Search results for ""TASCHEN""

This volume is a comprehensive visual history of surfing, marking a major cultural event as much as a publication. Following three and a half years of meticulous research, it brings together hundreds of images to chart the evolution of surfing as a sport, a lifestyle, and a philosophy.The book is arranged into five chronological chapters, tracing surfing culture from the first recorded European contact in 1778 by Captain James Cook to the global and multi-platform phenomenon of today. Utilizing institutions, collections, and photographic archives from around the world, and with accompanying essays by the world’s top surf journalists, it celebrates the sport on and off the water, as a community of 20 million practitioners and countless more devotees, and as a leading influence on fashion, film, art, and music.An unrivaled tribute to the breadth, complexity, and richness of surfing, this book is a must-have for any serious player on the surfing scene and anybody who aspires to the surfing lifestyle. As one surfing scribe has declared, “There has never been a book like this, and there will never be another one again.”

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Discover the completely unique aesthetic of Tadao Ando, the only architect ever to have won the discipline’s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize.Philippe Starck defines him as a “mystic in a country which is no longer mystic.” Philip Drew calls his buildings “land art” as they “struggle to emerge from the earth.” His designs have been described as haiku crafted from concrete, water, light, and space. But to Ando, true architecture is not expressed in metaphysics or beauty, but rather through space that embodies physical wisdom.This thoroughly updated edition spans the breadth of his entire career, including such acclaimed new projects as the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the Nakanoshima Children’s Book Forest in Osaka. Each project is profiled through photographs and architectural drawings to explore Ando’s unprecedented use of concrete, wood, water, light, space, and natural forms.Featuring designs from award-winning private homes, churches, museums, and apartment complexes to cultural spaces throughout Japan, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, and the USA, this XXL-edition brings you up close and personal with a Modernist master.

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Toward the end of his monumental career as a painter, sculptor, and lithographer, an elderly, sickly Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for long. In this late phase of his life—he was almost 80 years of age—he developed the technique of “carving into color,” creating bright, bold paper cut-outs. Though dismissed by some contemporary critics as the folly of a senile old man, these gouaches decoupées (gouache cut-outs) in fact represented a revolution in modern art, a whole new medium that reimagined the age-old conflict between color and line. This edition of the first volume of our original award-winning XXL book provides a thorough historical context to Matisse’s cut-outs, tracing their roots to his 1930 trip to Tahiti and continuing through to his final years in Nice. It includes many photos of Matisse, as well as some rare images by Henri Cartier-Bresson and the filmmaker F. W. Murnau, with texts by Matisse, publisher E. Tériade, the poets Louis Aragon, Henri Michaux, and Pierre Reverdy, and Matisse’s son-in-law Georges Duthuit. In their deceptive simplicity, the cut-outs achieved both a sculptural quality and an early minimalist abstraction, which would profoundly influence generations of artists to come. Exuberant, multi-hued, and often grand in scale, these works are true pillars of 20th-century art, and as bold and innovative to behold today as they were in Matisse’s lifetime.

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From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of japonaiserie that first enthralled France and, later, all of Europe—but often remains misunderstood as an “exotic” artifact that helped inspire Western creativity. The fact is that the Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon of which there exists no Western equivalent. Some of the most disruptive ideas in modern art—including, as Karl Marx put it, that “all that is solid melts into air”—were invented in Japan in the 1700s and expressed like never before in the designs of such masters as Hokusai, Utamaro, and Hiroshige in the early 19th century. This volume, derived from the original XXL monograph, lifts the veil on a much-loved but little-understood art form by presenting the most exceptional Japanese woodblock prints in their historical context. Ranging from the 17th-century development of decadent ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” to the decline and later resurgence of prints in the early 20th century, the images collected in this edition make up an unmatched record not only of a unique genre in art history, but also of the shifting mores and cultural development of Japan. From mystical mountains to snowy passes, samurai swordsmen to sex workers in shop windows, each piece is explored as a work of art in its own right, revealing the stories and people behind the motifs. We discover the four pillars of the woodblock print—beauties, actors, landscapes, and bird-and-flower compositions—alongside depictions of sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, or enticing courtesans—rock stars who populated the “floating world” and whose fan bases fueled the frenzied production of woodblock prints. We delve into the horrifying and the obscure in prints where demons, ghosts, man-eaters, and otherworldly creatures torment the living—stunning images that continue to influence Japanese manga, film, and video games to this day. We witness how, in their incredible breadth, from everyday scenes to erotica, the martial to the mythological, these works are united by the technical mastery and infallible eye of their creators and how, with tremendous ingenuity and tongue-in-cheek wit, publishers and artists alike fought to circumvent government censorship. As part of our 40th anniversary series, this edition compiles the finest extant impressions from museums and private collections across the globe in a lightweight, accessible format, offering extensive descriptions to guide us through this frantic period in Japanese art history.

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The most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) made his name with etchings of ancient Rome. His startling, chiaroscuro images imbued the city’s archaeological ruins with drama and romance and became favorite souvenirs for the Grand Tourists who traveled Italy in pursuit of classical culture and education. Today, Piranesi is renowned not just for shaping the European imagination of Rome, but also for his elaborate series of fanciful prisons, Carceri, which have influenced generations of creatives since, from the Surrealists to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka. Loosely based on contemporary stage sets rather than the actual dingy dungeons of Piranesi’s day, these intricate images defy architectural reality to play instead with perspective, lighting, and scale. Staircases exist on two planes simultaneously; vast, vaulted ceilings seem to soar up to the heavens; interior and exterior distinctions collapse. With a low viewpoint and small, fragile figures, the prison scenes become monstrous megacities of incarceration, celebrated to this day as masterworks of existentialist drama.

