Search results for ""author painters"

The first in-depth biography of Sam Francis, the legendary American abstract painter who broke all the rules in his personal and artistic life.Light on Fire is the first comprehensive biography of Sam Francis, one of the most important American abstract artists of the twentieth century. Based on Gabrielle Selz’s unprecedented access to Francis’s files, as well as private correspondence and hundreds of interviews, this book traces the extraordinary and ultimately tragic journey of a complex and charismatic artist who first learned to paint as a former air-corps pilot encased for three years in a full-body cast. While still a young man, Francis saw his color-saturated paintings fetch the highest prices of any living artist. His restless desire resulted in five marriages and homes on three continents; his entrepreneurial spirit led to founding a museum, a publishing company, a reforestation program and several nonprofits. Light on Fire captures the art, life, personality, and talent of a man whom the art historian and museum director William C. Agee described as a rare artist participating in the “visionary reconstruction of art history,” defying creative boundaries among the likes of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. With settings from World War II San Francisco to postwar Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, Selz crafts an intimate portrait of a man who sought to resolve in art the contradictions he couldn’t resolve in life.

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The Hungarian-born French painter Simon Hantaï (1922–2008) is best known for abstract, large-format works produced using pliage: the painting of a crumpled, gathered, or systematically pleated canvas that the artist then unfolds and stretches for exhibition. In her study of this profoundly influential artist, Molly Warnock presents a persuasive historical account of his work, his impact on a younger generation of French artists, and the genesis and development of the practice of pliage over time. Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting covers the entirety of Hantaï’s expansive oeuvre, from his first aborted experiments with folding around 1950 to his post-pliage experiments with digital scanning and printing. Throughout, Warnock analyzes the artist’s relentlessly searching studio practice in light of his no less profound engagement with developments in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Engaging both Hantaï’s art and writing to support her argument and paying particular attention to his sustained interrogation of religious painting in the West, Warnock shows how Hantaï’s work evinces a complicated mixture of intentionality and contingency. Appendixes provide English translations of two major texts by the artist, “A Plantaneous Demolition” and “Notes, Deliberately Confounding, Accelerating, and the Like for a ‘Reactionary,’ Nonreducible Avant-Garde.”Original and insightful, this important new book is a central reference for the life, art, and theories of one of the most significant and exciting artists of the twentieth century. It will appeal to art historians and students of modernism, especially those interested in the history of abstraction, materiality and Surrealism, theories of community, and automatism and making.

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In Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies, Lyle Massey argues that we can only learn how and why certain kinds of spatial representation prevailed over others by carefully considering how Renaissance artists and theorists interpreted perspective. Combining detailed historical studies with broad theoretical and philosophical investigations, this book challenges basic assumptions about the way early modern artists and theorists represented their relationship to the visible world and how they understood these representations. By analyzing technical feats such as anamorphosis (the perspectival distortion of an object to make it viewable only from a certain angle), drawing machines, and printed diagrams, each chapter highlights the moments when perspective theorists failed to unite a singular, ideal viewpoint with the artist’s or viewer’s viewpoint or were unsuccessful at conjoining fictive and lived space. Showing how these “failures” were subsequently incorporated rather than rejected by perspective theorists, the book presents an important reassessment of the standard view of Renaissance perspective. While many scholars have maintained that perspective rationalized the relationships among optics, space, and painting, Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies asserts instead that Renaissance and early modern theorists often revealed a disjunction between geometrical ideals and practical applications. In some cases, they not only identified but also exploited these discrepancies. This discussion of perspective shows that the painter’s geometry did not always conform to the explicitly rational, Cartesian formula that so many have assumed, nor did it historically unfold according to a standard account of scientific development.

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In Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies, Lyle Massey argues that we can only learn how and why certain kinds of spatial representation prevailed over others by carefully considering how Renaissance artists and theorists interpreted perspective. Combining detailed historical studies with broad theoretical and philosophical investigations, this book challenges basic assumptions about the way early modern artists and theorists represented their relationship to the visible world and how they understood these representations. By analyzing technical feats such as anamorphosis (the perspectival distortion of an object to make it viewable only from a certain angle), drawing machines, and printed diagrams, each chapter highlights the moments when perspective theorists failed to unite a singular, ideal viewpoint with the artist’s or viewer’s viewpoint or were unsuccessful at conjoining fictive and lived space. Showing how these “failures” were subsequently incorporated rather than rejected by perspective theorists, the book presents an important reassessment of the standard view of Renaissance perspective. While many scholars have maintained that perspective rationalized the relationships among optics, space, and painting, Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies asserts instead that Renaissance and early modern theorists often revealed a disjunction between geometrical ideals and practical applications. In some cases, they not only identified but also exploited these discrepancies. This discussion of perspective shows that the painter’s geometry did not always conform to the explicitly rational, Cartesian formula that so many have assumed, nor did it historically unfold according to a standard account of scientific development.

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Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created works of unearthly beauty. A star of Florence’s art world, he was commissioned by a member of the city’s powerful Medici family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the ultimate visual homage to that “divine” poet. This sparked a gripping encounter between poet and artist, between the religious and the secular, between the earthly and the evanescent, recorded in exquisite drawings by Botticelli that now enchant audiences worldwide. Yet after a lifetime of creating masterpieces including Primavera and The Birth of Venus, Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity. His Dante project remained unfinished. Then the drawings vanished for over four hundred years. The once famous Botticelli himself was forgotten. The nineteenth-century rediscovery of Botticelli’s Dante drawings brought scholars and art lovers to their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come to mean. From Botticelli’s metaphorical rise from the dead in Victorian England to the emergence of eagle-eyed connoisseurs like Bernard Berenson and Herbert Horne in the early twentieth century, and even the rescue of precious art during the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the posthumous story of Botticelli’s Dante drawings is, if anything, even more dramatic than their creation. A combination of artistic detective story and rich intellectual history, shows not only how the Renaissance came to life, but also how Botticelli's art helped bring it about—and, most important, why we need the Renaissance and all that it stands for today.

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Probably no artist was more prolific among 18th-century topographers than Grimm in recording the landscapes and historic buildings of Great Britain, and none played a more important role. Born near Bern in Switzerland, Samuel Hieronymus Grimm studied under various teachers before deciding to move to London in 1768, where he remained for the rest of his life. A talented watercolour artist, he earned an impressive reputation among his clients as a quick, accurate painter. The most important of his patrons was Sir Richard Kaye, who retained Grimm's services for nearly two decades and during this period accumulated over 2,600 drawings and watercolours. Grimm was a tireless traveller, ranging far and wide over Britain and creating works of various kinds, from simple landscapes to highly detailed and now invaluable scenes of daily rural life. While in London, Grimm also revealed an unexpectedly sharp, witty side to his talent, publishing a series of political caricatures and drawings satirising the society of the time and its fashions. Some of Grimm's most conspicuous commissions came from the Society of Antiquaries, which was keen to build a visual record of historical monuments at risk of being destroyed. In spite of the considerable success he enjoyed during his lifetime, his reputation quickly faded thereafter and the exhibition held in the Kunstmuseum in Bern in 2014 was the first show devoted entirely to his work. The accompanying monograph by Dr. William Hauptman restores Grimm to his rightful place in the history of British painting.

