Search results for ""TASCHEN""
Taschen GmbH Dalí. The Paintings
Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics—and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This publication presents the artist’s painted oeuvre. After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret finally located the paintings of this highly prolific artist. Many of the works had been inaccessible for years—in fact so many that almost half the illustrations in this book had rarely been seen in public.
£20.00
Taschen GmbH Neutra
In the architecture of Richard Neutra (1892–1970), inside and outside find their perfect modernist harmony. As the Californian sun glints off sleek building surfaces, vast glass panel walls allow panoramic views over mountains, gardens, palm trees, and pools. Neutra moved to the United States from his native Vienna in 1923 and settled in Los Angeles. He displayed his affinity with architectural settings early on with the Lovell House, set on a landscaped hill with views of the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica Mountains. Later projects such as the Kaufmann House and Nesbitt House would continue this blend of art, landscape, and living comfort, with Neutra’s clients often receiving detailed questionnaires to define their precise needs. This richly illustrated architect introduction presents the defining projects of Neutra’s career. As crisp structures nestle amid natural wonders, we celebrate a particularly holistic brand of modernism which incorporated the ragged lines and changing colors of nature as much as the pared down geometries of the International Style.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Industrial Design A–Z
If you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you’ll take an even greater interest in this completely updated edition of Industrial Design A–Z. Tracing the evolution of industrial design from the Industrial Revolution to the present day, the book bursts with synergies of form and function that transform our daily experience. From cameras to kitchenware, Lego to Lamborghini, we meet the individual designers, the global businesses, and above all the genius products that become integrated into even the smallest details of our lives. Alongside star designers like Marc Newson and Philippe Starck and major global brands like Braun and Apple, lesser-known and newcomer entries such as Brompton Bicycles and Enercon wind turbines attest to product design’s restless pace, as well as to today’s most pressing challenges and priorities to which it must turn its creative invention.
£18.00
Taschen GmbH Expressionism
Sharp angles, strange forms, lurid colors, and distorted perspectives are classic hallmarks of Expressionism, the twentieth century movement that prioritized emotion over objective reality. Though particularly present in Germany and Austria, the movement’s approach flourished internationally and is today hailed as one of the most influential shifts in art history. With leading groups Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), and key players such as Wassily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele,and Emil Nolde, the Expressionists disowned Impressionism, which they regarded as “man lowered to the position of a gramophone record of the outer world”, to depict instead a raw and visceral experience of life as it was felt, rather than seen on the surface. Their paintings brim with emotive force, conveyed in particular through intense and non-naturalistic color palettes, loose brushwork, and thick textures. Covering the group’s stylistic tendencies, influences, and most important protagonists, this introductory book explores the Expressionist panorama of moods, ideas, and emotions and their abiding quest for deep authenticity.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Magritte
From men in bowler hats, floating in the sky, to a painting of a pipe above the caption "this is not a pipe", René Magritte (1898–1967) created an echo chamber of object and image, name and thing, reality and representation. Like other Surrealist works, Magritte’s paintings combine a precise, mimetic technique with abnormal, alienating configurations which defy the laws of scale, logic, and science: a comb the size of a wardrobe, rocks that float in the sky, clouds that drift through an open door. The result is a direct yet disorientating realm, often witty, often unsettling, and always prompting us to look beyond the visible, to “what is hidden by what we see.” This introductory book explores Magritte's vast repertoire of visual humor, paradox, and surprise which to this day makes us look and look again, not only at the painting, but at our sense of self and the world.
£15.96
Taschen GmbH Los Angeles. Portrait of a City
From the first known photograph taken in Los Angeles to its most recent sweeping vistas, this photographic tribute to the City of Angels provides a fascinating journey through the city’s cultural, political, industrial, and sociological history. It traces the city’s development from the 1880s real estate boom, through the early days of Hollywood and the urban sprawl of the late 20th century, right up to the present day. With over 500 images, L.A. is shown emerging from a desert wasteland to become a vast palm-studded urban metropolis. Events that made world news—including two Olympics, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and the Rodney King riots—reveal a city of many dimensions. The entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood, and its celebrities are showcased along with many other notable residents, personalities, architects, artists, and musicians. The city’s pop cultural movements, its music, surfing, health food fads, gangs, and hot rods are included, as are its notorious crimes and criminals. This book depicts Los Angeles in all its glory and grit, via hundreds of freshly discovered images including those of Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton and many other superb photographers, culled from major historical archives, museums, private collectors, and universities. These are given context and resonance through essays by renowned California historian Kevin Starr and Los Angeles literature expert David L. Ulin.
£45.00
Taschen GmbH The Big Book of Breasts
Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast. In The Big Book of Breasts, Dian Hanson explores the origins of mammary madness through three decades of natural big-breasted nudes. Starting with the World War II Bosom-Mania that spawned Russ Meyer, Howard Hughes’s The Outlaw and Frederick’s of Hollywood, Dian guides you over, around, and in between the dangerous curves of infamous models including Michelle Angelo, Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa De Leeuw, Uschi Digard, Candye Kane, Jennie Lee, Sylvia McFarland, Margaret Middleton, Paula Page, June Palmer, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Linda West, June Wilkinson, Julie Wills, and dozens more, including Guinness World Record holder Norma Stitz, possessor of the World`s Largest Natural Breasts. The 396 pages of this book contain the most beautiful and provocative photos ever created of these iconic women, plus nine original interviews, including the first with Tempest Storm and Uschi Digard in over a decade, and the last with Candy Barr before her untimely death in 2005. In a world where silicone is now the norm, these spectacular real women stand as testament that nature knows best.
