It is the first to give in-depth attention to an artist whose eloquent touch has revitalized painting in a moment when our perception of landscape and our attachment to a sense of place grows ever more complex in light of transnational migrations and the fragile ecology of our planet.' -- Kobena Mercer * Author of Travel & See: Black Diaspora Practices since the 1980s *Table of ContentsPrologue: 'To be Constantly Aware'; Chapter 1: 'Where Cultures Meet or Don't Meet'; Chapter 2: 'A Shared Elsewhere'; Chapter 3: 'A Sense of Somebodiness'; Chapter 4: 'Gardening in the Tropics'; Epilogue: 'Uninhibited Dialogue'; Selected Bibliography; Education; Awards/Fellowships/Commissions; Solo Exhibitions; Group Exhibitions; Public Collections; Acknowledgements; Index

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Book SynopsisBelonging to the wider circle of Calvinist exiles from Catholic Flanders working in the Saint-Germain des-Prés area of Paris, Moillon was the sole female practitioner of a group that included Sébastien Stosskopf, Jacques Linard, and Lubin Baugin. Louise Moillon reassesses the importance of this painter of still-life (and occasional genre) paintings through a consideration of the context in which she was working; the centrality of the genre of still life in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris in the earlier part of the seventeenth century; and provides close visual analyses of her works. Moillon offers a useful case study of a supremely talented artist whose relative posthumous invisibility may be explained by three key features: her gender; the genre of still life at which she excelled but which became increasingly overlooked after the foundation of the French Académie royale in 1648; and a change in her domestic role after her marriage, when she produced fewer works. This book

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Book SynopsisOffering a radical rewriting of the history of contemporary art from a feminist perspective, four distinguished authors explore the lineages of performance, abstraction, craft and ecofeminism in ways that reveal the debt these important genres owe to the work of pioneering women artists. Tracing these influences over time, Mothers of Invention underscores the enormous impact of feminist ideas on the work of contemporary artists of all genders. The painters, sculptors and performance artists featured here have shaped ideas now dominating the art world: the vulnerability of the environment, the rise of activist art, the challenge to the reign of high technology (including digital culture), and the development of a new language of abstraction. Having demolished the linear narrative of modernism, the privileging of a white male ethnocentric vision, the division of high and low art and the separation of art from larger social issues, feminist artists laid the groundwork for the globalise

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Book SynopsisNigel Hall: Sculpture & Drawings is an ambitious monograph which looks at his work in relation to sculptural developments in Britain, Europe and North America. It presents the two main strands of Hall's practice - sculpture and drawing - as distinct but also interrelated. Line and space are central to Hall's work, with the artist creating highly refined two- and three-dimensional works that deploy a range of geometrical forms. The works he makes are always meticulous and measured, whilst offering intuitive visual conundrums that encourage looking and thinking. Unpicking the complexities of Hall's work and its display both indoors and outdoors, Wood provides the definitive narrative of one of Britain's most accomplished sculptors working today.

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Book SynopsisProviding a recent history of Southeast Asian art linked to the social and political contexts in which the illustrated work emerged, this groundbreaking book reveals the innovative creative strategies, often covertly encroaching on public space, developed by regional artists to ensure the communication of sometimes provocative, even rebellious, ideas to a general audience. Surveying work created by Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean and Filipino artists, the publication's broad regional spread provides valuable insights for a global audience perhaps unfamiliar with the pioneering utilisation of the street, public locales, and techniques of audience co-opting that have made Southeast Asia, and continue to make it, a region instrumental in facilitating social change through art.

