*One of The Times Best Art Books of the Year* 'Looking to Sea is a remarkable and compelling book... I loved it.' Edmund de Waal 'In her first, transporting book, Lily Le Brun sweeps the beaches of the past century of British art, collecting treasures from sea, shingle and shore... A book to pack in your picnic basket for shivering dips, heatwave day trips and ice-cream Sundays' The Times An alternative history of modern Britain, Looking to Sea is an exquisite work of cultural, artistic and philosophical storytelling. Looking to Sea considers ten pivotal artworks, from Vanessa Bell's Studland Beach, one of the first modernist paintings in Britain, to Paul Nash's work bearing the scars of his experience in the trenches and Martin Parr's photographs of seaside resorts in the 1980s, which raised controversial questions of class. Each of the startlingly different pieces, created between 1912 and 2015, opens a window onto big ideas, from modernism and the sublime, the impact of the world wars and colonialism, to issues crucial to our world today like the environment and nationhood. In this astonishingly perceptive portrait of the twentieth century, art critic Lily Le Brun brings a fresh eye to a vast idea, offering readers an imaginative new way of seeing our island nation. 'Le Brun's writing is at once bold and delicate, far-reaching and fine-tuned. Her book explores the inexhaustible variety of human perception.' Alexandra Harris 'A smart and clear-eyed set of meditations on marine gaze, made with a painterly touch worthy of the chosen artists. Empathy and intelligence lift memoir into cultural history.' Iain Sinclair

A century and a half of masterpieces is covered in this chronologically arranged volume that beautifully captures the development of art in a new age. Starting with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and ending with Matthew Barney, nearly every prominent figure in Modern art is represented in vibrant double-page spreads that show how these artists continued to redefine norms and challenge tradition. Fascinating biographical and anecdotal information about each artist is provided alongside large reproductions of their most celebrated works, stunning details, and images of the artists themselves. A color-coded timeline spans the entire volume, showing overlapping careers and important historical dates. From the impressionists to the surrealists, the cubists to the pop-artists-readers will find a wealth of information as well as hours of enjoyment learning about this popular and prolific period in art history.

Geoffrey Garnier was the only Newlyn artist to devote himself entirely to the art of print-making. After a spell in Canada he studied at the Bushey School of Art and in 1913 at the Forbes School of Art at Newlyn in Cornwall. Friends there included Lamorna Birch, Laura and Harold Knight, Charles and Ruth Simpson, Harold Harvey, his wife Gertrude and her sister Sophie Bodinnar, Frank Dobson the sculptor, Dod and Ernest Procter and A J Munnings and wife Florence. Geoffrey and Jill, coinciding at the Forbes School, married in 1917 while he was serving in the Navy, and after the war settled in Newlyn, where they remained for the rest of their lives. They bought Orchard Cottage, high above the harbour with glorious views across the bay to St Michael's Mount, building studios in the sloping garden. Geoffrey's prints gained international recognition. He worked in dry-point, line engraving, etching, mezzotint and particularly aquatint, developing new processes and rediscovering old methods. Favourite subjects were the sailing ships of the great era of British sea power, Cornish landscapes and sporting scenes, charming studies of children at play and colourful oriental prints. Jill continued to paint despite the demands of domesticity, and produced portraits of her children and friends, landscapes and still lifes, making a record of her times. Geoffrey's versatility extended to calligraphy, bookbinding and fiction writing. Despite his nostalgia for old Cornish life, he had a love of fast cars, owning such exotic makes as Benz, Delage and Austro-Daimler.

The definitive and sumptuous biography of the one of the world's most collectible illustrators contains a richly detailed account of his life along with beautifully enchanting pictures Examining the work of the illustrator Arthur Rackham, this monograph traces his achievements throughout his illustrious career. Rackham's illustrations for such works as "Alice in Wonderland," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens," and "Rip Van Winkle" have attained the classic status of the writings themselves--and indeed, in some cases, they have become synonymous with them. His works were also included in numerous exhibitions in his lifetime, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. Rackham himself, however, has previously remained a shadowy figure. As well as featuring exquisite illustrations and sketches, extracts from Rackham's correspondence and insightful commentary shed new light on this much-collected illustrator.