£50.00
Taschen GmbH Sneaker Freaker. World's Greatest Sneaker Collectors
Simon “Woody” Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, has spent the last two decades analyzing the global cult of footwear fanatics. That experience directly inspired World’s Greatest Sneaker Collectors, a stonking 752-page journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of prominent aficionados.From Tokyo to New York, via London, Philadelphia, Melbourne, and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned as over 2,500 vintage classics, unique athlete SMUs, unobtainable samples, handmade 1-of-1 prototypes, stratospherically priced colabs, and Player Exclusives and game-worn Jordans with multi-million-dollar price tags are lauded with gusto. The endless quest for “Holy Grails” is both blessing and curse as our collectors fiend, scheme, and dream of “the one” shoe they don’t yet own!Glossy portraits are augmented with a series of informative “How-to” guides stuffed with pro tips on sneaker photography, storage, insurance, cleaning, and avoiding the counterfeit curse. The expertise is priceless. The stories will entertain for days as we seek out the fundamentals of what it means, and takes, to define yourself as a “true collector.”
£50.00
Taschen GmbH Max Ernst
With unparalleled artistic originality Max Ernst (1891–1976) transformed everything he touched. By pushing the boundaries and breaking loose from the confined view of the culture of his time, he became one of the most important figures of Dadaism and Surrealism. Driven by the counter-reaction to the horrors of World War I, he became a pioneer of the Dada movement. The closing of the famed Dada exhibit in Cologne for ‘obscenity’ led Ernst to spend the rest of his life in Paris, where he came in contact with the Surrealists. Above all, Ernst stands out for his varied style and technique, having produced an oeuvre that reaches from paintings, drawings, and sculpture, across texts and stage settings to collage novels and the development of his own ‘frottage’ technique. During World War II, Ernst, like many of his colleagues, became an ‘undesirable foreigner’ and was forced to emigrate; however, he returned to France after the war. Continuing a career that spanned decades, in 1954 he received the Grand Prize for Painting at the Biennial in Venice. This book is a journey through magic, vividness, and fantasy. It is a gateway into the intricate mind and world of Max Ernst.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Winsor McCay. The Complete Little Nemo
Meet Little Nemo, a diminutive hero of comic narrative, but one of the greatest dream voyagers of the 20th century. The master creation of Winsor McCay (1869–1934), restless sleeper Nemo inspired generations of artists with his weekly adventures from bed to Slumberland, a realm of colorful companions, psychedelic scenery, and thrilling escapades. Nemo’s creator Winsor McCay was a founding figure in the modern American entertainment industry, above all with his revolutionary comics, which set standards for panel layout and storytelling technique, timing and pacing, and architectural and other detail that left an inestimable influence on subsequent artists, including Robert Crumb and Federico Fellini. TASCHEN’s sumptuous Winsor McCay – The Complete Little Nemo collects, in full, glorious color, all 549 episodes of Little Nemo. In the illustrated essay, art historian and comics expert Alexander Braun places Winsor McCay’s life and work within the cultural history of the U.S. media and entertainment industry, and explores the immense art historical value of McCay's dream narrative. At once an adventure story, visual delight, and piece of cultural history, this publication is a tremendous monument to one of the most innovative pioneers—and one of the most intrepid explorers—of comic history.
£61.41
Taschen GmbH All-American Ads of the 80s
With the cold war ebbing, crime and inflation at record levels, and movie star-turned-President Ronald Reagan launching a Star Wars of his own, the 1980s did not seem likely to become one of the most outrageous, flamboyant, and prosperous decades of the 20th century. The "greed is good" mantra on Wall Street spawned the power-dressing, exercise-obsessed "Me Generation" of Yuppies. The art world enjoyed the influx of capital; computers and video games ruled in the office and at home; and the Rubik's cube craze swept the nation. Leg warmers were big, shoulder pads were bigger and hair was biggest of all. Whether your heart warms nostalgically at the memory of E.T. and marathon Trivial Pursuit sessions; if you think Ghostbusters and break dancing are totally awesome, this book's for you. To all those who still hear the echoes of "I want my MTV": All-American Ads of the 80s will leave you ready to reach out and touch someone. So just do it!
£27.00
Taschen GmbH Jan Christiaan Sepp. The Book of Marble
In 1776, at the Enlightenment’s height, Jan Christiaan Sepp published a wholly unique and striking work: A Representation of Marble Types. Across 100 richly hand-colored plates, it traced an elegant visual journey through 570 different marble types. This facsimile edition, a world first, devotedly brings to life a forgotten book of great knowledge and rare beauty.
£100.00
Taschen GmbH The Star Wars Archives. 1977–1983. 40th Ed.
Star Wars exploded onto our cinema screens in 1977, and the world has not been the same since. After watching depressing and cynical movies throughout the early 1970s, audiences enthusiastically embraced the positive energy of the Star Wars galaxy as they followed moisture farmer Luke Skywalker on his journey through a galaxy far, far away, meeting extraordinary characters like mysterious hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi, space pirates Han Solo and Chewbacca, loyal droids C-3PO and R2-D2, bold Princess Leia Organa and the horrific Darth Vader, servant of the dark, malevolent Emperor. Writer, director, and producer George Lucas created the modern monomyth of our time, one that resonates with the child in us all. He formed Industrial Light & Magic to develop cutting-edge special effects technology, which he combined with innovative editing techniques and a heightened sense of sound to give audiences a unique sensory cinematic experience. In this first volume, made with the full cooperation of Lucasfilm, Lucas narrates his own story, taking us through the making of the original trilogy—Episode IV A New Hope, Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI Return of the Jedi—and bringing fresh insights into the creation of a unique universe. Complete with script pages, production documents, concept art, storyboards, on-set photography, stills, and posters, this is the authoritative exploration of the original saga as told by its creator.
