With the first decade of the twenty-first century behind us, it is time to reassess the concept of "modern," a term that dates to the Middle Ages, when it signified current or recent events. Not until the eighteenth century did it become a stylistic term; more recently it has generally referred to the aesthetic that evolved from the Bauhaus and flourished in the mid-twentieth century. Though proclaiming freedom from the limitations of style, it became as formulaic as most of its predecessors, as Modern architecture and furnishings conformed to prescribed specifications: geometric forms, industrially fabricated, unadorned, and studiously ahistorical. Those guidelines are no longer relevant. As Midcentury Modernism has receded into history, Modernism has been redefined, reenergized, and in the process transformed. Today it embraces a cornucopia of design in an almost limitless range of materials: design studios are laboratories for experimentation; design concepts can be as important as finished objects; and furniture has crossed barriers to become a new art form. Tools and technologies never before possible have provided new approaches to decoration, and may incorporate influences from the past. The design profession has broadened its horizons; interiors and furniture are being created by architects, interior designers, furniture makers, industrial designers, artisans, artists, and even fashion designers. Design After Modernism offers an overview of developments in design over the past four decades-some evolutionary, some expected, and some extraordinary. It identifies the diverse influences that have generated new directions in design and illustrates many of the most characteristic, most noteworthy, and most innovative objects in this rich and variegated mix. All are representative of their time, and many of the earlier designs have already gained iconic status. Of the more recent ones, whether or not they will be admired in decades to come is something that only time will tell.

Overlooked in the history of artistic endeavors are the contributions of female writers, painters, and crafters of the Caribbean. The creative works by women from the Caribbean proves to be as remarkable as the women themselves. In Caribbean Women and Their Art: An Encyclopedia, Mary Ellen Snodgrass explores the rich history of women’s creative expression by examining the crafts and skill of over 70 female originators in the West Indies, from the familiar islands—Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico—to the obscurity of Roatan, Curaçao, Guanaja, and Indian Key. Focusing particularly on artistic style during the arrival of Europeans among the West Indies, the importance of cultural exchange, and the preservation of history, this book captures a wide variety of artistic accomplishment, including Folk music, acting, and dance Herbalism and food writing Sculpture, pottery, and adobe construction Travel writing, translations, and storytelling Individual talents highlighted in this volume include dancer Katherine Dunham, storyteller Louise Bennett-Coverley, paleontologist Sue Hendrickson, dramatist Maryse Condé, herbalist and memoirist Mary Jane Seacole, ballerina and choreographer Alicia Alonso, and athor Elsie Clews Parsons. Each entry includes a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, as well as further readings on the female artists and their respective crafts. This text also defines and provides examples of technical terms such as ramada, slip, hematite, patois, and mola. With its informative entries and extensive examinations of artistic talent, Caribbean Women and Their Art: An Encyclopedia is a valuable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in learning about some of the most influential and talented women in the arts.

Glass is a magical material through which light can shine. Throughout its millennial history, its colourful splendour and malleability have always exerted a particular fascination and a creative attraction. The book offers a profound and lavishly documented panorama of artistic glass design in Europe and the United States since the 1870s. Over many years Renate und Dietrich Götze have assembled one of the world’s most important collections of glass vessels, comprising some 500 exclusive objects. It reflects not only the collectors’ passion for this luminous material and its unlimited opportunities for inspiring the imagination, but also their tremendous expertise. The volume is a compendium of glass art with numerous artist biographies, a directory of the glass foundries, their techniques and symbols – and, above all: a feast for the eyes!

After World War I, artists without formal training "crashed the gates" of major museums in the United States, diversifying the art world across lines of race, ethnicity, class, ability, and gender. At the center of this fundamental reevaluation of who could be an artist in America were John Kane, Horace Pippin, and Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses. The stories of these three artists not only intertwine with the major critical debates of their period but also prefigure the call for inclusion in representations of American art today. In Gatecrashers, Katherine Jentleson offers a valuable corrective to the history of twentieth-century art by expanding narratives of interwar American modernism and providing an origin story for contemporary fascination with self-taught artists.