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In 2016, sportswear manufacturer Nike and fashion designer Virgil Abloh joined forces to create a sneaker collection celebrating 10 of the Oregon-based company’s most iconic shoes. With their project The Ten—which reimagined icons like Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Force 1, and Air Presto, among others—they reinvigorated sneaker culture. Virgil Abloh’s designs offer deep insights into engineering ingenuity and burst with cultural cachet. Drawing on the genius of the original shoe using lettering, ironic labels, collage, and sculpting techniques, Abloh played with language and sculptural elements to construct new meaning. Inspired by the wit of Dadaism, architectural theory, and avant-garde happenings, he analyzed what makes each shoe iconic and deconstructed it into an artistic assemblage, making each shoe into a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once. ICONS traces Abloh’s investigative, creative process through documentation of the prototypes, original text messages from Abloh to Nike designers, and treasures from the Nike archives. We find Swooshes sliced away from Air Jordans and reapplied with tape or thread, Abloh’s typical text fragments in quotation marks on Air Force 1, and All Stars cut into pieces. We take a look behind the scenes and witness Abloh’s DIY approach, which gave each model in the Off-WhiteTM c/o Nike collection its own unique touch. His deconstructive vocabulary is reflected in the Swiss binding, which showcases an open spine and discloses the production of the book. The book documents Abloh’s cooperative way of working and reaffirms the power of print. For its design Nike and Abloh partnered with the acclaimed London-based design studio Zak Group. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, equal parts catalog and conceptual toolbox. The first part of the book presents a visual culture of sneakers while a lexicon in the second part defines the key people, places, objects, ideas, materials, and scenes from which the project grew. Texts by Nike’s Nicholas Schonberger, writer Troy Patterson, curator and historian Glenn Adamson, and Virgil Abloh himself frame the collaborative work within fashion and design history. A foreword by Hiroshi Fujiwara places the project within the historical continuum of Nike collaborators.

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Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German-born biologist, naturalist, evolutionist, artist, philosopher, and doctor who spent his life researching flora and fauna from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean. A vociferous supporter and developer of Darwin’s theories of evolution, he denounced religious dogma, authored philosophical treatises, gained a doctorate in zoology, and coined scientific terms which have passed into common usage, including ecology, phylum, and stem cell. At the heart of Haeckel’s colossal legacy was the motivation not only to discover but also to explain. To do this, he created hundreds of detailed drawings, watercolors, and sketches of his findings which he published in successive volumes, including several marine organism collections and the majestic Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), which could serve as the cornerstone of Haeckel’s entire life project. Like a meticulous visual encyclopedia of living things, Haeckel’s work was as remarkable for its graphic precision and meticulous shading as for its understanding of organic evolution. From bats to the box jellyfish, lizards to lichen, and spider legs to sea anemones, Haeckel emphasized the essential symmetries and order of nature, and found biological beauty in even the most unlikely of creatures. In this book, we celebrate the scientific, artistic, and environmental importance of Haeckel’s work, with a collection of 300 of his finest prints from several of his most important tomes, including Die Radiolarien, Monographie der Medusen, Die Kalkschwämme, and Kunstformen der Natur. At a time when biodiversity is increasingly threatened by human activities, the book is at once a visual masterwork, an underwater exploration, and a vivid reminder of the precious variety of life.

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With investigations into everything from black holes to exoplanets, the Hubble Telescope has changed not only the face of astronomy but also our very sense of being in the universe. On the 30th anniversary of its launch into low-earth orbit, this updated edition of Expanding Universe presents 30 brand new images, unveiling more hidden gems from the Hubble’s archives. Ultra-high resolution and taken with almost no background light, these pictures have answered some of the most compelling questions of time and space while also revealing new mysteries, like the strange “dark energy” that sees the universe expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The collection is accompanied by an essay from photography critic Owen Edwards and an interview with Zoltan Levay, who explains how the pictures are composed. Veteran Hubble astronauts Charles F. Bolden, Jr. and John Mace Grunsfeld also offer their insights on Hubble’s legacy and future space exploration.

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Pop artist, painter of modern life, landscape painter, master of color, explorer of image and perception—for six decades, David Hockney has been known as an artist who always finds new ways of exploring the world and its representational possibilities. He has consistently created unforgettable images: works with graphic lines and integrated text in the Swinging Sixties in London; the famous swimming pool series as a representation of the 1970s California lifestyle; closely observed portraits and brightly colored, oversized landscapes after his eventual return to his native Yorkshire. In addition to drawings in which he transfers what he sees directly onto paper, there are multiperspective Polaroid collages that open up the space into a myriad of detailed views, and iPad drawings in which he captures light using a most modern medium—testaments to Hockney’s enduring delight in experimentation. This special edition has been newly assembled from the two volumes of the David Hockney: A Bigger Book monograph to celebrate TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary. Hockney’s life and work is presented year by year as a dialogue between his works and voices from the time period, alongside reviews and reflections by the artist in a chronological text, supplemented by portrait photographs and exhibition views. Together they open up new perspectives, page after page, revealing how Hockney undertakes his artistic research, how his painting develops, and where he finds inspiration for his multifaceted work.

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To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story. For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands—mystics and artists often working in collaboration—have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium. Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in Tarot, the debut volume in TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind more than 500 cards and works of original art, two thirds of which have never been published outside of the decks themselves. It's the first ever visual compendium of its kind, spanning from Medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of Tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of nearly 100 diverse contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward. Rounding out the volume are excerpts from thinkers such as Éliphas Lévi, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell; a foreword by artist Penny Slinger; a guide to reading the cards by Johannes Fiebig; and an essay on oracle decks by Marcella Kroll.

