The first comprehensive assessment of Degas's legacy to be published in over two decades, Perspectives on Degas unites a team of international scholars to analyze Degas's work, artistic practice, and unique methods of pictorial problem-solving. Established scholars and curators show how recent trends in art historical thinking can stimulate innovative interpretations of Degas's paintings, prints, sculptures, and drawings and reveal new ideas about his place in the art historical narrative of the nineteenth-century avant-garde. Questions posed by contributors include: what interpretive approaches are open to a new generation of art historians in the wake of a vast body of existing scholarship on nineteenth-century art? In what ways can feminist analyses of Degas's works continue to yield new results? Which of Degas's works have received less attention in critical literature to date and what does study of them reveal? As the centenary of Degas's death approaches, this book offers a timely re-evaluation of the critical literature that has developed in response to Degas's work and identifies ways in which the further study of this artist's multi-facetted output can deepen our understanding of the wider scientific, literary, and artistic ideas that circulated in France during the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

This collection of essays considers artistic works that deal with the body without a visual representation. It explores a range of ways to represent this absence of the figure: from abject elements such as bodily fluids and waste to surrogate forms including reliquaries, manuscripts, and cloth. The collection focuses on two eras, medieval and modern, when images referencing the absent body have been far more prolific in the history of art. In medieval times, works of art became direct references to the absent corporal essence of a divine being, like Christ, or were used as devotional aids. By contrast, in the modern era artists often reject depictions of the physical body in order to distance themselves from the history of the idealized human form. Through these essays, it becomes apparent, even when the body is not visible in a work of art, it is often still present tangentially. Though the essays in this volume bridge two historical periods, they have coherent thematic links dealing with abjection, embodiment, and phenomenology. Whether figurative or abstract, sacred or secular, medieval or modern, the body maintains a presence in these works even when it is not at first apparent.

F.C.B. Cadell was born in Edinburgh, where he lived for most of his life, and studied in Paris and Munich. This book illustrates many of the works for which Cadell is celebrated, including stylish portrayals of Edinburgh New Town interiors, vibrantly coloured, daringly simplified still lives of the 1920s, and evocative landscapes of the Scottish west coast and the south of France. Based on new research, a special section concentrates on Cadell's relationship with Iona, where he painted nearly every year from 1912 until 1935. The book accompanies a major exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the first retrospective exhibition of Cadell's work held at a public gallery since 1942.

An updated edition of the pocket-sized guide to the 'isms' of modern art. This is a handy guide to the art 'isms' of the modern day. From Impressionism and the birth of modern art to street art and Internationalism of the 21st century, it gives you a practical introduction to all the significant 'isms' that have shaped modern art history. For each 'ism', there is a clear definition, an introduction to the topic, lists of key artists, key words, and leading works from the movement, as well as references to other 'isms' that you might be interested in. This new edition of the original bestselling title now includes four brand new chapters covering Archive Art, Neo-Formalism, Post-Internet Art and Virtual Reality. This book is a must for anyone with an interest in modern art - whether you are an occasional visitor to galleries, an art student or art connoisseur.

The Books That Shaped Art History provides an invaluable roadmap of the field by reassessing the impact of the most important texts of art history published during the 20th century. Each of the sixteen incisive chapters, focusing on a single book, is written by a leading art historian, curator or one of the promising scholars of today. In bringing these cross-generational contributions together, the book presents a varied and invaluable overview of the history of art, told through its most enduring literature. Each essay - with writers including John Elderfield, Boris Groys, Susie Nash and Richard Verdi - analyses a single major work, mapping the intellectual development of its author, setting out the premises and argument of the book, discussing its position within the field of art history, and looking at its significance in the context both of its initial reception and its legacy. Enlivening debates and questioning the very status of art history itself, this is a concise and brilliant study of the discipline and an invaluable resource for anyone interested in visual culture and its histories.