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Book SynopsisThis publication offers a rich and expansive visual record of Julie Brook’s artistic practice, and proposes a unique collaboration between Brook and distinct voices from the nature writing and craftsmanship traditions. Situating Brook’s practice in the context of critical reflections by Robert Macfarlane, Alexandra Harris and Raku Jikinyū, the publication presents a striking visual narrative of Brook's landscape and tidal sculptural work, and a sense of its timeless yet contemporary resonance. Documenting in depth a number of recent works made in the Hebrides, Japan and Namibia, their shared attention to the elements and their key pre-occupations of the fleeting, mobile forces of light, time, and gravity demonstrate Brook’s coherent vision within vastly contrasting environments. Throughout her oeuvre, the balance between what Brook makes in relation to the environment and materials themselves is paramount. Including film stills, photography and drawing, which are all integral languages for conceptualising and communicating the work, plus insightful extracts from Brook’s notebooks, this beautiful publication succeeds in providing the reader with a unique understanding of the artist’s ‘monuments to the moment’.Table of ContentsForeword; Introduction; 1. Winter Wall; 2. Parallel Space; 3. Firestack; 4. Ascending; 5. Divided Block; 6. Ongoing; Chronology and Exhibitions; Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisProviding a thematic overview of the multifarious work produced by Derek Boshier (b.1937) from the post-war period to the digital age, this fascinating publication reveals how Boshier’s deceptively playful imagery offers analytical commentaries on societal issues and the fragility and fragmentation of human identity. Among contemporaries such as Peter Blake, Pauline Boty and Peter Phillips, Boshier was a central figure in the British Pop Art movement. Embracing Pop sensibilities, his early work juxtaposed figurative painting and imagery to call attention to nuclear anxieties and the growing consumerism of 1960s Britain. Yet this is just one aspect of Boshier's remarkable artistic journey, which has drawn in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, graphic design and printmaking. The book's broad sweep includes recent paintings and drawings created in America at the height of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, and features commentaries by artists, academics, curators and writers who explore how Boshier's ground-breaking activity interrogates truth and logic, fantasy and reality in the modern age. With contributions by James Cahill, Philip Colbert, Eddie Chambers, Susan Compo, Rachele Dini, Inga Fraser, Jann Haworth, Leslie Jones, Emily Langridge, Gregory Salter, Penny Slinger and John Stezaker.Table of ContentsPreface, M. Livingstone; Introduction, H. Little; 1 'Cold War Consumerism in Derek Boshier's Pop Period', R. Dini; 2 'Encounters: Derek Boshier and Film', I. Fraser Plate section: The Identikit Man, G. Salter; Plaza, J. Haworth; The Depressed Cosmetic Salesman, J. Stezaker; KKK, E. Chambers; Los Angeles Times, J. Cahill; Les Messieurs d’Avignon, P. Slinger; David Bowie and Teresa Cornelys, S. Compo; America America, L. Jones; The King of K Pop, P. Colbert; Interview: Derek Boshier and Hans Ulrich Obrist; Chronology, E. Langridge; Index

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Book SynopsisPeter Gregory (1887-1959), Director and then Chairman of Lund Humphries, was at the heart of the avant-garde British art world for nearly thirty years of major change in society, politics, and culture. A pioneering art publisher who produced scholarly and richly illustrated monographs on living artists, he was also a discerning patron and collector, the founder of new arts organisations, and a loyal supporter of young artists. Valerie Holman's new book is the first to situate Gregory's life and career within the wider context of printing and publishing history, war, and changing perceptions of modern and contemporary art. Gregory's intimate circle included many leading artists, architects and writers: Henry Moore considered him his closest friend, Kenneth Clark sought out his committee expertise, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth respected his professionalism and invited him into their family circle, and he had a warm friendship with Edward McKnight Kauffer, Herbert Read, Jane Drew

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Book SynopsisLook Again is a new series of short books from Tate Publishing, opening up the conversation about British art over the last 500 years, and exploring what art has to tell us about our lives today. Written by leading voices from the worlds of literature, art and culture, each book sheds new light on some of the most well-known, best-loved and thought-provoking artworks in the national collection, and asks us to look again. Author, photographer and broadcaster Johny Pitts examines the notion of 'visibility' in Tate's galleries, asking who gets to be seen - and why. The well-known faces of our best-loved paintings hang visible on the walls of Tate - but look beyond and you will also see the 'invisible' figures in the background whose stories have been obscured by history, hidden in plain sight. And yet, these stories belong to those on whom the galleries depend the most: standing guard in the corners, serving in our cafes and cleaning in the early mornings. Featuring original sketches by Tate staff that respond to works from Britain's national collection of art, Look Again: Visibility asks us to bear witness to figures who have long been overlooked by a system that profits from their labour while simultaneously dismissing it as 'unskilled' - and suggests that perhaps the way to reach a fuller understanding of our history is to start looking at it through new eyes.

