Individual artists, art monographs Books
Hirmer Verlag Georg Baselitz. 100 Drawings: From the Beginning
Book SynopsisOn the occasion of his 85th birthday the famous international German artist Georg Baselitz (*1938) has donated a collection of works on paper to both the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Morgan Library in New York. The publication combines the 100 sheets to create a representative retrospective, providing by virtue of its concentration an important contribution to the understanding of his entire oeuvre. The two extensive sets of drawings and watercolours date from different creative phases from the early 1960s to the present day. Through this direct medium the works provide an intimate insight into the artist’s creative process across the past five decades. An interview with Georg Baselitz conducted to mark this publication provides information about the significance of the works on paper in the genesis of his works and within his oeuvre.
£25.60
Hirmer Verlag Tamara Kostianovsky: Rapacious Beauty
Book SynopsisLatinx artist Tamara Kostianovsky began using her discarded clothes as artistic material shortly after immigrating to the United States, addressing cultural and physical displacement, assimilation and identity, and the brutal history of Latin America. Today, these emotionally charged materials coalesce in a post-colonial vision for an ecological future. Tamara Kostianovsky creates sculptures from textiles that address the relationship between landscapes, the body, and violence. This volume highlights distinct bodies of her work including sculptures of butchered carcasses, slayed birds, and severed trees. Built with layers of texture, colour, and emotion, these works dive head-first into the tension between beauty and horror, confronting histories of systemic violence and transforming them into utopian environments.
£23.96
Hirmer Verlag Eduardo Terrazas: Cosmos
Book SynopsisCosmos: Silence and Infinite offers new approaches on the stunning art works of Eduardo Terrazas’s (1936) art works. Four well known authors present a multidisciplinary vision on the artists ongoing series Possibilities of a Structure. Which suggests at once a curiosity in the fabric of our universe and a profoundly human hope for an underlying rationality behind the chaos of the world. Eduardo Terrazas’s has explored a lifetime’s worth of questions about the nature of the universe through the microcosm of his images. He derives his visual reflections with a basic geometric structure and a technique that is inspired by the Huichol “tablas” from Mexican indigenous tribes. His highly colourful and playful series Possibilities of a Structure – of which Cosmos is a subseries – is ongoing since 1974 and holds over 650 works until today: an artistic exploration of the boundaries of the infinite.
£33.60
Hirmer Verlag Cranach: The Early Years in Vienna
Book SynopsisAround 1500, Lucas Cranach the Elder steps onto the world stage – in Vienna. The publication explores this, the artist’s earliest period of work and presents all the paintings he produced during this time, their expressiveness radically different from the courtly-elegant compositions he subsequently produced as court painter in Wittenberg. Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) produced his earliest works around 1500 in Vienna, shortly before moving to Wittenberg to become court painter to the Elector of Saxony. These brilliant paintings, drawings, and woodcuts document both the thirty-year-old’s close contacts with the humanist circles of Konrad Celtis and Johannes Cuspinian, and identify him as a precursor of the so-called Danube School.
£21.25
Hirmer Verlag Charlotte Berend-Corinth (Bilingual edition)
Book SynopsisQuite apart from her position as the wife and model of Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880–1967) shone as an artist and was, like Käthe Kollwitz, one of the few women members of the Berlin Secession. This bibliophile monograph is dedicated to the highly gifted, successful and unfairly neglected artist and presents an impressive synopsis of her oeuvre. Berend-Corinth pursued a remarkable career with ultra-modern, radical subjects in the Berlin of the 1910s and 1920s until her Jewish descent compelled her to leave Germany and to emigrate to the United States. Her early work, in which she captured the permissive mood of the Berlin art and theatre scene during the 1910s and 1920s, represents one main area of focus, as do the later portraits of famous personalities of her time and some of her remarkable self-portraits, still lifes and landscape pictures.
£23.96
Hirmer Verlag The Works of George Bolster
Book SynopsisThis monograph examines the multidisciplinary practice of conceptual Irish artist George Bolster, who addresses the crises facing our species, and our willingness to live in the past through belief systems. Bolster’s ambitious immersive text and image works encompass film, installation, tapestry and photography. When Will We Recognize Us examines the practice of research-based artist George Bolster, who addresses the crises facing our species, long-term conservation of art objects as they relate to climate change, our ignorance of tangible reality, and our willingness to live in the past through outmoded belief systems. Bolster’s ambitious multidisciplinary text and image works encompassing film, and installation, conducted in concert with a range of scientists have resulted in pieces that philosophically address astronomy, and our self-appointed place in evolution.
