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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > From 1900 > General
The name which predominates in the development of art throughout the twentieth century, and to which many of the revolutionary changes are ascribed, is that of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Not only was he one of the most influential artists, he was also one of the most versatile. This beautifully produced book surveys the whole range of his paintings, from the haunting works of the Blue Period, to the brute power of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the lyrical sweetness of his family portraits, the revolutionary developments of Cubism and the later manifold experimentations with form and colour. Roland Penrose's introductory essay on Picasso was first published in 1971, when the great master was still alive. Penrose was acclaimed in his own right as a painter, and his long friendship with Picasso gave him unique insight into his life and work. David Lomas has written a preface introducing us to the friendship between these two artists. He has also written notes to each full-page colour plate, discussing the picture in detail, making this a perfect introduction to the twentieth century's most famous artist.
The working women of Victorian and Edwardian Britain were fascinating but difficult subjects for artists, photographers, and illustrators. The cultural meanings of labour sat uncomfortably with conventional ideologies of femininity, and working women unsettled the boundaries between gender and class, selfhood and otherness. From paintings of servants in middle-class households, to exhibits of flower-makers on display for a shilling, the visual culture of women's labour offered a complex web of interior fantasy and exterior reality. The picture would become more challenging still when working women themselves began to use visual spectacle. In this first in-depth exploration of the representation of British working women, Kristina Huneault explores the rich meanings of female employment during a period of labour unrest, demands for women's enfranchisement, and mounting calls for social justice. In the course of her study she questions the investments of desire and the claims to power that reside in visual artifacts, drawing significant conclusions about the relationship between art and identity.
This book provides the most comprehensive survey of contemporary Palestinian art to date. The development of contemporary practice, theory and criticism is understood as integral to the concomitant construction of Palestinian national identities. In particular the book explores the intricate relationship between art and nationalism in which the idea of origin plays an important and problematic role. The book deconstructs the existing narratives of the history of Palestinian art, which search for its origins in the 19th century, and argues that Palestinian contemporary art demonstrates pluralistic, politically and philosophically complex attitudes towards identity and nation that confound familiar narratives of origin and belonging. The book builds upon theories of art, nationalism and post-colonialism particularly in relation to the themes of fragmentation and dispersal. It takes the Arabic word for Diaspora Shatat (literally broken apart) as a central concern in contemporary understanding of Palestinian culture and develops it, along with Edward Said's paradoxical formula of a 'coherence of dispersal' as the organising concept of the book. This aspect of contemporary Palestinian art is peculiarly suited to the conditions produced by the globalisation of art and we show how Palestinian artists, despite not having a state, have developed an international profile.
Whereas recent studies of early modern widowhood by social, economic and cultural historians have called attention to the often ambiguous, yet also often empowering, experience and position of widows within society, Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe is the first book to consider the distinct and important relationship between ritual and representation. The fifteen new interdisciplinary essays assembled here read widowhood as a catalyst for the production of a significant body of visual material-representations of, for and by widows, whether through traditional media, such as painting, sculpture and architecture, or through the so-called 'minor arts,' including popular print culture, medals, religious and secular furnishings and ornament, costume and gift objects, in early modern Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Arranged thematically, this unique collection allows the reader to recognize and appreciate the complexity and contradiction, iconicity and mutability, and timelessness and timeliness of widowhood and representation.
Volume 1 of Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907-1948 is part of a four-volume publication that reappraises South African visual art of the twentieth century from a postapartheid perspective. Volume 1 begins after the South African War when efforts were made to unify the white `races'. It ends with the coming to power of the Afrikaner nationalists. The period encompasses two world wars, the incremental dispossession of the rights of black South Africans, and the rise of organised black South African resistance to white rule. Jillian Carman, the editor of this volume, notes that art is not created in a vacuum. In her introductory essay titled `Other Ways of Seeing' she notes that this volume sets the overall approach: "an interpretation of the history of twentieth century visual art in South Africa against the backdrop of momentous social and political events". This volume provides critical perspectives on the ideological and institutional frameworks for white and black artists of the period, and the art they produced. Discussions of public art and architecture, traditionalist African art, and Western-style painting and sculpture are complemented with consideration of the roles played by museums, training, art societies and exhibitions, art historical writing, and patronage. Fresh perspectives on the art of the fi rst half of the twentieth century highlight complexities that still resonate today.