Subtle and wide-ranging in its account, this study explores the impact of Australian art in Britain in the two decades following the end of World War II and preceding the 'Swinging Sixties'. In a transitional period of decolonization in Britain, Australian painting was briefly seized upon as a dynamic and reinvigorating force in contemporary art, and a group of Australian artists settled in London where they held centre stage with group and solo exhibitions in the capital's most prestigious galleries. The book traces the key influences of Sir Kenneth Clark, Bernard Smith and Bryan Robertson in their various (and varying) roles as patrons, ideologues, and entrepreneurs for Australian art, as well as the self-definition and interaction of the artists themselves. Simon Pierse interweaves multiple issues of the period into a cohesive historical narrative, including the mechanics of the British art world, the limited and frustrating cultural scene of 1950s Australia, and the conservative influence of Australian government bodies. Publishing for the first time archival material, letters, and photographs previously unavailable to scholars either in Britain or Australia, this book demonstrates how the work of expatriate Australian artists living in London constructed a distinct vision of Australian identity for a foreign market.

Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain critically analyses the role that visual culture played in the early development of Mass-Observation, the innovative British anthropological research group founded in 1937. The group's production and use of painting, collage, photography, and other media illustrates not only the broad scope of Mass-Observation's efforts to document everyday life, but also, more specifically, the centrality of visual elements to its efforts at understanding national identity in the 1930s. Although much interest has previously focused on Mass-Observation's use of written reports and opinion surveys, as well as diaries that were kept by hundreds of volunteer observers, this book is the first full-length study of the group's engagement with visual culture. Exploring the paintings of Graham Bell and William Coldstream; the photographs of Humphrey Spender; the paintings, collages, and photographs of Julian Trevelyan; and Humphrey Spender's photographs and widely recognized 'Mass-Observation film', Spare Time, among other sources, Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain positions these works as key sources of information with regard to illuminating the complex character of British identity during the Depression era.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Elijah Pierce (1892-1984) was born the youngest son of a former slave on a Mississippi farm. He began carving at an early age when his father gave him his first pocketknife. Pierce became known for his wood carvings nationally and then internationally for the first time in the 1970s. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, this publication seeks to revisit the art of Elijah Pierce and see it in its own right, not simply as 'naive'. Elijah Pierce made his living as a barber; he was also a qualified preacher. Just as his barber shop was a place for gossip and meeting, so his art reflects his own and his community's concerns, but also universal themes. Through his carvings Pierce told his own life story and chronicled the African-American experience. His subjects ranged from politics to religious stories but he seldom distinguished the race of his figures - he thought of them as everyman. His secular carvings show his love of baseball, boxing, comics and the movies, and also reflect his appreciation for American heroes who fought for justice and liberty. In 1932, Pierce completed 'the Book of Wood', which he considered his best work. Originally carved as individual scenes, the completed 'Book' tells the story of Jesus carved in bas-relief. He and his wife Cornelia held "sacred art demonstrations" to explain the meaning of the Book of Wood. Pierce's work was first appreciated in the art world thanks to a fellow sculptor, Boris Gruenwald, who saw the expressive power of his work. As a later critic wrote, "There are 500 woodcarvers working today in the United States who are technically as proficient as Pierce, but none can equal the power of Pierce's personal vision". Pierce became known primarily in circles promoting 'naive' art, winning first prize at the International Meeting of Naive Art in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1973. The vast majority of his work is now held in Columbus, Ohio, which had become his home town. This book revisits Pierce's art seeking to see it in its own right, and not simply as 'naive'. Another critic wrote: "He reduces what he wants to say to the simplest forms and compositions. They are decorative, direct, bold and amusing. He uses glitter and all kinds of devices to make his message clear. It gives his work an immediacy that's very appealing" - an appeal arising from a sophisticated art with its own particular voice.

Mid-Century Modern Interiors explores the history of interior design during arguably its most iconic and influential period. The 1930s to the 1960s in the United States was a key moment for interior design. It not only saw the emergence of some of interior design's most globally-important designers, it also saw the field of interior design emerge at last as a profession in its own right. Through a series of detailed case studies this book introduces the key practitioners of the period - world-renowned designers including Ray and Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, and George Nelson - and examines how they developed new approaches by applying systematic and rational principles to the creation of interior spaces. It takes us into the mind of the designer to show how they each used interior design to express their varied theoretical interests, and reveals how the principles they developed have become embodied in the way interior design is practiced today. This focus on unearthing the underlying ideas and concepts behind their designs rather than on the finished results creates a richer, more conceptual understanding of this pivotal period in modernist design history. With an extended introduction setting the case studies within the broader context of twentieth-century design and architectural history, this book provides both an introduction and an in-depth analysis for students and scholars of interior design, architecture and design history.