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NAMED TO ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S ‘MUST LIST’! The year is 1922. The carnival is Pontilliar’s Spectacular Star Light Miraculum, staked out on the Texas-Louisiana border. One blazing summer night, a mysterious stranger steps onto the midway, lights a cigarette and forever changes the world around him. Tattooed snake charmer Ruby has traveled with her father’s carnival for most of her life and, jaded though she is, can’t help but be drawn to the tall man in the immaculate black suit who conveniently joins the carnival as a chicken-biting geek. Mercurial and charismatic, Daniel charms everyone he encounters, but his manipulation of Ruby turns complicated when it’s no longer clear who’s holding all the cards. Daniel is full of secrets, but he hadn’t counted on Ruby having a few of her own. When one tragedy after another strikes the carnival—and it becomes clear that Daniel is somehow at the center of calamity—Ruby takes it upon herself to discover the mystery of the shadowy man pulling all the strings. Joined by Hayden, a roughneck-turned-mural-painter wrestling demons of his own, Ruby engages Daniel in a dangerous, eye-opening game in which nothing is as it seems and everything is at stake. Steph Post has firmly estblished herself as one of the most original and captivating voices in contemporary fiction, and with Miraculum she has written an unforgettable novel that is part Southern Gothic, part Noir, part Magical Realism, and all Steph Post.

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Was it necessary for a 17th century painter to know principles of optics to hide a skull in one of his masterpieces? Is it possible the violent deaths of Roman emperors obey a statistical law? Are there connections between market trends and geometry? How did Islamic artists draw almost perfectly regular nine-sided polygons, when these cannot be traced with the use of compasses? Dirk Huylebrouk asks these and other exciting questions in this collection of essays, originally written for the science magazine EOS, a Dutch equivalent of Scientific American, distributed in Belgium and in The Netherlands. Every chapter can be read independently, as some subjects are repeated, and not strictly interconnected. Such is the case for instance of the golden section, an often-recurring topic in general mathematics. The reader will appreciate the original point of view expressed through each chapter, which makes this book stand out against the general information one can find by browsing the general media. The subtly provocative character of some parts is meant to stimulate the reader for further exploration. The book's title itself may already generate surprise. Sure, to many, mathematics seems to come from hell, but the darkness in the title in fact refers to the lugubrious stories about math and skulls, murders or World War II. There is also a more down-to-earth part about math and maps, money, Facebook, folding paper, shapes in ice and the most earthly yet unsolved math problems. ‘Bright mathematics’ alludes to Vedic, Islam, New Age, a meta-divine section, and is concluded by an interview with a top mathematician who also wrote about the existence of God.

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'Epic . . . weaves a Cloud Atlas-style narrative of humanity under pressure and nature under threat' Guardian, BOOKS OF THE YEAR'A little piece of magic' Sunday Independent, BOOKS OF THE YEAR'Enthralling . . . A timely musing on what and who are lost to history' The Economist, BOOKS OF THE YEAR'Truly outstanding' Mail on Sunday'Mason teases out the joy and meaning in the sometimes small lives of his characters. North Woods has been heaped with praise and hype, and deservedly so. This is a book that treats life as a miracle and demands the proper awe from its readers' Antonia Senior, The Times 'This is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic . . . The only constants are the land and Mason's genius' Washington Post 'Daniel Mason's latest novel is one of those rare books that truly deserves the description "spellbinding" ' Observer'A tapestry at once intimate and epic' TLS'Extraordinary characters . . . a tour de force' Independent, Best Books for Autumn FOUR CENTURIES. A SINGLE HOUSE DEEP IN THE WOODS OF NEW ENGLAND. A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision. Inseparable twin sisters. A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son. A ruthless con man and a stalking panther. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope. All are connected. The dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.Exhilarating, daring and playful, NORTH WOODS will change the way you see the world.'A monumental achievement' Maggie O'Farrell'Ambitious, alive, and lush with generosity . . . an immersive sprint through time' Tess Gunty

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For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness. Interweaving vivid tales from the animal kingdom with thoughtful philosophical analysis, de Waal seeks a bottom-up explanation of morality that emphasizes our connection with animals. In doing so, de Waal explores for the first time the implications of his work for our understanding of modern religion. Whatever the role of religious moral imperatives, he sees it as a “Johnny-come-lately” role that emerged only as an addition to our natural instincts for cooperation and empathy. But unlike the dogmatic neo-atheist of his book’s title, de Waal does not scorn religion per se. Instead, he draws on the long tradition of humanism exemplified by the painter Hieronymus Bosch and asks reflective readers to consider these issues from a positive perspective: What role, if any, does religion play for a well-functioning society today? And where can believers and nonbelievers alike find the inspiration to lead a good life? Rich with cultural references and anecdotes of primate behavior, The Bonobo and the Atheist engagingly builds a unique argument grounded in evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. Ever a pioneering thinker, de Waal delivers a heartening and inclusive new perspective on human nature and our struggle to find purpose in our lives.

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The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades—and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian RenaissanceAs he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life.Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter’s project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering. Assessing the situation with his uncompromising eye and razor-sharp intellect, Michelangelo overcame the furious resistance of Church officials to persuade the Pope that it was time to start over.In this richly illustrated book, leading Michelangelo expert William Wallace sheds new light on this least familiar part of Michelangelo’s biography, revealing a creative genius who was also a skilled engineer and enterprising businessman. The challenge of building St. Peter’s deepened Michelangelo’s faith, Wallace shows. Fighting the intrigues of Church politics and his own declining health, Michelangelo became convinced that he was destined to build the largest and most magnificent church ever conceived. And he was determined to live long enough that no other architect could alter his design.

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A visual history of the spaceships, alien landscapes, cryptozoology, and imagined industrial machinery of 1970s paperback sci-fi artIn the 1970s, mass-produced, cheaply printed science fiction novels were thriving. The paper was rough, the titles outrageous, and the cover art astounding. Over the course of the decade, a stable of talented painters, comic book artists, and designers produced thousands of the most eye-catching book covers to ever grace bookstore shelves (or spinner racks). Curiously, the pieces commissioned for these covers often had very little to do with the contents of the books they were selling, but by leaning heavily on psychedelic imagery, far-out landscapes, and trippy surrealism, the art was able to satisfy the same space-race fueled appetite for the big ideas and brave new worlds that sci-fi writers were boldly pushing forward.In Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s, Adam Rowe—who has been curating, championing, and resurrecting the best and most obscure art that 1970s sci-fi has to offer for more than five years on his blog 70s Sci-Fi Art—introduces readers to the biggest names in the genre, including Chris Foss, Peter Elson, Tim White, Jack Gaughan, and Virgil Finlay, as well as their influences. With deep dives into the subject matter that commonly appeared on these covers—spaceships, alien landscapes, fantasy realms, cryptozoology, and heavy machinery—this book is a loving tribute to a unique and robust art form whose legacy lives on both in nostalgic appreciation as well as the retro-chic design of mainstream sci-fi films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Alien: Covenant, and Thor: Ragnarok.

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Henry James's reputation as The Master is so familiar that it's hard to imagine he was ever someone on whom some things really were lost. This is the story of the year--1875 to 1876--when the young novelist moved to Paris, drawn by his literary idols living at the center of the early modern movement in art. As Peter Brooks skillfully recounts, James largely failed to appreciate or even understand the new artistic developments teeming around him during his Paris sojourn. But living in England twenty years later, he would recall the aesthetic lessons of Paris, and his memories of the radical perspectives opened up by French novelists and painters would help transform James into the writer of his adventurous later fiction. A narrative that combines biography and criticism and uses James's writings to tell the story from his point of view, Henry James Goes to Paris vividly brings to life the young American artist's Paris year--and its momentous artistic and personal consequences. James's Paris story is one of enchantment and disenchantment. He initially loved Paris, he succeeded in meeting all the writers he admired (Turgenev, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Goncourt, and Daudet), and he witnessed the latest development in French painting, Impressionism. But James largely found the writers disappointing, and he completely misunderstood the paintings he saw. He also seems to have fallen in and out of love in a more ordinary sense--with a young Russian aesthete, Paul Zhukovsky. Disillusioned, James soon retreated to England--for good. But James would eventually be changed forever by his memories of Paris.