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Photographs have a strange and powerful way of shaping the way we see the world. The most successful images enter our collective consciousness, defining eras, making history, or simply touching something so fundamentally human and universal that they have become resonant icons all over the globe. To explore this unique influence, Photo Icons puts some of the most important photographic landmarks under the microscope. From some of the earliest photography, such as Nicéphore Niépce’s 1827 eight-hour-exposure rooftop picture and Louis Daguerre’s famous 1838 street scene, through to Martin Parr, this is as much a history of the medium as a case-by-case analysis of its social, historical, and artistic impact. We take in experimental Surrealist shots of the 1920s and the gritty photorealism of the 1930s, including Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. We witness the power-makers (Che Guevara) and the heartbreakers (Marilyn Monroe) as well as the great gamut of human emotions and experiences to which photography bears such vivid witness: from the euphoric Kiss in Front of City Hall (1950) by Doisneau to the horror of Nick Ut’s Napalm Against Civilians showing nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phúc running naked toward the camera from South Vietnamese napalm.

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He’s been called a genius and a poet, but also a misogynist, a pornographer, a monster—but Nobuyoshi Araki’s work transcends simple moralistic classifications. He has said of his work: “There is no conclusion. It’s completely open. It doesn’t go anywhere.” One of the greatest Japanese photographers of our time, Araki’s oeuvre is marked by an unmistakable mastery of composition, color, and tone. Meaning “the beauty of tight binding,” Kinbaku-bi, the traditional Japanese art of erotic bondage has long fascinated the photographer, becoming one of his most important subjects. Araki plays with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire and with the slippage between serene image and shock. Whether literally or figuratively, his models are certainly immobilized, but in the most tantalizing ways—girls lay bound but defiant, suspended from the ceiling, in traditional dress or nude, face-on, sometimes with a flower subtly positioned between their legs. Araki picks his all-time favorite images of bondage. The result is a testament to his ability to tantalizing balance sexual vulnerability and seduction like no other.

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Following up on the best-selling Bibliotheca Universalis logo manual, this second volume focuses on corporate identity. In a globalized world, more and more symbols convey values ​​such as trust, quality, or reliability. This catalog comprehensively breaks down how texts, images, and ideas are condensed into distinctive brands. From airlines and groceries, sportswear and computers, museums, and magazines, to car brands, music labels, pharmaceuticals, and internet portals, this band offers around 4,500 brand logos including complete background information about designers, year of origin, and country, as well as brands and companies. A great reference book for anyone interested in the ideas and concepts that branding is based on.

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Album art is indelibly linked to our collective musical memories; when you think of your favorite albums, you picture the covers. Many photographers, illustrators, and art directors have become celebrities from their album artworks—the best examples of which will go down in history as permanent fixtures in popular culture. Paying tribute to this art form, Rock Covers brings you a compilation of more than 750 remarkable album covers, from legendary to rare record releases. Artists as varied as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, The Cure, Iron Maiden, and Sonic Youth are presented in celebration of the cover art that defined their albums and their cult status. Each cover is accompanied by a fact sheet listing the art director, photographer or illustrator, year, label, and more, while nearly 250 records that marked particular turning points for a band, an artist, or the music genre, are highlighted with short descriptions. This far-reaching catalog of visualized rock is contextualized with insider interviews with professionals who shaped the history of rock, and by top-10 record lists from ten leading rock collectors.

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Through the turbulent passage of time, graphic design—with its vivid, neat synthesis of image and idea—has distilled the spirit of each age. Surrounding us every minute of every day, from minimalist packaging to colorful adverts, smart environmental graphics to sleek interfaces: graphic design is as much about transmitting information as it is about reflecting society’s cultural aspirations and values. This second volume rounds off our in-depth exploration of graphic design, spanning from the 1960s until today. About 3,500 seminal designs from across the globe guide us in this visual map through contemporary history, from the establishment of the International Style to the rise of the groundbreaking digital age. Around 80 key pieces go under the microscope in detailed analyses besides 118 biographies of the era’s most important designers, including Massimo Vignelli (New York subway wayfinding system), Otl Aicher (Lufthansa identity), Paula Scher (Citibank brand identity), Neville Brody (The Face magazine), Kashiwa Sato (Uniqlo brand identity), and Stefan Sagmeister (handwriting posters). With his sweeping knowledge of the field, author Jens Müller curates the standout designs for each year alongside a running sequence of design milestones. Organized chronologically, each decade is prefaced by a succinct overview as well as a stunning visual timeline, offering a vivid display of the variety of graphic production in each decade as well as the global landscape which it at once described and defined. This collection of important graphic works represents a long-overdue reflection on the development of a creative field constantly changing and challenging itself. These key pieces act as coordinates through contemporary history, helping us trace the sheer influence of graphic design on our daily lives. Combined with Volume One—which spans from the field’s very beginnings until 1959—the tomes offer the most comprehensive exploration of graphic design to date.

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The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities is one of the 18th century’s greatest natural history achievements and remains one of the most prized natural history books of all time. Though scientists of his era often collected natural specimens for research purposes, Amsterdam-based pharmacist Albertus Seba (1665–1736) was unrivaled in his passion. His amazing collection of animals, plants, and insects from all around the world earned him international fame. In 1731, after decades of collecting, Seba commissioned careful and often scenic illustrations of every specimen. With these meticulous drawings, he arranged for the publication of a four-volume catalog, covering the entire collection from strange and exotic plants to snakes, frogs, crocodiles, shellfish, corals, birds, and butterflies, as well as creatures that are now extinct. Taken from a rare hand-colored original, the best-selling collection features an introduction that contextualizes the fascinating tradition of natural collections to which Seba’s curiosities belonged.

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French flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) devoted himself exclusively to capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as copper engravings, with careful botanical descriptions. The darling of wealthy Parisian patrons including Napoleon’s wife Josephine, he was dubbed “the Raphael of flowers,” and is regarded to this day as a master of botanical illustration. This elegant catalogue brings together all engravings from Redouté’s illustrations of Roses and Choix des plus belles fleurs (Selection of the Most Beautiful Flowers) and the most astounding images from The Lilies. Offering a vibrant overview of Redouté’s admixture of accuracy and beauty, it is also a privileged glimpse into the magnificent gardens and greenhouses of a bygone Paris.