£25.00
Taschen GmbH Walton Ford. Pancha Tantra. Updated Edition
At first glance, Walton Ford’s large-scale, highly detailed watercolors of animals recall the prints of 19th-century illustrators John James Audubon and Edward Lear. A closer look reveals a complex and disturbingly anthropomorphic universe, full of symbols, sly jokes, and allusions to the ‘operatic’ quality of traditional natural history. In this stunning but sinister visual universe, beasts and birds are not mere aesthetic objects but dynamic actors in allegorical struggles: a wild turkey crushes a small parrot in its claw; a troupe of monkeys wreaks havoc on a formal dinner table; an American buffalo is surrounded by bloodied white wolves. In dazzling watercolor, the images impress as much for their impeccable realism as they do for their complex narratives. First available as a signed and limited volume, this updated edition of Pancha Tantra is the most comprehensive survey of Ford’s oeuvre to date, with 40 new works, more than 120 additional pages, and a new essay by the artist. It features dazzling details, an in-depth exploration of his visual universe, a complete biography, and excerpts from his textual inspirations: from Indian folktales and the letters of Benjamin Franklin to the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and Audubon’s Ornithological Biography.
£61.41
Taschen GmbH Walter Chandoha. Cats. Photographs 1942–2018
On a winter’s night in 1949 in New York City, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha spotted a stray kitten in the snow, bundled it into his coat, and brought it home. Little did he know he had just met the muse that would determine the course of his life. Chandoha turned his lens on his new feline friend—which he named Loco—and was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter. These images marked the start of an extraordinary career that would span seven decades. Long before the Internet and #catsofinstagram, Chandoha was enrapturing the public with his fuzzy subjects. From advertisements to greetings cards, jigsaw puzzles to pet-food packaging, his images combined a genuine affection for the creatures, a strong work ethic, and flawless technique. Chandoha’s trademark glamorous lighting, which made each cat’s fur stand out in sharp relief, would define the visual vocabulary of animal portraiture for generations and inspire such masters as Andy Warhol, who took cues from Chandoha’s charming portraits in his illustrated cat book.Cats leaps into the archives of this genre-defining artist, spanning color studio and environmental portraits, black-and-white street photography, images from vintage cat shows, tender pictures that combine his children with cats and more. This is a fitting tribute not just to these beguiling creatures but also to a remarkable photographer who passed away in 2019 at the age of 98; and whose compassion can be felt in each and every frame.
£36.00
Taschen GmbH Entryways of Milan. Ingressi di Milano
First impressions count, especially in Milano. In this unprecedented photographic journey, editor Karl Kolbitz opens the door to 144 of the city’s most sumptuous entrance halls, captivating in their diversity and splendor. These vibrant Milanese entryways, until now hidden away behind often restrained façades, are revealed as dazzling examples of Italian modernism, mediating public and private space with vivid configurations of color and form, from floors of juxtaposed stones to murals of minimalist geometry. The collection spans buildings from 1920 to 1970 and showcases the work of some of the city’s most illustrious architects and designers, including Giovanni Muzio, Gio Ponti, Piero Portaluppi, and Luigi Caccia Dominioni, as well as non-pedigreed architecture of equal impact and interest. The photographs for the publication were exclusively created by Delfino Sisto Legnani, Paola Pansini, and Matthew Billings, each evoking the entryways with individual sensibility and a stylistic interplay of detail shots—such as stones, door handles, and handrails—with larger architectural views. The images are accompanied by outstanding written contributions from Penny Sparke, Fabrizio Ballabio, Lisa Hockemeyer, Daniel Sherer, Brian Kish, and Grazia Signori, together bringing a wealth of architecture, design, and natural stone expertise to guide the reader through the applied materials and fittings as well as the art-historical and social implications of each of the ingressi. As much an architectural city guide as an aesthetic study, the book provides the exact address and an annotated Milan map for all featured entryways, as well as the architect name and date of construction. In the well-documented realm of 20th-century Italian design, Kolbitz has stepped over the threshold and delivered a brand new area of inquiry in Milanese modernism. With the rigor of its multifaceted research, poised photography, and breadth of its featured hallways, this is an invigorating new reference work and an inside look at the city’s design DNA across high to low architecture.
£45.00
Taschen GmbH Aalto
Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) made a unique modernist mark. Influenced by both the landscape and the political independence of his native Finland, he designed warm, curving, compassionate buildings, wholly set apart from the slick, mechanistic, geometric designs that characterized much contemporary European practice. Whether a church, a villa, a sauna, or a public library, Aalto’s organic structures tended to replace plaster and steel with brick and wood, often incorporating undulating, wave-like forms, which would also appear in his chair, glassware, and lamp designs. An adherent to detail, Aalto insisted upon the humanity of his work stating: “Modern architecture does not mean using immature new materials; the main thing is to work with materials towards a more human line.” Many of Aalto’s public buildings such as Säynätsalo Town Hall, the lecture theatre at Otaniemi Technical University, the Helsinki National Pensions Institute and the Helsinki House of Culture may be seen as psychological as well as physical landmarks in the rebuilding of Finland after the ravages of war.