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Book SynopsisDeath haunts art. It lurks in the shadows of Edward Collier’s Still Life as a reminder of our fragile mortality. It conquers all in Francis Bacon’s Triptych and Anna Lea Merritt’s Love Locked Out. But how has death emerged as such a persistent theme in art history? From intimate responses to allegorical meditations on the fleeting transience of life, Sean Burns explores how a breadth of historical and contemporary artists in Britain’s national collection have immortalised death in art. Look Again is a new series of short books from Tate Publishing, opening up the conversation about British art over the last 500 years, and exploring what art has to tell us about our lives today. Written by leading voices from the worlds of literature, art and culture, each book sheds new light on some of the most well-known, best-loved and thought-provoking artworks in the national collection, and asks us to look again.

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Book SynopsisIn the mid-1930s, three giants of the international Modern movement, Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, fled Nazi Germany and sought refuge in Hampstead in the most exciting new apartment block in Britain. The Lawn Road Flats, or Isokon building, was commissioned by the young visionary couple Jack and Molly Pritchard and designed by aspiring architect Wells Coates. Built in 1934 in response to the question ‘How do we want to live now?’ it was England’s first modernist apartment building and was hugely influential in pioneering the concept of minimal living. During the mid-1930s and 1940s its flats, bar and dining club became an extraordinary creative nexus for international artists, writers and thinkers. Jack Pritchard employed Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy in his newly formed Isokon design company and the furniture, architecture and graphic art the three produced in pre-war England helped shape Modern Britain. This book tells the story of the Isokon, from its beginnings to the present day, and fully examines the work, artistic networks and legacy of the Bauhaus artists during their time in Britain. The tales are not just of design and architecture but war, sex, death, espionage and infamous dinner parties. Isokon resident Agatha Christie features in the book, as does Charlotte Perriand who Jack Pritchard commissioned for a pavilion design in 1930. The book is beautifully illustrated with largely unseen archive photography, and includes the work of photographer and Soviet spy Edith Tudor-Hart, as well as plans and sketches, menus, postcards and letters from the Pritchard family archive. In Spring 2018, the Isokon building and Breuer, Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were honoured with a Blue Plaque from English Heritage. Trade Review'Extremely good' * The Art Newspaper *'Sumptuous' * Foyles Newsletter *'Insightful exploration of an iconic building.' * Morning Star *'A must read' * Homes & Antiques *'Jam-packed with fascinating and often unexpected detail.' * Pedro Silmon Blog *

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Book SynopsisEarly manuscripts in the English language include religious works, plays, romances, poetry and songs, as well as charms, notebooks, science and medieval medicine. How did scribes choose to arrange the words and images on the page in each manuscript? How did they preserve, clarify and illustrate writing in English? What visual guides were given to early readers of English in how to understand or use their books? 'Designing English' is an overview of eight centuries of graphic design in manuscripts and inscriptions from the Anglo-Saxon to the early Tudor periods. Working beyond the traditions established for Latin, scribes of English needed to be more inventive, so that each book was an opportunity for redesigning. 'Designing English' focuses on the craft, agency and intentions of scribes, painters and engravers in the practical processes of making pages and artefacts. It weighs up the balance of ingenuity and copying, practicality and imagination in their work. It surveys bilingual books, format, ordinatio, decoration and reading aloud, as well as inscriptions on objects, monuments and buildings. With over ninety illustrations, drawn especially from the holdings of the Bodleian Library in Old English and Middle English, 'Designing English' gives a comprehensive overview of English books and other material texts across the Middle Ages.Trade Review'From Anglo-Saxon gospels to early Tudor monuments, this beautifully illustrated work explores 800 years of graphic design.' * The Arts Society Journal *'Studded with nearly a hundred illustrations, this is much more gripping than its over-technical title might suggest.' * History Revealed *'Good examples of English on the page with a text that illuminates it discursively, full of interesting details and with an original voice. … I found my vision refreshed and my curiosity enhanced by this attractive book.' * Edge: Calligraphy & Lettering Arts Society *'An extremely important survey …the quality of the production is high, pricing very competitive and the many full colour illustrations superbly complement the text. 'Designing English' deserves a wide readership, and not just in academia.' -- Colin Steele * Australian Book Collector *'A welcome addition to a growing corpus of scholarship on pre-modern reading … a big, gorgeous book, lavishly illustrated.' * TLS *Table of ContentsContents Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Making Space for English 2 Making Pages 3 Pages for Reading 4 Decorating Pages 5 Pages for Voicing 6 English in Space Further Reading Quotations and References Notes Picture Credits Index of Manuscripts General Index