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In a fleeting 14-year period between two world wars, Germany’s Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideas for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology, which they applied across media and practices from film to theater, and sculpture to ceramics. This best-selling reference work is made in collaboration with the Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin, the world’s largest collection on the history of the Bauhaus. Some 575 illustrations including architectural plans, studies, photographs, sketches, and models record not only the realized works but also the leading principles and personalities of this idealistic creative community through its three successive locations in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin. From informal shots of group gymnastics to drawings guided by Paul Klee, from extensive architectural plans to an infinitely sleek ashtray by Marianne Brandt, the collection brims with the colors, materials, and geometries that made up the Bauhaus vision of a “total” work of art. This is a defining account of Bauhaus' energy and rigor, not only as a trailblazing movement in Modernism but also as a paradigm of art education, where creative expression and cutting-edge ideas led to simultaneously functional and beautiful creations. The handy edition features artists Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, Walter Gropius, Gertrud Grunow, Paul Klee, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich, and many more.

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Raphael (1483–1520) is considered the most important artist of the Italian High Renaissance alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo. In his short lifetime he created around one hundred paintings and numerous frescoes, including nine fresco cycles, on an unsurpassed variety of themes – from sensual female beauties, antique myths and portraits of wealthy Romans and church dignitaries to history cycles and biblical scenes. He produced altarpieces, as well as designing tapestries for the Sistine Chapel and directing the construction of St Peter’s Basilica. His Sistine Madonna is one of the most frequently reproduced religious paintings of all time. Raphael was a tireless learner, for whom there could be no standing still, no repetition of tried and tested solutions, but only the constant forward thrust of an inexhaustible imagination. He transformed his central theme, the visionary experience of divine grace, into visible pictorial reality. It was his mature work in Rome, and above all the frescoes in the Vatican Palace, that secured him his place in art history. Admired even during his own lifetime as the most modern artist of his day, Raphael’s mastery would pave the way for Mannerism and the Baroque era. This XXL edition is the most comprehensive work published on Raphael. The volume encompasses in total 112 paintings and all the frescoes, architectural projects and tapestries in many new photographs and numerous details, as well as the most extensive catalogue raisonné of the artist’s oeuvre. A team of Raphael experts introduces the reader also to the fascinating interplay of art and power in the High Renaissance.

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The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/31–1569) was an astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, who made his art historical mark with beautiful, evocative landscapes as well as religious subjects, both notable for their vernacular language and attention to everyday, contemporary life. Immersing himself in rural or small-town communities, Bruegel is particularly notable for his depiction of peasant experience and folk culture, earning the artist nickname “Peasant Bruegel.” Whether hunters shivering in the snow or a boisterous country fair, Bruegel raised the farming, festivals, gatherings, and games of peasant culture to the status of high art. Bruegel’s imposing religious and moral subjects, meanwhile, such as The Triumph of Death and The Tower of Babel are as awestriking and influential today as they were in the 16th century, inspiring contemporary culture from The Lord of the Rings cinematic battle scenes to Don DeLillo’s novel Underworld. From the corn harvest to the conversion of Saul, from quaint wedding processions to Christ’s road to Calvary, this book brings together the rich range of Bruegel’s subjects to introduce his powerful compositions of both biblical and earthly tableaux.

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Flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) devoted himself exclusively to capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as copper engravings, with careful botanical descriptions. The darling of wealthy Parisian patrons including Napoleon’s wife Josephine, he was dubbed “the Raphael of flowers,” and is regarded to this day as a master of botanical illustration. This collection brings our best-selling XL-sized edition to a smaller, more convenient format, still gathering some of the finest color engravings from Redouté’s illustrations of Roses, Lilies, and Choix des plus belles fleurs et quelques branches des plus beaux fruits (Selection of the Most Beautiful Blooms and Branches with the Finest Fruits). Offering a vibrant overview of Redouté’s admixture of accuracy and beauty, it is also a privileged glimpse into the magnificent gardens and greenhouses of a bygone Paris.

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In his distinguished career as a Hollywood photographer, Bob Willoughby captured Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda, but remains unequivocal about his favorite subject: Audrey Kathleen Ruston, later Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, best known as Audrey Hepburn. Willoughby was called in to shoot the new starlet one morning shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in 1953. It was a humdrum commission for the portraitist often credited with having perfected the photojournalistic movie still, but when he met the Belgian-born beauty, Willoughby was enraptured. “She took my hand like… well a princess, and dazzled me with that smile that God designed to melt mortal men’s hearts,” he recalled. As Hepburn’s career soared following her Oscar-winning US debut in Roman Holiday, Willoughby became a trusted friend, framing her working and home life. His historic, perfectionist, tender photographs seek out the many facets of Hepburn’s beauty and elegance, as she progresses from her debut to her career high of My Fair Lady in 1963. Willoughby’s studies, showing her on set, preparing for a scene, interacting with actors and directors, and returning to her private life, comprise one of photography’s great platonic love affairs and an unrivalled record of one of the 20th century’s touchstone beauties.

