Individual artists, art monographs Books

Book SynopsisThe story of the famous painting by Picasso and its diverse meanings from its conception to the present dayTrade Review'Enthralling ... This is high-action drama, told like the rest within a huge frame of reference, theme interlocked with theme ... A painting which began its life within a particular political context has emerged as a universal statement on the ever-present horror and suffering of war. Van Hensbergen has treated an extraordinary subject admirably' Evening Standard 'Brilliant' Observer 'Hensbergen shows how the history of art, world events and the drama of Picasso's own life came together on the canvas ... This is a fascinating biography, very gracefully handled' Miranda France, Daily Telegraph 'This is a dramatic story with all the twists and turns of a political thriller, all the danger of an action adventure, and all the sexual intrigue of a romantic novel. A racy narrative is combined with the fruits of encyclopaedic research' Sunday Herald

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Book SynopsisSlinkachu' is a London-based artist whose creations can be found in doorways and cracks in the pavement across the capital. This is the first collection of his work in book form. See more of his pictures at www.little-people.blogspot.com

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Book SynopsisThis beautiful book reminds me that I was one of many whom Leo Lionni took by the hand, leading me into the world of writing and illustrating picture books. Micha Archer, author and illustrator of Wonder Walkers, Daniel Finds a Poem, and the forthcoming What''s New, Daniel?He had amazing breadth and depth, all on display in this volume.Paula Scher, graphic designer and partner, PentagramThroughout Leo Leonni's varied and eclectic work one can see his wit as well as his mid-century design sensibility; formal and geometric, but softened by his warmth and playfulness... Marc Rosenthal, New York Times bestselling illustratorThis first survey of Lionni's legacy comes out in conjunction with a retrospective of his work at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass Lionni had a rare ability to change shades and retain his sTrade Review"For those who came to know Leo Lionni through his children’s books as I did, this book is an introduction to Lionni as a fine artist and as an art director where he recruited and befriended such luminaries as Calder, DeKoonig, Ben Shahn, and Eric Carle, encouraging them to infuse the commercial design world with “capital A” art... This beautiful book reminds me that I was one of many whom Leo Lionni took by the hand, leading me into the world of writing and illustrating picture books." - Micha Archer"As a young working professional, I was inspired by Lionni’s Fortune magazine covers and his advertising design, and later genuinely surprised by his children’s stories and illustrations. He had amazing breadth and depth, all on display in this volume." - Paula Scher"Throughout Leo Leonni’s varied and eclectic work one can see his wit as well as his mid-century design sensibility; formal and geometric, but softened by his warmth and playfulness. The breadth of his career is wonderfully shown in the images and informed writing in this book." - Marc Rosenthal"This first survey of Lionni’s legacy comes out in conjunction with a retrospective of his work at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass… Suddenly, it becomes clear that, like the chameleons in “A Color of His Own,” Lionni had a rare ability to change shades — and retain his signature vibrancy — while moving, seemingly effortlessly, from one realm to another." - New York Times"The children’s book author who was also an artist: Leo Lionni’s wide-ranging practice was kaleidoscopic and rooted in a strong sense of justice." - Hyperallergic"How children’s book author Leo Lionni urged his readers to be change makers. The multidisciplinary artist wanted us to imagine how we can shape society and uplift our communities." - Smithsonian Magazine

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Book SynopsisAlbers in the promised land of abstract art: the little-known influence of MexicoMexico is truly the promised land of abstract art, Josef Albers wrote to his former Bauhaus colleague Vasily Kandinsky in 1936. Josef Albers in Mexico reveals the profound link between the art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica and Albers' abstract works on canvas and paper. With his wife, the artist Anni Albers, Albers toured pre-Columbian archeological sites and monuments during his 12 or more trips to Mexico and other Latin American countries between 1935 and 1968. On each visit, Albers took black-and-white photographs of pyramids, shrines, sanctuaries and landscapes, which he later assembled into rarely seen photo collages. The resulting works demonstrate Albers' continued formal experimentation with geometry, this time accentuating a pre-Columbian aesthetic.Josef Albers in Mexico brings together photographs, photo collages, prints and significant paTrade ReviewA necessary corrective to Albers’s reputation as more pedagogue than painter and the misconception that abstraction can ever be free of outside influence. -- Dennis Zhou * Hyperallergic *"Josef Albers in Mexico” has an energetic syncopation generated by the paintings’ singing colors, which alternate with the silvery sepia of the photographs. -- Roberta Smith * The New York Times *the architecture and sculpture of ancient Mexico were vital to [Albers'] art, not only as a database of motifs for his paintings but also as a kind of secular church where his faith in abstract art for the modern age was renewed. -- Richard Woodward * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe Meaning of the Earth offers a retrospective on the work and lives of the relentlessly controversial artists Gilbert & George, connecting their beginnings as Living Sculptures to their pictorial work of today. ---------- 'The Meaning of the Earth, Wolf Jahn's new book, explores the vision of our Art like no one has ever done before. Congratulations Wolf! Everyone loves this amazing and beautiful book. It is a masterpiece.' - Gilbert & George ---------- The Meaning of the Earth offers a retrospective on the lives and work of the relentlessly controversial artists Gilbert & George, placing them within the context of twentieth-century British culture. Wolf Jahn tells the story of how Gilbert & George found their identity in opposition to pervasive ideas around social conformity and religion after meeting in 1967. The artists staged an internal revolution, mining their psyches to create visionary and unwaveringly modern art. The two people but one artist' ask the questions that gnaw