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Go on an artistic journey around the world in this children’s introduction.Discover the power of art and be inspired by cultures from all over the world with this extensive children’s guide. This book is the perfect introduction for young readers to the world of art and celebrates different styles from every continent!Children aged 9+ can enjoy reading about early art right through to present day, and learn about the fascinating lives and achievements of great artists and sculptors, from Leonardo da Vinci to Tracey Emin and Henry Moore. All the essential information about art is covered, including the major movements, artists from around the world and techniques.This art book for children offers: - Chapters which cover a huge range of artistic styles, from the very first cave paintings to contemporary art installations.- Profiles of influential artists from Katsushika Hokusai to Jackson Pollock.- A focus on key techniques and the famous artists who used them.Fun activities to create frescoes and sculptures for yourself. Children’s Book of Art is full of facts and photos highlighting artistic styles from across the globe, from the very earliest cave paintings through to Renaissance art and surrealism, via China’s terracotta army and African sculptors. Plus, there are fun activities and projects so children can create their own works of art – making it the perfect gift for budding painters and sculptors.More in the seriesThe Children’s Book of series inspires young learners to dive into their favorite topic and immerse themselves in the ins and outs, from fun facts to experts in the field. If you liked Children’s Book of Art, then why not try the guide for budding musicians, Children’s Book of Music?

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In Senghor’s Shadow is a unique study of modern art in postindependence Senegal. Elizabeth Harney examines the art that flourished during the administration of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal’s first president, and in the decades since he stepped down in 1980. As a major philosopher and poet of Negritude, Senghor envisioned an active and revolutionary role for modern artists, and he created a well-funded system for nurturing their work. In questioning the canon of art produced under his aegis—known as the Ecole de Dakar—Harney reconsiders Senghor’s Negritude philosophy, his desire to express Senegal’s postcolonial national identity through art, and the system of art schools and exhibits he developed. She expands scholarship on global modernisms by highlighting the distinctive cultural history that shaped Senegalese modernism and the complex and often contradictory choices made by its early artists.Heavily illustrated with nearly one hundred images, including some in color, In Senghor’s Shadow surveys the work of a range of Senegalese artists, including painters, muralists, sculptors, and performance-based groups—from those who worked at the height of Senghor’s patronage system to those who graduated from art school in the early 1990s. Harney reveals how, in the 1970s, avant-gardists contested Negritude beliefs by breaking out of established artistic forms. During the 1980s and 1990s, artists such as Moustapha Dimé, Germaine Anta Gaye, and Kan-Si engaged with avant-garde methods and local artistic forms to challenge both Senghor’s legacy and the broader art world’s understandings of cultural syncretism. Ultimately, Harney’s work illuminates the production and reception of modern Senegalese art within the global arena.

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Waiting at the Shore chronicles the extraordinary life of the Spanish artist Luis Quintanilla, championed by Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Elliot Paul, and many other American and European writers and artists. In 1912, at the age of 18, he ran off to Montmartre where, under the influence of his fellow countryman Juan Gris, he began his artistic career as a Cubist. Returning to Madrid before the war he befriended prominent Spaniards, including Juan Negrin, the Premier during the Spanish Civil War. In April 1931 he and Negrin participated in the peaceful revolution which ousted the monarchy and installed the Second Spanish Republic. When civil war broke out Quintanilla helped lead troops on Madrid's Montana Barracks, which saved the capital for the Republic. "Because great painters," as Hemingway put it, "are scarcer than good soldiers," the Spanish government [Negrin] ordered Quintanilla out of the army after the fascists were stopped outside Madrid. The artist completed 140 drawings of the various fronts of the war which were exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, with a catalogue by Hemingway. After the Republic lost the war Quintanilla was forced into an exile which lasted several decades. Living in New York and in Paris he strove to perfect his art, shunning the modernist vogues of the time. Although a celebrity when he first arrived in the United States he eventually fell into obscurity. This volume, which is heavily illustrated, brings him out of the shadows of neglect, and provides the compelling story of an artist who led not just an extraordinary life but left a legacy of paintings and drawings which, in both their skill and great imaginative variety, should be known to all art lovers.

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Winner, Award of Merit for Non-Fiction, The Philosophical Society of Texas, 2015Before Abstract Expressionism of New York City was canonized as American postwar modernism, the United States was filled with localized manifestations of modern art. One such place where considerable modernist activity occurred was Texas, where artists absorbed and interpreted the latest, most radical formal lessons from Mexico, the East Coast, and Europe, while still responding to the state’s dramatic history and geography. This barely known chapter in the story of American art is the focus of Midcentury Modern Art in Texas.Presenting new research and artwork that has never before been published, Katie Robinson Edwards examines the contributions of many modernist painters and sculptors in Texas, with an emphasis on the era’s most abstract and compelling artists. Edwards looks first at the Dallas Nine and the 1936 Texas Centennial, which offered local artists a chance to take stock of who they were and where they stood within the national artistic setting. She then traces the modernist impulse through various manifestations, including the foundations of early Texas modernism in Houston; early practitioners of abstraction and non-objectivity; the Fort Worth Circle; artists at the University of Texas at Austin; Houston artists in the 1950s; sculpture in and around an influential Fort Worth studio; and, to see how some Texas artists fared on a national scale, the Museum of Modern Art’s “Americans” exhibitions.The first full-length treatment of abstract art in Texas during this vital and canon-defining period, Midcentury Modern Art in Texas gives these artists their due place in American art, while also valuing the quality of Texan-ness that subtly undergirds much of their production.

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Text in German & English. Schinkel's Look towards India discusses a subject to which little attention has been paid to date: Schinkel's interest in Indian architecture and culture. This interest was first aroused by the English traveller to India William Hodges, who proposed the thesis that Greek and Indian architecture were of equal value. Later, the English landscape painters Thomas and William Daniell were to become even more important for Schinkel. Oriental Scenery, the book that described their travels, left its mark on Europe's image of India for decades and inspired longing for that country, which was considered almost magical. The cultural elite of Prussia were also caught up in this fascination. At the royal court of Prussia, Lalla Rookh, based on Thomas Moore's romance, was celebrated in 1821 as an oriental festival. In 1822 the Indian-themed pageant Nurmahalwas performed at the opera. For both productions Schinkel created enchantingly beautiful stage sets. His interest in exotic architecture was lifelong. The sketches he based on the work of the Daniells were preliminary studies for a huge round panorama that was to show the buildings of various periods and nations in their particular setting. His unrealised project for the summer palace Orianda on the Crimea, at the geographical interface of eastern and western culture, was Schinkel's convincing and timeless memorial to his dream of the unity of world cultures. The style of the exterior is classical, while that of the interior is Indian and Islamic. The work is character-ized by the hall of caryatids that lies in front of the building, with a view of the Black Sea, and the museum of Caucasian antiquities, its counterpart in the interior of the palace. Schinkel found the idea for the museum in Oriental Scenery, in the drawings of the legendary 1000-Pillar Hall in Madurai, in southern India, which the Daniells had toured full of admiration and included in their book.

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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.”