A sterling new study of the exquisite designs of Danish silversmith Georg Jensen (1866-1935) and company. Nearly one thousand photographs illustrate much of the stunning jewelry, hollowware, and flatware designed and produced from 1904 to the present. One of the most talented, original, and influential silversmiths of the twentieth century, Jensen's life and the company he founded are thoroughly researched. This book explores his place within the late nineteenth century arts scene, his training as a sculptor and silversmith, the establishment of his own workshop, and its expansion into an international company. The contributions of many gifted designers who worked for the company are discussed in detail. Interpretation of the marks used on Jensen silver is provided. This is a major revision of a very important book, with over 200 new photos and new information. It is an invaluable reference work for owners of Jensen silver, artists, silversmiths, designers, curators, and art dealers.

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high 'production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with cliched arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.

A major new look at the work of one of America's foremost self-taught artists Bill Traylor (ca. 1853-1949) came to art-making on his own and found his creative voice without guidance; today he is remembered as a renowned American artist. Traylor was born into slavery on an Alabama plantation, and his experiences spanned multiple worlds-black and white, rural and urban, old and new-as well as the crucibles that indelibly shaped America-the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Great Migration. Between Worlds presents an unparalleled look at the work of this enigmatic and dazzling artist, who blended common imagery with arcane symbolism, narration with abstraction, and personal vision with the beliefs and folkways of his time. Traylor was about twelve when the Civil War ended. After six more decades of farm labor, he moved, aging and alone, into segregated Montgomery. In the last years of his life, he drew and painted works depicting plantation memories and the rising world of African American culture. Upon his death he left behind over a thousand pieces of art. Between Worlds convenes 205 of his most powerful creations, including a number that have been previously unpublished. This beautiful and carefully researched book assesses Traylor's biography and stylistic development, and for the first time interprets his scenes as ongoing narratives, conveying enduring, interrelated themes. Between Worlds reveals one man's visual record of African American life as a window into the overarching story of his nation. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum

From the white plastic bed for the Prisunic catalogue (1966) to the Culbuto armchair issued by Knoll, and from the Lip watch to the private apartments of the Elysee Palace, Paris, (1983), the furniture and objects conceived by Marc Held have been emblematic of the renewal of French design, following the line of Scandinavians such as Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen...With his gallery L'Echoppe on the rue de Seine, Paris, and then with his agency, the designer and architect Marc Held also took part in major projects for IBM and Renault. This book traces fifty years of design, whose success with the public at large has contributed to a great liberation in our style of life. The generosity of his vision has remained faithful to the humanist values that guided his childhood in Bagnolet, where he was born in 1932. Having settled in Greece, on the island of Skopelos, over twenty years ago, Marc Held still continues to build houses and furnish them with his creations, working closely with Greek craftsmen.

This is the story of Faberge's Imperial Easter eggs - of their maker, of the tsars who commissioned them, of the middlemen who sold them and of the collectors who fell in love with them. It's a story of meticulous craftsmanship and unimaginable wealth, of lucky escapes and mysterious disappearances, and ultimately of greed, tragedy and devotion. Moreover, it is a story that mirrors the history of twentieth-century Russia - a satisfying arc that sees eggs made for the tsars, sold by Stalin, bought by Americans and now, finally, returned to post-communist Russia. There is also an intriguing element of mystery surrounding the masterpieces. Of the fifty 'Tsar Imperial' eggs known to have been made, eight are currently unaccounted for, providing endless scope for speculation and forgeries. This is the first book to tell the complete history of the eggs, encompassing the love and opulence in which they were conceived, the war and revolution that scattered them, and the collectors who preserved them.