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Book SynopsisA conceptually innovative take on Jonas' performances and installationsPublished in conjunction with the first major US museum show of Joan Jonas' art in nearly 15 years, this volume breaks new ground by contextualizing and expanding understandings of Jonas' body of work through three thematic approaches: the critical notions of gender, being and otherness; the politics of landscape and ecology; and new conceptions of medium specificity and un-specificity. These themes serve as a framework through which to address the rich vocabulary of Jonas' performances, sculptures, drawings and installations from the early 1970s until today.Inspired by the format of a reader, the monograph presents new writing and scholarship, excerpts from Douglas Crimp''s final interview, as well as a selection of drawings and sketches from Jonas' notebooks, including never-before-published drawings created during the coronavirus lockdown.Born and based in New York, Joan Jona

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Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated and informative anthology of coastal wildlife throughout the year.They say that no one in the British Isles lives more than an hour or two from the coast, a coastline of contrasts with scenery that changes from estuaries, shingle beaches, saltmarshes and sand dunes, to rocky shores, rugged cliffs, machair and bustling harbours.Our shores are teeming with wildlife, be it in the water, on the tideline, clinging to cliffs or in the skies above them, and this beautiful book you can learn more about familiar and favourite coastal species and some intriguing lesser-known marine creatures.Season by season, Celia Lewis''s wonderful illustrations show the flowers, birds, animals, fish and insects found at that time of year. Her craft projects, using driftwood, pebbles and shells, are suitable for all ages and will encourage you to put beachcombed mementos to surprising uses. Or get creative with food and work some foraged ingredients iTrade ReviewThe book is a veritable symphony of the sea. -- Lucy Jones * BBC Wildlife *Artist Celia Lewis's tone is fresh and breezy, but beneath the low-key charm lies a trove of riches and reminders about the UK coast. -- Lucy Jones * BBC Wildlife *Dotted throughout the book are celebrations of glorious British wildlife ... lovingly depicted in exquisite detail making them a joy to pore over. -- Lucy Jones * BBC Wildlife *Lewis captures the spectacular shades of the British coastline with a deft and colourful touch. * BBC Wildlife *This beautifully illustrated book will enhance any visit to the seaside. * Coast *Celia Lewis combines her own beautiful watercolours with informative text, showing how seasons change at the water's edge. Birds, animals, fish and insects - they are all here. * This England *This is an artistic look at life along the seashore. * Bird Watching *The seashore is uncovered season by season in this delightfully illustrated book ... the author's watercolours, linocuts and informative commentary highlight and identify what you might see or pick up during a walk along the tideline or a coastal path. * Choice *This is a visual delight of a book exploring the varied fauna and flora, from small to large, that can be found in the water and onshore around the British coast during the year ... It contains some beautiful watercolours of a wide variety of wildlife from otters and puffins, to porpoise and starfish. * Countryside *We all love spending time near the water's edge, so next time you feel like stretching your legs along a coastal path, fancy a day trip to the seaside or are planning balmy summer holidays, dip into An Illustrated Coastal Year and be inspired by the incredible diversity of wildlife to be found around our little archipelago. * Land Love magazine *A delightful book easy to dip in and out of, that both pleases the eye and educates at the same time. * The Landsman *Table of ContentsPreface Spring Summer Autumn Winter Useful websites Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1899 to Russian Aristocrats, Tamara de Lempicka escaped the Bolsheviks by exchanging her body for freedom, dramatically beginning a sexual career that included most of the influential men and women she painted. This biography is reissued to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of her death.Trade Review'The definitive round-up of de Lempicka's ramshackle but riveting life' Sunday Times 'Claridge is a meticulous, scholarly and sympathetic biographer' Observer 'Lucid and interesting ... a well-deserved and sympathetic account of de Lempicka's life' Independent on Sunday

