Search results for ""author alan powers""

Edward Ardizzone RA (1900-79) was one of relatively few British artists who defined the field of illustration for their generation. Although his work as an artist and illustrator was wide-ranging, it is for his illustrated children's books, almost continuously available since they were first published from the late 1930s onwards, that he is best known. This book provides the first fully illustrated survey of Ardizzone's work, analysing his activity as an artist and illustrator in the context of 20th-century British art, illustration, printing and publishing. Copiously illustrated with many previously unpublished images, Edward Ardizzone: Artist and Illustrator also contributes more broadly to the current reassessment and investigation of mid-20th-century British art and illustration. Alan Powers (author of the bestselling Eric Ravilious: Artist and Designer) has written a critically considered text which draws for the first time on the family's archives, those of Ardizzone's publishers, and conversations with those who knew the artist. This beautiful and enlightening book, which reflects in its design and production values the aesthetic of an artist who was closely involved in the production of his own illustrated books, will be a fascinating read both for specialists as well as for readers who have grown up with the unforgettable characters of Ardizzone's classic children's stories.

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Tells the fascinating story of the journey taken by the Bauhaus – both the concept behind the school and some of the individuals who represented it – from Germany to Britain and the USA. Bauhaus Goes West is a story of cultural exchange, not only between the Bauhaus émigrés and the countries to which they moved, but also in the other direction, focusing in particular on Britain. Most significantly, perhaps, it considers in detail the presence in the UK during the 1930s of three of the school’s most important figures – Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy – using meticulous research to tell for the first time the stories of their British experiences in parallel. After considering some of the lesser-known Bauhäusler who stayed in Britain for life, the book concludes by returning to the lives of the main protagonists and their continuation of the Bauhaus ideals in America. Taking as its starting point the cultural connection between Britain and Germany in the early part of the 20th century, Bauhaus Goes West offers a timely re-evaluation of the school’s influence on and relationship with modern art and design, offering fresh insights and challenging assumptions along the way.

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Bauhaus Goes West is a story of cultural exchange – between the Bauhaus émigrés in the years following the school’s closure in 1933 and the countries to which they moved, focusing in particular on Britain. Taking as its starting point the cultural connections between the UK and Germany in the early part of the 20th century, the book offers a timely re-evaluation of the school’s influence on and relationship with modern art and design in Britain, concluding with the school’s American legacy. Following the closure of the Bauhaus in 1933, teachers and students found new opportunities in Britain and the United States. Among them were Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, who simultaneously spent time in London before moving to America, an episode often overlooked but freshly explored here in the context of the interaction between German Modernism and British-based design reform from 1900. Other Bauhaus-trained artists – women as well as men – stayed in the UK and made important contributions into the 1960s. In America, Mies van der Rohe and Josef and Anni Albers had significant late careers, but, over time, the Bauhaus became a shorthand for Modernism’s failure. Now, the centenary of the school’s founding provides a key opportunity to reconsider how its values emerged and were contested both during its lifetime and beyond.

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The acclaimed biography detailing the lives of the British inter-war artists and designers centred on Ravilious – an enthralling narrative of creative achievement, joy and tragedy. In recent years Eric Ravilious has become recognized as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century, whose watercolours and wood engravings capture an essential sense of place and the spirit of mid-century England. What is less appreciated is that he did not work in isolation, but within a much wider network of artists, friends and lovers influenced by Paul Nash’s teaching at the Royal College of Art – Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Tirzah Garwood, Percy Horton, Peggy Angus and Helen Binyon among them. The Ravilious group bridged the gap between fine art and design, and the gentle, locally rooted but spritely character of their work came to be seen as the epitome of contemporary British values. Eighty years after Ravilious’s untimely death, Andy Friend tells the story of this group of artists from their student days through to the Second World War. Ravilious & Co. explores how they influenced each other and how a shared experience animated their work, revealing the significance in this pattern of friendship of women artists, whose place within the history of British art has often been neglected. Generously illustrated and drawing on extensive research, and a wealth of newly discovered material, Ravilious & Co. is an enthralling narrative of creative achievement, joy and tragedy.