The exquisite colours of enamelling have been the choice of kings for centuries. This book explains the rich traditions of the magnificent technique of champleve, which combines the skills of engraving and enamelling. Champleve is a technique of enamelling requiring the creation of a cell into which enamel is then applied. Celebrating fifty years of working as a master craftsman, Phil Barnes gives a unique insight into all aspects of the process. He explains the techniques of engraving in preparation for enamelling, and then looks at enamels and how to work with them to create a piece, through to the final polishing and finishing.

Folk art was neither widely collected nor highly valued in the early 1900s, when globetrotting Chicago socialite and philanthropist Florence Bartlett (1881-19540 began buying indigenous works encountered on her travels and dreamed of founding a museum to celebrate cultural diversity. Beartlett realised her goal in 1953, when the Museum of International Folk Art opened in Santa Fe near her long-time summer home. 50 years later, Bartlett's vision lives on in an ever-expanding museum collection that includes contemporary pieces as well as centuries old textiles, woodwork, pottery and ethnic garb.

Practical archive of extraordinarily beautiful and decorative letters of the alphabet splendidly ornamented with geometric and curvilinear motifs interwoven with royal and saintly figures, mythical creatures, knights in battle, exquisite florals and much more. A wonderful glimpse of the ancient art of manuscript illumination.

"They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses... They embalm the heads... [and]... display them with pride to strangers." - Diodorus Siculus Before the Vikings, before the Anglo-Saxons, before the Roman Empire, the Celts dominated central and western Europe. Today we might think of the Celts only inhabiting parts of the far west of Europe - Ireland, Great Britain, France and Spain - but these were the extremities in which their culture lasted longest. In fact, they had originated in Central Europe and settled as far afield as present day Turkey, Poland and Italy. From their emergence as an Iron Age people around 800 BC to the early centuries AD, Celts reveals the truth behind the stories of naked warriors, ritual beheadings, druids, magic and accusations of human sacrifice. The book examines the different tribes, the Hallstatt and La Tene periods, as well as Celtic survival in western Europe, the Gallic Wars, military life, spiritual life, slavery, sexuality and Celtic art. Celts is an expertly written account of a people who have long captured the popular imagination.

For many years, Maud Lewis was one of Nova Scotia's best-loved folk painters. In the 1990s she was embraced by the rest of the country when the landmark exhibition of her work "The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis" travelled across Canada. By the time the tour was over, half a million people had become acquainted with her delightful work.

Between 1938, when she married Everett Lewis, until her death in 1970, Maud Lewis lived in a tiny one-room house near Digby, Nova Scotia. Over the years, she painted the doors inside and out, the windowpanes, the walls and cupboards, the wallpaper, the little staircase to the sleeping loft, the woodstove, the breadbox, the dustpan, almost everything her hand touched. Her house was a joy to behold, and it became a magnet for tourists as well as a focal point in her village. In 1979, after Everett Lewis died, the Maud Lewis Painted House Society worked diligently to raise funds to acquire, preserve, and display the house as part of the cultural heritage of the area as well as a memorial to their beloved artist.

In 1984, the house and its contents were purchased by the Province of Nova Scotia for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In "The Painted House of Maud Lewis," Laurie Hamilton, the conservator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, shows how all the different parts of the house -- the building itself, the painted household items, even the wallpaper -- were catalogued, conserved, and prepared for exhibition. The preliminary stages of conservation treatment began in 1996 in a most unusual location: the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford, just outside Halifax., where conservators worked in full view of the public. The conservators used established techniques and invented new ones to complete their unique project and documented every stage of the restoration photographically.

The book also features more than sixty-five colour photos including several taken by noted photographer Bob Brooks in 1965 for the "Star Weekly." Today, anyone can visit the tiny house that has become a folk art phenomenon. The restoration story spans two decades, but the story of the Painted House continues as each new visitor to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia finds delight and inspiration in Maud Lewis's joyous vision.