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Book SynopsisFaces are everywhere in the National Gallery’s collection: in portraits and narrative scenes, in allegories and paintings of everyday life. It is often the faces shown that communicate most directly in a picture; their expressions may reveal the drama of a story, or the character of a sitter in a portrait. A Closer Look: Faces examines a wide array of fascinating faces found in paintings at the National Gallery. It explains why artists in the past created faces to look as they do, what painters through the ages have considered the "ideal" face, how faces are painted, and the reasons for the development of portrait painting. Illustrated with seventy pictures and beautiful details, this book provides an insider's view of the many faces in Western European art.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

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Book SynopsisPoussin’s scenes of bacchanalian revelry, tripping maenads and skipping nymphs are often described as ‘dancelike’ and ‘choreographed’. The artist’s dancing pictures helped him develop a new approach to painting that would become the model for the French classical tradition. Shedding the sensuous, painterly manner of his early career, Poussin carved out the crisp, relief-like approach that characterized his mature work and set the precedent for three centuries of French art, from Le Brun and David to Cézanne and Picasso. He carried lessons learned from dance into every corner of his production. This book brings together a key group of paintings and drawings by Poussin, exploring the theme of dance and dancers in his production for the first time. Focusing on the dancing pictures created in Rome in the 1620s and 1630s, essays connect Poussin’s interest in dance, his study of antiquities, and his formulation of a new classical style. Richly illustrated and engagingly written, this publication uses the prism of dance to cast Poussin in a new, fresh light.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:J. Paul Getty Museum June 8 – August 29, 2021National Gallery, London October 9, 2021 – January 2, 2022

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the fascinating parallels and differences between Picasso’s Woman with a Book and Ingres’s Madame Moitessier This publication examines, in detail, two extraordinary interrelated works: Picasso’s Woman with a Book (1932) and Ingres’s Madame Moitessier (1844–56). Each painting is explored in depth, illuminating the parallels and differences between the artists’ techniques and creative ambitions. The first essay tells the story of the twelve-year gestation of Ingres’s Madame Moitessier, focusing on the role of drawings in the elaboration of the composition, and of the sitter herself in determining how she was to be presented. The second essay traces the development of Picasso’s Woman with a Book, among the most celebrated likenesses of the artist’s young lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter. In contrast to Ingres’s work, it was painted in just a day or two. The final essay explores, through these two works, the artists’ shared interest in the relationship between nude and clothed bodies, revealing the depth of Picasso’s engagement with Madame Moitessier, which motivates and animates Woman with a Book. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

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Book SynopsisQuinten Massys’ An Old Woman (‘The Ugly Duchess’) is one of the Renaissance’s most famous faces. In a fresh review of the iconic image, this book unveils the painting’s original context: its status as a pioneering work of satirical art, its debt to Leonardo da Vinci’s grotesque drawings, and what it tells us about the period’s complex attitudes towards women, age and normative beauty. The painting and its partner, An Old Man, are parodic portraits that mock the supposed lust and vanity of older women. Yet a closer look also reveals a figure defiantly flouting conventions and a painter subverting artistic expectations. The publication traces the eventful afterlife and enduring power of this seminal image: how she gained her nickname ‘The Ugly Duchess’ and inspired John Tenniel’s much-loved illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), capturing the imagination of generations of readers. Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule:National Gallery, London, 16 March–11 June 2023

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Book SynopsisThe conventional history of art is one of great men making great paintings, and displaying their works to a predominantly male audience in male-run institutions. Women, however, have had a role, often working behind the scenes, out of sight or in resistance to prevailing attitudes and practices. And it is in these exceptions to the rules of the masculine world of art-making that women artists have been perceived as groundbreaking, defiant and even subversive. A compelling selection of more than 60 artists from the early Renaissance to the present day, among them Judith Leyster, Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois, Danger! Women Artists at Work explores the most intriguing and provocative aspects of art by women who shook up the art world. Through a lively introduction and six thematic chapters dealing with such subjects as the ways in which women have challenged the boundaries of expression and how they have viewed the human body, Debra N. Mancoff presents an absorbing tale of those who have struggled and triumphed in their efforts to transform the visual arts.Trade Review'This is the perfect gift for any casual or serious art lover ... Danger! Women Artists at Work is a delightful walk through history, and offers an overdue education and appreciation of women artists' - SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER 'I was excited to read a book that covered the topic of women artists - well written, accessible and full of beautiful prints - Definitely a book worth reading.' - BLOGCRITICS

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Book SynopsisThis colouring book showcases a remarkable selection of Ancient Egyptian art and the arts of Africa from the Brooklyn Museum.