£23.96
Hirmer Verlag Mary Mattingly: What Happens After
Book SynopsisMary Mattingly is a visual artist. She founded Swale, an edible landscape on a barge in New York City. Docked at public piers but following waterways common laws, Swale circumnavigates New York's public land laws, allowing anyone to pick free fresh food. Swale instigated and co-created the "foodway" in Concrete Plant Park, the Bronx in 2017. The "foodway" is the first time New York City Parks is allowing people to publicly forage in over 100 years. It's currently considered a pilot project. Mattingly recently launched Public Water with More Art and completed a two-part sculpture “Pull” for the International Havana Biennial with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, two spherical ecosystems that were pulled across Habana to Parque Central and the museum. In 2018 she received a commission from BRIC Arts Media to build "What Happens After" which involved dismantling a military vehicle (LMTV) that had been to Afghanistan and deconstructing its mineral supply chain. A group of artists including performance artists, veterans, and public space activists re-envisioned the vehicle for BRIC. In 2016 Mattingly led a similar project at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2014, an artist residency on the water called WetLand launched in Philadelphia and traveled to the Parrish Museum. It was employed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Environmental Humanities program until 2017. Mary Mattingly’s work has also been exhibited at Storm King, the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Palais de Tokyo. Her work has been featured in Aperture Magazine, Art in America, Artforum, Art News, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Financial Times, Le Monde Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Brooklyn Rail, and on BBC News, MSNBC, NPR, WNBC, and on Art21. Her work has been included in books such as the Whitechapel/MIT Press Documents of Contemporary Art series titled “Nature” and edited by Jeffrey Kastner, Triple Canopy’s Speculations, the Future Is... published by Artbook, and Henry Sayre’s A World of Art, 8th edition, published by Pearson Education Inc.
£40.00
Hirmer Verlag Stéphane Zaech: Nefertiti
Book SynopsisThe artist monograph presents a representative overview of the artistic work of Stéphane Zaech (* 1966). His paintings are technically sophisticated and are created through an investigation of the works of the old masters –Titian, Velasquez and Picasso. At the same time he distorts the “classical” picture types and translates them into contemporary art. Portraits of women artists painting, clad in a denim miniskirt and with flip-flops on their feet: Stephane Zaech’s works skilfully attract our attention – often through the bodies of his mostly female protagonists with their surreal addition of supernumerary arms and eyes. The facial expressions and gestures are invariably self-confident. The impressively designed monograph assembles over 100 paintings which were created in the past 10 years, permitting us to immerse ourselves in the fascinating world of Stephane Zaech.
£29.96
Hirmer Verlag Heinrich Campendonk
Book SynopsisThe youngest member of the Blauer Reiter group was overshadowed for a long time by fellow painters such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, and Paul Klee. But in recent years, Heinrich Campendonk has enjoyed an unparalleled rediscovery and a new critical assessment of his extensive oeuvre. Biermann described Campendonk’s early work as a unique symphony of color and rhythm. Just a few years later, his pictures would be defamed as “degenerate,” driving him into exile in the Netherlands, where he remained until his death in 1957. In this beautiful volume, the author reveals Campendonk to be one the most fascinating artists of the last century, bringing to life the extraordinary overlap of his artist development with his life and times.
£9.95
Hirmer Verlag Frida Kahlo
Book SynopsisLife and work of the artist and style icon Frida Kahlo in a compact overview. Frida Kahlo has become an icon of art with her powerfully expressive work. Her pictures not only reflect a view of herself, her fears, the biography of her illness, her passions and her joie de vivre; they also take up subjects which were regarded by society as taboo. As a pioneer of the feminist movement, this Mexican artist serves women the world over as a figure of identification. Pride and strength, vulnerability and bitterness all lie close to each other in Frida Kahlo’s art. Her self-portraits, which make up the principal part of her work, not infrequently show a charismatic woman dressed in traditional Tehuana costume, which the artist wore as a visible sign of her culture and her Mexican roots, but also to hide her wounds. Kahlo’s biography had a direct influence on her subjects: her not uncomplicated marriage to the artist Diego Rivera, her tragic accident, and her childlessness, loneliness and grief.
£9.95
Hirmer Verlag Lyonel Feininger
Book SynopsisA classic of modernism – a new Feininger retrospective in the light of current knowledge Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) was a painter, graphic artist and caricaturist. From 1919 he served as one of the original masters at the Bauhaus in Weimar and later in Dessau. In 1937 he emigrated to New York, where he worked until the end of his life. In addition to his famous Expressionist images of architecture, the publication presents all the facets of his oeuvre and stations of his life based on the latest research. With some 140 paintings, drawings, caricatures, watercolours, woodcuts, photographs and objects from all creative phases, the volume presents a comprehensive picture of Feininger’s work which is also examined for its topicality. Lines of development and subjects which characterised his work are discussed in detail by means of key works in contributions by international authors. In particular his early paintings are evaluated, alongside the latest research into the significance of photography in the creative work of the Bauhaus artist.