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Book SynopsisCartoonist and national treasure Ralph Steadman''s unique take on a variety of extinct birds ...When Ceri Levy asked Ralph Steadman to produce one piece of art representing an extinct bird for a recent exhibition, Ghosts of Gone Birds, Ralph said ''yes''. Then ''yes'' again ... and again ... and again.An astonishing 100 paintings later, Extinct Boids was born.Ralph got carried away by the birds, taking Ceri with him ... this book details the discoveries they made on their travels through the savage seas of extinction. After stumbling on the previously hidden Toadstool Island, where the extinct birds of the world live on in secretive harmony, the duo spent nearly a year in close proximity to a host of fantastical avian creatures. Ralph documents them all in this series of remarkable paintings, featuring unique interpretations of well-known birds such as the Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon and Dodo, along with less familiar members of the featTrade ReviewNot since Adam named the beasts ... has anyone so enriched the language of ornithology as Mr. Steadman and his co-author, Ceri Levy, in Extinct Boids. * New York Times *A characteristically madcap and often very funny voyage through the dark tale of extinction. -- Stephen Moss * Daily Mail *While Steadman gives us paintings of the dodo, the great auk and other familiar lost species in burning, unforgettable colours, we also find the nasty tern, the wizened twit, the dickie bird, the jail bird, and the lesser Peruvian blue-beaked blotswerve. The film-maker and conservationist Ceri Levy anchors it all in sanity with an appealing running commentary. -- Michael McCarthy * The Independent *Every turn of the page reveals a bird brought to life in Steadman's inimitable style. * New Scientist *Ralph's remarkable paintings... pay a tribute to some of the most beautiful creatures ever to have lived. * The Lady *Each species is splashed across the page in Steadman’s unique style, accompanied by a witty and informative commentary by Levy. * The Guardian *The illustrator Ralph Steadman has used his weird imagination to conjure up colourful, faded feathered friends. * Leicester Mercury *The national treasure that is Ralph Steadman utilises his trademark cartoon-style to document those “ghost birds” whose demise stands as an indictment of mankind’s destructive tendencies. * Sunday Express *A riotous flight of imagination with a serious message. * Birdwatch *Table of ContentsHis Nibship in the Midship HMS Steadmanitania Ghosts of Gone Birds So I said, then he said, then… Japanese Egret Great Auk North Island Giant Moa Choiseul Crested Pigeon Black Mamo Guadalupe Caracara Mauritius Owl Rodrigues Solitaire Oahu ‘O’o Jamaican Red Macaw Liverpool Pigeon Purple Gallinule South Telly Chat Chatham Rail North Island Takahe Pallas’s Cormorant Dodo Blue Slut Rodrigues Blue-black Throstle Lesser-blotted Bitwing Mauritius Night Heron Mechanical Botanical Spunt Imperial Woodpecker Martinique Amazon Parrot King Island Shtum Orange-beaked Mwit Huia Red-footed Booby Bonin Wood Pigeon St Helena Giant Hoopoe Red-moustached Fruit Dove Snail-eating Coua Ula-’ai-Hawane Greater Amakihi Biship’s ‘O’o Honduras Banana ‘O’o How a Bird is Born Pale Blue Piddle Carolina Parakeet North Island Piopio South Island Piopio Red Rail Moor Pen Needless Smut Réunion Sacred Ibis Quink Spundwick’s Fret Cuban Macaw Labrador Duck Mauritius Blue Pigeon Dusky Seaside Sparrow Lord Howe Swamphen Bar-winged Rail Norfolk Island Kaka Ex-Stink Boid Blue Lidwink Blackened Thront Gould’s Emerald Aldabra Brush Warbler Stephens Island Wren Grand Cayman Thrush Robust White-eye Splindwilf Orange-beaked One-wing Jurassic Atitlán Grebe Laughing Owl Double-banded Argus Lanai Hookbill Humpbacked Blue Mult York Island Fright Chatham Island Bellbird Dieffenbach’s Rail Lord Howe Gerygone Robust White-eye Guam Flycatcher Aldabra Brush Warbler Blue-winded Gasp New Zealand Quail Wizened Twit White-winged Sandpiper Auckland Island Merganser Nasty Tern Gob Swallow Once Bittern Lousy Grudgian Mauritian Shelduck New Zealand Little Bittern Colombian Grebe Mascarene Parrot Channel-beaked Murdoch Cuckoo Broad-billed Parrot Spotted Wingless Strut Mottled Splatwink Angered Maggot Sleet Crested Honeycreeper Pueo ‘Apapane Maui Creeper Omao Common ‘Amakihi Palila Hawaiian I’iwi Hawaiian Ariapola’au Lanai Oloma’o Greater Koa Finch Kona Grosbeak Lanai Hookbill Kioea Laysan Rail Hawaiian Rail Bishop’s ‘O’o Hawaiian Crow Canary Islands Oystercatcher The White-winged Gonner Tanna Ground-dove Spittle’s Yerk Northern Bald Ibis Lesser Peruvian Blue-beaked Blotswerve White-winged Feathered Dinosaur Tristan Moorhen Hawaii Mamo The man who hated birdshit Tahiti Rail Réunion Gallinule White Gallinule Guadalupe Ponce Oceanic Eclectus Parrot Kakawahie Lesser-blotted Kamao Guadeloupe Amazon Parrot Oahu Nukupu’u Lesser ‘Akialoa Purple Swamphen White Gallinule Tahiti Sandpiper Yooo-eeee Bluebreast Dickie Bird Nested Lemon Tweet Jail Bird Yuleiptopede Nativitaurus Willychick Tweet Long-legged Shortwing Passenger Pigeon Orange Thronk Pink Twisted Thrisp Branch Fling Schwing Pink Rotten Scrawl Random Blotted Slumley Splattered Shag Desert Bluebeak Pink-headed Duck Giant Elephant Bird Green Twot Yellow Twet Pink Twit ‘Smy Egg Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisIn the first volume to collect the paintings and drawings of Clarence Major, readers are offered six decades of unique, colourful, and compelling canvases and works on paper-works of singular beauty and social relevance. These works represent Major's personal painterly journey of passionate commitment to art.