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Titian (c. 1488-1576) was recognised very early on as the leading painter of his generation in Venice. Starting in the studio of the aged Giovanni Bellini, Titian, with his contemporary Giorgione, almost immediately started to expand the range of what was possible in painting, converting Bellini's statuesque style into something far more impressionistic and romantic. This restless spirit of innovation and improvisation never left him, and during his long life he experimented with a number of different styles, the brushwork of his last great paintings showing a mysterious poetry that has never been equalled. This volume in the series Lives of the Artists collects the major writings about Titian by his contemporaries and near contemporaries. The centrepiece is the biography by Vasari, who as a Florentine found Titian's very Venetian sense of colour and transient forms a challenge to his concept of art as design. The poet Ariosto and sparkling letter writer Aretino had a more nuanced view of their friend's work, and Priscianese's account of a dinner party with Titian, and the contributions by Speroni and Dolce, and the slightly later Tuscan critic Borghini, round out the picture of this hugely thoughtful, intellectual artist, whose paintings remain some of the most sensual and affecting in all of Western art. Mostly unavailable in any form for many years, these writings have been newly edited for this edition. They are introduced by the scholar Carlo Corsato, who places each in its artistic and literary context. Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations cover the full range of Titian's great oeuvre.

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Cuban painter Rafael Soriano (1920–2015) was an acclaimed master of geometric abstraction and a global figure in the twentieth-century art world—his work resonated with such international artists of Latin American origin as Roberto Matta, Rufino Tamayo, and Wifredo Lam. As a result of the revolution in Cuba in 1959, Soriano left the country in 1962 for the United States. The effect of the Cuban revolution on his art as well as his aesthetics in general are the focus of this book, an unprecedented examination of his entire oeuvre. Featuring more than ninety paintings, pastels, and drawings, this bilingual English-Spanish catalog for an accompanying exhibition at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College; the Long Beach Museum of Art; and the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University begins with a contextual analysis of Soriano’s relationship to the Cuban avant-garde and his position within the emerging mid-century modernists. Essays then trace his evolving styles, examining his work through the lens of surrealism and European and Latin American transnational aesthetics. The idea of exile and struggle is a leitmotif and is framed within questions of transcendence and spirituality. Taken together, the contributions suggest both Soriano’s rootedness in Latin America and his striving for universality. The most comprehensive exploration of Soriano’s work to date, Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic deftly takes the idea of exile and struggle so prominent in the artist’s work and frames it within important questions of transcendence and spirituality. This book will be essential reading for anyone intrigued by Latin American and modern art.

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This new volume of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionnaire Biographique du Canada (DCB / DBC) presents well-written, carefully documented and meticulously edited biographies of Canadians from all walks of life. Its literary and scholarly standards make it, like its predecessors, the definitive biographical reference for its period of history. The 619 biographies by 446 authors present a panoramic view of the origins of modern Canada, its political landscapes, economic changes, educational institutions, cultural developments, and athletic achievements. The volume's coverage is inclusive, ranging from murderers to artists, from business magnates to religious leaders, from Canada's First Peoples to new immigrants. There are labour leaders, farmers, feminists, and naturalists as well as all the prominent leaders in all aspects of Canadian life. The dominant theme of this volume is the emergence of a country engrossed by material gains and aware of broadening horizons. Sir Clifford Sifton, federal minister of the interior, Sir Lomer Gouin, premier of Quebec, and Sir Robert Bond, premier of Newfoundland, symbolize this age of development. The lives of Sir Adam Beck, father of Ontario Hydro, Gordon Morton McGregor, founder of the Ford Motor Company of Canada, and Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, illustrate how new technologies harnessed natural energy sources and created new ways to communicate. Such innovations drove the transformation of Canada in the early years of the twentieth century. An expanding nation required thousands of new people to answer the demands of the agricultural enterprises in the west, the manufacturing industries of central Canada, and the fishing and lumbering businesses of British Columbia and the Atlantic region. Many newcomers were drawn from eastern Europe and Asia as well as the British Isles and western Europe, traditionally the homelands of new Canadians. The Doukhobor leader Peter Vasil'evich Verigin, the housemaid Angelina Napolitano, the Chinese teacher and merchant Yip Sang, and the Orthodox clergyman Nestor Dmytriw all took their places in the increasingly complex ethnic mosaic. Social and economic changes inspired demands for other types of change. The movement of women into the professions is exemplified by the life of Clara Brett Martin, the first woman called to the bar in Canada. Jeanne Lajoie, an embattled Franco-Ontarian teacher, joins writers Sara Jeannette Duncan, F licit Angers (known as Laure Conan), Jos phine Marchand (Dandurand) and Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall in the cast of women prominent in this volume. Among those representing arts and sports are the painter James Wilson Morrice and the brilliant goalkeeper Georges V zina. Without question Volume XV of the DCB/DBC will take its place as one of the finest to appear in this distinguished ongoing series of Canadian lives. To all purchasers of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XV 1921-1930. Please be advised that there is an error in some volumes on the staff page. It should read: Ramsay Cook General Editor R al B langer Directeur G n ral Adjoint The Press regrets this error and will provide a corrected tipped-in page, at no expense, if you return the volume. Alternatively, if you contact me, I will send you an erratum slip or a label to correct the error. Bill Harnum Senior Vice President Scholarly Publishing University of Toronto Press 416 978 2239 ext 243 bharnum@utpress.utoronto.ca

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John Constable, one of the most beloved of British painters, is renowned for his poetic approach to nature and his extraordinary use of broken color. In this beautiful two-volume set, the dean of Constable scholars, Graham Reynolds, discusses all the paintings and drawings the artist produced between 1790 and1816, both before and after his breakthrough into the original style that is the basis of his fame. Together with Reynolds`s award-winning The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable (1984), the books are a catalogue raisonne‚ of this artist`s monumental oeuvre.The two volumes, one of text and one of plates, describe and reproduce 1370 paintings and drawings in chronological order. They begin with Constable`s juvenilia and tentative experiments before he went to London in 1799 to become a professional artist. Next are some lesser-known works—elegant figure studies of girls, Constable`s first portraits, and his Lake District watercolors. Finally are the works after 1808—Dedham Vale: morning, Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour, A Summerland, The Stour Valley and Dedham Village, and the recently rediscovered The Wheatfield—works that made Constable a major force in British landscape painting. The volumes also include Constable`s numerous sketches of his homeland around East Bergholt and Dedham from this period, drawings on which he based his later masterpieces. An appendix records and reproduces, as addenda to The Later Paintings and Drawings, 94 works produced between 1817 and 1836 that have come to light since those books were published. Published for the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art

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See how iconic artists like Louise Bourgeois were influenced by their environments in this beautiful series produced in collaboration with The Met.See the world through Louise Bourgeois’s eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces. Have you ever wondered exactly what your favorite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw and be inspired to create your own artworks too. In What the Artist Saw: Louise Bourgeois, meet famous French American painter, printmaker, and sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Step into her life and learn what led her to explore her fears and emotions through her art. Learn all about her family and what inspired her to create her large spider sculptures. Have a go at producing your own art inspired by your dreams! In this series, follow the artists’ stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep— perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with, then continue their own artistic journeys.

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A riveting history and maritime adventure about priceless masterpieces originally destined for Catherine the Great.On October 1771, a merchant ship out of Amsterdam, Vrouw Maria, crashed off the stormy Finnish coast, taking her historic cargo to the depths of the Baltic Sea. The vessel was delivering a dozen Dutch masterpiece paintings to Europe’s most voracious collector: Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Among the lost treasures was The Nursery, an oak-paneled triptych by Leiden fine painter Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt’s most brilliant student and Holland’s first international superstar artist. Dou’s triptych was long the most beloved and most coveted painting of the Dutch Golden Age, and its loss in the shipwreck was mourned throughout the art world. Vrouw Maria, meanwhile, became a maritime legend, confounding would-be salvagers for more than two hundred years. In July 1999, a daring Finnish wreck hunter found Vrouw Maria, upright on the sea floor and perfectly preserved. The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure masterfully recounts the fascinating tale of Vrouw Maria—her loss and discovery—weaving together the rise and fall of the artist whose priceless masterpiece was the jewel of the wreckage. Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees bring to vivid life the personalities that drove (and are still driving) this compelling tale, evoking Robert Massie’s depiction of Russian high politics and culture, Simon Schama’s insights into Dutch Golden Age art and art history, Gary Kinder’s spirit of, danger and adventure on the beguiling Archipelago Sea.