The sculptor Louise Bourgeois is best known for her monumental
abstract sculptures, one of the most striking of which is the
installation "Spider" (1997). Too vast in scale to be viewed all at
once, this elusive structure resists simple narration. It fits both
no genre and all of them--architecture, sculpture, installation.
Its contents and associations evoke social issues without being
reducible to any one of them. Here, literary critic and theorist
Mieke Bal presents the work as a theoretical object, one that can
teach us how to think, speak, and write about art.
The livre d'artiste, or "artist's book," is among the most prized in rare book collections. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the greatest artists to work in this genre, and he created his most important during a period of intense personal and physical suffering. Brimming with powerful themes and imagery, these works are crucial to understanding Matisse's oeuvre. With deftness and sensitivity, Louise Rogers Lalaurie reintroduces us to Matisse by considering how in each volume, Matisse constructed an intriguing dialogue between word and image. Examining this page-by-page interplay, translating key sequences, and discussing the books' distinct themes and production histories, Lalaurie offers the thoughtful analysis these works deserve. Together Matisse's artist books reveal his deep engagement with questions of beauty and truth; his faith; his perspectives on aging, loss, and inspiration; and his relationship to his critics, the French art establishment, and the women in his life. In addition, Lalaurie illuminates Matisse's often misunderstood political affinities--though Matisse was vilified in his time for choosing to live in the collaborationist Vichy zone, his wartime books reveal a body of work that stands as a deeply personal statement of resistance. Lavishly illustrated, Matisse: The Books showcases a rich group of underappreciated works and brings unprecedented clarity to a controversial period in the artist's life.
'One of the most famous of modern art documents - a poetic primer, prepared by the artist for his Bauhaus pupils, which has deeply affected modern thinking about art . . . This little handbook leads us into the mysterious world where science and imagination fuse.' Observer
A biography of the elusive but celebrated Dada and Surrealist artist and photographer connecting his Jewish background to his life and art Man Ray (1890-1976), a founding father of Dada and a key player in French Surrealism, is one of the central artists of the twentieth century. He is also one of the most elusive. In this new biography, journalist and critic Arthur Lubow uses Man Ray's Jewish background as one filter to understand his life and art. Man Ray began life as Emmanuel Radnitsky, the eldest of four children born in Philadelphia to a mother from Minsk and a father from Kiev. When he was seven the family moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where both parents worked as tailors. Defying his parents' expectations that he earn a university degree, Man Ray instead pursued his vocation as an artist, embracing the modernist creed of photographer and avant-garde gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. When at the age of thirty Man Ray relocated to Paris, he, unlike Stieglitz, made a clean break with his past.
It is Jean Francois Lyotard's political focus that singles him out from his poststructuralist and postmodernist contemporaries. He is invariably 'thinking politics': finding ways of translating philosophical thought into a basis for political action. Stuart Sim explores how Lyotard's brand of pragmatism can provide a focus for political theory and action in our cultural climate, especially in light of the dramatic resurgence of right-wing extremism.
Published on the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the 200th anniversary of the deciphering of the Rosetta stone, this book responds to the ever-growing enthusiasm and curiosity for Egyptomania. This concept refers to a collective imagination which was nurtured throughout the 19th and 20th centuries by archaeological digs and exploratory trips. These key discoveries were crucial for creation and particularly for the Art Deco artists who found their inspiration in Egyptian lines and patterns. Art Déco & Egyptomanie explores the origins and functioning of this cultural and artistic movement shaped by many fields: architecture, cinema, sculpture, popular art, theatre and fashion. Art Déco & Egyptomanie comes with an explicit and previously unseen iconography. Text in French.
"This fine memoir is more insightful than gossipy, and as a subject Bacon is just about unbeatable." -- The New York Times In June of 1963, when Michael Peppiatt first met Francis Bacon, the former was a college boy at Cambridge, the latter already a famous painter, more than thirty years his senior. And yet, Peppiatt was welcomed into the volatile artist's world; Bacon, considered by many to be "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," proved himself a devoted friend and father figure, even amidst the drinking and gambling. Though Peppiatt would later write perhaps the definitive biography of Bacon, his sharply drawn memoir has a different vigor, revealing the artist at his most intimate and indiscreet, and his London and Paris milieus in all their seediness and splendor. Bacon is felt with immediacy, as Peppiatt draws from contemporary diaries and records of their time together, giving us the story of a friendship, and a new perspective on an artist of enduring fascination.