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Book SynopsisNamed a Best Gift Book by InStyle Nathalie Lété is the rare artist whose work is so distinctive and widely appealing that she has become a global brand, having garnered a cultlike following for her unique pop- and folk-art aesthetic. Lété’s iconic work has been immortalized by companies around the world that clamor for her products and seek her out for collaborations: Anthropologie has been selling her housewares for over a decade; she has designed textiles for Issey Miyake; her accessories are sold in high-end boutiques like Astier de Villate in Paris and Isetan, the trendiest department store in Tokyo. Now, for the first time, Lété has curated over 200 of her best-loved paintings into a covetable magnum opus that will entice those who are discovering her for the first time as well as her legions of fans.Trade Review“Who needs Prozac if you have In the Garden of My Dreams? Lété’s bright, folk art–like paintings of animals, children, flowers, and much more are quite the antidote for the winter blues.”—Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisKnown as the "Rainbow Artist" for the prominent bright motif in his work, Ay-Ô has long referred to this compulsion as his "rainbow hell." Ay-Ô: Happy Rainbow Hell invites readers into the vibrant world of his brilliant art, mind, and imagination, featuring artwork from the first major US museum exhibition devoted to his work.Printed on heavy 100# paper and in 6 colour to achieveAy-Ô''s vibrant colour palette, the book is its own stunning art object. It presents approximately 140 gorgeous illustrations from the Smithsonian''s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, home to the largest US collection of Ay-Ô''s silkscreen prints, and loans from other US institutions along with enlightening catalogue entries to better appreciate each piece. Additionally, the book includes:An essay from Kit Brooks, the Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art, that provides a biography of Ay-Ô; explores the artist''s fluctuating explanations for his rainbow fixation and its simultaneous liberation and restriction; and emphasizes his legacy as an eminent member of Fluxus, an experimental art group in the 1960s and 1970s.An illustrated essay from Ay-Ô''s longtime printer Sukeda Kenryô, where he describes his painstaking work to translate the artist''s designs onto prismatic silkscreen prints, work that can take up to a year to accomplish.A message from the artist Ay-Ô himself.Ay-Ô: Happy Rainbow Hell is a colourful and comprehensive book that pays tribute to an extraordinary career and legacy as luminous as the art itself.

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Book SynopsisIn 1772, upon the death of her second husband, Mary Delany arose from her grief, picked up a pair of scissors, and, at the age of seventy-two, created a new art form: mixed-media collage. Over the next decade, Mrs. Delany produced an astonishing 985 botanically correct, breathtaking cut-paper flowers, now housed in the British Museum and referred to as the Flora Delanica. As she tracks the extraordinary life of Delany-friend of George Frideric Handel and Jonathan Swift-internationally acclaimed poet Molly Peacock weaves in delicate parallels in her own life and, in doing so, creates a profound and beautiful examination of the nature of creativity and art. This gorgeously designed book, featuring thirty-five full-color illustrations, is to be devoured as voraciously as one of the court dinners it describes.

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Book SynopsisA career retrospective on the conceptually complex sculpture of the Canadian Postminimalist Compiling documentation of nearly 40 abstract steel sculptures, as well as drawings and paintings, this monograph introduces the work of Canadian sculptor Royden Rabinowitch (born 1943). Rabinowitch’s approach to sculpture is inspired by his admiration for mathematician Henri Poincaré and his distinction between abstract space and the space of ordinary human experience. Though the forms of his abstract metal and wooden sculptures recall the work of Minimalists such as Richard Serra, his aims greatly diverge from theirs. Grease Cone, reproduced here, consists of a black metal cone covered in grease. The cone itself recalls the purity of form of the Minimalists, but the unevenly applied grease expresses Rabinowitch’s concern with human space insofar as it alters the shape of the sculpture, as a whole, into a messier, asymmetrical form.