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With the publication of her first book of criticism, Against Interpretation, in 1966, Susan Sontag placed herself at the forefront of an era of cultural and political transformation. “What is important now,” she wrote, “is to recover our senses . . . . In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.” She would remain a catalyzing presence, whether writing about camp sensibility, the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais, her experiences as a traveler to Hanoi at the height of the Vietnam War, the aesthetics of science-fiction and pornography, or a range of modern thinkers from Simone Weil to E. M. Cioran. She opened dazzling new perspectives on any subject she addressed, whether the nature of photography or cultural attitudes toward illness. This volume, edited by Sontag’s son David Rieff, presents the full texts of four essential books: Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will (1969), On Photography (1977), and Illness as Metaphor (1978). Also here as a special feature are six previously uncollected essays including studies of William S. Burroughs and the painter Francis Bacon and a series of reflections on beauty, aging, and the emerging feminist movement.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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One of the world’s preeminent Abstract Expressionists, California-born painter Sam Francis (1923-1994) first travelled to Japan in 1957, quickly established studios and residences there, and became active in a circle of avant-garde artists, writers, filmmakers, architects, and composers, including members of the nascent Gutai and Mono-ha movements. This book chronicles those connections, as well as his complex and evolving relationship with East Asian aesthetics from the 1950s through the 1990s. From the very first exhibitions Francis had in Tokyo, critics linked his evocative use of negative space with the Japanese concept of “ma”, a symbolically rich interval between objects or ideas. This shared pictorial and philosophical syntax laid the foundation for a feedback loop of mutual influence that spurred frequent collaborations between the artist and his Japanese contemporaries, extending into the realms of printmaking, ceramics, music, poetry, publishing, and performance. Written by art critic and curator Richard Speer, with a foreword by Debra Burchett-Lere, executive director/president of the Sam Francis Foundation, this is the first full-length monograph to explore an important but sometimes overlooked milieu in Post-World War II art—a dialogue between Eastern and Western sensibilities that prefigured our current era of global interconnectedness and cross-cultural exchange. Lavishly illustrated with colour plates and archival images, it is an adjunct publication for the related exhibition “Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing” (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021), co-curated by Speer.

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The Italian film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini was first and always a poet--the most important civil poet, according to Alberto Moravia, in Italy in the second half of this century. His poems were at once deeply personal and passionately engaged in the political turmoil of his country. In 1949, after his homosexuality led the Italian Communist Party to expel him on charges of "moral and political unworthiness," Pasolini fled to Rome. This selection of poems from his early impoverished days on the outskirts of Rome to his last (with a backward longing glance at his native Friuli) is at the center of his poetic and filmic vision of modern Italian life as an Inferno. "From all these refusals, we know what Pasolini stood against--political ideologies of all kinds, the complacency inherent in the established social order, the corruption of the institutions of church and state. If Pasolini could be said to have stood for anything it was for the struggles of Italy's working class--both the rural peasants and those barracked in the urban slums at the edges of Italian cities--whose humanity he evoked with great eloquence and nuance. But it is his refusals that animate his legacy with an incandescent rage, a passionate and profound fury that did not, as Zigaina suggests, cry out for death--but for just the opposite." -Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review of Books Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in 1922 in Bologna. In addition to the films for which he is world famous, he wrote novels, poetry, and social and cultural criticism, and was an accomplished painter. He was murdered in 1975 at Ostia, near Rome.

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A collection of essential quotations and other writings from artist and icon Jean-Michel BasquiatOne of the most important artists of the late twentieth century, Jean-Michel Basquiat explored the interplay of words and images throughout his career as a celebrated painter with an instantly recognizable style. In his paintings, notebooks, and interviews, he showed himself to be a powerful and creative writer and speaker as well as image-maker. Basquiat-isms is a collection of essential quotations from this godfather of urban culture. In these brief, compelling, and memorable selections, taken from his interviews as well as his visual and written works, Basquiat writes and speaks about culture, his artistic persona, the art world, artistic influence, race, urban life, and many other subjects. Concise, direct, forceful, poetic, and enigmatic, Basquiat’s words, like his art, continue to resonate.Select quotations from the book: "I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them." "I think there are a lot of people that are neglected in art, I don’t know if it’s because of who made the paintings or what, but, um . . . black people are never really portrayed realistically or I mean not even portrayed in modern art." "Since I was 17, I thought I might be a star." "The more I paint the more I like everything." "I think I make art for myself, but ultimately I think I make it for the world."

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Black Art and Aesthetics comprises essays, poems, interviews, and over 50 images from artists and writers: GerShun Avilez, Angela Y. Davis, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Theaster Gates, Aracelis Girmay, Jeremy Matthew Glick, Deborah Goffe, James B. Haile III, Vijay Iyer, Isaac Julien, Benjamin Krusling, Daphne Lamothe, George E. Lewis, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Meleko Mokgosi, Wangechi Mutu, Fumi Okiji, Nell Painter, Mickaella Perina, Kevin Quashie, Claudia Rankine, Claudia Schmuckli, Evie Shockley, Paul C. Taylor, Kara Walker, Simone White, and Mabel O. Wilson. The stellar contributors practice Black aesthetics by engaging intersectionally with class, queer sexuality, female embodiment, dance vocabularies, coloniality, Afrodiasporic music, Black post-soul art, Afropessimism, and more. Black aesthetics thus restores aesthetics to its full potential by encompassing all forms of sensation and imagination in art, culture, design, everyday life, and nature and by creating new ways of reckoning with experience, identity, and resistance. Highlighting wide-ranging forms of Black aesthetics across the arts, culture, and theory, Black Art and Aesthetics: Relationalities, Interiorities, Reckonings provides an unprecedented view of a field enjoying a global resurgence. Black aesthetics materializes in communities of artists, activists, theorists, and others who critique racial inequities, create new forms of interiority and relationality, uncover affective histories, and develop strategies for social justice.

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*THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER**A Times Best Music Book of 2023*'This is the most glorious of books. I am besotted by the life I never knew he had.' -Elton John'Every page of Scattershot is a delight, a joy, a name-dropper fan's delight. Divine. I couldn't put it down.' -Pete Townshend'Hilarious and so emotionally true, Scattershot is like a letter from a cherished friend. You'll want to keep it close, so you can read it again and again.' -Cameron Crowe'Touching. Charming. Humble. Witty. And exquisitely written. Taupin's words need no musical accompaniment. They sing with a poets voice.' -Gary Oldman'Eloquent and inspiring' -Robert Hilburn, author of Johnny Cash: The Life'A funny, zippy narrative' -MOJO'An entertaining ride that doesn't spare the horses' -RTE Guide'Sharply written' -The Independent'Self deprecating and refreshingly honest' - Sunday TimesThis is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now.Written with honesty and candour, Scatterhot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England whose imagination was sparked and forever informed by the distinctly American mythopoetics of country music and cowboys, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of '70s and '80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a Tom Jones­-like picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man's experience at the core of it.An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit New York with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs. And we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as "Tiny Dancer," "Candle in the Wind," "Bennie and The Jets," and so many more.Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and into the vivid imaginings of one of music's most legendary lyricists.