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From Snow White to Cinderella, Rapunzel to Rumpelstiltskin, the Brothers Grimm bequeathed a canon of stories which have become literary and childhood classics. The most widely read story collection after the Bible, their magical tales are stalwarts of early learning and imagination, listed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register as a vital part of our history and culture.This new edition of The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm brings to life 14 of the most beloved Grimm stories, including classics such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel. In a unique design format, each featured tale is paired with a different illustrator, bringing special pictorial splendor to each story. Featured artists include such masters of pictorial invention as Kay Nielsen, Walter Crane, and Viktor Paul Mohn, as well as many new discoveries. Historic and contemporary silhouettes—many commissioned especially for this anthology—further animate the tales, dancing across the page like delicate black lace.The book also contains a foreword on the Grimms’ legacy and brief introductions to each fairy tale. For adults and children alike, this beautiful compilation brings the eternal magic of the Grimms’ stories to the heart of every home.The following fairy tales are featured in the book:The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Brave Little Tailor, Cinderella, Mother Holle, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, The Star Coins, Puss ’n Boots, The Golden Goose, The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

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Sebastião Salgado’s masterpiece Genesis is the result of an epic eight-year expedition to rediscover the mountains, deserts, and oceans, the animals and peoples that have so far escaped the imprint of modern society—the land and life of a still pristine planet. The Genesis project, along with the Salgados’ Instituto Terra, is dedicated to showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done to it, and preserving it for the future. On over 30 trips—by foot, light aircraft, boats, canoes, and even balloons, through extreme temperatures and in sometimes dangerous conditions—Salgado has created a collection of images showing us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in such intense beauty it takes our breath away. The reach is truly global. Through Salgado’s lens, one discovers the animal species and volcanoes of the Galápagos; the penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators and jaguars; and African lions, leopards, and elephants. We travel over icebergs in the Antarctic, the volcanoes of Central Africa, the ravines of the Grand Canyon, and the glaciers of Alaska. We encounter the Stone Age Korowai people of West Papua, nomadic Dinka cattle farmers in Sudan, Nenets and their reindeer herds in the Arctic Circle, as well as the Mentawai jungle communities on islands west of Sumatra. In characteristic monochrome, Salgado’s painterly notes are perfectly tuned to these sublime scenes, capturing sweeping aerial panoramas as much as the most intricate details and textures, from a reptilian skin to the fur coat of the Nenet people of northern Siberia. The exquisitely reproduced images are arranged not by theme but rather conceived as a journey around the globe, immersing them in Salgado’s vision of the Earth’s mesmerizing scale, order, and beauty.

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Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite winning critical acclaim. Some even said her audacious, futuristic designs were unbuildable. During the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a unique new architectural language to cities and structures as varied as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, hailed by The New York Times as “the most important new building in America since the Cold War”; the MAXXI Museum in Rome; the Guangzhou Opera House in China; and the London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre. At the time of her unexpected death in 2016, Hadid was firmly established among the elite of world architecture, recognized as the first woman to win both the Pritzker Prize for architecture and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, but above all as a giver of new forms, the first great architect of the noughties. From her early sharply angled buildings to later more fluid architecture that made floors, ceilings, walls, and furniture part of an overall design, this essential introduction presents key examples of Hadid’s pioneering practice. She was an artist, as much as an architect, who fought to break the old rules and crafted her own 21st-century universe.

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The 20th century saw fashion evolve from an exclusive Parisian salon business catering for the wealthy elite into a global industry employing millions, with new trends whisked into stores before the last model has even left the catwalk. Along the way, the signature silhouettes of each era evolved beyond recognition. For women, House of Worth crinolines gave way to Vionnet’s bias-cut gowns, Dior’s New Look to Quant’s Chelsea Look, Halston’s white suit to Frankie B.’s low-rise jeans. In menswear, ready-made suits signaled the demise of bespoke tailoring, long before Hawaiian shirts or skinny jeans entered the game.20th-Century Fashion offers a retrospective of the last hundred years of style via 400 fashion advertisements from the Jim Heimann Collection. The images trace not only the changing trends but also the evolution in their marketing and audience, as fashion was adopted into popular culture and the mass market, decade by decade. An in-depth introduction and illustrated timeline detail the style-makers and trendsetters, and how historic events, design houses, retailers, films, magazines, and celebrities shaped the way we dressed—then and now.

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Founded in 1848 as a secret society, the Pre-Raphaelites rejected classical ideals and the dominant artistic genre painting of their era for what they saw as a more spiritual, sincere, and naturalistic approach. Founded by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, they evolved into a seven-member “brotherhood” that included poets and critics as well as painters. Moving away from the classical compositions exemplified by Raphael (hence the group’s name), the Pre-Raphaelites rather turned to medieval culture and the jewel-like colors of Quattrocento art for inspiration. Their principal themes were initially religious, but also included subjects from literature and poetry, as exemplified by Sir John Everett Millais’s famous Ophelia, drawn from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Inspired by the theories of John Ruskin, they were also committed to the close study of nature. This book presents key works from the Pre-Raphaelite group to introduce their reactionary principles, their dazzling colors, their interest in love, death, and nature, and their extensive influence on latter-day Symbolism and beyond.

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Hailed the “Prince of the Impressionists”, Claude Monet (1840-1926) transformed expectations for the purpose of paint on canvas. Defying the precedent of centuries, Monet did not seek to render only reality, but the act of perception itself. Working “en plein air” with rapid, impetuous brush strokes, he interrogated the play of light on the hues, patterns, and contours and the way in which these visual impressions fall upon the eye. Monet's interest in this space “between the motif and the artist” encompassed too the ephemeral nature of each image we see. In his beloved water lily series, as well as in paintings of poplars, grain stacks, and the Rouen cathedral, he returned to the same motif in different seasons, different weather conditions, and at different times of the day, to explore the constant mutability of our visual environment. This book offers the essential introduction to an artist whose works simultaneously reflected upon the purpose of a picture and the passage of time, and in so doing transformed irrevocably the story of art.