£40.00
Hirmer Verlag The Faces of Egon Schiele: Self Portraits
Book SynopsisThe artistic gaze into the mirror – Egon Schiele personally and in close-up. Many artists share the desire for involvement with the self and their own appearance. In the oeuvre of Egon Schiele, self-portraits occupy a central role. Over a period of many years Schiele recorded himself in various poses and styles. This publication focuses in detail on this crucial and yet often only marginally mentioned aspect of his art. Egon Schiele’s contorted and eccentric figures are among the world’s iconic images. For many of these works he and his own body served as model. His interest often lay not in his own self, but more generally in the position of the individual in the changing modern world. As in experimental arrangements, Schiele poses in a variety of roles. In doing so he “uses” his face and wears it like a mask. The publication offers a comprehensive representation of this life theme of the artist genius.
£28.00
Hirmer Verlag Lotte Laserstein: A divided life
Book SynopsisComprehensive view and new research on the fascinating painter of New Objectivity. The German-Swedish painter Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993) is one of the most exciting rediscoveries of recent years. The richly illustrated book with essays on Laserstein’s production in Berlin and her reception in Sweden as well as unpublished documentary material can enrich the existing knowledge of Laserstein’s life and work. Laserstein’s current reputation as a great realist has assigned her an undisputed place in the 20th-century art history. Striking portraits, self-portraits and sensual nudes demonstrate her synthesis of traditional painting style and modern subject matter in the Berlin period.
£36.00
Hirmer Verlag Lotte Laserstein (Swedish edition): A Divided
Book SynopsisLaserstein’s current reputation as a great realist has assigned her an undisputed place in the 20th-century art history. Striking portraits, self-portraits and sensual nudes demonstrate her synthesis of traditional painting style and modern subject matter in the Berlin period.
£36.00
Hirmer Verlag Wolfgang Laib: The Beginning of Something Else
Book SynopsisAn extraordinary collection of texts and images compiled by Wolfgang Laib. Wolfgang Laib: The Beginning of Something Else combines texts that are particularly important for the artist’s creative work, together with a variety of selected images. Included are, for example, passages from the "Epic of Gilgamesh", a poem by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, and thoughts by Friedrich Nietzsche. The texts and images are combined to create an unusual publication, which reflects Wolfgang Laib’s (b. 1950) interest in literature as well as some of the most important sources of inspiration for his sensitive work. This collection reveals Wolfgang Laib in a subtle and personal way. It sheds light on an artist whose work, which dates back to the 1970s, has questioned our treatment of nature, and thus could not be more topical.
£28.00
Hirmer Verlag Gottfried Helnwein
Book Synopsis“I am not aiming to provoke. For me, art is a possibility to defend myself, to retaliate.” Gottfried Helnwein’s (b. 1948) paintings of children are both touching and disturbing. The hyperrealistic character of his images serves to intensify this effect still further. The vulnerable and defenseless child serves as the central motif in the artist’s examination of the themes of pain, injury and violence. The catalogue provides an overview of his creative work during the past twenty years. The child in Helnwein’s works embodies and serves as proxy for psycho logical and societal fears. The artist also uses his images to denounce Nazism or to address the Holocaust as well as the taboo subject of abuse. Helnwein is considered a provocateur to this day. He still succeeds in shaking up people with his works, which are produced from photographic references and which captivate us through their technical perfection.
£28.00
Hirmer Verlag Taking a Stand: Käthe Kollwitz: With
Book SynopsisRaw, unprettified and decried in conservative circles as “gutter art”: Käthe Kollwitz employed her art uncompromisingly as a political voice for the social and human misery of her time. Her focus always lay on the dignity of humankind. The volume provides a wide-ranging insight into the commitment and creative work of the artist, whose achievements are more topical than ever. The book covers the entire spectrum of Kollwitz’ creative work with the world-famous cycles of graphic works A Weavers’ Revolt and Peasants’ War, rare proofs and moving drawings and sculptures, thereby showing all facets of her masterful skills. The political dimension of Kollwitz’ art becomes tangible in a particularly impressive manner through her posters. The unbroken validity of her work is demonstrated in a juxtaposition with the interventions by the artist Mona Hatoum (b. 1952), which revolve around topics such as vulnerability, persecution and the experience of conflict.
£33.60
Hirmer Verlag Afterglow
Book Synopsis
£28.00
Hirmer Mack Reflected
Book SynopsisAlistair Hudson is a curator who works internationally and is the artistic head of research at the ZKM Karlsruhe. Contributions by H. Böhme, A. Hudson, K. Kern, D. Mille and L. Fruk, H.-U. Obrist, C. Runge, S. Sotke and M. Meier-Grüll, W. Ullrich.