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An authoritative look at William Blake's life and enduring relevance as a prophetic artist, poet, and printmakerWilliam Blake (1757–1827) created some of the most iconic images in the history of art. He was a countercultural prophet whose personal struggles, technical innovations, and revelatory vision have inspired generations of artists. This marvelously illustrated book explores the biographical, artistic, and political contexts that shaped Blake's work, and demonstrates why he was a singularly gifted visual artist with renewed relevance for us today.The book explores Blake's relationship with the art world of his time and provides new perspectives on his craft as a printmaker, poet, watercolorist, and painter. It makes sense of the profound historical forces with which he contended during his lifetime, from revolutions in America and France to the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. Readers gain incomparable insights into Blake's desire for recognition and commercial success, his role as social critic, his visionary experience of London, his hatred of empire, and the bitter disappointments that drove him to retire from the world in his final years. What emerges is a luminous portrait of a complicated and uncompromising artist who was at once a heretic, mystic, saint, and cynic.With an afterword by Alan Moore, this handsome volume features many of the most sublime and exhilarating images Blake ever produced. It brings together watercolors, paintings, and prints, and draws from such illuminated masterpieces as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Europe a Prophecy, and apocalyptic works such as Milton and Jerusalem.Published in association with TateExhibition ScheduleTate Britain, LondonSeptember 11, 2019–February 2, 2020

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“I think in pictures. Poems help me with this. They are like buoys in the sea. I swim to them, from one to the other. In between, without them, I am lost. They are the handholds where something masses together in the infinite expanse.”—Anselm Kiefer The only visual artist to have won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Anselm Kiefer is a profoundly literary painter. In the ten conversations with the writer and theologian Klaus Dermutz collected here, Kiefer returns to the essential elements of his art, his aesthetics, and his creative processes. Kiefer describes how the central materials of his art—lead, sand, water, fire, ashes, plants, clothing, oil paint, watercolor, and ink—influence the act of creation. No less decisive are his intellectual and artistic touchstones: the sixteenth-century Jewish mystic Isaac Luria, the German Romantic poet Novalis, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Martin Heidegger, Marcel Proust, Adalbert Stifter, the operas of Richard Wagner, the Catholic liturgy, and the innovative theater director and artist Tadeusz Kantor. Kiefer and Dermutz discuss all of these influential thinkers, as well as Kiefer’s own status as a controversial figure. His relentless examination of German history, the themes of guilt, suffering, communal memory, and the seductions of destruction have earned him equal amounts of criticism and praise. The conversations in this book offer a rare insight into the mind of a gifted creator, appealing to artists, critics, art historians, cultural journalists, and anyone interested in the visual arts and the literature and history of the twentieth century.

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Born and raised in New York City, Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932) has long been recognized as an early business partner of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933). He began his career as a painter trained by Frederic E. Church with connections to the Tenth Street Studio, the National Academy of Design, and Society of Decorative Art in New York, and emerged as an artistic decorator with a specialty in richly appointed interiors that boasted heavily carved East Indian architectural elements and furniture. Though his formal ties with Tiffany lasted only two years, de Forest continued an independent career in the decorative arts that extended into the early twentieth century. In this book—the first that focuses scholarly attention on de Forest’s career in the decorative arts—Robert A. Mayer argues that his commitment to India cannot be understood without exploring the larger context of the East Indian craft revival, a self-conscious attempt by the British colonial government to create a Western market for handmade, East Indian goods. This endeavor brought together many different individuals—Queen Victoria in her role as Empress of India, the Price of Wales as a cultural ambassador, key enthusiasts employed by the Indian Civil Service who emerged as collectors and connoisseurs, the ideology of the English arts and crafts movement, the art schools of India, and hereditary craftsmen of India who had lost their traditional patrons. De Forest was the only American represented within these intersecting circles, and part of his commitment to India was fueled by his concern that East Indian arts and crafts were dying and his belief that American patronage could reverse this trend. Mayer further suggests that de Forest embraced India because of his desire to achieve authority in an intellectual pursuit that was equal to, yet different from, those of his brothers, both of whom were successful lawyers. She provides a complete view of his career, from his early idealistic ideas, to his success in courting Gilded Age millionaires, to the fading of demand for opulent Indian rooms. In doing so, she balances de Forest’s memoirs of his experience of India in the 1880s and the 1890s with those more tempered recollections of his wife, Meta Kemble de Forest (of the du Pont family), and also acknowledges the perspectives of his contemporary critics. De Forest’s house and studio at 7 East Tenth Street survives today as the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at New York University. In his role as a decorative artist, he had major patrons in New York City and the Hudson River Valley, including Frederic Edwin Church (for Olana), William Henry Appleton (for Wavve Hill), and Andrew Carnegie (for his mansion, now the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum). This book contains sixty color plates and one hundred thirty-two black-and-white illustrations.

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A monumental new biography of a pivotal yet poorly understood pioneer in modern philosophy. When a painter once told Goethe that he wanted to paint the most celebrated man of the age, Goethe directed him to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel worked from the credo: To philosophize is to learn to live freely. While he was slow and cautious in the development of his philosophy, his intellectual growth was like an odyssey of the mind, and, contrary to popular belief, his life was full of twists and turns, suspense and even danger. In this landmark biography, the philosopher Klaus Vieweg paints a new picture of the life and work of the most important representative of German idealism. His vivid portrait provides readers an intimate account of Hegel's times and the milieu in which he developed his thought, along with detailed, clear-sighted analyses of Hegel's four major works. What results is a new interpretation of Hegel through the lens of reason and freedom. Vieweg draws on extensive archival research that has brought to light a wealth of hitherto undiscovered documents and handwritten notes relating to Hegel's work, touching on Hegel's engagement with the leading thinkers and writers of his age: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hölderlin, and others. Combatting clichés and misunderstandings about Hegel, Vieweg also offers a sustained defense of the philosopher's more progressive impulses. Highly praised upon its release in Germany as having set the new biographical standard, this monumental work emphasizes Hegel's relevance for today, depicting him as a vital figure in the history of philosophy.

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Most people like to travel in comfort: they stay in fancy hotels, never leave tourist spots, and stay away from the locals. Michael Wigge isn’t like most people, though. After travelling the world without money for 150 days while writing How to Travel the World for Free, his next challenge: turn an apple into a house in Hawaii. Wigge goes around fourteen countries and six continents exchanging goods for more valuable ones, and he meets an array of good-humored people who take his deals. Taking on his Barterman persona, he trades the apple for sixteen cigarettes in Germany; a couple of trades later in India, he fixes up a motorized rickshaw and trades it for silk; in Australia, a millionaire amuses himself by offering him an art piece for the silk if Wigge feeds a wild crocodile. Finally, he arrives in Hawaii armed with two bicycles, a surfboard, Portuguese porcelain, three solid-gold coins, a Porsche wristwatch, a record by musician Coati Mundi and accompanying contract for 25 percent of the proceeds from his next single, a voucher for a two-night stay in a mansion in L.A., and a piece of original artwork by painter Alex Stenzel—now he just has to find someone to give him a house in exchange. On the 200-day journey around the world, Wigge makes forty-two trades and meets strange, kind, funny, friendly, eccentric, and good-natured people who help him in his quest. It’s a journey you won’t want to miss!