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With meticulous theories and many thousands of paintings, drawings, and watercolors, Paul Klee (1879–1940) is considered one of the most cerebral and prolific leaders of 20th-century European art. Though typically small in scale, his works are remarkable for their sophisticated thought and meticulous nuances of line, color, and tonality. Klee’s stylistic formation was shaped by early affiliation with the German expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter and, in particular, by a 1914 trip to Tunisia which transformed his use of color. After the war, he taught at the esteemed Bauhaus school, where his lectures, like his emerging practice, emphasized the symbolic potential of shade, line, and geometry. Klee was also inspired by Cubism, poetry, music, literature, language, and the simplistic power of children’s art. Famed for his simple stick figures, he often combined the appearance of untutored naïveté with rigorous composition and intellectual significance. This book provides a selection of key Klee works to introduce his style and influence. From sun-drenched landscapes to enigmatic wordplay, discover a world at once simplistic, symbolic, and dazzlingly colorful.

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Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is something of an American success story, if only his success had come swifter. At the age of 40, he was a failing artist who struggled to sell a single painting. As he approached 80, Time magazine featured him on its cover. Today, Hopper is considered a giant of modern expression, with an uncanny, unforgettable, and utterly distinct sense for mood and place. Much of Hopper's work excavates modern city experience. In canvas after canvas, he depicts diners, cafes, shopfronts, street lights, gas stations, rail stations, and hotel rooms. The scenes are marked by vivid color juxtapositions and stark, theatrical lighting, as well as by harshly contoured figures, who appear at once part of, and alien to, their surroundings. The ambiance throughout his repertoire is of an eerie disquiet, alienation, loneliness and psychological tension, although his rural or coastal scenes can offer a counterpoint of tranquility or optimism. This book presents major works from Hopper's œuvre to introduce a key player not only in American art history but also in the American psyche.

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Leading graphic designer Yang Liu brings the way we were face to face with the way we are. Reissued in four languages, Today meets Yesterday deploys vivid pictogram pairings to explore the transformations, and the challenges, of our ever-evolving world. Liu has made her name with a combination of graphic precision and incisive observation of behavior patterns. In Today meets Yesterday, her eye for tastes and trends takes ambitious scope, juxtaposing past with present to explore fundamental shifts in society. Along the way, we encounter the tussle between competing ideologies, historic and current global dangers, our interaction with the environment, and the wholesale impact of technology on our ways of living, learning, and loving, from online retail to the rise of the “smombie.” With an eye on everything from geopolitics to concentration spans, Liu’s panorama incorporates the details of daily experience as much as the momentous happenings in history. Through Facebook, food waste, collectivism, and much more, Today meets Yesterday casts the familiar situation in a crisp and discerning light, bringing fresh awareness, as well as some ironies, to who we are and where we came from.

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A veritable folk hero in Latin America and Mexico’s most important artist—along with his wife, painter Frida Kahlo—Diego Rivera (1886–1957) led a passionate life devoted to art and communism. After spending the 1910s in Europe, where he surrounded himself with other artists and embraced the Cubist movement, he returned to Mexico and began to paint the large-scale murals for which he is most famous. In his murals, he addressed social and political issues relating to the working class, earning him prophetic status among the peasants of Mexico. He was invited to create works abroad, most notably in the United States, where he stirred up controversy by depicting Lenin in his mural for the Rockefeller Center in New York City (the mural was destroyed before it was finished). Rivera’s most remarkable work is his 1932 Detroit Industry, a group of 27 frescos at the Detroit Institute of Art in Michigan. This volume features numerous large-scale details of the murals, allowing their various components and subtleties to be closely examined. In addition to the murals is a vast selection of paintings, vintage photos, documents, and drawings from public and private collections around the world, many of which the whereabouts were previously unknown to scholars and whose inclusion here is thanks to the most intense research performed on Rivera’s work since his death. Texts include an illustrated biography and essays by prominent art historians offering interpretations of each mural. One could not ask for a more comprehensive study of Rivera’s oeuvre; finally his work is the subject of the sweeping retrospective it deserves.

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Mysterious and mathematical at once, the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) has captivated scientists and scholars and made its mark on popular culture, inspiring book covers, album art, films, posters, and puzzles. This set puts Escher’s tessellated wonders right at your fingertips with 17 easy-to-assemble paper sculptures. Folding along the score lines, you can transform the artist’s richly geometric designs into three-dimensional polyhedra with forming and reforming patterns, including genius arrangements of flowers, butterflies, lizards, and seashells. The book includes a review of the geometric principles and artistic invention underlying Escher’s optical marvels as well as concise instructions.

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This tome is the most comprehensive visual history of surfing to date, marking a major cultural event as much as a publication. Following three and a half years of meticulous research, it brings together hundreds of images to chart the evolution of surfing as a sport, a lifestyle, and a philosophy. The book is arranged into five chronological chapters, tracing surfing culture from the first recorded European contact in 1778 by Captain James Cook to the global and multi-platform phenomenon of today. Utilizing institutions, collections, and photographic archives from around the world, and with accompanying essays by the world’s top surf journalists, it celebrates the sport on and off the water, as a community of 20 million practitioners and countless more devotees, and as a leading influence on fashion, film, art, and music. An unrivaled tribute to the breadth, complexity, and richness of surfing, this book is a must-have for any serious player on the surfing scene and anybody who aspires to the surfing lifestyle. As one surfing scribe has declared, “There has never been a book like this, and there will never be another one again.”

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Frank Frazetta has reigned as the undisputed king of fantasy art for 50 years, his fame only growing in the 12 years since his death. With his paintings now breaking auction records (Egyptian Queen sold for $ 5.4 million in 2019) he’s long overdue for this ultimate monograph. Born to a Sicilian immigrant family in Brooklyn, 1928, Frazetta was a minor league athlete, petty criminal and serial seducer with movie star looks and phenomenal talent. He claimed to only make art when there was nothing better to do – he preferred playing baseball - yet began his professional career in comics at age 16. Strip work led him to the infamous EC Comics, then to oils for Tarzan and Conan pulp covers. Both characters were interpreted by many before him, but as he explained in the 1970s, “I’m very physical minded. In Brooklyn, I knew Conan, I knew guys just like him,” and he used this first-hand knowledge of muscle and macho to redefine fantasy heroes as more massive, more menacing, more testosterone-fueled than anything seen before. As counterbalance he created a new breed of women, nude as censorship allowed, with pixie faces and multiparous bodies: thick thighed, heavy buttocked, breasts cantilevered out to there, yet still, with their soft bellies and hints of cellulite, believably real. Add in the action, the creatures, the twilit worlds of haunting shadow and Frazetta’s art is addictive as potato chips. This monograph is the most complete ever produced on the artist, done in collaboration with the Frazetta family. It won the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection.