£17.14
Taschen GmbH Basquiat
An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag “SAMO”, before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barely a decade, he remains a cult figure of artistic social commentary, and a trailblazer in the mediation of graffiti and gallery art. Basquiat’s work drew upon diverse sources and media to create an original and urgent artistic vocabulary, biting with critique against structures of power and racism. His practice merged abstraction and figuration, poetry and painting, while his influences spanned Greek, Roman, and African art, French poetry, jazz, and the work of artistic contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. The results are vivid, visceral mixtures of words, African emblems, cartoonish figures, daubs of bold color, and beyond. This book presents Basquiat’s short but prolific career, his unique style, and his profound engagement with ever-relevant issues of integration and segregation, poverty and wealth.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909–1918
After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn’t prove to be too big a challenge. His haggard, overstretched figures, drastic depiction of sexuality, and self-portraits in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt’s hymns of love, sexuality, and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele’s work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society. Although his works were later defamed as “degenerate” and for a time were almost forgotten altogether, they influenced generations of artists – from Günter Brus and Francis Bacon to Tracey Emin. Today, his then-misunderstood oeuvre continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market. Presented in a voluminous format that captures all of the intensity and emotional truth of his work, Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909–1918 features 221 paintings and 146 drawings that retrace the fertile last decade of Schiele’s life. With many pieces newly photographed for this edition, these works are paired with excerpts from his countless writings and poems, as well as essays introducing his life and oeuvre, to situate the Austrian master in the context of European Expressionism and trace his extraordinary legacy.
£150.00
Taschen GmbH Albert Frey
Architect Albert Frey (1903–1998) saw a modernist utopia in the desert. Born in Zurich, he studied in Europe with Le Corbusier before moving to the United States in 1930, convinced it was the land of architectural opportunity. On a visit to Palm Springs, he fell under the desert spell. It was here, amid the arid and empty landscape, that he could truly envisage a perfect modern future. Like fellow Californian luminary, John Lautner, Frey would spend the rest of his career nurturing the consonance of architecture and nature: studying the fall of sunlight and rain, and merging aluminum, steel, and glass with the boulders and sands of the West Coast wilds. His vision centered in particular on Palm Springs, capitalizing on the city’s postwar population boom to create a bastion of the sleek, leisurely modernism that defines midcentury California. In this dependable architect introduction, we follow Frey’s long and prestigious career from his European beginnings through to the apogee of his Californian practice, taking in his notes on De Stijl, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus, and exploring the stylistic, material, and geographic makings of his unique “desert modernism.”
£16.35
Taschen GmbH Saarinen
The creator of the ubiquitous Knoll “Tulip” chairs and tables, Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) was one of the 20th century’s most prominent space shapers, merging dynamic forms with a modernist sensibility across architecture and design. Among Saarinen’s greatest accomplishments are Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport, the very sculptural and fluid TWA terminal at JFK Airport in New York, and the 630 ft. (192 m) high Gateway Arch of St. Louis, Missouri, each of them defining structures of postwar America. Catenary curves were present in many of his structural designs. During his long association with Knoll, Saarinen’s other famous furniture pieces included the “Grasshopper” lounge chair and the “Womb” settee. Married to Aline Bernstein Saarinen, a well-known critic of art and architecture, Saarinen also collaborated with Charles Eames, with whom he designed his first prize-winning chair. With rich illustration tracing his life and career, this introduction follows Saarinen from his studies across his training all the way to his most prestigious projects, and explores how each of his designs brought a new dimension to the modernist landscape.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Prouvé
French-born Jean Prouvé (1901–1984) was the 20th century’s leading construction designer, a self-declared constructeur and member of the jury who oversaw the design of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. As a designer, he captured the midcentury spirit of innovation, expansion, and growth, developing techniques that united simple, striking aesthetics with practical, cost-effective materials and assembly. From vast, temporary exhibition marquees to handheld letter openers, modular building systems to interior lighting, Prouvé’s designs efficiently fitted their function with minimal fuss and understated elegance. Feted by designers, architects, and engineers the world over, Prouvé has left a rich and inspirational legacy, which resonates perfectly with the approach of this compact volume, neatly summarizing his life and works.
£16.35
Taschen GmbH Botticelli
With the patronage of the powerful Medici family, a canon of secular and religious work, and contributions to the celebrated Sistine Chapel, Sandro Botticelli (1444/45–1510) was well placed for fame. After his death, however, his work was eclipsed for some four hundred years. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the painter began to gain major art-historical recognition. Today, Botticelli is hailed as a towering figure of the Florentine Early Renaissance. His secular works The Birth of Venus and Primavera, mostly read as an allegory of Spring, are among the most recognized paintings in the world, resplendent in their delicate details, graceful lines, and compositional balance. His arrangements are fluid yet poised, his figures serene yet sensual. Venus, in particular, is held up as art-historical icon of beauty: pale-skinned, delicately featured, soft with fecund promise. This essential introduction presents key works from Botticelli’s oeuvre to understand the making of a Renaissance legend. Through the painter’s most famous mythological and allegorical scenes, as well as his radiant religious works, we explore a mastery of figuration, movement, and line, which has gone on to inspire artists from Edgar Degas to Andy Warhol, René Magritte to Cindy Sherman.
£15.95
Taschen GmbH Piano
While some architects have a signature style, Renzo Piano seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His buildings impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of scale, material, and form. Piano rose to international prominence with his codesign of the Pompidou Center in Paris, described by The New York Times as a building that “turned the architecture world upside down.” Since then, he has continued to craft many high-profile cultural spaces, including the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library Renovation and Expansion in New York; and, most recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art, an asymmetric nine-story structure in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District with both indoor and outdoor galleries. In New York and London, the Renzo touch has also transformed the skyline with the towers of the New York Times Building and the Shard, the tallest building in the European Union. This essential introduction travels from Osaka, Japan, to Bern, Switzerland, and through many cities, structures, and islands in between, to explore the staggering scope of the Renzo Piano repertoire. From the “inside-out” Pompidou to the airy shells of the Tjibaou Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia, this is a thrilling journey through the beauty of architecture, where, in Piano’s own words, “each time, it is like life starting all over again.”