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A study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief offers an account of the genre’s comic and ironic features, which it treats as comments on the social context of portrait sitters who are husbands and householders as well as members of civic and proto-military organizations. The introduction picks out anomalous touches with which Rembrandt problematizes standard group-portrait motifs in The Night Watch: a shooter who fires his musket into the company; two girls who appear to be moving through the company in the wrong direction; guardsmen who appear to be paying little or no attention to their leader’s enthusiastic gesture of command. Were the patrons and sitters aware of or even complicit in staging the anomalies? If not, did the painter get away with a subversive parody of militia portrait conventions at the sitters’ expense? Parts One and Two respond to these questions at several levels: first, by analyzing the aesthetic structure of group portraiture as a genre; second, by reviewing the conflicting accounts modern scholars give of the civic guard company as an institution; third, by marking the effect on civic guardsmen of a mercantile economy that relied heavily on wives and mothers to keep the homefires burning. Two phenomena persistently recur in the portraits under discussion: competitive posing and performance anxiety. Part Three studies these phenomena in portraits of married couples and families. Finally, Part Four examines them in The Night Watch in the light of the first three parts. The result is an interpretation that reads Rembrandt’s painting both as a deliberate parody by the sitters and as the artist’s covert parody of the sitters.

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Georges Seurat is best known as the painter of A Sunday on the Grande Jatte—1884, one of the most recognizable and reproduced works of art in the world. In recent years the painting has been the subject of a highly successful exhibition, the inspiration for a Broadway musical (by Stephen Sondheim), and the subject of a television program. The Grande Jatte has achieved this iconic status for a number of reasons, but is unknown to most people except as a simulacrum. The Grande Jatte is also plagued by the long-standing cliché that it embodies a “scientific” way of painting. The painting is much more complex, however; so is Seurat’s body of work as a whole. In this collection of essays, Paul Smith has assembled a broader view of Seurat’s oeuvre. Seurat Re-viewed touches on its engagement with society, gender, politics, new artists’ materials, and developments in art theory.Individual essays focus on the many facets of Seurat’s work and its context, including its use of color and its debt to color theory; its exploitation of different drawing media; its connection to the work of the artist’s contemporaries, including the poets Jules Laforgue and Stéphane Mallarmé; and its concern with nineteenth-century social issues. The contributions also show important links among the Grande Jatte, literary Symbolism, and the development of future Modernist practices. The book amounts to a major reevaluation of Seurat’s art in the culture of the late nineteenth century. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Anthea Callen, S. Hollis Clayson, Jonathan Crary, Joan U. Halperin, Richard Hobbs, John House, Brendan Prendeville, Georges Roque, and Richard Shiff.

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The declaration that a work of art is “about sex” is often announced to the public as a scandal after which there is nothing else to say about the work or the artist-controversy concludes a conversation when instead it should begin a new one. Moving beyond debates about pornography and censorship, Jennifer Doyle shows us that sex in art is as diverse as sex in everyday life: exciting, ordinary, emotional, traumatic, embarrassing, funny, even profoundly boring. Sex Objects examines the reception and frequent misunderstanding of highly sexualized images, words, and performances. In chapters on the “boring parts” of Moby-Dick, the scandals that dogged the painter Thomas Eakins, the role of women in Andy Warhol's Factory films, “bad sex” and Tracey Emin's crudely evocative line drawings, and L.A. artist Vaginal Davis's pornographic parodies of Vanessa Beecroft's performances, Sex Objects challenges simplistic readings of sexualized art and instead investigates what such works can tell us about the nature of desire. In Sex Objects, Doyle offers a creative and original exploration of how and where art and sex connect, arguing that to proclaim a piece of art “about sex” reveals surprisingly little about the work, the artist, or the spectator. Deftly interweaving anecdotal and personal writing with critical, feminist, and queer theory, she reimagines the relationship between sex and art in order to better understand how the two meet-and why it matters. Jennifer Doyle is associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is coeditor, with Jonathan Flatley and José Esteban Muñoz, of Pop Out: Queer Warhol.

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A vividly illustrated catalogue of linocuts by the Modern British printmakers of the Grosvenor School of Art. The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was founded by the influential teacher, painter and wood-engraver Iain McNab in 1925. Situated in London’s Pimlico district, the school played a key role in the story of modern British printmaking between the World Wars. The Grosvenor School artists received critical acclaim in their time that continued until the late 1930s under the influence of Claude Flight who pioneered a revolutionary method of making the simple linocut to dynamic and colourful effect. Cyril Power, a lecturer in architecture at the school, and Sybil Andrews, the School Secretary, were two of Flight’s star students. Whilst incorporating the avant-garde values of Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism, the Grosvenor School printmakers brought their own unique interpretation of the contemporary world to the medium of linocut in images that are strikingly familiar to this day. They are included in the print collections of the world’s major museums, including the British Museum, the MoMA in New York and the Australian National Gallery. Cutting Edge, which accompanied an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, illustrates over 120 linocuts, drawings and posters by Grosvenor School artists; its thematic layout focuses on the key components which made up their dynamic and rhythmic visual imagery. For the first time, three Australian printmakers, Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme - who played a major part in the Grosvenor School story - are included in a major museum exhibition outside of Australia.

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Virginia Nicholson's Singled Out is the touching and beautifully told story of the women who were left alone after World War I - a remarkable generation of women who were changed by war; and in their turn helped change society.In 1919 a generation of young women discovered that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round, and the statistics confirmed it. After the 1921 Census, the press ran alarming stories of the 'Problem of the Surplus Women - Two Million who can never become Wives...'. This book is about those women, and about how they were forced, by a tragedy of historic proportions, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity and their future happiness.'This is a ground-breaking book, richly nuanced with titbits of information, insight and understanding' Daily Mail 'Remarkably perceptive and well-researched ... Virginia Nicholson has produced another extraordinarily interesting work, sensitive, intelligent and well-written' Sunday Telegraph 'This in an inspiring book, lovingly researched, well-written and humane... the period is beautifully caught' Economist 'Brave, humane and honest' Observer Virginia Nicholson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She has worked as a documentary researcher for BBC Television and her first book, Charleston - A Bloomsbury House and Garden (written in collaboration with her father, Quentin Bell), was an account of the Sussex home of her grandmother, the painter Vanessa Bell. Her second book, Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939, was published by Penguin in 2002. She lives in Sussex.

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Everything you need to know to live in sync with your menstrual cycle. We're taught not to discuss periods in public. Society doesn’t celebrate the menstrual cycle. Instead we say it's 'that time of the month' when 'Aunt Flo is visiting' and we've 'got the painters in'. But the truth is that it can be bloody hard living in a body that bleeds once a month. Have you ever stuffed a tampon up your sleeve on your way to the office bathroom? Avoided eye contact with the cashier as you paid for your sanitary pads? Felt overwhelmed, exhausted and annoyed by your hormones? Well, you are not alone. It's time we started speaking up about our menstrual cycles, and now everyone's friendly neighbourhood period coach, Claire Baker, is here to start the conversation! Taking you through her 50 best pieces of advice, Claire explains the ‘four seasons’ of our menstrual cycle and how they vary hormonally to affect everything from mood, motivation and memory, to energy levels, confidence, focus and stress. You’ll learn how to chart your cycle to identify your unique superpowers in each hormonal phase, the tools you need to work with your body rather than pushing against it, and that you’re not crazy: it’s completely natural to feel different from week-to-week. Illustrated throughout, 50 Things You Need to Know About Periods is packed with straightforward science, cycle-syncing suggestions and relatable real life advice that encourages you to experiment with a whole new way of living and bleeding. This simple and empowering book is the perfect gift to remind someone you love – or yourself – to join the menstruation conversation, see 'the curse' as the superpower it can be and #AdoreYourCycle.