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His works have prompted a New York Times bestseller; a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington, DC; and special crowd-control measures at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, where thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the “Dutch Mona Lisa”. In his lifetime, however, the fame of Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons. After his death, his name was largely forgotten, except by a few Dutch art collectors and dealers. Outside of Holland, his works were even misattributed to other artists. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer came to the attention of the international art world, which suddenly looked upon his narrative minutiae, meticulous textural details, and majestic planes of light, spotted a genius, and never looked back. This edition features the complete catalog of Vermeer’s work, presenting the calm yet compelling scenes so treasured in galleries across Europe and the United States in one monograph of utmost reproduction quality. Crisp details and essays tracing Vermeer’s career illuminate his remarkable ability not only to bear witness to the trends and trimmings of the Dutch Golden Age but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look.

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Clothes define people. A person’s attire, whether it be a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Indeed, clothing has the power to define people and their generation. Recognizing this sartorial significance is the Kyoto Costume Institute, whose team of curators examine fashion through sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has amassed a wide range of historical garments, including underwear, shoes, and fashion accessories dating from the 18th century to the present day. Showcasing the Institute’s vast collection, Fashion History is a fascinating excursion through clothing trends from the 18th to the 20th century. With photographs of clothing displayed on custom-made mannequins and commentary from some of the sharpest minds in fashion studies, the book is a testimony to attire as “an essential manifestation of our very being” and to the Institute’s passion for fashion as a complex and intricate art form.

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Nearly a century before Mondrian made geometrical red, yellow, and blue lines famous, 19th-century mathematician Oliver Byrne employed the color scheme for his 1847 edition of Euclid’s mathematical and geometric treatise Elements. Byrne’s idea was to use color to make learning easier and “diffuse permanent knowledge.” The result has been described as one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the 19th century. The facsimile of Byrne’s seminal publication is now available in a beautiful new edition. A masterwork of art and science, it is as remarkable in the boldness of its red, yellow, and blue figures and diagrams as it is in the mathematical precision of its theories. In the simplicity of forms and colors, the pages anticipate the vigor of De Stijl and Bauhaus design. In making complex information at once accessible and aesthetically engaging, this work is a forerunner to the information graphics that today define much of our data consumption.

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At the dawn of the automobile age, Americans’ predilection for wanderlust prompted a new wave of inventive entrepreneurs to cater to this new mode of transportation. Starting in the 1920s, attention-grabbing buildings began to appear that would draw in passing drivers for snacks, provisions, souvenirs, or a quick meal. The architectural establishment of the day dismissed these roadside buildings as “monstrosities”. Yet, they flourished, especially along America’s Sunbelt, and in particular, in Southern California, as proprietors indulged their creative impulses in the form of giant, eccentric constructions — from owls, dolls, pigs, and ships, to coffee pots and fruit. Their symbolic intent was guileless, yet they were marginalized by history. But, over the past 40 years, California’s architectural anomalies have regained their integrity, and are now being celebrated in this freshly revised compendium of buildings, California Crazy. Brimming with the best examples of this architectural genre, California Crazy includes essays exploring the influences that fostered the nascent architectural movement, as well as identifying the unconventional landscapes and attitudes found on Los Angeles and Hollywood roadsides which allowed these buildings to flourish in profusion. In addition, California Crazy features David Gebhard’s definitive essay, which defined this vernacular movement almost forty years ago. The California Crazy concept is expanded to include domestic architecture, eccentric signage, and the automobile as a fanciful object.

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Well before Andy Warhol’s rise to the pinnacle of Pop Art, he created and exhibited seductive drawings celebrating male beauty. Andy Warhol Love, Sex, & Desire: Drawings 1950-1962 features over three hundred drawings rendered primarily in ink on paper portraying young men, many of them nude, some sexually charged, and occasionally adorned with whimsical black hearts and delightful embellishments. They lounge or preen, proud of or even bored by their beauty, while the artist sketches them, rapt. They rarely engage with their keen observer, and likewise Warhol’s focus is on their form, their erotic qualities, and unbridled sexuality. If his subjects are content to revel in their attractiveness, so too is Warhol. His confident hand illustrates a multitude of colorful characters, yet also reveals much about this enigmatic artist. Warhol was already a booming commercial illustrator when he exhibited studies from this body of work at the Bodley Gallery on New York’s Upper East Side in 1956. He mistakenly saw these illustrations as his way of breaking into the New York art scene, underestimating the pervading homophobia of the time. While he never saw through his plan to publish the drawings as a monograph, he did produce more than a thousand elegant, seemingly effortless drawings from life. This volume finally brings his project to fruition by gathering his most striking images, published here for the first time in a comprehensive book and chosen by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Edited and featuring an introduction by the Foundation’s Michael Dayton Hermann, and essays by Warhol biographer Blake Gopnik and art critic Drew Zeiba. The inclusion of poems by James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Harold Norse, Essex Hemphill and Allen Ginsberg create moments of introspection, which expand on the themes and moods present in the drawings. In style, the drawings evoke the sketches of Jean Cocteau and even Matisse: highly distilled and sure of line, yet loose. The sly voyeurism, meanwhile, is entirely Warhol’s own, and even the most risqué drawings contain a kind of droll humor—a sense of ironic detachment—that would become a Warhol trademark.