£37.42
Hirmer Verlag Francesco Clemente: The Tarots
Book SynopsisThe work of painter Francesco Clemente has always drawn on many esoteric traditions. He finds inspiration in a variety of visual languages, ranging from the Tantric diagrams of India to the 'Candomblé' ceremonial implements of Brazil.
£23.96
Prestel Leonardo: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisAlthough less than twenty of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are known to exist today, some of them - the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, along with his drawing of the Vitruvian Man - are among the most identifiable, reproduced, and popular works in the world. This monograph explores Leonardo as not just a painter but also a scientist, naturalist, architect, and engineer, showing how the artist's oeuvre reflected his boundless curiosity and imagination. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details - allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.
£9.49
Prestel Van Gogh: Still Lifes
Book SynopsisFrom his first compositions to the colorful flower images of his late years, Vincent van Gogh repeatedly painted still lifes. In this genre, he could try out various pictorial techniques – from depicting space through light and shadow to experimentation with color. Although many of his still life compositions employed traditional approaches to the genre, he ultimately formulated an unmistakably unique artistic style. This lavishly illustrated book revisits the development of Van Gogh’s career and focuses on his still-life paintings, offering new insights into the working process and creative evolution of one of the most radical innovators in the history of modern art.
£31.99
Prestel Gerhard Richter: Abstraction
Book SynopsisThis publication is the first to focus solely on the abstract strategies and processes contained in Gerhard Richter’s body of work. In the early 1960s, the artist began to call painting into question, an exploration that continues to occupy him to this day. In the 1970s, he responded to the rejection of painting by creating a series of monochrome works in gray. Moreover, he viewed the colour gray as a means of addressing political themes without depicting them in an idealized manner. In his Inpainting series of the 1970s, Richter made brushstrokes and the application of paint his subject. In other works, he photographed small details from his palette and transferred them onto large canvases in a photorealistic manner. In his colour charts, he subjected painting to an objective process by leaving the arrangement of the colours to chance. Since 1976, Richter has created a series of abstract works by applying paint with a brush, scraper, and palette knife, alternating between conscious decision-making and random processes.
£24.75
Prestel Paula ModersohnBecker
Book SynopsisThis exhibition catalog considers the work of a pioneering artist who subverted conventions in her bold depictions of the nude, self-portraits, and still-lives. An iconoclast in her own time, Modersohn-Becker is today considered an icon of modernity. Throughout her career, Paula Modersohn-Becker boldly experimented with styles while steadfastly pursuing the truth of everyday life and her own female experience. This monograph looks at the entire spectrum of her work-figure drawings, still-lifes, self-portraiture, landscape, nudes, and portraits of young girls and old women-to illustrate the evolution of an artist reacting to seismic cultural change at the turn of the nineteenth century. Whether she was embracing or subverting the principles of realism, naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, or expressionism, Modersohn-Becker remained interested in issues of identity, peeling away outer layers to uncover what she understood as the true essence of life. This book features numerous exampl
£36.00
Prestel Roy Lichtenstein
Book SynopsisThis kaleidoscopic exhibition catalog celebrates Lichtenstein’s multifaceted career—from his iconic achievements in the Pop Art movement and beyond.Published to mark the centennial of Lichtenstein’s birth, this retrospective volume is brimming with brilliant reproductions that highlight the entirety of the artist’s oeuvre. It features the acclaimed works that helped establish 1960s pop art—panels inspired by comic strips and advertising, which send up societal stereotypes. It looks at his pioneering use of painted benday dots and carefully drawn and in-filled brushstrokes, his interiors and landscapes, re-stagings of still lifes, his expansion into sculpture and ceramics, and works that pay homage to famous artists such as Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. Throughout this magnificent catalog readers will com
£36.00
Prestel Maurice de Vlaminck
Book Synopsis
£32.00
Prestel Publishing Marina Abramovic Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places
£262.50
Prestel Irma Stern: African in Europe - European in
Book SynopsisThe vivid and powerful expressionist paintings of Irma Stern were a key factor in the modernization of early 20th-century South African art. Although she was widely recognized during her lifetime, Stern's posthumous fame has dwindled outside her home country, and this beautifully produced monograph serves to correct that injustice. A master of color and composition, Stern is best known for her portraits and still lifes that reflected her passion for travel and devotion to home. Drawing from letters, journals, the artist's own illustrated travelogues as well as the latest scholarship, this volume traces Stern's childhood in South Africa and her family's flight to Germany in the wake of the South African War (1899-1902). Readers will learn of her artistic development at the center of Weimar, Germany's expressionist avant-garde, her return to her homeland and the derisive reaction to her early work, and finally her productive travels throughout the African continent and the acclaim she achieved. The book also focuses on the political and cultural forces that shaped Stern's work, including the unification of South Africa, the rise of expressionism in Germany, the interplay between indigenous and colonial art in the African continent, and Stern's continued influence on contemporary South African artists.