£16.56
Taschen GmbH Calatrava
Spanish visionary Santiago Calatrava is renowned around the world as an architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and artist. Famed for bridges as much as buildings, he has made his name with neofuturistic structures that combine deft engineering solutions with dramatic visual impact. From the Athens 2004 Olympic sports complex and the Museum of Tomorrow to the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Alamillo Bridge in Seville, and the Mujer Bridge in Buenos Aires, Calatrava’s creations show particular interest in the meeting point of movement and balance. With influences ranging from NASA space design to da Vinci’s nature studies, the structures dazzle with a sense of lightness, agility, and aerodynamism, but always with a graceful poise amid their particular surroundings. This compact introduction explores Calatrava’s unique aesthetic with key projects from his career, from early breakthroughs to his most recent work. Through buildings of culture, science, faith, and across his many famous bridges, we explore his integration of organic forms and human movements, and a uniquely fluid futurism, soaring towards tomorrow.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Matisse. Cut-outs
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941, increasing frailty, and the confines of a wheelchair, the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art. With what he called une seconde vie, a second life, he embarked on a remarkable collage period, cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into gouaches découpées of birds, plants, flowers, and the female form. Emphasizing color and contrast, the cut-out technique generated both striking lines and vivid juxtapositions. In works such as Icarus (1943), The Blue Nude (1952), The Snail (1953), and The Sheaf (1953), clean forms and elemental structures power a compositional force that belies the work’s decorative appeal, at once tightly organized and infectious with joie de vivre. As his work progressed, Matisse’s excitement with his results fueled ever-larger pieces, advancing from small works to vast wall-sized murals. As his final years approached, Matisse reveled in the simplicity and brilliance of these pieces, avowing, “Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated…” In this essential introductory book, we revisit this joyful final chapter of Matisse’s long and prodigious career, examining how the cut-outs encapsulated the artist’s many years exploring the possibilities of composition, form, and color.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Renoir
One of the leading lights of the Impressionist movement, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) remains a towering figure in art history with enduring public appeal. Sun-kissed, charming, and sensual, his work shows painting at its most lighthearted and luminous, while championing the plein air and color innovations of his time. Renoir’s oeuvre was prolific, with some several thousand works in his lifetime. Much influenced by forerunners such as Courbet, Degas, Manet, Delacroix, he worked with contemporary peers such as Monet to explore fresh uses of color and brushwork, rendering texture and depth with different-hued daubs. Drawn to intimate and tender human scenes, his subjects include lovers, mothers, and numerous nudes. As his career progressed, Renoir investigated different styles and techniques, shifting away from the feathery Impressionist touch to a more robust, classical corporeality, sometimes called his “Ingres period,” and later to monumental pieces such as The Bathers. From the abundant output of his lengthy career, this essential artist introduction selects key Renoir works to explore his innovations in the art of painting, as much as his traditions in pursuit of beauty, harmony, and the female form.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Michelangelo
Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply “Il Divino” (“the divine one”). This book provides the essential introduction to Michelangelo with all the awe-inspiring masterpieces and none of the queues and crowds. With vivid illustration and accessible texts, we explore the artist’s extraordinary figuration and celebrated style of terribilità (momentous grandeur), which allowed human and biblical drama to exist in compelling scale and fervor. Through the power hubs of Renaissance Italy, we take in his major commissions and phenomenal capacity for compositional schemes, whether the famous Medici library in Florence, or the extraordinary 500-square-meter ceiling (1508–1512) in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. From the towering David to the aching grief and faith of The Pietà and the vivid drama of the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgment, this is a succinct, dependable reference to a true giant of art history and to some of the most famous artworks in the world.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Miró
With a career spanning seven decades, Catalan-born Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a polymath giant of modern art, producing masterworks across painting, sculpture, art books, tapestry, and ceramics, and embracing ideologies as varied as Fauvism, Surrealism, Dada, Magic Realism, Cubism, and abstraction. Over the course of his prodigious output, Miró evolved constantly, seeking to eschew categorization and the approval of “bourgeois” art critics as much as he pursued his own dreamlike worlds. Emerging into the public spotlight in the early 1920s, he first experimented with Fauvism and Cubism before developing a distinctive style of symbols and pictograms, arranged in elusive visual narratives, with frequent reference to Catalan life. As his career progressed, Miró moved towards Surrealism, and, despite never fully identifying with the movement, emerged as one of its most celebrated practitioners with techniques including automated drawing, Lyrical Abstraction, and Color Field painting. In later years, he diversified his media further, working with ceramics, textiles, and even proposing sculptures made of gas. Through his vivid colors, dreamlike fantasies, and enigmatic symbols, this book brings together the numerous strands of Miró’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre to introduce his fascinating career, its interaction with major modernist movements, and how it made him into a modernist legend.