Following the huge demand in contemporary societies to decorate homes in a "green" style, this book offers a more environmentally conscious approach to design and production processes by presenting a wide range of eco furniture products made with natural materials as well as using recycling and more environment respecting technologies. It presents the latest eco-furniture pieces from the world's leading design teams, and aims to encourage more people, especially professional designers to consider a more environmentally conscious approach to their design ideas and processes. * A showcase of the most striking examples of product design in furniture. * A response to an increasing demand concerned with home interiors. * An excellent and inspiring resource for designers and artists. * Few competitor titles in the market: most books are focused on architecture, this one offers an in-depth study of a quite new area of eco-product designing.

An encyclopedia of beaded bracelet patterns for your small loom. Weaving beaded bracelets on a small bead loom is easy, and with the 500 patterns in this book you can make all kinds of creative designs! From bold graphic prints to animals and flowers to retro or southwestern designs, there are plenty of patterns to suit your style. Each pattern shows how many and what color beads are needed and the placement of every bead so it's easy to complete any bracelet you choose. Make them to keep and to give away. Switch up the bead colors--so many options will keep you coming back for more!

Beautifully illustrated with a covetable rose gold foil cover, Modern Calligraphy is a step-by-step workbook for those wanting to learn this super trendy form of lettering. Written by Lucy Edmonds, the founder of Quill London, the book will guide readers through the first steps of pointed pen calligraphy, encouraging you to spend an hour a week developing and practicing the new skill. Designed for complete beginners, the book offers tips, tricks and techniques on the materials required and how to use them properly, how to approach the modern calligraphy letterforms, and most importantly explores ways to develop our own modern calligraphy style. You'll learn about inks and how to make your own, brush calligraphy, and what you can do with your new skill - from envelope addressing and event stationery to beautiful dinner party menus and gift tags.

Create exquisite paper jewelry with the look of copper, silver, and gold! Discover how the centuries old technique of quilling paper can give you modern, sophisticated jewelry without a high price tag. Author and quilling enthusiast Ann Martin shows you how to turn metallic-edged papers into stunning--and sturdy--earrings and pendants in The Art of Quilling Paper Jewelry. Whether you're an experienced jewelry maker looking for new techniques or a quiller who wants to turn your creations into one-of-a-kind jewelry, this guide to gilded paper jewelry has what you need. Pairing step-by-step illustrations with detailed tutorials on rolling coils, scrolls, and other unique quilled shapes, The Art of Quilling Paper Jewelry shows you how to create twenty eye-catching designs. With Ann's expert guidance and a few minimal tools and supplies, you can create your own wearable paper art and more!

Manfred Bischoff (1947-2015) was one of the most innovative jewellery artists of our time. He designed items of jewellery that tell stories and enriched his language of forms through references to contemporary art, quotations from art history and philosophy, and inspiration from his bountiful world of ideas. Through this, he developed his own particular way of mounting his jewellery pieces on drawings, on which messages and titles appear in his own characteristic hand. In this book, his work is showcased in its entirety for the very first time, including early works, which attracted little attention in previous publications. The publication is oriented on the sequence of places that each had a major influence on his works: first Berlin, followed by further locations in Italy. The book not only documents Manfred Bischoff's multifaceted oeuvre with numerous illustrations and preliminary sketches; it also provides insights, via additional private photos and notes, into a remarkable artistic universe. Text in English and German.

A beginner's step-by-step guide to creating beautiful silver jewellery. Silver Jewellery Making is a practical beginners' guide to making silver jewellery. Seven step-by-step projects guide you through the core skills and techniques that will enable you to progress to making your own beautiful jewellery. The tried-and-tested projects have been developed by Machi and Janet, who have over 40 years of industry experience teaching others this amazing craft. The emphasis is on teaching good practice and acquiring the basic techniques and skills to give the reader a solid basis for developing their jewellery-making capabilities. Tools are introduced for each individual project, and their uses and correct handling explained. Troubleshooting tips explain how to overcome common problems that may arise. At the end of each project, there are examples of how the skills gained can be used to make other items. The book is perfect for those who wish to start jewellery making either on their own or as a supplement to beginners' classes.