£16.99
Prestel Frida Kahlo: The Painter and Her Work
Book SynopsisThis definitive appreciation of Kahlo's career features gorgeous full-page reproductions and insightful commentary to illuminate connections between the artist's life and work. Few painters have been as celebrated and adopted into popular culture as Frida Kahlo-often to the detriment of her amazing achievements as a painter. In this striking volume, one of the world's foremost scholars on Kahlo's art looks past the hype to focus on the artist's technique and motifs. Reproductions of Kahlo's paintings, along with selected details, are accompanied by illuminating observations about the role of physical and mental suffering in the creative process, Kahlo's mastery and reinvention of European traditions, and the wealth of coded and metaphorical elements hidden in so much of her work. A rich and rewarding exploration of an artist all too easily reduced to a single narrative, this nuanced study is also an exquisitely produced celebration of Kahlo's genius.
£28.00
Prestel Marina Abramovic: Nomadic Journey and Spirit of
Book SynopsisNever before published, this self-curated, intensely personal collection of travel notes and sketches by the world's most revered performance artist offers readers a kind of iconography of Abramovic 's daring and utterly original body of work. An artist's notebooks are arguably the most authentic means of understanding her process, techniques, and impulses. And, for a performance artist, a rare, permanent record of how she develops her craft. Compiled over the course of four decades on stationery from various hotels, and other temporary residences, this collection of Marina Abramovic 's original drawings, collages, poetry, writings, cut-outs, photographs and doodles offers glimpses of a brilliant mind in constant motion. Beautifully produced and packaged, it takes readers on a journey through Abramovic 's thoughts-and traces the evolution of the most fruitful phase of her career. "I believe we humans need to keep moving forward, and my own life was purely nomadic," Abramovic writes of her travel diaries. "My home was everywhere I went because my home was my own body." With the archival material elegantly reproduced in their original size on high-quality paper, this collection offers Abramovic 's enormous fanbase unprecedented access to her creative process.
£32.00
Prestel Art Forms from the Abyss: Ernst Haeckel's Images
Book SynopsisFrom jewellery designers to scientists, graphic artists to naturalists, the range of people inspired by Ernst Haeckel's illustrations continues to grow. Following up on Prestel's Art Forms in Nature and Art Forms from the Ocean, this new collection features startlingly beautiful images created by Haeckel, who was commissioned to contribute to the report of the HMS Challenger expedition, which circumnavigated the world from 1872-76. The Challenger's achievements were unparalleled, with nearly 5,000 new species discovered and catalogued from the depths of Earth's oceans. Full-page reproductions bring these organisms colourfully to life, drawing readers into a world at once hypnotic and highly ordered. Divided into three sections-Siphonophores, Medusae and Radiolarians-these illustrations display Haeckel's remarkable artistic skill and understanding of the architecture of organic matter. The authors provide a brief history of the Challenger expedition, background on Haeckel's scientific and artistic accomplishments, as well as informative texts on each group of organisms.A guide to the natural world and an inspiration to artists of every stripe, this collection of Haeckel's work is a fitting tribute to a 19th century genius.Trade ReviewHopefully it will introduce a new generation of artists and designers to the forms found in the plankton. Overall it is wonderful book and the authors are to be commended for their efforts. November, 2015 'Book Review' Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.
£19.12
Prestel Leonardo Da Vinci: The Complete Paintings in
Book SynopsisShedding new light on the renowned Renaissance artist, this book examines all of da Vinci's known paintings using recent advances in technology and the latest art historical research. While Leonardo da Vinci is one of history's most studied and renowned artists, there are many myths surrounding his work. Beginning with his birth and early maturity in the workshops of the Florentine masters, Alessandro Vezzosi delves into the provenance of disputed works such as Madonna Litta and La Bella Principessa. He demonstrates how recent advances in technology have aided researchers in studying and restoring da Vinci's art--including uncovering forgeries--and he explores the artist's scientific achievements in the fields of optics and paint composition. An exquisitely produced plate section looks at the most significant aspects of da Vinci's work, and offers numerous comparative examples in the form of archival documents, preparatory studies, and contemporary paintings. A fitting tribute to da Vinci, this wide ranging book applies 21st-century knowledge to help answer centuries-old questions about the Renaissance genius.Trade Review…With only 18 reliable attributed extant paintings, how are we still talking about the painter today? Complete Paintings presents an in-depth catalog of those 18 works, plus a stylistic and historical reevaluation, including new theories based on current technology and recently discovered historical documents." –Library Journal
£48.75
Prestel Vincent van Gogh
Book SynopsisAnyone studying a Van Gogh painting with its heavily articulated brushstrokes, dazzling color, and hypnotic perspective will wonder about the artist who created such masterpieces. Although some details of the Dutch artist’s brief and tragic life have been mythologized into popular culture, this book takes a deeper look at Van Gogh’s personal history and oeuvre. Drawing on Van Gogh’s personal correspondence, this book allows readers to experience the artist’s life and work simultaneously, with brilliant reproductions of his most famous and lesser-known works. In addition, it provides valuable information about where readers can view Van Gogh’s work in museums throughout the world. Art lovers will find much to discover in this appealing and accessible overview of one of the world’s most compelling figures.