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Book SynopsisThe official catalog accompanying the major retrospective at MoCA LA: Henry Taylor creates a grand pageant of contemporary Black life in America Surveying 30 years of Henry Taylor’s work in painting, sculpture and installation, this comprehensive monograph celebrates a Los Angeles artist widely appreciated for his unique aesthetic, social vision and freewheeling experimentation. Taylor’s portraits and allegorical tableaux—populated by friends, family members, strangers on the street, athletic stars and entertainers—display flashes of familiarity in their seemingly brash compositions, which nonetheless linger in the imagination with uncanny detail. In his paintings on cigarette packs, cereal boxes and other found supports, Taylor brings his primary medium into the realm of common culture. Similarly, the artist’s installations often recode the forms and symbolisms of found materials (bleach bottles, push brooms) to play upon art historical tropes and modernism’s appropriations of African or African American culture. Taken together, the various strands of Taylor’s practice display a deep observation of Black life in America at the turn of the century, while also inviting a humanist fellowship that pushes outward from the particular. Raised in Oxnard, California, Henry Taylor (born 1958) took art classes at Oxnard College in the 1980s and studied under James Jarvaise, who became a mentor. From 1984 through 1995 Henry Taylor worked as a psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Mental Hospital (a facility that is now California State University Channel Islands) while concurrently attending the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, where he obtained his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1995. Taylor has had institutional solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 and the Studio Museum in Harlem. He lives and works in Los Angeles.Trade ReviewAn overall commitment to figurative painting in support of his own tribe, to share their stories of joy and hardship, and, more importantly, to relay his own beautiful and unique vision of Blackness, in all its variable parts. -- Terence Trouillot * Frieze *Ever alert to social contradictions, embedded histories, and the gap between public propaganda and private experience, Taylor often graces his subjects with a deliberate equanimity, suggesting only by inference a narrative of quiet, enduring resistance. -- Albert Mobilio * Hyperallergic *Taylor’s scenes of everyday life perform what might be called stop-motion image-making...The picture sticks in your brain, while your body responds to the painterly scene. -- Christopher Knight * Los Angeles Times *Henry Taylor: B Side,’ captures the sweep of Taylor’s career thus far, featuring more than 150 pieces that include drawings and — for the first time in any meaningful way — sculpture, as well as what he calls “painted objects” on small cigarette packs, cereal boxes and beer crates. […] Even his older work has a timelessness that makes it feel contemporary. -- Robin Pogrebin * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisHow Oppenheimer’s complex artworks break down barriers between art, audience and architecture This publication documents the four interactive artworks by New York–based artist Sarah Oppenheimer (born 1972) created for the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in the context of her greater artistic oeuvre. Printed in five color with foil stamping, with striking reproductions and contributions by Tracy L. Adler, Suzanne Keen, Sarah Oppenheimer and Seph Rodney, the book explores the artist’s multifaceted approach to empathy, agency, audience and cocreation, among many other themes in her work. Oppenheimer considers the space of the museum as a site of experimentation, where visitors experience the curiosity and joy of transforming the artworks themselves. In Oppenheimer’s words, “You have to enter the temporal network in order for the work to exist.”

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Book SynopsisA captivating selection of family snapshots taken from his mother's photo albums, Michael Snow’s latest artist’s book illuminates patterns and motifs in the passage of time Over the past half-century, through works such as the milestone avant-garde film Wavelength (1967), Toronto-based artist Michael Snow (born 1928) has explored the nature of perception, consciousness, language and temporality. This last theme is particularly relevant to his latest artist’s book, which is dedicated to the life of his adventurous mother, Marie-Antoinette Françoise Carmen Levesque Snow Roig, whose trove of family photographs provide a narrative throughline here. Snow consolidates his mother’s photo albums, presenting a total of 1,500 images. In a tenderly penned foreword, he explains the simple impetus for the project: “[The photographs] are so beautiful and so historic that I wish to share them with others.” While he has integrated small samples of these albums into his work before—notably figuring in his landmark catalog for the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1970, Michael Snow/A Survey—this volume provides a much larger and more unified selection. As a result, the compiled images tell a more complete biographical story—one that Snow leaves intact on the surface. He brings his own layer of interpretation to the photographs by drawing out patterns within the collection and his mother’s writing. Snow creates an album that is fully his own, embracing, as art historian Martha Langford describes, a “deep understanding and surrender to form.”

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Book SynopsisHaring as activist and egalitarian: a fresh, accessible and dynamic look at one of New York’s most exhilarating artists Lavishly illustrated with essays and reflections by cultural leaders, Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody surveys Haring’s dynamic art practice from 1978 to 1990, shining a bright light on the iconic and beloved artist known for his fluid, uniform lines, intricate compositions and repeating imagery such as the barking dog and radiant baby. Forty years after he came to prominence, Haring’s art continues to garner worldwide recognition, breaking down barriers and spreading joy, while taking on complex issues that remain crucial today, from environmentalism, capitalism and the proliferation of new technologies to religion, sexuality and race. Titled after a quote from Haring’s journals, Art Is for Everybody centers on the artist’s activism, the emphasis he placed on community and his egalitarian approach to art and life. The volume is organized chronologically and thematically, emphasizing Haring’s work made with publics in mind such as the subway drawings and murals, his collaborative practice and his unflinching belief that art is essential in making a better world. Keith Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1958 and arrived in New York from Pittsburgh in 1978, befriending artists including Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. During the 1980s, Haring achieved international recognition and participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. After being diagnosed with HIV in 1988, he focused his activism on the AIDS crisis. Less than two years later, Haring died of an AIDS-related illness.