£15.95
Taschen GmbH Pollock
The rebel hero of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) careened through his life like a firework across the American art landscape. Channeling ideas from sources as diverse as Picasso and Mexican surrealism, he rejected convention to develop his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Pollock’s most famous works are his drip paintings, where he dripped and poured household enamel paint over the canvas with a variety of instruments, from sticks to syringes, hardened brushes to broken bits of glass. The splattered results pulsate with energy, replacing the refinement of easel and brush with something altogether more immediate, vivid, and physical. To evade the viewer’s search for figurative elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles and identified each work with a neutral number only. Notoriously reclusive and volatile, struggling with alcoholism, married to fellow Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner, and killed in a car crash aged just 44, Pollock is as much a compelling celebrity icon as an artistic pioneer. This essential artist introduction explores both his work and his fame to shed light on masterpieces of the modernist story, and the making of a cultural icon.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Koolhaas/Obrist. Project Japan. Metabolism Talks
“Once there was a nation that went to war, but after they conquered a continent their own country was destroyed by atom bombs... then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think... although they were very different characters, the architects worked closely together to realize their dreams, staunchly supported by a super-creative bureaucracy and an activist state... after 15 years of incubation, they surprised the world with a new architecture—Metabolism—that proposed a radical makeover of the entire land... Then newspapers, magazines, and TV turned the architects into heroes: thinkers and doers, thoroughly modern men… Through sheer hard work, discipline, and the integration of all forms of creativity, their country, Japan, became a shining example... when the oil crisis initiated the end of the West, the architects of Japan spread out over the world to define the contours of a post-Western aesthetic....” —Rem Koolhaas / Hans Ulrich Obrist Between 2005 and 2011, architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed the surviving members of Metabolism—the first non-Western avant-garde, launched in Tokyo in 1960, in the midst of Japan’s postwar miracle. Project Japan features hundreds of never-before-seen images—master plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts, and astonishing sci-fi urban visions—telling the 20th-century history of Japan through its architecture. From the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s, a devastated Japan after the war, and the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect, the apotheosis of Metabolism at Expo ’70 in Osaka, and its expansion into the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s: The result is a vivid documentary of the last moment when architecture was a public rather than a private affair. Oral history by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist Extensive interviews with Arata Isozaki, Toshiko Kato, Kiyonori Kikutake, Noboru Kawazoe, Fumihiko Maki, Kisho Kurokawa, Kenji Ekuan, Atsushi Shimokobe, and Takako and Noritaka Tange Hundreds of never-before-seen images, architectural models, and magazine excerpts Layout by award-winning Dutch designer Irma Boom Further reading
£50.00
Taschen GmbH Abstract Expressionism
Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in America in the 1940s, with lead protagonists including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. Abstract Expressionism spawned many different stylistic tendencies but two particularly prominent sub-categories: action painting, exemplified by de Kooning and Pollock, and color field painting, made most famous by Rothko. Throughout, Abstract Expressionists strove to convey emotions and ideas through the making of marks, through forms, textures, shades, and the particular quality of brushstrokes. The movement favored large-scale canvases, and embraced the role of accident or chance. With featured works from 20 key Abstract Expressionist artists, this book introduces the movement which shifted the center of art gravity from Paris to New York and remains for many the golden moment of American art.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Modigliani
In endless odes to the female form, Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) traced elongated bodies, almond eyes, and his own name into art history. His languid female subjects are as instantly recognizable as they are startling, sensual, and swan-necked. Modigliani's unique figuration corresponded to his own personal idea of beauty, but drew upon a rich variety of visual influences, including contemporary Cubism, African carvings, Cambodian sculptures, and 13th-century painting from his native Italy. Although most renowned for his nude females, he applied similar stylistic techniques to portraits of male artistic contemporaries such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Chaïm Soutine. With key works from his highly individualistic repertoire, this book introduces Modigliani's brief but revered career at the heart of Paris’s early modernist hotbed.
£15.00
Taschen GmbH Norman Foster
With a career spanning across continents and over six decades, the work of the renowned architect Norman Foster is nothing short of extraordinary. His creative innovation and holistic approach have made him one of the world’s most influential and well-known architects. From the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, to the Reichstag in Berlin, the enclosed court of the British Museum in London to the Millau Viaduct in France, with his practice of Foster + Partners, he has created celebrated landmarks that stand out for their inventive modernity and for what he calls “a sustainable approach to the design of the built environment.”This is the first time Foster’s complete body of work has been published in one edition on such a grand scale. Giving a rare insight into the inner workings of his creative practice. It details his personal approach to his work, his inspirations, the link between art and architecture, and the significance and correlation between his passions, such as being an avid aviator, and his work.The XXL monograph encompasses a lifetime of achievement and originality in two volumes. The first presents his architectural œuvre and is filled with numerous unpublished images and sketches handpicked by Foster from his archives. Paired with nearly 1000 illustrations, the second book contains eight essays he wrote explaining his sources of inspiration.Aside from the 1999 Pritzker Prize, he has won the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for Architecture, the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, and the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture. This is a magnificent visual journey not only through significant buildings of our time but also into the mind of a genius. Norman Foster sketched every page of this book and spent countless hours with the author and the graphic designer to make it one of the most remarkable architecture books ever published.Also available as an Art Edition of 300 copies with a 1-meter-wide signed print of a drawing by Norman Foster, picturing the upcoming multifunctional community and business center InnHub in La Punt, Switzerland. The two volumes of this edition are collected in a custom-designed slipcase that folds into a book stand.