A magnificently illustrated showcase of works by artists in Paris at the dawn of the 20th century In Paris at the turn of the 20th century, an artistic revolution was underway. The Salon des Independants was organized in 1884 by a group of artists and thinkers that included Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac, who was the organization's president from 1908 to his death in 1935. They chose as their slogan "neither jury nor reward" (ni jury ni recompenses), and for the following three decades their annual exhibitions set new trends that profoundly changed the course of Western art. This beautifully illustrated volume features paintings and graphic works by an impressive range of artists who exhibited at these avant-garde gatherings where Impressionists (Monet and Morisot), Fauves (Dury, Friesz, and Marquet), Symbolists (Gauguin, Mucha, and Redon), Nabis (Bonnard, Denis, and Lacombe), and Neo-Impressionists (Cross, Pissarro, and Seurat) all came together. Distributed for Editions Hazan, Paris Exhibition Schedule: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (July 4-November 15, 2020)
The first biography of America's greatest twentieth-century sculptor. In this beautifully written, deeply researched book Jed Perl shows how Alexander Calder became an avant-garde artist with enduring appeal. One of our most beloved modern artists, Calder is celebrated above all as the inventor of the mobile. Only now is the full story of his life being told in a gloriously illustrated biography, which features unseen photographs and is based on scores of interviews and unprecedented access to Calder's papers. Born into a family of artists, Calder forged important friendships with a who's who of twentieth-century creators, including Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Martha Graham, Joan Miro, Piet Mondrian and Virgil Thomson. His early years studying engineering were followed by artistic triumphs in Paris in the late 1920s, and his emergence as a leader in the international abstract avant-garde. His marriage in 1931 to Louisa James-a great-niece of Henry James-is a richly romantic story. This transatlantic life carries readers from New York's Greenwich Village, to the Left Bank of Paris during the Depression, and then to a refugee-filled London just before the War, where Calder's circle of friends included Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Kenneth Clark.
First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
A fascinating life of Sergei Shchukin, the great collector who changed the face of Russia's art world Sergei Shchukin was a highly successful textiles merchant in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but he also had a great eye for beauty. He was one of the first to appreciate the qualities of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and to acquire works by Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso. A trailblazer in the Russian art world, Shchukin and his collection shocked, provoked, and inspired awe, ridicule, and derision among his contemporaries. This is the first English-language biography of Sergei Shchukin, written by art historian Natalya Semenova and adapted by Shchukin's grandson Andre Delocque. Featuring personal diary entries, correspondence, interviews, and archival research, it brings to light the life of a man who has hitherto remained in the shadows, and shows how despite his controversial reputation, he opened his collection to the public, inspiring a future generation of artists and changing the face of the Russian art world.
An overview of the work of 20th-century graphic design icon Tom Eckersley – packed with hundreds of his instantly recognisable designs. From iconic posters for the Post Office and London Transport to designs for brands such as Guinness, this richly illustrated book explores the work of influential British poster artist and design teacher Tom Eckersley (1914–1997). Part of the 'outsider' generation that transformed graphic design in Britain in the mid-century era, Eckersley’s instantly recognisable posters have become true icons of 20th-century style. Here, design writer and former Eckersley archivist Paul Rennie gives a fascinating exploration of Eckersley’s life and work, from his Northern upbringing and early career, through pioneering work during the Second World War, to his central role in mid-century graphic design in the decades that followed. Over 200 designs from throughout Eckersley’s career are featured. Made in his signature style combining bold, bright colours and flat graphic shapes, there are designs for clients such as the BBC, British Rail, Keep Britain Tidy, Gillette, BP and Shell. The book also examines Eckersley’s position at the forefront of the explosion of print culture in the 20th century, how he helped to transform design education in Britain, and the lasting legacy he left behind. A celebration of a true mid-century modern master, this is the first book on Tom Eckersley of its kind and will appeal to anyone interested in graphic design and visual communication.