In the late 19th century, modern psychology emerged as a discipline, shaking off metaphysical notions of the soul in favor of a more scientific, neurophysiological concept of the mind. Laboratories began to introduce instruments and procedures which examined bodily markers of psychological experiences, like muscle contractions and changes in vital signs. Along with these changes in the scientific realm came a newfound interest in physiological psychology within the arts - particularly with the new perception of artwork as stimuli, able to induce specific affective experiences. In Psychomotor Aesthetics, author Ana Hedberg Olenina explores the effects of physiological psychology on art at the turn of the 20th century. The book explores its influence on not only art scholars and theorists, wishing to understand the relationship between artistic experience and the internal processes of the mind, but also cultural producers more widely. Actors incorporated psychology into their film acting techniques, the Russian and American film industries started to evaluate audience members' physical reactions, and literary scholars began investigations into poets' and performers' articulation. Yet also looming over this newly emergent field were commercial advertisers and politicians, eager to use psychology to further their own mass appeal and assert control over audiences. Drawing from archival documents and a variety of cross-disciplinary sources, Psychomotor Aesthetics calls attention to the cultural resonance of theories behind emotional and cognitive experience - theories with implications for today's neuroaesthetics and neuromarketing.

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was proud to call himself an American artist, but he dreamed of travel to Europe, believing instinctively that he would learn more there than would be possible in his home state of Maine or even in New York. In 1909 Alfred Stieglitz gave Hartley his first solo exhibition in New York, and a second successful show three years later enabled him to head to Europe, where he spent time in Paris, Berlin and Munich. His rise to prominence as a specifically American modernist was based largely on the visual ideas and influences that he encountered in these vibrant cities, which he then synthesized through his own New England point of view. Hartley, who was by nature something of a loner, never lost his wanderlust, and throughout his life found inspiration in many other landscapes and cultures, including in southern France, Italy, Bermuda, Mexico and Canada. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts, published to coincide with an exhibition opening at the Vilcek Foundation in New York, offers a fresh appraisal of a pioneering modernist whose work continues to be celebrated for its spirituality, experimentation and innovation. Rick Kinsel's introduction provides an overview of the manifold ways in which Hartley's travels shaped his artistic vision, from experiencing the latest art in Paris and finding a mentor there in Gertrude Stein to meeting members of the Blaue Reiter group in Germany and developing an interest in both Prussian military pageantry and Bavarian folk art; from becoming fascinated with ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures while in Mexico to being inspired by the traditional pueblo life of the Native Americans of the Southwest. William Low surveys items from the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection of Bates College Museum in Maine - including memorabilia from the artist's travels and artefacts reflecting his diverse spiritual interests - and explains how they aid our understanding of Hartley's motivation and passions. Among them are a photograph album tracing the course of Hartley's peripatetic life from 1908 to 1930 and a notebook of `Color Exercises', both of which are reproduced in full. Emily Schuchardt Navratil considers how Hartley's desire for escape was reflected in his love of the circus, a recurrent theme in his paintings, drawings and writings. He was enthralled by the spectacle and the nomadic existence, and he imagined circus performers to be members of his own wandering troupe. For fifteen years he worked on a book devoted to the subject, but it was left unfinished at his death; an 18-page typescript version is reproduced here in its entirety. Kinsel then explores Hartley's painting Canoe (Schiff), created in Berlin in 1915 as part of his Amerika series of brightly coloured works defined by imagery drawn from both Native American material culture and German folk art. For Hartley, these paintings represented a dual cultural identity. The main part of the book, by Navratil, features some 100 paintings, drawings, photographs and postcards, arranged into seven country- or state-themed sections, with a concluding section on Hartley's personal possessions, which - because he had no permanent home of his own - held extraordinary significance for him.