£350.00
Taschen GmbH Ice Cold. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History
Whether it's diamond-encrusted grills, oversized “truck” style chains, bust-down Rolex and Patek Philippe watches or a Tiffany necklace, jewelry is a cornerstone of hip-hop culture. Glittering, blinged-out jewels are the shining statement of a collective identity: unapologetic, charismatic, and street savvy. Spanning the history of hip-hop jewelry, from the 1980s to today, Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History is a stunning compilation of storytelling and visuals. Hundreds of extraordinary images of every major hip-hop artist on record celebrate how “Ice” has become a proclamation of identity and self-expression. Starting with Run-DMC’s gold Adidas pendants and Eric B. & Rakim’s ostentatious dookie rope chains and Mercedes medallions, the jewelry then transforms from street style into a booming design culture. The hip-hop tradition of “show up and show out” reaches new heights with artists like Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, Gucci Mane, and Cardi B, whose over-the-top pieces integrate unique pop culture references, unconventional materials, and enduring collaborations with artists like Takashi Murakami. Author Vikki Tobak reveals – in great detail – the work of pioneering jewelers such as Tito Caicedo of Manny’s, Eddie Plein, and Jacob the Jeweler as well as newer artisans such as Avianne & Co., Ben Baller/IF & Co., Greg Yuna, Johnny Dang, Eliantte, and many more. Ice Cold is a treasure trove of dazzling, inspirational style, featuring the work of leading photographers, including Wolfgang Tillmans, Janette Beckman, Jamel Shabazz, Timothy White, Gillian Laub, David LaChapelle, Danny Clinch, Chris Buck, Mike Miller, Phil Knott, Raven B. Varona, Al Pereira, Albert Watson and many more. A foreword by hip-hop superstar Slick Rick and essays by A$AP Ferg, LL COOL J, Kevin “Coach K’ Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas of Quality Control Music take us on personal journeys into their jewelry universe. Ice Cold goes beyond the ostentatious bling to reveal a transformative story that is loud and proud.
£72.00
Taschen GmbH Albert Oehlen
The paintings of Albert Oehlen live by audacious strategies, by questioning the image and the rules of abstraction, and by an openness and beauty often reached through the unlikeliest of means. In this expansive monograph, we meet the full range of Oehlen’s artistic thoughts and approaches: paintings that integrate mirrors, paintings that are executed strictly in primary colors or only in gray, heavily pixelated paintings produced with the help of one of the first personal computers. We find collaged fragments of garish poster ads on canvases that transforming screaming slogans into abstract elements, charcoal drawings the size of a wall, finger paintings, and paintings in which black treelike silhouettes contort themselves into a lexicon of abstract forms. Throughout, Oehlen transforms the conceptual into the compositional, at once invigorating and challenging the viewer. Revising and updating TASCHEN’s previous Collector’s Edition, this revelatory survey explores Oehlen’s trajectory from his early days up to the present. It features more than 400 paintings as well as insightful commentaries and interviews, covering Oehlen’s different work stages and approaches. Roberto Ohrt’s essay takes us back to the special vibe of the early 1980s where Oehlen worked alongside Kippenberger, Büttner, and others, part of a scene that painted quickly and close to the pulse of time. Oehlen discusses his computer paintings with John Corbett, and follows up on his more recent work, his thoughts on art, and his day in the studio in a lengthy conversation with Alexander Klar. Together with a collection of shorter texts and statements, this brings us close to the ideas of an artist who has been dubbed “the most resourceful abstract painter alive.”
£61.41
Taschen GmbH domus 1950–1959
Founded in 1928 as a “living diary” by the great Milanese architect and designer Gio Ponti, domus has been hailed as the world’s most influential architecture and design journal. With style and rigor, it has reported on the major themes and stylistic movements in industrial, interior, product, and structural design. This fresh reprint of domus' 1950s coverage brings together the most important features from an era of post-war optimism. As memories of conflict receded, architecture and design sought new forms, materials, and applications, as well as increasing international dialogue. Highlights include Le Corbusier’s design of the United Nations Building in New York; the Case Study Houses of Charles and Ray Eames; Richard Neutra in California, office machines by Olivetti, furniture by Ray and Charles Eames, ceramics and tables by Ettore Sottsass, and the Herman Miller Showroom by Alexander Girard in San Francisco. domus distilled Seven volumes spanning 1928 to 1999 Over 4,000 pages featuring influential projects by the most important designers and architects Original layouts and all covers, with captions providing navigation and context Introductory essays by renowned architects and designers Each edition comes with an appendix featuring texts translated into English, many of which were previously only available in Italian A comprehensive index in each volume listing both designers’ and manufacturers’ names
£27.00
Taschen GmbH Erotica Universalis
From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age—whether the Egyptian, Greek, or Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names such as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas, or Picasso—have succumbed to their fantasies, obsessions, and libido and produced erotic works that the censors have taken good care to keep from the public. For Erotica Universalis, we surface from the subterranean realms of the museums to enter those of our national and private libraries. Here we discover that not only most of our famous writers, such as Ovid, Aretino, Voltaire, Verlaine, or Maupassant, wrote erotic texts that bordered on indecency, but also that great artists like Boucher, Fragonard, Dalí, or Matisse were inspired to provide suitable illustrations for these naughty books. For this new hardcover edition of the classic 1995 best seller, we have culled highlights from our Erotica Universalis collection.