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Over a century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. This monograph gathers all of Klimt’s major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged access to the artist’s archive. With top quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Frieze, the book follows Klimt through his prominent role in the Secessionist movement of 1897, his candid rendering of the female body, and his lustrous “golden phase” when gold leaf brought a shimmering tone and texture to such beloved works as The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold. Through luminous spreads and carefully curated details, the monograph traces the repertoire of Japanese, Byzantine, and allegorical stimuli that informed Klimt’s flattened perspectives, his symbolic vocabulary, and his mosaic-like textures. Drawing upon contemporary critics and voices, the book also examines the art world’s polarized reception to Klimt’s pictures as much as his own stylistic trajectory. From his landscape painting to erotic works to the controversial ceiling for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, we see how Klimt’s admixture of tradition and daring divided the press and public—becried by some as a pornographer, hailed by others as a modern maestro.

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The life of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona his clothes were so shabby passersby assumed he was a beggar. Gaudí’s incomparable architecture channels much of this multifaceted intricacy. From the shimmering textures and skeletal forms of Casa Batlló to the Hispano-Arabic matrix of Casa Vicens, his work merged the influences of Orientalism, natural forms, new materials, and religious faith into a unique Modernista aesthetic. Today, his unique aesthetic enjoys global popularity and acclaim. His magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, is the most-visited monument in Spain, and seven of his works are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Through brand-new photography, plans and drawings by Gaudí himself, historical photos, as well as an appendix detailing all his works—from buildings to furniture, decor to unfinished projects—this book presents Gaudí’s universe like never before. Like a personal tour through Barcelona, we discover how the “Dante of architecture” was a builder in the truest sense of the word, crafting extraordinary constructions out of minute and mesmerizing details, and transforming fantastical visions into realities on the city streets.

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The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with New York in the 1980s, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world. Basquiat’s expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life—so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered “royalty, heroism and the streets.” In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time. This book allows an unprecedented insight into Basquiat’s art, with pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches. In large-scale format, the book offers vivid proximity to Basquiat’s intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist’s life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

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Arranged alphabetically, this biographical encyclopedia features every major photographer of the 20th century alongside her or his most significant monographs. From the earliest representatives of classical Modernism right up to the present day, Photographers A–Z celebrates those photographers who have distinguished themselves with important publications or exhibitions, and who have made a significant contribution to the culture of the photographic image. The entries include photographers from North America and Europe as well as from Japan, Latin America, Africa, and China. Richly illustrated with facsimiles from books and magazines, the collection also features photographers working in “applied” areas, whose work is regarded as photographic art. Star turns include Julius Shulman, Terry Richardson, Cindy Sherman, and David LaChapelle.

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With his instantly recognizable decorative style, Czech artist and Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) defined the look of the fin-de-siècle. In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre, and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers, and beautiful women became paradigms of the Belle Époque years. Mucha’s work permeated illustration, posters, postcards, and the advertising designs of his day. His striking posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt were particularly famous. Alongside this delicate decorative work, Mucha also harbored strongly felt political ideas. With his monumental cycle The Slav Epic, he expressed his staunch support for Pan-Slavism, promoting the political independence of the Czech and Slavic nations from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Compiled in association with the Mucha Foundation, this book presents key works and introduces the full reach of Mucha’s œuvre from patterned decoration to his book illustrations, posters, photographs and monumental paintings.

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Superlatives tend to fail in describing Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior—that being said, it stands as one of the most extravagant feats in the history of mapmaking. The original Latin edition, completed in 1665, was the largest and most expensive book to be published during the 17th century. Its 594 maps appearing across 11 volumes spanned Arctica, Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. Ambitious in scale and artistry, it is included in the Canon of Dutch History, an official survey of 50 individuals, creations, or events that chart the most important historical developments of the Netherlands. TASCHEN’s meticulous reprint brings this luxurious Baroque wonder into the hands of modern readers. In an age of digitized cartography and global connectivity, it celebrates the steadfast beauty of quality printing and restores the wonder of an exploratory age, in which Blaeu’s native Amsterdam was a center of international trade and discovery.This edition is based on the Austrian National Library’s complete colored and gold-heightened copy of Atlas Maior, assuring the finest detail and quality. University of Amsterdam’s Peter van der Krogt introduces the historical and cultural significance of the atlas while providing detailed descriptions for individual maps, revealing the full scale and ambition of Blaeu’s masterwork.

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The self as a subject is one of the most fascinating and fruitful of artistic enterprises. From the 15th century to today, this collection brings together some of the best examples of self-portraiture to explore the genre’s evolution over the centuries as well as the enduring questions of selfhood and self-representation that have besieged human experience for centuries before social media and the selfie. Is a self-portrait of an artist a medium of reflection? Or is it merely a black void, the “false mirror,” as the Surrealist René Magritte entitled his 1928 painting of an eye? How much does it impart about contemporary notions of beauty, power, and status? From Albrecht Dürer to Egon Schiele, Fra Filippo Lippi to Frida Kahlo, this far-reaching collection explores the numerous ways in which artists have taken themselves as subjects, the variety of ingenious methods and perspectives they have used, and the intriguing questions they raise.

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A style of his own: The colorful work of a truly avant-garde painterIn the course of his short life, German painter August Macke (1887--1914) combined inspirations from extremely different sources into a unique and personal style. Macke was engaged with the world, closely following the development of abstract art and at the same time feeling tied to the Blauer Reiter movement of Munich. Macke developed a "flat" yet ornamental style, but always remained true to objective representation. His cheerful scenes of parks, zoos, and promenades with shop windows are filled with bold yet harmonious colors. Their brilliance reached its zenith in 1914 when he traveled with Klee and Moilliet to Tunis and became acquainted with the light of the African sun.About the series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

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