Puget Sound's rich abundance of life - from mammals to birds - can be attributed to the fact that the region is far more than just a body of water. Edged by an extraordinary range of habitats, this region is visited and occupied year-round by species that are finely tuned to exploit the resources here that are necessary for their survival. Birds are among the most obvious occupants of these communities, and witnessing their dynamic lives has been a source of inspiration for artist and naturalist Tony Angell. For nearly fifty years Angell has used Puget Sound's natural diversity as his artist's palette. In this book, he describes the living systems within the Sound and shares his observations and encounters with the species that make up the complex communities of the Sound's rivers, tidal flats, islands, and beaches: the fledging flight of a young peregrine, an otter playfully herding a small red rockfish, the grasp of a curious octopus. Angell goes on to explain the methods he uses in his art. The shapes, movements, patterns, and even temperatures and smells that he experiences in the field are all brought to bear on his work. His drawings bring clarity to his visual and emotional memories, and his sculptures allow him to approach a memory from many directions and retain that memory in his hands. In all of his work, he lets the passion and excitement of his discoveries drive his artistic expression. Angell augments his descriptions of the wildlife of the Puget Sound region and his working methods with two appendices listing guides and references to this and other regions by other artists and naturalists. These resources not only put wildlife viewers in touch with the times and places to view particular species, but also speak to the patience and willingness to be delighted that are necessary to increasing the understanding of our wild neighbors. See Tony Angell on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCemt7hVK_4

Tomas Esson: The GOAT is the first monograph of Afro-Cuban artist Tomas Esson. It features paintings created over a span of thirty-five years and showcases a distinct style that overflows with energy, biting humor, and suggestive narratives that often involve highly sexualized, monstrous creatures alongside the heroes of the Cuban Revolution. Coming of age in turbulent Havana, Tomas Esson (b. 1963) was a fierce critic of the social reality he saw around him. His work was showcased in a number of controversial exhibitions in the late 1980s, as the artist became a central figure in the decade's renaissance in Cuban art and he began to exhibit internationally. He left Cuba in 1990 and moved to the USA. Alongside his works this publication provides newly commissioned scholarship and reprints of critical texts that are no longer in circulation, proof that Esson is one of Cuba's most important post-Revolutionary artists, whose work remains timely today.

The first major life of the outstanding British painter - and Jack the Ripper suspect - Walter Sickert (1860-1942), by the highly acclaimed biographer of Aubrey Beardsley. Walter Richard Sickert is perhaps the outstanding figure of British art during the last hundred years. Many contemporary painters, from Hodgkin and Bacon to Auerbach and Kossof, acknowledge a debt to his influence. His career spanned six decades of unceasing experiment and achievement. As a young artist, he was welcomed and encouraged by Degas. He was the disciple of Whistler and mentor of Beardsley. He founded the London Impressionists and the Camden Town Group. He was taken up by both the Woolfs and the Sitwells. He gave painting lessons to Winston Churchill. His energy was prodigious and his personality fascinating: he was also an illustrator, cartoonist, writer, polemicist, teacher and wit. He relished controversy: his early paintings of London music halls and his late works, based on 18th-century etchings and contemporary news photographs, provoked outraged criticism from conventional commentators. Sturgis also devotes an appendix to charting in detail Sickert's posthumous life as a player in the 'Jack the Ripper' circus, assessing (and demolishing) the arguments of Patricia Cornwell and others in the light of his own discoveries.

Is contemporary art a friend or foe of Christianity? In "God in the Gallery" art historian, critic, and curator Daniel Siedell constructs a framework for interpreting modern art from a Christian worldview. He contends that art is not antithetical or hostile to Christianity but is in resonant dialogue with it. Siedell also examines the function of art criticism and the role of visual art in Christian worship and experience.