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Book SynopsisThe first retrospective on a fascinating protagonist of the 1970s Pattern & Decoration movement, who defied Minimalist orthodoxy with humorous multimedia explorations of domesticity and ornament This is the first comprehensive volume on Cynthia Carlson (born 1942), a key artist of the Pattern & Decoration group who responded to Minimalism’s dominance in the 1970s. The work of this group has recently been revisited and reappraised in exhibitions and by art scholarship. A Chicagoan under the influence of the Chicago Imagists, Carlson landed in New York City in 1965 and has exhibited widely (she was included in Lucy Lippard’s seminal 1971 exhibition 26 Contemporary Women Artists at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art). Her interest in the domestic—as a source of shapes and as a realm of familial experiences, chores and memories—intersects with the works of contemporaries ranging from Jennifer Bartlett to Joel Shapiro and Elizabeth Murray. Carlson's utilization of architectural motifs might align at one moment with the vernacular embraced in the buildings of Venturi & Scott Brown and, at another, with the postmodern rehabilitation of Beaux-Arts ornament. Her hand-painted "wallpaper" is considered a significant contribution and influence on contemporary installation art. Carlson’s artistic identity continues to morph: from room-size wallpaper and a life-size gingerbread house to unexpected shaped canvasses, architectural constructions and pet portraits. Whatever she creates, however eccentric, is high-spirited, genial and insightful.

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Book Synopsis“All this must be either surfed or painted”: This is the underlying sentiment behind Raymond Pettibon’s iconic paintings of surfers and waves in this quintessential volume dedicated to the motif. Pettibon is known for his characteristically youthful aesthetic and sharply satirical critique of American culture. Though drenched in cynicism, his work empathizes with the dizzying madness of our own humanity as it engages both so-called high and low culture. Perhaps most poetic of the many motifs present in Pettibon’s oeuvre is the surfer. In 1985 Pettibon began Surfers––a series he continues to work on to this day––popular for its depiction of the lone surfer silently carving “a line of beauty,” along an impossibly large wave. This publication traces a selection of one hundred surfers from the series, from smaller monochromatic works on paper to colorful large-scale paintings applied directly to the wall. For Pettibon’s protagonist in these works—his countercultural hero—surfing exists apart from all else. Momentarily he achieves sublimity on the wave, distant yet synced with turbulent reality. We are forced to confront our own scale: small and feeble in the face of so much sublime power. Pettibon’s lyrical writings on these painted surfaces—both his own and taken from literature—reference his own philosophies and the confusions of reality—he critiques the hypocrisies and vanities of the world he engages. To help navigate, the renowned New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan, perfectly distills the transcendent nature and lack thereof in Pettibon’s work.

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Book Synopsis"Michaël Borremans may be the greatest living figurative painter." —John Vincler, The New York Times "'The Acrobat' provides an opportunity — all too rare on this side of the Atlantic — to see the genius of Borremans in the flesh...It’s painterly magic. A major New York museum retrospective is long overdue." —John Vincler, The New York Times Recalling classical painting, both through technical mastery and choice in subject matter, Borremans’s depictions of the surprising and the bizarre invites a second look. Uncanny scenes of figures looking at blurred acrobatic displays, hooded subjects rendered in Rembrandt-esque lighting, or solemn portraits demonstrate Borremans’s unique vision. In this recent body of work, Borremans continues to draw the viewer in closer with his intimately scaled paintings of mysterious figures in peculiar arenas. Accessible yet full of rich detail, this pocket-size book features fifteen masterful works offering a mystifying narrative. An illuminating text by Katya Tylevich mines the scenes Borremans sets, conjuring the multidimensionality of the works’ emotional power and their unique place in the lineage of art history.

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Book SynopsisA stunning, focused document of Nate Lowman’s work from the past four years. ---------- "Brewing the good, the bad, and the ugly of consumerist modern life in his masterful paintings, Lowman draws a portrait of the times that is equally mischievous and somber." - BOMB Magazine ----------- With an archive of source material amassed and processed over time, Lowman creates slippery, layered images that transform visual referents found in the news, media, and art history. In this volume, Lowman plays with cataclysmic imagery that probes the tensions between the everyday and the extreme, presence and absence, and violence and representation. In his vibrant paintings of digitally rendered hurricane imagery and crime scene photography cataloging the aftermath of the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, he considers the physicality of his medium in connection to the chaos of his subject matter. Spotlighting Lowman’s exhibitions at David Zwirner in London and New York along with other recent work, this monograph includes a text by Lynne Tillman that provides a unique perspective across all bodies of Lowman’s oeuvre. In an interview with Andrew Paul Woolbright for The Brooklyn Rail, Lowman discusses his engagement with representation and meaning, twentieth-century gestural and pop art, slow painting, and American violence.

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Book SynopsisWith a career spanning more than sixty years, the renowned painter Gerhard Richter is one of the greatest artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book celebrates the artist’s continued dedication to experimentation and innovation.The Abstract Pictures were created when Richter, a few years ago, poured colored enamel paints onto a glass plate and allowed them to flow into one another in order to take shapes. He then captured these ephemeral moments with his camera and selected 100 of these “pictures” for inclusion in the book alongside equally abstract texts formed by randomly generated letter combinations.An artwork of its own, this intimate volume inspires both close looking and a beautiful interpretation of abstraction.

