The man behind the paintings: the extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artists J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life. A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.

How can we pack so much big booty into such a tiny and inexpensive package? Sorry, but it's a trade secret we can't divulge, except to say that shoehorns and spandex were involved. The original Big Butt Book featured a great cross section of delectable rears from the 1950s to the present day. Here, since life is such an ironic deal, we decided to pare the original content down to just the biggest and the best, in-your-face phatties to which the great Sir Mix-a-Lot alluded when penning, "My anaconda don't want none, unless you've got buns, hun." Then we added in about 30 new photos, just to be generous. Now in these 150 plus photos you'll see the big and the bountiful, then the bigger and more bountiful, in black and white and in color. The models may be largely anonymous, but their curves are legendary, and now that they're collected in a discrete little package affordable by all in these financially trying times, why hold back? Your badonkadonk is calling.

Vincent Stephens in a man well-known for his ability to showcase young ladies in knots and straps, but he also has a penchant for cheeky goodness as well! Chunk in the trunk as never looked better, as Stephens sets his trained eye (and active imagination) on the back end of the female mystique! Bootylicious? Most definitely!

The cat's out of the bag. 'The body part' series wraps up with the origin of us all. First, "The Big Book of Breasts", then "The Big Penis Book", "The Big Book of Legs", and the weighty "Big Butt Book". What could follow but an in-depth exploration of the female pudendum, that coveted orifice man spends nine months trying to escape, and a lifetime attempting to reenter? "The Big Book of Pussy", not to be confused with a book of big pussy, closes out this popular series with an offering sure to be as controversial as it is popular. As in previous volumes, editor Dian Hanson delves into the historical significance of this humble os, to show how the yoni has been coveted, feared, reviled, and worshipped by civilizations worldwide, from New Guinea to old Ireland. The text is supported by playful photographs of women exposing their vulvas, from 1900 to the present day. Because depiction of this body part has long been wrapped in unwarranted shame, "The Big Book of Pussy" reframes the subject, featuring models who expose their most private part enthusiastically, happily, with smiles spread wide as...well, you get the picture. And with 400+ photos the point is made emphatically, in images both naturally furry and stylishly groomed. Included are interviews with the auteur known as Pussyman, the ex-cop who turned masturbation into millions with a toy called the Fleshlight, Vanessa del Rio, squirter Flower Tucci, vaginal performance artist Mouse, and the singular Buck Angel. Contemporary photographers Terry Richardson, Richard Kern, Ralph Gibson, Jan Saudek, Guido Argentini, Ed Fox and others share their favorite pussy photos, so that by page 372 even the shiest reader will be calling, "Here, kitty, kitty!"

With a body built for sex, and a mind for solving crime (through the use of sex, of course), Magenta is a take-charge kind of woman! She needs no mutant ability or radioactive bug-bite to access her amazing abilities - a tight dress and some silky underwear will do! Any man (or mildly bi-curious woman) is putty in her hands, as Magenta uses her amazing sexuality to get to the bottom...of the case! Starting her own detective agency with her friend Lucrezia (who also puts the "bust" in crime-busting), these two ladies solve mysteries the average law-enforcement agencies don't have the libido for! Written by Celestino Pes and illustrated by Nik Guerra, Magenta is presented in a retro "John Willie" style, but her adventures are wickedly timeless. More mouth-burning spiciness from Italy, brought to the US by SQP!

Born like Venus on the half shell from the centuries-long tradition of the nude in painting, the nude first appeared as a subject matter in photography with the introduction of the medium itself, between 1837 and 1840, and has continued as an ever-evolving theme through changing technical developments and cultural mores to the present day. This volume surveys the subject of nudity from the earliest surviving photographs of Greek and Roman sculpture through studies of living nude models for aesthetic or scientific purposes to the burgeoning practice of exploring the human body as pure form. The seventy-eight works, selected from the extensive collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and further contextualized here in the essay Masterworks of the Nude, span the entire arc of the history of photography in a manner that is both fresh and illuminating. Among the sixty-four photographers included are nineteenth-century masters Julia Margaret Cameron, Edgar Degas, and Thomas Eakins; early-twentieth-century artists Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston; mid-twentieth-century innovators Bill Brandt, Harry Callahan, and Minor White; late-twentieth-century image makers Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Herb Ritts; and contemporary artists Chuck Close, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and Mona Kuhn.