"Dan Siedell is an exceptionally thoughtful and articulate observer of the very difficult intersection of religious belief and contemporary art. The book is full of unexpected and promising confluences. Here a reader will find the principal secular theorists of modernism, but this book is also 'nourished by Nicene Christianity' and informed by a wonderful range of authors, from Florensky, Levinas, and Wyschogrod to Seerveld, Wolterstorff, Walford, and Dyrness. This is a tremendous book, a genuine effort at dialogue in an arena marked by the near-complete absence of open exchange."--James Elkins, E. C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

""God in the Gallery" is a seminal work of interpretation, a guide for skeptics and faithful alike, in which Siedell offers a most profound, encouraging survey of contemporary art. An Emmaus Road encounter for those traveling on the path of contemporary art, Siedell's careful and loving attention paid to known and unknown artists will surely open our eyes. A must read for all of us laboring in the art world and in the arts academia."--Makoto Fujimura, artist; founder/creative director, International Arts Movement

"Daniel Siedell's passionate appreciationfor common grace is apparent on every page of "God in the Gallery," This is a book that should be widely read not only for its penetrating account of the contemporary art world but also for its larger understanding of Christ and culture."--John Wilson, editor, "Books & Culture"

A major voice in the architectural culture of the mid-century, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was uniquely engaged with modernism and modernity. As one of the very few female architectural critics of the time, she was an early voice articulating doubts about the path modernist architecture was taking, demystifying the myths of the masters, Mies, Le Corbusier and Gropius, and questioning their heroic, masculinist approach. Yet her writings and work are understudied, and have largely vanished from the canon of scholarly references on modernism. This book analyzes the significance of the life and work of Moholy-Nagy and explores the paradoxical aspects of the relationship between modernism and feminism. Published as part of the Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture series, which brings to light the work of significant yet overlooked figures in modernism, it is both an examination of her work and legacy, and also a study on the roles of gender and of the changing nature of modernism in its trajectory from Europe to America. Drawing on personal papers, diaries, letters and lecture notes, as well as personal interviews with relatives, colleagues and students, this study is a key resource for scholars who would like to include the contributions of women in to their discussions of architecture and modernism.

For more than half a century, Austin artist Don Collins crisscrossed Texas looking for traces of the past. Most often he has found them in a variety of old buildings. Drawings of these places, thirteen a year, appeared for three decades in popular calendars issued in Austin by the Miller Blueprint Company. The publications themselves have become collectors' items.In order to prepare his annual calendars, Don frequented less-traveled byways and often forgotten places. When he discovered that he had begun retracing his routes, he bought a stack of Texas county road maps. The artist marked the courses that he had taken so that he would be sure to see new country on each subsequent foray: ""I would seek out roads that followed the path of least resistance, often up a creek. I would follow them and usually find an old structure."" In time he expanded his geographical range to more distant areas of the state: ""I wanted to go there and see what it's like.""In this book, Collins has chosen seventy from more than three hundred works of art that he created for the Miller Blueprint calendars. The carefully detailed renderings record buildings from farmhouses to industrial plants, from shanties to mansions. Through these pages viewers tour the state both visually and through the artist's own recollections about the remarkable range of places he has recorded with pencil and paper.

Charlie James (1867-1937) was a premier carver and painter from the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation of British Columbia. Also known by his ceremonial name Yakuglas, he was hawker a prolific artist and activist during a period of severe oppression for First Nations people in Canada. Yakuglas' Legacy examines the life of Charlie James. During the early part of his career James created works primarily for ritual use within Kwakwaka'wakw society. However, in the 1920s, his art found a broader audience as he produced more miniatures and paintings. Through a balanced reading of the historical period and James' artistic production, Ronald W. Hawker argues that James' shift to contemporary art forms allowed the artist to make a critical statement about the vitality of Kwakwaka'wakw culture. Yakuglas' Legacy, aided by the inclusion of 123 colour illustrations, is at once a beautiful and poignant book about the impact of the Canadian project on Aboriginal people and their artistic response.