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More popular than ever, the work of Eric Ravilious (1903-42) is rooted in the landscape of pre-war and early wartime England. This best-selling book by Alan Powers, the established authority on Ravilious, provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the artist's work in all media - watercolour, illustration, printmaking, graphic design, textiles and ceramics - and firmly positions Ravilious as a major figure in the history of early 20th-century British art.Now available in paperback, the accessible and engaging text, copiously illustrated with reproductions of work drawn from a range of sources, discusses the part Ravilious' work played in creating an English style, positioned between tradition and modernism, and borrowing from naive and popular art of the past. The book analyses Ravilious' different spheres of activity in turn, covering his education and formative influences, his mural painting, his printmaking and illustration, his work as leader in forming a new style of watercolour painting between the wars and his final period as an official War Artist. In a career curtailed by an early death, Ravilious also played a significant role as a designer; Powers argues that Ravilious showed how decoration and historical reference could find a place in the reform of the applied arts whilst simultaneously renewing a sense of national identity.Eric Ravilious will be welcomed by all those with an interest in an artist whose imagination was backed by great skill and a sharp eye for the unusual.

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A collection of illustrations showcasing many previously unpublished paintings of the artist Eric Ravilious. Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) is now firmly one of the most popular artists of his period. He was a painter of watercolours and murals, a book illustrator in wood engraving and lithography, and a designer of transfer-ware pottery. He applied a dry and precise style of working to imaginative and romantic subject matter from the world around him and from his imaginative transformations of the art and imagery of the past. From 1940, he was an Official War Artist, painting memorable pictures of ships, aircraft and coastal defences before his tragic death in a flying accident off Iceland. This book includes illustrations of many previously unpublished paintings, including a number from private collections, as well as surveying his other artistic activities. The text also draws on many letters and other documents, again previously unpublished, and is the most comprehensive account of Ravilious' career ever published. It positions the artist in relation to the English art of his time, and more recent critical and cultural issues. The book accompanied a centenary exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London.

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For decades Alan Powers has studied bird vocalizations, developing the remarkable ability to imitate birds’ songs and get them to respond and even change tunes. Through his years of study, he has discovered that birds can teach us important lessons about the world and about ourselves. As Powers explains, by communing cross-species we reach out to the timeless interconnected web of all life past and present--what Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno called in Latin the Uni-versus, the “Whole turned into One.” Sharing his journey to learn birdtalk and his profound observations about the poetic, spiritual, and healing influences of birdsong, Powers explores the ancient language of birds and the depth of meaning birds convey. He explains how bird speech sounds like song to us, but birdtalk is urgent and nuanced, whether about predators or the weather. He details how he began learning birdtalk, listening to one bird each summer, learning their many vocalizations and variations. Discussing specific techniques, he shares insights into the birdtalk of many species, including the complex and intelligent speech of Crows, the emotional depths of Loons, the mimicry of Blue Jays, and the beautiful song of the Wood Thrush. Exploring the intertwined metaphysics of bird and human languages, Powers looks at the long-standing tradition of “avitherapy” throughout history, literature, and the arts. He shares insights into birds from Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, reveals how birds appear in love songs throughout the world, and examines how famous writers such as Keats, Catullus, St. Francis of Assisi, and the French historian Jules Michelet found that talking to birds improves their state of mind. He also explores how song-talk with birds restores peace, calms anxiety, and enhances health.

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A revised and updated edition of Sir John Summerson's classic book. Derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture in antiquity, the classical style has long dominated the history of western architecture from the Renaissance to the present. Sir John Summerson’s timeless text, as relevant today as it was when first published, distils the visual language of architecture into its core classical elements, and illustrates that building throughout the ages express an awareness of the ‘grammar’ of style and its rules even if they vary, break or poetically contradict them. From the original edifices of Greece and Rome to the recapitulations and innovations of the Renaissance; the explosive rhetoric of the Baroque to the grave statements of Neo-classicism; and finally, the exuberant eclecticism of the Victorians and Edwardians to the 'stripped Neo-classicism' of some of the moderns; Summerson explains how every period has employed classical language to make their statement. With a new introduction by academic and architectural historian Alan Powers, this introduction continues to be one of the defining texts on the subject and is essential reading for all students of architecture.

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