£13.49
Prestel Schiele: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisEgon Schiele left an enormous artistic legacy that is all the more powerful for the brevity of his career. Isabel Kuhl’s lively text follows Schiele’s trajectory from an artist in the Art Nouveau style to a powerful interpreter of human sexuality and considers the many hardships, including exile and even imprisonment, faced by Schiele as a young and rebellious artist with a singular vision. Gorgeous reproductions of his most emblematic works are presented chronologically, allowing readers to appreciate the evolution of Schiele’s radical style, his uncanny use of colour and line, and his willingness to confront an oppressive society. From unflinching portraits to precisely detailed landscapes, Schiele’s artistry shines through on every page.
£9.49
Prestel Kahlo: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisAlthough her body of work is relatively small, Frida Kahlo has inspired adoration and admiration that few other artists have attained. This accessible and elegant book offers full page reproductions of a selection of her works, allowing for a broad appreciation of Kahlo’s use of color, composition, and texture. The biographical text informs readers of her early career, when a bus accident left her bedridden and plagued by pain, but also afforded her the chance to discover herself through painting. It follows her life, her personal relationships, and her years in America. Eckhard Hollmann explores the many themes and images of Kahlo’s work, from physical and emotional pain, to Mexican and indigenous folklore, to the flora and fauna of her beloved home. Never shying away from expressing her deepest fears and desires, championing the downtrodden with dignity and passion, Frida Kahlo remains an inspiration to any artist aiming to be true to herself while struggling against personal and political limitation.
£9.49
Prestel Hiroshige: Famous Places in the Sixty-odd
Book SynopsisThe last great master of the ukiyo-e tradition, Hiroshige produced works of subtle yet intense color. This collection of prints, first published in the 1850s, contains images of each of Japan’s provinces. Created during Hiroshige’s highly productive later years, this series was an ambitious project that captured a crucial moment in Japan’s history, a decade before the Meiji Restoration would open the doors to industrialization and Western influence. One of its most striking characteristics is the vertical presentation, which allowed Hiroshige to experiment with perspective. His sweeping panoramas of the beautiful countryside combine the illusion of distance with a depth of detail that draws the viewer in. In addition to these glorious landscapes, Hiroshige’s depictions of busy urban centers provide a rare insight into daily life in the Edo era. This beautiful slip- cased edition includes two volumes: a complete set of seventy prints and a separate booklet that provides an introduction to Hiroshige’s life and art as well as descriptive captions of the prints. From thundering waterfalls and towering cliffs to wide beaches and bustling harbors, Hiroshige’s native land emerges in serene and exquisite detail—the perfect keepsake for fans of ukiyo-e, Japanese culture, and printmaking.
£21.24
Prestel Dalì: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisAlthough Salvador Dalí’s characteristically provocative behavior and bizarre pictorial language made him an outlier in high society, his body of work reflects his century’s most important innovations and concerns. This introduction to Dalí’s work features dozens of exquisite reproductions as it traces the artist’s development, life and career. Readers will learn how he was influenced by contemporaries Miró, Ernst, and de Chirico as well as by Raphael and Gaudí. It explores his early adoption of Surrealism, his fascination with the subconscious, and his antipathy toward war. It illustrates how Dalí’s return to the Catholic church and his interest in nuclear and atomic physics was manifested in his paintings; how he experimented in film and, later, even created holograms. By making Dalí’s often perplexing art accessible to audiences of every level, this engaging introduction helps readers understand why he remains one of the most influential—and imitated—artists of all time.
£9.49
Prestel Holbein: Masters of Art
Book Synopsis16th-century Europe was a time of unprecedented economic expansion, cross-cultural trade, religious upheaval, warring empires, and scientific advancement. With unfettered access to the court of Henry VIII, Hans Holbein had a front-row seat to the royal drama and intrigue, and his detailed, highly narrative portaits tell us much about aristocracy. This volume features dozens of full-page reproductions of Holbein's key works accompanied by extensive commentary that explores his masterful portraits of prominent European figures such as Thomas More, Erasmus, and Thomas Cromwell. It also reveals the artist's talent in other media, such as woodcuts, frescoes, jewelry, and metalwork. Reproductions of these items, as well as Holbein's exquisite, palm-sized miniatures and his highly detailed studies in pencil, chalk, and ink illuminate an artist of unparalleled versatility and impressive commercial acumen.
