In the mid-1950s, declaring "there is no reason not to consider the world as a gigantic painting," Robert Rauschenberg began a series of radical experiments with what he called "Combines," a term he coined to describe works that fused cast-off items like quilts or rubber tires with traditional supports. "Canyon" (1959), one of the artist's best-known Combines, is a large canvas affixed with paper, fabric, metal, personal photographs, wood, mirrors and one very striking object: a large stuffed bald eagle, wings outstretched, carrying a drooping pillow, and balanced upon a wooden plank jutting out from the canvas. "Canyon" is one of six Combines in MoMA's collection, and a landmark work that helped to revolutionize art in the postwar period. An essay by curator Leah Dickerman explores the legacy of this extraordinary piece, and places it within a key period in Rauschenberg's career.

Making van Gogh focuses on the œuvre of Vincent van Gogh in the context of its reception. The publication examines the particular role which German gallerists, collectors, critics and museums played in the story of his success. At the same time it sheds light on the importance of van Gogh as a role model for the avant-garde generation of artists.

“Van Gogh is dead, but the van Gogh-chaps are alive! And how alive they are! It is van Goghing everywhere”, was how Ferdinand Avenarius described it in 1910 in the magazine Der Kunstwart. Vincent van Gogh’s paintings exerted a particular fascination on young artists in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Barely fifteen years after his death the Dutch artist was seen as one of the most important forerunners of modern painting. A selection of key works from all van Gogh’s creative phases are juxtaposed with works by Max Beckmann, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and others.

Charles Le Brun's drawing manual on human emotions has been used for centuries by artists and students as a model for depicting facial expressions. In David Schutter's work, Le Brun's manual is set to a different direction--a series of abstract drawings recalling vestiges of the human face animated by emotion. But Schutter's drawings are neither copies nor portraiture. Rather, they are reflections on how Lebrun's renderings were made. Collected here, Schutter's work recreates not the subject matter but the very values of Lebrun's drawings--light, gesture, scale, and handling of materials. The cross-hatching in the original was used to make classical tone and volume, in Schutter's hand the technique makes for unstable impressions of strained neck and deeply furrowed brow, or for drawing marks and scribbles unto themselves. As such, these drawings end up denying a neat closure--unlike their academic source material--and render unsettling states of mind that require repeated viewing. Accompanied by essays from art critic Barry Schwabsky and Neubauer Collegium curator Dieter Roelstraete, The Escape will appeal to students, critics, and admirers of seventeenth-century, modern, and contemporary art alike.

The first book to explore two of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art side by side, Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons

In the first half of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp redefined what we consider art and what it means to be an artist.

Many of his ideas return, transformed, in the work of Jeff Koons, born when Duchamp was 68 years old and whose own career lit up the art world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

This is the first book to explore the affinities between these two highly influential artists, whose creative universes similarly question the function of objects and the allure of commodities.

International art historians, writers, and curators contribute their expertise on topics such as each artist's persona, as well as reflecting on the influence of technology and sexuality on their work.

The publication of this intriguing book coincides with an exhibition at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, opening in May 2019.

One of Poland's most important and independent postwar artists, Andrzej Wroblewski (1927-57) in his short life created his own highly individual, suggestive, and prolific form of abstract and figurative painting that continues to inspire artists today. This volume offers a stunning presentation and thorough re-evaluation of his work and its legacy in the international context of art history. Offering an insightful picture of the world of postwar painting in communist Europe, and highlighting Wroblewski's political engagement, the book helps us to understand the immensely evocative vision of war and oppression that he created. This close look at a painter and a period that are of growing interest for international art historians will serve to further cement Wroblewski in the postwar pantheon.