Jim Cromartie first came to Nantucket as a college student, but for the past 35 years he has called the island home. As a young artist, his major patron was the late Nelson Rockefeller, who introduced him to the world of art and started him on the path to becoming a major realistic painter at a time when abstract art was the norm. Other patrons have included Tom Brokaw of NBC News, the late Roger Firestone of Firestone Tires, and the late Princess Diana of Great Britain.His work introduced the style of Hard-Edge Realism that is created in acrylic paint on wood panel and which depicts all objects in the composition in exquisite detail. The resulting work is both dynamic and serene in a style reminiscent of those of Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth, whose work Jim admired immensely. As a lone-wolf realistic painter in a world gone wild over abstract art, Jim often felt overwhelmed but never quit his crusade to bring realism back to the forefront of art.The perfection of realism led him to a parallel career as a painter of historical buildings. Principal among his historical works are "The U.S. Capitol," the "White House," and the "Supreme Court." This new book tells his story in the first person, tracing the trials and joys of an artist struggling to find his style and acceptance in the world. It is a story told with wit and humor, and is sure to entertain, at the same time as it provides insight into the development of a significant contemporary artist. It is heavily illustrated with 73 color reproductions of Jim's work, representing both finished works and some of Jim's preparatory watercolor sketches.

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.

Equal under the Sky is the first historical study of Georgia O'Keeffe's complex involvement with, and influence on, US feminism from the 1910s to the 1970s. Utilizing understudied sources such as fan letters, archives of women's organizations, transcripts of women's radio shows, and programs from women's colleges, Linda M. Grasso shows how and why feminism and O'Keeffe are inextricably connected in popular culture and scholarship. The women's movements that impacted the creation and reception of O'Keeffe's art, Grasso argues, explain why she is a national icon who is valued for more than her artistic practice.

'A joy to read.' Sunday Times 'Outstanding.' Daily Telegraph 'Excellent.' The Spectator 'Superb.' Literary Review 'Scintillating . . . A gripping, mysterious love story which also sheds light on British culture between the wars.' Financial Times In 1922, Cyril Power, a fifty-year-old architect, left his family to work with the twenty-four-year-old Sybil Andrews. They would be together for twenty years. Both became famous for their dynamic, modernist linocuts - streamlined, full of movement and brilliant colour, summing up the hectic interwar years. Theirs was a scintillating world of Futurists, Surrealists and pioneering abstraction, but alongside the buzz of the new, of machines and speed, shops and sport and dance, they also looked back, to medieval myths and early music, to country ways disappearing from sight.

Is gender implicated in how art does its work in the world created by global capital? Is a global imperative exclusive to capital's planetary expansion or also witnessed in oppositional practices in art and curating? And what is new in the gendered paradigms of art after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Angela Dimitrakaki addresses these questions in an insightful and highly original analysis of travel as artistic labour, the sexualisation of migration as a relationship between Eastern and Western Europe, the rise of female collectives, masculinity and globalisation's 'bad boys', the emergence of a gendered economic subject that has dethroned postmodernism, and the need for a renewed materialist feminism. Now available in paperback, this is a theoretically astute overview of developments in art and its contexts since the 1990s and the first study to attempt a critical refocusing of feminist politics in art history in the wake of globalisation. It will be essential reading in art history, gender, feminist and globalisation studies, curatorial theory, cultural studies and beyond. -- .

The story of a new style of art-and a new way of life-in postwar America: confessionalism. What do midcentury "confessional" poets have in common with today's reality TV stars? They share an inexplicable urge to make their lives an open book, and also a sense that this book can never be finished. Christopher Grobe argues that, in postwar America, artists like these forged a new way of being in the world. Identity became a kind of work-always ongoing, never complete-to be performed on the public stage. The Art of Confession tells the history of this cultural shift and of the movement it created in American art: confessionalism. Like realism or romanticism, confessionalism began in one art form, but soon pervaded them all: poetry and comedy in the 1950s and '60s, performance art in the '70s, theater in the '80s, television in the '90s, and online video and social media in the 2000s. Everywhere confessionalism went, it stood against autobiography, the art of the closed book. Instead of just publishing, these artists performed-with, around, and against the text of their lives. A blend of cultural history, literary criticism, and performance theory, The Art of Confession explores iconic works of art and draws surprising connections among artists who may seem far apart, but who were influenced directly by one another. Studying extraordinary art alongside ordinary experiences of self-betrayal and -revelation, Christopher Grobe argues that a tradition of "confessional performance" unites poets with comedians, performance artists with social media users, reality TV stars with actors-and all of them with us. There is art, this book shows, in our most artless acts.