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Book SynopsisThe first monograph on the internationally celebrated Nigerian American painter who blends her personal history and African diasporic identity in layered compositions“Critics have often (and rightly) marveled at the care and finesse with which Akunyili Crosby assembles vast multiplicities of time and place into singular sites of visual contestation.” —Frieze Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work unites multiple places and temporalities, reflecting both personal and universal dimensions of contemporary life and, in particular, the intricacies of the African diasporic identity. This first monograph on Akunyili Crosby brings together nearly fifty paintings, made from 2010 to 2023, that chart her methodical practice of layering painted representations of people, locales, and aspects of her own experiences with transferred images sourced from her personal collection, Nigerian publications, and other outlets. Akunyili Crosby reveals and revisits distinct realms, from lush gardens to domestic, interior worlds related to motherhood, family, marriage, the body, and personal identity. New texts from Jareh Das, Helen Molesworth, Jason Rosenfeld, and Drew Thompson focus on a range of themes in Akunyili Crosby’s work, including her visual language and material practice, her mixing of Western and Nigerian imagery and forms, and her use of photography in portraiture and figuration.

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Book SynopsisKayode Ojo?s sculptural installations made of ready-made items prompt reflections on class, consumption, and the fragility of luxury.?There is a sense of urgency in these fleeting collisions between fashion and art. It?s the kind of tenuous exchange between culture and commerce that he does best.? ?W magazine Replete with sequins, chrome finishes, and transparent and reflective surfaces, Ojo?s sleek sculptures move between the related visual languages of delicate minimalism and glittering opulence, foregrounding the transformative power of the material object and its ability to transport its owner through dimensions of time, place, and social status. Sourcing his materials from fast-fashion websites and online shopping hubs, the artist weaves the familiar cadences of searching, scrolling, purchasing, and receiving into his nimble artistic practice. Ojo works instinctively to refashion these items into poetic yet perverse arrangements that make visible the phenomenon of social aspiration, unveiling its double-edged nature as a facilitator of both belonging and instability. Texts in this volume, including a curator?s note by Ebony L. Haynes and an essay by Serubiri Moses, explore Ojo?s influences and examine the consumerism that is both called out by and a central component of the artist?s creative practice.

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed photographer Kosti Ruohomaa is widely known for his photographs of hard scrabble Yankees in mid-century Maine. No one was more acutely aware than Ruohomaa that his work was capturing a way of life that was rapidly fading. Before his work in Maine, however, Ruohomaa started out with Disney, then went on to become a freelance photographer for the Black Star Agency, where he was a regular contributor to Life, National Geographic, Look, and Ladies Home Journal. His true passion, however, was documenting the lives of the people of Maine. In this biography by curator Deanna Bonner-Ganter, of the Maine State Museum, Kosti's life and work is made relevant and important to an audience that may be unfamiliar with his work.

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Book SynopsisA collaborative homage to the visual language of magazine freebies, ads and special offers Taking inspiration from vintage catalogs and classified ads, Everything Must Go! acts as a playful memento mori that compiles writing, photography and illustration in a variety of formats and genres, to celebrate and parody the graphic design and language of freebies, special offers and advertisements. “Are you tired of being burdened by images?” reads one caption. “Cut out this picture and dip it in honey,” proposes another. Dovetailing word and image in a superbly designed mock-magazine layout, this artist’s book originated as a collaboration between photographer and bookmaker Jason Fulford and nine artists at the acclaimed experimental Image Text Ithaca MFA Program. Featuring a letterpress-printed cover in day-glo orange ink, the publication invites viewers to interact with works by Karine Baptiste, Caiti Borruso, Eleanor Eichenbaum, Cable Hoover, Marissa Iamartino, Will Matsuda, Erika Morillo, Michael Popp and Irit Reinheimer. Take what you wish, but Everything Must Go!

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Book SynopsisIn this first published monograph devoted to the work of the Spanish painter and sculptor Ángel Botello, the artist's most illustrious works curated from private collections, museums and the artist''s estate are presented in a collector's edition.Text in English and Spanish.

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Book SynopsisThe Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) is an ambiguous figure in the history of art. Critics and writers such as Vasari, Ruskin and Sartre all placed him in opposition to the established artistic practice of his time, noting that he had abandoned the values that typified the venerable Venetian Renaissance tradition. He was even expelled as an apprentice from the workshop of Titian. This informative and generously illustrated book offers a long-overdue re-evaluation of Tintoretto's unique work and entertaining life.