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Book SynopsisThe period between 1930 and 1960 in particular saw a dramatic upsurge in Latin American modern architecture as the various governments strove to make public their modernising intentions. After 1960, however, the year in which Brasilia was inaugurated, economic growth in the region slowed and the modernist project faltered. The English-speaking world, which had previously admired Latin American buildings, began to write them out of the history of twentieth-century architecture. Building the New World attempts to redress the balance. It surveys the most important examples of state-funded modernism in Latin America during a period of almost unimaginable optimism, when politicians and architects such as Pani, Costa, Reidy and Niemeyer sought ways, literally, to build their societies out of underdevelopment.

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Book SynopsisKURT JACKSONBy Jeremy Mark RobinsonA new book about the British landscape painter Kurt Jackson (b. 1961). This new edition includes a text which has been completely updated. There are also many new illustrations. including photographs taken for this new edition.  EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4: One of Kurt Jackson''s appealing concepts is that the ocean is one of the last true wildernesses left on the planet. It''s an idea that I found very interesting when he explained it to me when we first met in St Just. I took it that he meant a spiritual as well as an ecological or natural wilderness. Jackson''s art can thus be seen as an art that is the border region between humanity and nature, between culture and nature, as well as literally tackling that area - the coast - which is neither land nor sea. <Note that Kurt Jackson is always facing outwards from the land, and looking towards the ocean, not painting with his back to the sea, and looking towards the land (and notice that the many boats and helicopters and such in this area are left out of the paintings, too). So Kurt Jackson''s Porth series, about Priest Cove, and all of his sea paintings, are very important in his art in articulating this idea of the ocean as the last wilderness. ''Have you ever wondered what''s out there?'' is a question that Jackson asks (it''s the title of one of his major paintings, too - the centrepiece of the Porth series). Kurt Jackson has repeated the question over a number of related works: the title of two 2004 pieces is The Last Wilderness In Western Europe? This was painted on Jura (in Scotland), and both pictures are consciously emptied of human marks - just empty moorland and a delicate blue sky. An earlier picture, part of the Cape series, was entitled Do You Ever Wonder What''s Out There? (1999) - an unusual composition in the Jackson oeuvre which puts the horizon very high, and focusses on the dark blue ocean ?ecked with white spray. Kurt Jackson isn''t that interested in many of the connotations of the ocean - the moon, time, goddesses, rebirth (though moons do appear in his art from time to time). He''s not really interested in religious or pagan or magical symbols in that way. And he''s not that interested in shipping, fishing, and all things maritime, like J.M.W. Turner was. REVISED AND UPDATED, WITH NEW ILLUSTRATIONSFully illustrated, with a revised text. Bibliography and notes. Hardcover. Also available in hardback. www.crmoon.comREVIEWS ON AMAZON:A well- written and thoughtful book. Quite academic and appropriate really for careful reading. REVIEW ON AMAZON:Very pleased with all aspects of my purchase: the book itself - so useful to gain such insight into an artist''s life and inspirations. Also, prompt delivery, well packaged and arrived in good condition.