With some 280 colour illustrations, Introduction to Modern Design takes us on a visual survey of design from the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century to the Maker Movement of today. It offers a new understanding of the birth of modern design in the early twentieth century and chronicles the way its meaning has changed over the decades. The narrative is supported by twenty-six readings from significant texts by designers and critics, offering readers an opportunity to learn about design from those who created it and those who commented on it as it was done. The focus of this book is on the objects themselves-from industrial design, furniture, ceramics, textiles, graphics, electronics, to automobiles-and explores the development of these designs in relation to industrialization, technology, environmental responsibility, consumerism, individual needs, and the expression of the social values of their day. Clearly written and accessible, Introduction to Modern Design provides a succinct history of, and fascinating insights into, the world of design.

This book explores the achievements of a group of young women artists who learned about the New Art through an extraordinary faculty of innovators at Douglass College. New Art rejected the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, advocating that art should be based on everyday life and that "anything can be art."

"I painted my world, my life, all the things I loved, all the things I dreamed of, all the things I could not say in words. I painted my beloved Russia, my hometown Vitebsk, the Jewish neighborhood where I grew up, the way I saw everything as a child."

During prayers he would daydream; in school he was distracted; and at home he worried about what profession he should choose. But when the young Marc Chagall realized he had artistic talent, he translated his unusual way of looking at the world into color and shape.

Chagall grew up, became a painter, and traveled the world, but he never forgot about his hometown of Vitebsk, Belarus, the place that shaped his character and inspired his art.

This book, loosely based on Chagall's autobiography, gives readers a glimpse into the early life of one of the twentieth century's most significant painters. Landmann's charming three-dimensional mixed-media illustrations celebrate the colorful, the whimsical, and the extraordinary aspects of Chagall's life and work.

"The Graphic Design Reader" brings together key readings in this exciting and dynamic field to provide an essential resource for students, reseachers and pracitioners. Taking as its starting point an exploration of the ways in which theory and practice, canons and anti-canons have operated within the discipline, the Reader brings together writings by key international design and cultural critics, including Leslie Atzmon, Dick Hebdige, Steven Heller, Victor Margolin, Rick Poynor and Adrian Shaughnessy. Extracts are structured into thematic sections addressing graphic design history; education and the profession; type and typography; critical writing and practice; political and social change; the visual landscapes of graphic design, and graphic design futures. Each section has a contextual introduction by the editors outlining key ideas and debates, as well as an annotated guide to further reading and a comprehensive bibliography.The reader features original visual essays that provide a critical platform for understanding and interpreting graphic design practice, as well as a wealth of illustrations accompanying key historical and contemporary texts from the 1920s to the present day.

A review of 60 years of painting London's river from Henley to the estuary and east coast harbours, this text includes personal narratives by the Wapping Group of Artists.

Since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and recognition of the Holocaust as a watershed event of the twentieth century, if not in Western Civilization itself, the capacity of art to represent this event adequately has been questioned. Contributors provide case studies that include a broad spectrum of artists from North America, Europe and Israel, and examine some of the dominant themes of their work.