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Book SynopsisCool, talented and transgressive, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life is just as fascinating as the work he produced.Delve into 1980s New York as this vivid graphic novel takes you on Basquiat’s journey from street-art legend SAMO to international art-scene darling, up until his sudden death. Told through cinematic scenes, this is Basquiat as seen through the eyes of those who knew him, including his father, Suzanne Mallouk, Larry Gagosian and, most importantly, the man himself. Basquiat is a moving depiction of a troubled artist’s life for those interested in both the art and the man who made it.Trade Review"Following his graphic biographies of Billie Holiday and John Coltrane, illustrator Paolo Parisi turns his attention to no wave New York's most famous son. Birthed by street culture but borne aloft by its art crowd, the rise and fall of its most emblematic artist is here visually re-created, putting Basquiat back where he belongs: at the heart of what was, at the time, the pop cultural centre of the world." -- GQ

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Book Synopsis'A rollicking cultural adventure... fascinating and true' Grayson Perry This funny and personal memoir is the account of an audacious attempt by James Birch, a young British curator, to mount the ground-breaking retrospective of Francis Bacon's work at the newly refurbished Central House of Artists, Moscow in 1988. Side-lined by the British establishment, Birch found himself at the heart of a honey-trap and the focus for a picaresque cast of Soviet officials, attachés and politicians under the forbidding eye of the KGB as he attempted to bring an unseen western cultural icon to Russia during the time of 'Glasnost', just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bacon in Moscow is the story of the evolution of an exhibition that was at the artistic and political heart of a sea of change that culminated with the fall of the USSR. 'A rollicking cultural adventure before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the meteoric rise of contemporary art in the nineties' Grayson PerryTrade ReviewPraise for Bacon in Moscow: 'A rollicking cultural adventure before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the meteoric rise of contemporary art in the nineties. James Birch pulls off an artistic coup necessitating endless champagne nights in Soho with Francis Bacon and marathon Moscow vodka sessions with the mysterious Sergei Klokov. Fascinating and true. What a liver!' * Grayson Perry *I absolutely loved reading this audio book - 'recent history' conjured up and delivered with first hand insight and humour, navigating Russian mores and the British art world. -- Richard E GrantGrayson Perry describes this book as a 'rollicking cultural adventure... fascinating and true.' And nothing could, for the art world at least, be truer than this * The Lady *A fascinating memoir * Financial Times *'Darkly funny account of art behind the iron curtain.' * Observer *'Evocative and authentic.' * Observer *'Excellent recall, nicely garlanded with irony, amusement and an intense fondness for Bacon.' * Observer *'Full of eccentric characters and comic incident.' * Times *'An amusing romp that could act as a cautionary tale.' * Mail on Sunday *'Brilliantly entertaining.' * Perspective *'Birch is one of those rare wunderkinds of the art world.' * The Lady *

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Book SynopsisEdouard Vuillard was so secretive that he berated himself for betraying his emotions in conversation. He was a reticent, impassioned man, a timid stalker and a social climbing anarchist, caught in conflicting desires. From the 1880s until the advent of World War II, using styles from academic to Pointillist to Nabi to Fauve, he abundantly revealed his love and hatred in his paintings: models pose beside a plaster torso cast from the Venus of Milo, women appear without faces, anxiety radiates from many masterpieces, while other works were left unfinished for months or years. Drawing on insights and images from Vuillard's still unpublished diaries, Julia Frey takes the reader into Vuillard's private world of cabarets, experimental theatres, holiday resorts and intimate boudoirs, showing how his art reflects his fraught personal relations and his artistic struggles. Frey chooses many of his finest works, from the famous intimate interior scenes to book illustrations and poster designs, and examines his complex relationships with friends such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Stephane Mallarme, Felix Vallotton, and the women he loved: his mother and sister, penniless models and rich men's wives.Trade Review'Frey's biographical account offers a new and intimate look at Vuillard-an artist whose work is central to the history of modern art. Centered on the private life that so characteristically defined Vuillard's painting, the book is engaging and personal, appealing to readers who are both new to and familiar with its subject.'-Britany Salsbury, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 'The title of Julia Frey's Venus Betrayed hints at the provocative reassessment of an artist best remembered for his small scenes of intimate domestic life, and as a bachelor who lived with his mother all her life. "Saint" Vuillard is now seen as much a sinner and indeed haunted individual. Densely illustrated with Vuillard's personal jottings and sketches to full blown paintings, this is a breakthrough in artist biography, offering bold and fascinating interpretations of recurring motifs, gestures and other symbols for Vuillard's ongoing passions and emotional conflicts, to bolster exciting new readings of the artist and the women in his life.'-Gloria Groom, Chair of European Painting and Sculpture, the Art Institute of Chicago

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Book Synopsis The definitive, deluxe art book about Edward Gorey's theater work—from the iconic and Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Dracula to the wildly creative productions to which he devoted the last decade of his life. Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was a prodigious and original artist who published more than one hundred beloved works, including The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest, and Amphigorey, and illustrations that appeared regularly in such publications as The New Yorker and The New York Times and books by authors ranging from Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot to John Updike and Virginia Woolf, among many others. His animated credits for the PBS Mystery! series introduced him to millions of television viewers. In addition to his intricate pen-and-ink drawings and darkly humorous storybooks, Gorey also nurtured a lifelong passion for the performing arts. This volume is th

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