£9.49
Prestel Klimt: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisThe story of Klimt's astonishing artistic career is told in this beautifully produced collection of reproductions, photographs and drawings with an accompanying text that places the artist in a unique historical moment and reflects his fierce appetite for life and beauty. Gustav Klimt's career straddled the last gasps of Vienna's golden age and the birth of modernism. When seen through this bifurcated lens, it is easy to understand why his relatively small oeuvre created such a lasting impact. This gorgeously illustrated biography explores the unique environment in which Klimt worked-a society in which the schooling of artists was both appreciated and encouraged; a city that was pouring money into magnificently ornate architecture and portraiture; a population that was both experimenting with and suppressing freedom of thought. The full breadth of Klimt's accomplishments is represented here-history and symbolist paintings, building decorations, murals, posters, magazine illustrations, portraits, and landscapes. Readers will learn how Klimt navigated the complex architecture of fin-de-sie cle Vienna and helped found the Vienna Secession and they will see how Klimt's style and motifs changed extensively through the years. Dozens of key works allow for close inspection of Klimt's dazzling artistry, his profound appreciation of female sensuality and his brilliant application of color and mosaic. The author draws out the importance of the relation between the plane surfaces of Klimt's paintings and the spaces they represent, thereby raising surprising connections between his painting and his skills in the applied arts. Compact and satisfying, this book traces a singular artist's trajectory across an ever-changing cultural landscape.
£9.49
Prestel Magritte: Masters of Art
Book SynopsisThroughout his career, Magritte subverted expectations about artists in the world by disguising himself as an unremarkable member of the bourgeoisie. While the public mined his work for symbolism and deep meaning, the truth is, that with Magritte, what you see is what you get. What readers will get with this gorgeous volume is a deeply engaging overview of Magritte’s entire career, and an eloquent argument that his Surrealist masterpieces were simply an extension of the Romantic tradition. Chronologically arranged, this volume features full- page reproductions of thirty-five works, each paired with a concise text that highlights its significance in Magritte’s catalog. In addition to greatest hits, such as Time Transfixed, 1938; The Treachery of Images, 1929; and The Lovers, 1928, the inclusion of several lesser-known works provides an overview of the range and character of Magritte’s art. Readers will become acquainted with the main figures in the artist’s life, including relatives, colleagues, rivals, and they will see how Magritte’s relationships with collectors and dealers led to the production of particular works, as well as how his theories about painting evolved over the years. Across this compact but utterly satisfying book, Magritte’s exquisite use of color, his grasp of collage and composition, and his superb gifts for invention and mood are luminously and thrillingly in evidence.
£9.49
Prestel Feeling Seen: The Photographs of Campbell Addy
Book SynopsisCandid and personal, dazzling with color and immediacy, this first and only monograph of a rising star of the photography scene features work from major labels and magazines, outtakes from shoots, and newly commissioned texts by Edward Enninful and Ekow Eshun on the importance of authentic diversity behind and in front of the camera. From major portraits of the likes of Kendall Jenner, FKA Twigs, and Tyler, the Creator to cover shoots for leading magazines such as Time, Rolling Stone, and Garage, Campbell Addy has quickly become one of the most in-demand photographers of his generation. The book opens with a foreword by British Vogue's editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, discussing the powerful intersection of photography, race, beauty, and representation. This is followed by a broad selection of Addy's striking photographs, which range from prominent fashion and magazine commissions to candid portraiture. Featuring recognizable cover shots alongside unpublished outtakes and unseen photography, viewers are afforded insight into Addy's creative process on set. Quotes from leading Black figures including Naomi Campbell and Nadine Ijewere are woven between Addy's striking imagery, in which these trailblazing Black creatives reflect on the first time they felt seen in their industry. The book closes with a deeper exploration of Addy's more personal imagery and influences, paying tribute to the heritage of Black photographers through the work of Ajamu and James Barnor. In conversation with curator and writer Ekow Eshun, Addy balances his own experiences as a queer, Black photographer who left his Jehovah's Witness family home at sixteen with broader questions of identity, intimacy, and art which face many creatives today. Charged with energy, compassion and authenticity, this inaugural monograph signals a major talent whose influence and stature will only grow with time.
£31.99
Taschen GmbH Lichtenstein
Book SynopsisAmerican painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era. With his groundbreaking use of industrial production techniques and trivial, quotidian imagery such as cartoons, comic strips, and advertising, Lichtenstein joined contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist to reflect and satirize American mass media and consumer culture. Works such as Look, Mickey! (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and Whaam! (1963) deployed mass production techniques, particularly Ben-Day dots printing, to create a blow-up effect and pixelated “dot” style, with which Lichtenstein has become synonymous. This book provides an essential overview of Lichtenstein’s career, tracing his earliest Pop statements through to later “brushstroke” retorts to Abstract Expressionism and reinterpretations of modern masterpieces. We look at his leading position in midcentury modernism, and the ways in which his works both critique and chronicle 20th-century America.