A bold reassessment of the major architectural monuments and urban forms of the world's first industrial city: Manchester From the mid-eighteenth century to the nineteen-twenties, from the birth of the Industrial Revolution to the height of Manchester's global significance and the beginning of its decline, Shock City challenges the idea that Paris was the "capital of the nineteenth century." Mark Crinson reorients this issue around the development of industrial production, particularly cotton and its manufacture by means of steam power, offering a fascinating and accessibly written account of how new relations in the industrial economy were manifested through the spaces and representations of the first industrial city. Focusing on Manchester's mills and warehouses, its main trading institution (the Royal Exchange), its magnificent Gothic Revival Town Hall, and its late Gothic Revival Rylands Library, this book explores these iconic buildings alongside paintings, prints, maps, and photographs of the city throughout the period. Crinson interweaves analysis of buildings and images, urban spaces and new institutions, technology and industrial pollution to show how these were all the products of Manchester's newly emergent industrial middle classes, who remade the city in their image. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

'It is right that, after more than one hundred years, she should have her say' John Carey, Sunday Times

Twelve days before her twenty-fourth birthday, on the foggy morning of Saturday 12 January 1901, Ida Nettleship married Augustus John in a private ceremony at St Pancras Registry Office. The union went against the wishes of Ida's parents, who aspired to an altogether more conventional match for their eldest daughter. But Ida was in love with Augustus, a man of exceptional magnetism also studying at the Slade, and who would become one of the most famous artists of his time.

Ida's letters - to friends, to family and to Augustus - reveal a young woman of passion, intensity and wit. They tell of the scandal she brought on the Nettleship family and its consquences; of hurt and betrayal as the marriage evolved into a three-way affair when Augustus fell in love with another woman, Dorelia; of Ida's remarkable acceptance of Dorelia, their pregnancies and shared domesticity; of self-doubt, happiness and despair; and of finding the strength and courage to compromise and navigate her unorthodox marriage.

Ida is a naturally gifted writer, and it is with a candour, intimacy and social intelligence extraordinary for a woman of her period that her correspondence opens up her world. Ida John died aged just thirty of puerperal fever following the birth of her fifth son, but in these vivid, funny and sometimes devastatingly sad letters she is startlingly alive on the page.

The War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) were responsible for the production of some of the most iconic images of the Second World War. Despite its rich historical value, this collection has been poorly utilised by historians and hasn't been subjected to the levels of analysis afforded to other forms of wartime culture. This innovative study addresses this gap by bringing official war art into dialogue with the social, economic and military histories of the Second World War. Rebecca Searle explores the tensions between the documentarist and propagandistic roles of the WAAC in their representation of aerial warfare in the battle for production, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the bombing of Germany. Her analyses demonstrate that whilst there was a strong correlation between war art and propaganda, the WAAC depicted many aspects of experience that were absent from wartime propaganda, such as class divisions within the services, gendered hierarchies within industries, civilian death and the true nature of the bombing of Germany. In addition, she shows that propagandistic constructions were not entirely separate from lived experience, but reflected experience and shaped the way that individuals made sense of the war. Accessibly written, highly illustrated and packed with valuable examples of the use of war art as historical source, this book will enhance our understanding of the social and cultural history of Britain during the Second World War.

Although a quintessentially English sculptor, Henry Moore experienced outstanding success in the United States. A man much admired and revered, he was the natural choice for corporate and civil commissions, with many seeing ownership of his work as an expression of rank and aspiring wealth. The fact that the United States contains the greatest number of his sculptures, as opposed to his home country, cannot simply be attributed to superior spending power. Based on original sources, and containing many previously unpublished images, Pauline Rose's book explores the reasons for Moore's fame in America, and the construction of his American persona. An autonomous, creative genius was a seductive and popular idea for the Americans, a perception encouraged by the photographs, films and writings of him in the press. The impact of Moore's presence was likely even stronger precisely because he did not fulfil the expected traits of either the modern artist or the modern celebrity. Rose's work focuses on contextual factors surrounding Moore's reception: political and economic imperatives within the United Kingdom and the transatlantic Special Relationship between the United Kingdom and America. Exploring the ways in which Moore was presented to an American audience via text and imagery and the influential network of his supporters which spanned the two countries, this insightful book examines a range of sculptural commissions in key American cities. His popularity is likely to be related to the ambitions of politicians and businessmen alike who perceived Moore's monumental sculptures as expressions of citizenship and humanity, particularly against the backdrop of the Cold War. This text is a valuable and innovative addition to studies on Moore. It will be indispensable to all those interested in twentieth century art history and cultural studies, Anglo-American relations, and the vibrant relationship between text and image.