Among the women artists who came to prominence in the postwar era in New York, painter Nell Blaine had a uniquely hard-won career. In her mid-thirties, her horizons seemed limitless. Her shows received glowing reviews, ARTnews honored her with a lengthy feature article, and one of her paintings hung in the Whitney Museum. Then, on a trip to Greece, Blaine developed polio, rendering her a paraplegic. Angry at being told she would never paint again, she taught herself to hold a brush with her left hand and regained her skill. In Alive Still, author Cathy Curtis tells the story of Blaine's life and career for the first time by investigating the ways her experience of illness colored her personality and the evolving nature of her work, the importance of her Southern roots, and the influence of her bisexuality (and, in the latter part of her life, long term lesbian relationships) on her understanding of the world. Alive Still draws upon Blaine's unpublished diaries; her published writing; career-spanning interviews and reviews; and correspondence to and from family members, lovers, and the artists, poets, publishers, rescuers in Greece, and neighbors she knew. In addition, Curtis has conducted interviews with surviving artists and other individuals in Blaine's circle, including two of her longtime lovers. Featuring illustrations of Blaine's work and snapshots of family and friends, Alive Still is a compelling narrative of a leading, productive, and passionate woman artist who overcame the setbacks of disability.

Azaria Mbatha's autobiography embodies episodic memories of his life across a unique spectrum of African experience.

Starting from his decision to visit South Africa after years of exile in Sweden, this trilogy introduces us to his parents and his beloved sister who looms so large in his emotional world. We share their lives against a rich backdrop of Zulu society in which the oral tradition is portrayed in depth and detail.

The shadow of apartheid South Africa, softened only by Mbatha's generosity of spirit and wry humor, falls across many episodes of poignant originality throughout his story.

This book is freely illustrated with artwork of Mbatha's own making, choice and allocation. He is a prominent figure in contemporary South African art and both his work and this book reflect issues of personal involvement in historical, religious and existential themes.

Ultimately Mbatha's development from young Zulu kholwa to ecumenical man can be clearly traced to his art. He adopts a firm stance as a commentator within a crumbling society racked by personal and collective conflict. His cogent topical themes are depicted, reviewed and expanded in a continuity of experience woven into the literary fabric of his memories.

Women - as warriors, workers, mothers, sensual women,even absent women - haunt 19th- and 20th-century Western painting: their representation is one of its most common subjects. Representing Women brings together Linda Nochlin's most important writings on the subject, as she considers work by Miller, Delacroix, Courbet, Degas, Seurat, Cassatt and Kollwitz, among many others. In her riveting, partly autobiographical, extended introduction, Nochlin documents her own pioneering approach to art history; throughout the seven essays in this book, she argues for the honest virtues of an art history that rejects methodological assumptions, and for art historians who investigate the work before their eyes while focusing on its subject matter, informed by a sensitivity to its feminist spirit.

From his childhood in Poland just before WWII, his study of art in Paris, his two marriages and the birth of his daughters, to his emigration to Canada, Kupczynski has recorded his colourful views of life on canvas and paper. In this book, he documents the important milestones in both his private and public life, including that he was the first artist to hang his paintings at the Barbakan, a reconstructed wall in Warsaw that joined the Old City with the New that became a famous exhibition space and drew many more artists. Like his paintings, his book shows that he loves women, animals, music and colour.

In 1900, Swedish design reformer and social theorist Ellen Key published "The Century of the Child," presaging the coming century as a period of intensified focus and progressive thinking around the rights, development and well-being of children. Taking inspiration from Key-and looking back through the twentieth century-this volume, published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, examines individual and collective visions for the material world of children, from utopian dreams for the "citizens of the future" to the dark realities of political conflict and exploitation. Surveying more than 100 years of toys, clothing, playgrounds, schools, children's hospitals, nurseries, furniture, posters, animation and books, this richly illustrated catalogue illuminates how progressive design has enhanced the physical, intellectual, and emotional development of children and, conversely, how models of children's play have informed experimental aesthetics and imaginative design thinking-engendering, in the process, reappraisals of some of the iconic names in twentieth-century design and enriching the unfolding narrative of modern design with other, less familiar figures. Divided into seven sections-"New Century, New Child, New Art"; "Avant-Garde Playtime"; "Light, Air, Health"; "Children and the Body Politic"; "Regeneration"; "Power Play"; and "Designing Better Worlds"-"The Century of the Child" focuses on individuals and projects that represent innovative and comprehensive contributions to design for children.