£14.25
Taschen GmbH Velázquez
Book SynopsisCourt painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 1599 – August 6, 1660) is not only a leading light of the Spanish Golden Age, but among the most celebrated masters in all Western art history. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí all hailed his influence. Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Velázquez’s importance is found particularly in his naturalist approach, in contrast to the more ubiquitous idealized manner of his age. Early works included numerous “bodegones”, genre scenes of everyday life in early 17th century Spain, in which warm, rich tones and textures set off the most ordinary of subjects and humble of faces, such as Old Woman Frying Eggs. Later, his portraiture for the Royal Court brought the same naturalism to the highest echelons of society, marking a profound shift in the depiction of royalty with softer, more relaxed poses that offered his subjects a human warmth and character as much as a sense of grandeur. Velázquez’s most famous work, Las Meninas, was also painted in the royal court, but in its enigmatic composition raises many broader questions about reality and illusion and the relationship between the painter, painting, and viewer. This fresh TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 edition introduces Velázquez through key works from throughout his career. From humble genre scenes to the royal portraits, the exquisite Rokeby Venus nude, and the ever-mysterious Las Meninas, we explore his exceptional attention to composition, masterful handling of tone, and his remarkable influence as, in Manet’s words, “the greatest painter of all.”
£14.25
Taschen GmbH Manet
Book SynopsisLampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Manet’s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city’s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Déjeuner sur l’herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal. This richly illustrated book introduces Manet’s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.
£14.25
Taschen GmbH Michelangelo. The Complete Paintings, Sculptures
Book SynopsisBefore reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) had already sculpted Pietà and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the achievements of this Italian master are unique—no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multifaceted, and wide-ranging œuvre. This fresh TASCHEN edition traces Michelangelo’s ascent to the cultural elite of the Renaissance. Ten richly illustrated chapters cover the artist’s paintings, sculptures, and architecture, including a close analysis of the artist’s tour de force frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.Full-page reproductions and enlarged details allow readers to appreciate the finest details in the artist’s repertoire, while the book’s biographical essay considers Michelangelo’s more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor.Trade Review“If a visit to the Sistine Chapel is not on the cards, this magnificent book is the next best thing…” * The Sunday Express Magazine *
£17.00
Taschen GmbH The Little Book of Tom. Military Men
Book SynopsisWhen we think Tom of Finland we first picture muscular, macho young men in military gear. Tom’s vision of masculine perfection was formed during his service as an officer during World War II. Though he served in the Finnish air force, it was the German troops, stationed in Finland to help the country repel invading Russian forces, which served as inspiration. After all, only the Germans had uniforms created by Hugo Boss, tightly tailored, replete with designer touches, and complimented by high, shiny black leather boots. Tom, at 19, was smitten, an obsession that deepened following his first sexual experiences with German officers in the blackout streets of Helsinki. Tom began putting his military fantasies on paper in 1945 to memorialize his thrilling nighttime encounters when the war ended. At first the Hugo Boss uniforms dominated, but as the years and then decades passed he included American naval uniforms as well, and then his own hybridized designs of black leather, jodhpurs, boots, and peaked caps, with military insignia replaced by Tom’s Men patches. As Tom attracted an army of loyal fans, he created, with pencil, pen and gouache, an army of free, proud, masculine fantasy men committed to pleasure and male camaraderie. The Little Book of Tom: Military Men explores Tom’s fascination with militaria through a mixture of multi-panel comics and single-panel drawings and paintings, all in a compact and affordable 192 pages. Historic film stills and posters, personal photos of Tom, sketches, and Tom’s own reference images explore the cultural context and private inspirations behind the ultimate Tom of Finland hero.
£14.25
Taschen GmbH Georg Baselitz
Book Synopsis
£60.00
Arnoldsche Sverre Bjertnaes: Works
Book SynopsisSverre Bjertnaes was higly influenced by realistic painter Odd Nerdrum, although he now merges figurative and abstract painting. Mid-career overview of the work of one of the leading contemporary Norwegian artists today. The development of the artist is presented across 14 chapters comprising work and exhibition views. Sverre Bjertnaes is considered one of the leading contemporary Norwegian artists today. He himself often refers to his body of works as a fragmented 'stream of images' collected from art history, vernacular culture and his own life. This authoritative monograph on the artist features his oeuvre from the 1990s to the present day, with more than 200 illustrations. The book presents the full range of Bjertnaes's works, covering painting and drawing as well as sculpture and the tableaux installations he has developed in later years. Bjertnas embraces the conceptual approaches of photorealism as well as merging figurative and abstract painting, and experimenting with the use of new media.
£48.60