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Book SynopsisThis richly illustrated book explores the contested history of art and nationalism in the tumultuous last decades of British rule in India. Western avant-garde art inspired a powerful weapon of resistance among India's artists in their struggle against colonial repression, and it is this complex interplay of Western modernism and Indian nationalism that is the core of this book. "The Triumph of Modernism" takes the surprisingly unremarked Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922 as marking the arrival of European modernism in India. In four broad sections Partha Mitter examines the decline of oriental art and the rise of naturalism as well as that of modernism in the 1920s, and the relationship between primitivism and modernism in Indian art: with Mahatma Gandhi inspiring the Indian elite to discover the peasant, the people of the soil became portrayed by artists as noble savages. A distinct feminine voice also evolved through the rise of female artists. Finally, the author probes the ambivalent relationship between Indian nationalism and imperial patronage of the arts. With a fascinating array of art works, few of which have either been seen or published in the West, "The Triumph of Modernism" throws much light on a previously neglected strand of modern art and introduces the work of artists who are little known in Europe or America. A book that challenges the dominance of Western modernism, it will be illuminating not just to students and scholars of modernism and Indian art, but to a wide international audience that admires India's culture and history.Trade Review'Partha Mitter's lucid and well-illustrated The Triumph of Modernism explores Indian artists' encounter with the avant-garde from 1922 to 1947. It gives due prominence to pioneers: above all, Amrita Sher-Gil, the Sikh-Hungarian prodigy and firebrand.' - The Independent 'Contemporary critical arguments and critical context, as well as political melodrama, enliven the text. The colour illustrations are stunning.' - The Art Book 'A sumptuously illustrated exploratory guide to India's artists and the avant garde movement of 1922-1947' - Yoga and Health 'With this book Partha Mitter adds further to his already monumental contribution to the study of Indian art. A comprehensive survey of ideas, institutions and schools, it is rich in details that leap out of obscurity to illuminate the significance of the whole. What emerges is a fascinating pattern of contradictions and coalescences that make up the stuff called modernism. There's nothing simple about this tissue of paradoxes which constitutes the originality of the phenomenon in its subcontinental habitat. By undertaking to describe and analyze its complexities, this book earns its place in the corpus of distinguished critical literature that warns us against an overtly Eurocentric view of modernity, an alarm already sounded in the author's celebrated work, Much Maligned Monsters (1977). Furthermore, it alerts all concerned to the indifference that allows South Asian historiography to remain blissfully unaware of what it can and must learn from contemporary writings on the history of art. There is a great deal here for all narratives of colonialism and modernism to feed on.' - Ranajit Guha, founder of Subaltern Studies

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Book SynopsisOutsider art is work produced outside the mainstream of modern art by self-taught visionaries, spiritualists, eccentrics, recluses, psychiatric patients, criminals and others beyond the perceived margins of society. Coined in 1972 the term is derived from art brut', which the artist Jean Dubuffet began promoting just after the Second World War. Both focus on the idea of a raw', untaught creativity, which is still a contentious and much-debated issue. Is this a natural phenomenon, requiring only the right circumstances (isolation or alienation) to be revealed; or is it more like a mirage projected by the very culture it is supposed to be escaping from? Behind the polemic and the commercial hype lies a cluster of assumptions about creative drives, the expression of inner worlds, radical originality and the artist's social or psychological eccentricity. Although Outsider art is often presented as a recent discovery, these ideas belong to a tradition that goes back to the Renaissance, when the modern image of the artist began to take shape. If Outsiders are in some way outside' the conventional art world, what happens to them, and to the works they create, when they are introduced to it? David Maclagan has been writing on Outsider art for over twenty-five years, and this book sets out to challenge many of the received ideas in the field. This book will be of interest to the growing number of people interested in the field of Outsider art, and all those studying concepts of artistic creativity and their cultural background.Trade ReviewTo celebrate publication of Outsider Art, James Maclagan will be in discussion with James Brett, the curator of the Museum of Everything, at the ICA on 10th February 2010, with Jarvis Cocker as fellow panelist. 'The author guides the reader through this complex debate, building up the historical background and investigating the growth of psychological ideas and psychiatric therapies during the 20th century. His analysis includes an introduction to the principles of art brut as defined by Dubuffet, the evolution of public appreciation, the role of collectors, and the impact of these developments on the artists themselves.' - The Art Newspaper 'a thoughtful, informative and well-researched analysis of an area of art that defies easy classification or study ... he shows that in the struggle for understanding of this complex and contradictory genre there is much to learn about art from the outside edge, and through it, understanding of the art that resides in the mainstream centre.' - The Art Book