An authoritative and comprehensive survey of the life and work of the visionary and influential painter Philip Guston. Driven and consumed by art, Philip Guston painted and drew compulsively. This book takes the reader from his early social realist murals and easel paintings of the 1930s and 1940s, to the Abstract Expressionist works of the 1950s and early 1960s, and finally to the powerful new language of figurative painting, which he developed in the late 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on more than thirty years of his own research, the critic and curator, Robert Storr, maps Guston's entire career in one definitive volume, providing a substantial, accessible and revealing analysis of his work. With more than 850 images, the book illustrates Guston's key works and includes many unpublished paintings and drawings. An extensive chronology, illustrated with photographs, letters, articles, publications and other ephemera drawn from the artist's archives and other sources, contextualizes Guston's life and provides in-depth coverage of his life at home, his work in the studio, his relationship with fellow artists and his many exhibitions. Guston was able to speak about art with unrivalled passion and fluency. In celebration of this, the book features Guston's own thoughts on his drawings and his great heroes of the Italian Renaissance.
Celebrate the epic journey of the LEGO® minifigure! Enter the world of minifigures with this fully updated edition. The first minifigure was created in 1978, and today the entire minifigure population could circle the globe more than five times! Starring more than 2,000 of the most popular and rarest minifigures from the LEGO® Minifigure Series and themes including LEGO® NINJAGO®, THE LEGO® MOVIE™, LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® City, LEGO® Harry Potter™, and many more. From astronauts and vampires to Super Heroes and movie characters, feast your eyes on the most awesome minifigures of every decade! ©2020 The LEGO Group.
Originally published to accompany a major V&A exhibition, this beautiful book is an indispensable history of the fashion houses that have become synonymous with show-stopping glamour. The Glamour of Italian Fashion showcases the fashions that turned 'Made in Italy' into an internationally recognized mark of style. It brings together stunning fashion photography, archival material, and previously unseen objects from private collections to explore Italian style from the post-war couturiers of the 'Sala Bianca' to the outstanding success of its ready-to-wear brands. Artisanal leather and fur production, exquisite knitwear and fine tailoring have all contributed to Italy's unique position in the consciousness of stylish people everywhere. Designers and labels featured include Emilio Pucci, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Fendi, Missoni, Valentino, Franco Moschino, Gianni Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Miuccia Prada and Roberto Capucci as well as bespoke tailors and ready-towear menswear specialists such as Carlo Palazzi and Ermenegildo Zegna.
This book sets out to explore the way, with the onset of a new and integral relationship between text and image, the modern poster is able to evolve distinctive persuasive strategies that will transform modern advertising. The book shows how this fundamental development is closely related to contemporary developments in the visual arts - in particular Futurism and Art Deco - and reflects the increasing cross-fertilisation and symbiosis between art and graphic design. The book focuses in particular on the way conventional textual strategies - metaphor, metonymy, rebus - are adapted by the modern poster to produce visual or textual/visual equivalents which, through their employment of combined pictorial and linguistic elements maximise their attractive or persuasive power over the viewer/reader. A key aim of the book is to clarify the assumptions on which semiology (the study of signs) is based in the context of modern poster artists' practice. The text/image relation is explored through five chapters focussing on (1) the rhetoric of image/text in general; (2) text and image in airline logos: British Airways and Air France; (3) visual metonymies in boxing posters; (4) text and image in posters expressing speed; (5) text/image in Swiss tourist posters. There are approximately 120 colour illustrations arranged in groups that reflect the different orientations of the chapters.
Explores the intrinsic relation of life to air, and breathing, through contemporary art In Out of Breath, Caterina Albano examines the cultural significance of breath and air to a wide array of forces in our midst, including economy, politics, infection, and ecological violence. Through a consideration of recent art practices and projects, including the dance project Breath Catalogue, which makes visible the breathing patterns of dancers, and Forensic Architecture's Cloud Studies video, which investigates eight different kinds of clouds from airstrikes to herbicides to tear gas, Albano focuses on breath as both an intuitive process and a conveyer of meanings. Conceived in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and systemic inequalities that it has laid bare, Out of Breath shows the potential of artistic practices to mobilize affect as a form of cultural and political critique. Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship. |
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