£18.00
Taschen GmbH Sebastião Salgado. Children
In every crisis situation, children are the greatest victims. Physically weak, they are often the first to succumb to hunger, disease, and dehydration. Innocent to the workings and failings of the world, they are unable to understand why there is danger, why there are people who want to hurt them, or why they must leave, perhaps quite suddenly, and abandon their schools, their friends, and their home. In this companion series to Exodus, Sebastião Salgado presents 90 portraits of the youngest exiles, migrants, and refugees. His subjects are from different countries, victims to different crises, but they are all on the move, and all under the age of 15. Through his extensive refugee project, what struck Salgado about these boys and girls was not only the implicit innocence in their suffering but also their radiant reserves of energy and enthusiasm, even in the most miserable of circumstances. From roadside refuges in Angola and Burundi to city slums in Brazil and sprawling camps in Lebanon and Iraq, the children remained children: they were quick to laugh as much as to cry, they played soccer, splashed in dirty water, got up to mischief with friends, and were typically ecstatic at the prospect of being photographed. For Salgado, the exuberance presented a curious paradox. How can a smiling child represent circumstances of deprivation and despair? What he noticed, though, was that when he asked the children to line up, and took their portraits one by one, the group giddiness would fade. Face to face with his camera, each child would become much more serious. They would look at him not as part of a noisy crowd, but as an individual. Their poses would become earnest. They looked into the lens with a sudden intensity, as if abruptly taking stock of themselves and their situation. And in the expression of their eyes, or the nervous fidget of small hands, or the way frayed clothes hung off painfully thin frames, Salgado found he had a refugee portfolio that deserved a forum of its own. The photographs do not try to make a statement about their subjects’ feelings, or to spell out the particulars of their health, educational, and housing deficits. Rather, the collection allows 90 children to look out at the viewer with all the candor of youth and all the uncertainty of their future. Beautiful, proud, pensive, and sad, they stand before the camera for a moment in their lives, but ask questions that haunt for years to come. Will they remain in exile? Will they always know an enemy? Will they grow up to forgive or seek revenge? Will they grow up at all?
£36.00
Taschen GmbH Frida Kahlo. 40th Ed.
Among the women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an icon of 20th century art. After an accident in her early youth, Frida became a painter. Her marriage to Diego Rivera in 1929 placed her at the forefront of an artistic scene not only in the cultural Renaissance of Mexico, but also in the United States. Her work garnered praise from the poet André Breton, who added the Mexican painter to the ranks of international surrealism and exhibited her work in Paris in 1939 to the admiration of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp. We access the intimacy of Frida's affections and passions through a selection of drawings, pages from her personal diary, and an extensive illustrated biography featuring photos of Frida, Diego, and the Casa Azul, Frida's home and the center of her universe. This book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo's paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years.
£24.08
Taschen GmbH The Illustrator. The Best from around the World
For the last couple of years, Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann have traced the latest developments in illustration around the globe—and for all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era, they’re here to set the record straight.There were extraordinary eras before mass media changed our viewing habits, back in the day when illustration was the primary means of illuminating the word on paper—all the way to today, when we get our words and images on screens as small as a watch face. In this environment, today’s designers and artists are holding their own brilliantly. Illustration is more free and varied than ever, and it is ubiquitous in all kinds of media, from paper to screen to books, packages, clothing, cars, and restaurants.This book celebrates the sheer quality, diversity, intensity, comedy, vivacity, and exceptionality of the work being created by illustrators right now. The artists in this collection are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but they represent a compelling snapshot of the styles, techniques, and use of color by artists around the world. We dare you to pick your favorites.
£18.00
Taschen GmbH Mid-Century Ads. 40th Ed.
Gleaned from thousands of images, this book offers the best of American print advertising in the age of the “Big Idea.” From the height of American consumerism, bold and colorful campaigns paint a fascinating portrait of the 1950s and ’60s, as concerns about the Cold War gave way to the carefree booze-and-cigarettes capitalism of the Mad Men era.Digitally remastered for optimum reproduction quality, the ads burst with crisp fonts and colors, as well as a sexy sense of possibility, beguiling their audience to buy everything from guns to girdles, cars to toothpaste, air travel to home appliances. At turns startling, amusing and inspiring, this panorama of midcentury marketing is at once an evocative period piece and a showcase of design innovation and advertising wit.
£22.50
Taschen GmbH The adidas Archive. The Footwear Collection. 40th Ed.
More than 100 years ago the brothers Adolf ("Adi") and Rudolf Dassler made their first pair of sports shoes. Hundreds of groundbreaking designs, epic moments, and star-studded collabs later, this book presents a visual review of the adidas shoe through almost 200 models.To further develop and tailor his products to athletes’ specific needs, Dassler asked them to return their worn footwear when no longer needed, with all the shoes eventually ending up in his attic (to this day, many athletes return their shoes to adidas, often as a thank you after winning a title or breaking a world record). This collection now makes up the "adidas archive", one of the largest, if not the largest archive of any sports goods manufacturer in the world—which photographers Christian Habermeier and Sebastian Jäger have been visually documenting in extreme detail for years.Shot using the highest reproduction techniques, these images reveal the fine details as much as the stains, the tears, the repair tape, the grass smudges, the faded autographs. It’s all here, unmanipulated and captured in extremely high resolution—and with it comes to light the personal stories of each individual wearer. We encounter the shoes worn by West Germany’s football team during its “miraculous” 1954 World Cup win and those worn by Kathrine Switzer when she ran the Boston Marathon in 1967, before women were officially allowed to compete; custom models for stars from Madonna to Lionel Messi; collabs with the likes of Pharrell Williams, Raf Simons, Stella McCartneyor Yohji Yamamoto; as well as the brand’s trailblazing techniques and materials.Accompanied by expert texts, each picture tells us the why and the how, but also conveys the driving force behind adidas. What we discover goes beyond mere design; in the end, these are just shoes, worn out by their users who have loved them—but they are also first-hand witnesses of our sports, design, and culture history, from the beginnings of the Dassler brothers and the founding of adidas until today.
£22.50
Taschen GmbH Surfing. 1778–Today. 40th Ed.
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.”
£22.50
Taschen GmbH Ando. Complete Works 1975–Today. 2023 Edition
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.
£150.00
Taschen GmbH Matisse. Cut-outs. 40th Ed.
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.
£25.00
Taschen GmbH Japanese Woodblock Prints. 40th Ed.
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.
£22.50
Taschen GmbH Piranesi. The Complete Etchings
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.
£54.00