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This immersive dive into the life and work of Salvador Dalí unlocks the secret of this creative genius and reveals for the first time how his erotically charged paintings changed the world of modern art. In turns beloved and reviled, twentieth century art, painter, filmmaker, and designer Salvador Dalí set Europe and the United States ablaze with his uncompromising genius, sexual sadism, and flirtations with megalomania. His shocking behavior and work frequently alienated critics; his views were so outrageous, even prominent Surrealists tried to ostracize him. Still, every morning he experienced “an exquisite joy—the joy of being Salvador Dalí,” and, through a remarkable talent that invited bewilderment, anger, and adoration, rose to unprecedented levels of fame—forever shifting the landscape of the art world and the nature of celebrity itself. In this stunning volume, rich with more than 150 full-color images, noted art historians Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Christopher Heath Brown discuss the historical, social, and political conditions that shaped Dalí's work, identify the impact of Modern as well as Old Master art, and present an unflinching view of the master's personal relationships and motivations. With their deeply compelling narrative, Isbouts and Brown uncover how Dalí's visual wit and enduring cult of personality still impacts fashion, literature, and art, from Andy Warhol to Lady Gaga, and seeks to answer why, in an age of shock and awe, Dalí's art still manages to distress, perplex, and entertain.

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The churches of Rome constitute what is probably the most important assemblage of art and architecture in the Western world. This book is a comprehensive and detailed description of 261 churches in Rome and the Vatican City, built or decorated between 1527 and 1870. It includes a history of their construction and a description of the interior decorations, including frescoes, marble and metal work, stucco decorations, monuments and altarpieces. This is based on extensive research in state, church and private archives, as well as an exhaustive survey of modem and historical bibliographical sources. Its aim is to provide a more complete picture of the construction and decoration of these churches than has previously been known. This entails not only providing the names of the architects who designed the churches, but also the names of the masons and stonecutters who built the churches and whose skills were essential for realising the architects' plans. This depth of information is carried through to the interior decorations. The interior of each church is described in detail, on a chapel by chapel basis, and includes stucco work, marble revetments, monuments, metalwork, frescoes and painted decorations and altarpieces. Again care is taken to document the names of the painters, sculptors, stucco workers, metal founders, silversmiths and wood carvers who carried out this work. Archival research has thrown new light on a large number of works of art whose authorship and date have hitherto been unknown. This includes works by well-known artists, but also many others unknown to scholars. An alphabetic index of artists is supplied in Vol. II, and includes the churches where their works are to be found and accurate biographical information for each artist. In addition there is an index of patrons, and a street and rione index. The book is intended to be used as a reference and resource book, as well as being a guide for visitors to these churches. It is lavishly illustrated with 250 photographs.

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Son of a convicted felon whose early death left the family impoverished, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) went on to lead a staggeringly full and successful life. A portrait painter who produced an unparalleled body of work, including the iconic "The Artist in His Museum", Peale was also a revolutionary soldier, a radical activist, an impresario of moving pictures, a natural historian, an inventor, and the proprietor of one of the first modern museums. His many other interests included a lifelong preoccupation with writing; in fact, his autobiography is one of the first examples of the genre in the United States. David C. Ward's engaging book, richly textured with references to the history and culture of the time, is the first full critical biography of Peale. It links the artist's autobiography to his painting, illuminating the man, his art, and his times. Peale emerges for the first time as that particularly American phenomenon: the self-made man. Before Peale's time, autobiographies had been written mainly as religious and confessional documents. Peale, however, produced his secular work to describe, not how God made him, but how he worked to make himself. This compelling study, drawing extensively from Peale's extraordinary autobiography, shows how Peale's life itself documents the development of American independence and individualism. Ultimately Ward addresses Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's great question, 'What then is the American, this new man?' as he sheds light on one of these new men and on the formative years in which he lived.

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A FLAME TREE NOTEBOOK. Beautiful and luxurious the journals combine high-quality production with magnificent art. Perfect as a gift, and an essential personal choice for writers, notetakers, travellers, students, poets and diarists. Features a wide range of well-known and modern artists, with new artworks published throughout the year. BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED. The highly crafted covers are printed on foil paper, embossed then foil stamped, complemented by the luxury binding and rose red end-papers. The covers are created by our artists and designers who spend many hours transforming original artwork into gorgeous 3d masterpieces that feel good in the hand, and look wonderful on a desk or table. PRACTICAL, EASY TO USE. Flame Tree Notebooks come with practical features too: a pocket at the back for scraps and receipts; two ribbon markers to help keep track of more than just a to-do list; robust ivory text paper, printed with lines; and when you need to collect other notes or scraps of paper the magnetic side flap keeps everything neat and tidy. THE ARTIST. Based in Falmouth, Cornwall, Lucy Innes Williams is a painter and illustrator with a passion for bright colours, cold shapes and joyous mark-making. With an artistic interest in highly ornate textiles, patterns, and the decorative arts of the early-mid twentieth century, she uses a combination of gouache, watercolour and printmaking. THE FINAL WORD. As William Morris said, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

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Early paintings and ephemera by Tabboo!, full of 1980s New York punk glamour This clothbound volume appraises the formative years, from 1982 to 1988, of legendary performer, painter, designer, puppeteer and muse Tabboo!’s career. The book displays historical ephemera—including homemade flyers for performances at iconic clubs—along with the artist’s paintings. Additionally, an essay on the “Glamorous Life” by Jarrett Earnest explicates the thematic concerns of the catalog. In a 1995 interview with Linda Simpson about his early work, Tabboo! observed: “the subject matter was drag, glamour, ladies’ shoes, lingerie, hairdos, vinyl—same as now.” Tabboo!: 1982–88 underscores the joy of creating and living, exuberantly. Tabboo! (Stephen Tashjian, born 1959) moved to New York City’s East Village in 1982 and quickly established himself as a fixture in its drag scene. In the style of fellow Boston School artists Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson and Mark Morrisroe, he chronicled the zeitgeist with a raw, diaristic approach. In his work, dizzying visuals of nightlife and its cast of characters accompany affectionate portraits of his friends; seedy glamour and high camp meet in a jubilant fusion of collage, paintings and photography. Not one to be an aloof observer, Tabboo! was often photographed himself—by Goldin, Morrisroe, Pierson, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, David Armstrong and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Both creator and muse, chronicler and participant, he emblematizes the open experimentation central to the mythology of glamorous underground culture.

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The Bargue-Gerome Drawing Course is a complete reprint of a famous, late nineteenth-century drawing course. It contains a set of almost two hundred masterful lithographs of subjects for copying by drawing students before they attempt drawing from life or nature. Consequently it is a book that will interest artists, art students, art historians, and lovers and collectors of drawings. It also introduces us to the work and life of a hitherto neglected master: Charles Bargue. The Drawing Course consists of three sections. The first consists of plates drawn after casts, usually of antique examples. Different parts of the body are studied in order of difficulty, until full figures are presented. The second section pays homage to the western school of painting, with lithographs after exemplary drawings by Renaissance and modern masters. The third part contains almost 60 academies, or drawings after nude male models, all original inventions by Bargue, the lithographer. With great care, the student is introduced to continually more difficult problems in the close observing and recording of nature. Charles Bargue started his career as a lithographer of drawings by hack artists for a popular market in comic, sentimental and soft-porn subjects. By working with Gerome, and in preparing the plates for the course, Bargue was transformed into a spectacular painter of single figures and intimate scenes; a master of precious details that always remain observation and never became self-conscious virtuosity, and colour schemes that unified his composition in exquisite tonal harmonies. The last part of the book is a biography of Bargue, along with a preliminary catalogue of his paintings, accompanied by reproductions of all that have been found and of many of those lost.

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