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Book SynopsisThis is the first major study of the Italian painter Girolamo Pieri Nerli, who spent the last two decades of the nineteenth century in Australia and New Zealand and is best known as a teacher of Frances Hodgkins. The fruit of many years of research, this careful and thoughtful book will be of considerable interest to art historians and the general public. Nerli painted a wide range of subjects in a wide range of styles and is associated with the introduction of Impressionism to the Antipodes. T hough he returned to Italy his most important work, which shows an appealing liveliness with paint, was done in the South Pacific and most of it remains here. His best paintings, full of colour and warmth often with attractive human subjects, have continuing appeal and relevance to both Australia and New Zealand at an important turning point in their cultures. The book includes an introductory text of two chapters, the first on Nerli's life and personality, the second on his painting, accompanied by black and white photographs and reproductions setting the context and evoking the era. This is followed by 40 full-page full-colour reproductions of the most important paintings, each with commentary on the facing page. There will also be a chronology, a bibliography, an appendix reproducing some vivid letters written by Nerli and his wife, and a list of exhibitions.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations; Foreword; Nerli's life and Career; Nerli's Painting The Annotated Plates (40 full-page colour plates with commentary); An Artist's chronology; Bibliography; List of Exhibitions; Index

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Book SynopsisZina Saro-Wiwa: Did You Know We Taught Them How to Dance? is the first publication on the work of Zina Saro-Wiwa, a British-Nigerian video artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Occupying the space between documentary and performance, Saro-Wiwa’s videos, photographs, and sound produced in the Niger Delta region of southeastern Nigeria from 2013–2015 explore folklore, masquerade traditions, religious practices, food, and Nigerian popular aesthetics. Engaging Niger Delta residents as subjects and collaborators, Saro-Wiwa cultivates strategies of psychic survival and performance, testing contemporary art’s capacity to transform and to envision new concepts of environment and environmentalism. Known for decades for corruption and environmental degradation, the Niger Delta is one of the largest oil producing regions of the world, and until 2010 provided the United States with a quarter of its oil. Saro-Wiwa returns to this contested region—the place of her birth—to tell new stories. Featuring a guest foreword by Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa; essays by Stephanie LeMenager, Amy L. Powell, and Taiye Selasi; an interview with the artist by Chika Okeke-Agulu; and recipes created by the artist.

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Book SynopsisThis beautifully illustrated volume presents new ways of thinking about the concept of "being Roman" - with a particular emphasis on the way people in the provinces and on the periphery of the empire reacted to the state of being a Roman subject. Accompanying an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery and the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, the book presents material that is both chronologically and geographically distant from imperial Rome, the better to characterize and understand local responses and identities within the provinces as they were expressed through material culture.

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the balance between modernity and tradition in Cuba’s turn-of-the-century artistic evolution.The Lost Generation La generación perdida accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. The modern artistic ceramic movement in Cuba, almost exclusively comprised of women artists (including Amelia Peláez, Mirta García Buch, and María Elena Jubrías), emerged toward the end of the 1940s and continued into the next decade. The ceramicists invited Cuba’s modernist protagonists, including René Portocarrero, Luis Martínez Pedro, and Wifredo Lam, to participate in designing ceramics at the Taller de Santiago de Las Vegas. The workshop thus became a locus for the fermentation of Cuban modernist expression. Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz, the workshop's proprietor, recognized the artistic value of the ceramicists’ production and he, along with the women he hired, encouraged collaboration with their male contemporaries. A symbiotic artistic practice grew in which the ceramicists introduced ideas and designs to the painters, whose fledgling attempts in ceramics took eventual flight. As the painters’ familiarity with the new medium grew, similar forms appeared in their two-dimensional renderings, which are now synonymous with Cuban modernism. During the post-Revolutionary period of 1959–85, the Taller became part of Cuba’s National Patrimony, continuing the tradition of producing serial and artistic pieces. As the Revolutionary regime wore on, the Taller’s importance waned, artists left Cuba, and independent workshops flourished. While the Taller de Santiago no longer boasts importance in artistic production today, it left an indelible mark on Cuban modernism. With essays by Cuban, American, and Cuban-American scholars, The Lost Generation La generación perdida provides a background on the twentieth-century avant-garde movements in Cuba; delves into the narrative of an overlooked group of Cuban women ceramicists, assessing the implications of their work on modernism; and, finally, explores in depth the women artists of the third avant-garde generation (1949–58).

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Book SynopsisGascoyne's membership of the Surrealist movement and his association with its leading members - among them Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali - placed him in an ideal position to witness and record the development and significance of its foremost artists and writers.

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