Sensual and softly surreal, the nude photography of Ralph Gibson frames the female form both organically and graphically, referencing art history while also innovating in the arena of erotic imagery, at once summoning visceral sensation and calling out for tactile attention. Thumb through this exquisite tribute to the contours and curves of womanhood and experience the intimacy of the photographic lens. Reviving TASCHEN's sold-out Collector's Edition, this tribute gathers the best of Gibson's exquisite nudes alongside some of his most recent works in an accessible, revised format, complete with a fresh in-depth interview by Eric Fischl. Strikingly graphic, meticulously composed, and loaded with subtle provocations, the master photographer's mysterious, dreamlike images pay homage to greats such as Man Ray and Edward Weston, while continually pursuing new frontiers. "A photographer once said that beauty in women is endless. Perhaps it was I who said it. [...] I love photographing women and could say that the form of the female body is absolute and perfect." -Ralph Gibson

Taking as its point of departure the meeting of two artists at a tumultuous moment in the 1980s, "Almodovar's Gaze" explores how the photographic and filmmaking lens can fruitfully overlap. American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar (born 1949) first met in Madrid in 1984, when the photographer was there on a visit occasioned by his first exhibition in the city. Mapplethorpe was already an accomplished artist, 38 years old and sure of himself and his sensibility. Pedro Almodovar was a well-known filmmaker in the Spanish underground, and the best-known international representative of the Madrid-based countercultural Movida movement that arose after General Franco's death in 1975. Mapplethorpe and Almodovar had gone out partying in Madrid, which at the time was particularly receptive to young artists closer to the underground than to the establishment. The later impact that Mapplethorpe's retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art had on Almodovar in 1987 was tremendous. This intimate arrangement of Mapplethorpe's seductive and powerful images was carefully selected by Almodovar from over 1,700 of Mapplethorpe's photographs.

It's the old story. When TASCHEN released the first limited edition of Crumb Sketchbooks 1982-2011, fans drooled over the gorgeous packaging of this six-volume boxed set, the artist's thoughtful editing, the hand-written introduction, marbleized page edges, and signed Crumb-colored art print. Not all, however, could afford the steep price. So they whined and coveted, with the wail growing louder when the second boxed set, 1964-1982, was released the next year. Covet no more. Robert Crumb. Sketchbook, Vol. 1: June 1964 - Sept. 1968 combines the two earliest volumes from the limited editions, produced directly from the original artworks now belonging to an ardent French collector, into one fat 440-page Crumb feast, selling for an irresistible price. This book contains hundreds of sketches, including early color drawings from the master of underground comic art, cover roughs for the legendary Zap and Head comics, the original Keep On Truckin' sketches, the first appearance of Mr. Natural, plus his evolution and refinement, Fritz The Cat, the Old Pooperoo, and many, many voluptuous Crumb girls, all wrapped up in a quality hard cover featuring an illustration newly hand-colored by Crumb himself.

The first commercial camera was introduced in 1839. By 1865 technology enabled ordinary men to create photographic negatives, and they immediately began taking and distributing photos of naked women. The French led the way, and it was the French who produced the first nude magazines in 1880, as souvenirs for patrons of Parisian music halls. Newsstand magazines followed, and the elegant La Vie Parisienne (Paris Life), full of sexy fiction and illustrations, debuted in 1914. It might all have stayed in Paris if not for WWI, when German and American troops carried the magazines home. American Wilford Fawcett launched Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang (named after a WWI bomb) in 1919, helping launch the first sexual revolution of the 1920s, leading to SEX magazine from birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. Decadent Weimar Berlin produced cabaret, fetish and free love magazines, countered by nudist titles pushing fascist politics, culminating in the 1933 Berlin book burning. The 1930s economic depression boosted demand for cheap escape, and men's magazines delivered. There were film magazines of sexy starlets; "model study" art magazines; hardcore comics called Tijuana Bibles; "spicy" fiction digests with sexy painted covers; and detective titles of bad dames. When another world war erupted it required pinup magazines for fighting men, and after the war new men's magazines rose from the ashes. Volume 1 of this series features over 700 covers and photos from France, Germany, the U.S., England, Turkey, Austria, Spain, Argentina and more, plus informative text.

Striptease recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed strippers to thrive for nearly a century. Rachel Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the country, in burlesque theatres, nightclubs, vaudeville houses, carnivals, fairs, and even in glorious palaces on the Great White Way. Taking us behind the scenes, Shteir introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that collided on the burlesque stage, from tight-laced political reformers and flamboyant impresarios, to drag queens, shimmy girls, cootch dancers, tit serenaders, and even girls next door, lured into the profession by big-city aspirations. Throughout the book, readers will find essential profiles of famed performers, including Gypsy Rose Lee, 'the Literary Stripper'; Lili St. Cyr, the 1950s mistress of exotic striptease; and Blaze Starr, the 'human heat wave'. who literally set the stage on fire. striptease is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an art form at once reviled and embraced by the American public. Blending careful research and vivid narration, Rachel Shteir captures striptease's combination of sham and seduction while illuminating its surprisingly persistent hold on the American imagination.