Self-taught and working in isolation until his death in 1973, Henry Darger realized an elaborate fantasy world of remarkable beauty and strangeness through hundreds of paintings and an epic written narrative. Angel-like Blengins with butterfly wings, natural catastrophes, innocent girls, and murderous soldiers all appear in Darger's scenes, which are reproduced in this book in double-page and gatefold illustrations. In the volume's introductory essay, Klaus Biesenbach examines the radical originality of Darger's art, including his use of collage, incorporation of religious themes and iconography, and frequent juxtaposition of innocence with violence. An essay by Brooke Davis Anderson illuminates Darger's source materials and techniques, while another by Michael Bonesteel puts Darger's life in the context of his work. The book also includes Darger's autobiography, "A History of My Life," introduced by Carl Watson. The only book of its kind, Henry Darger offers an authoritative, balanced, and insightful look at an American master.

"Wartime Kiss" is a personal meditation on the haunting power of American photographs and films from World War II and the later 1940s. Starting with a stunning reinterpretation of one of the most famous photos of all time, Alfred Eisenstaedt's image of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day, Alexander Nemerov goes on to examine an array of mostly forgotten images and movie episodes--from a photo of Jimmy Stewart and Olivia de Havilland lying on a picnic blanket in the Santa Barbara hills to scenes from such films as "Twelve O'Clock High" and "Hold Back the Dawn." Erotically charged and bearing traces of trauma even when they seem far removed from the war, these photos and scenes seem to hold out the promise of a palpable and emotional connection to those years.

Through a series of fascinating stories, Nemerov reveals the surprising background of these bits of film and discovers unexpected connections between the war and Hollywood, from an obsession with aviation to Anne Frank's love of the movies. Beautifully written and illustrated, "Wartime Kiss" vividly evokes a world in which Margaret Bourke-White could follow a heroic assignment photographing a B-17 bombing mission over Tunis with a job in Hollywood documenting the filming of a war movie. Ultimately this is a book about history as a sensuous experience, a work as mysterious, indescribable, and affecting as a novel by W. G. Sebald.

A sumptuously illustrated survey of the remarkable flowering of radical, visionary and experimental design for performance in Russia in the twenty years between 1913 and 1933. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Russian theatre produced an unprecedented period of creative radicalism and collaborative experimentation. Against the turbulent backdrop of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, the avant-garde movement transformed Russia's cultural landscape as visionaries from several disciplines generated a vortex of innovative performance and design. The astounding body of work produced by Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, Sergei Eisenstein and Liubov Popova, among others, overturned traditions in art, music, literature and theatre. This book explores the importance and influence of a seminal moment in twentieth-century culture - one that still resonates today. Published to accompany a major exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in association with the Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum in Moscow, this book includes essays by experts from Russia, Britain and America illustrated with over 150 images from leading artists and designers, many of which are previously unpublished. Edited by John E. Bowlt, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California, the result is an astonishing record of a period of creative innovation that redefined not only what was possible in theatre and the avant-garde, but in wider artistic practices too. It will be of interest both to theatregoers and art historians, as well as current and future designers seeking inspiration for their own work.

Barcelona is well known as a center of contemporary art and architecture, but that prominence owes much to the creative outpouring it witnessed at the dawn of the twentieth century, when it was known as the "rose of fire." The physical city was transformed by the civil engineer Ildefonso Cerda and the architects Antoni Gaudi and Lluis Domenech. As Barcelona changed around them, modernist artists including Pablo Picasso, Isidre Nonell, and Ramon Casas produced work fueled by and focused on political and humanitarian concerns.

Barcelona 1900 portrays the artistic, cultural, social, and political history of the city at this crucial turning point. Featuring more than 192 color and black-and-white illustrations paintings, sculptures, drawings, and objects of applied art the book illustrates the development of the modern city, Art Nouveau, and modernism alongside Barcelona's tumultuous social conflicts, the daily life of the middle classes, the anarchist movement, and the anticlerical sentiment of the day.In a series of thematic chapters, Barcelona 1900 explores the city's artistic flowering in all its dimensions: paintings by Picasso, Casas, and Santiago Rusinol; the Art Nouveau jewelry of Lluis Masriera; public and domestic architecture by Gaudi, Domenech, and Josep Puig; posters, advertisements, and other ephemera by Casas and other proponents of modernisme; and works of Catalan literature.

Accompanied by a wealth of historical and contemporary photographs of the cityscape, this book which also serves as the catalog for a landmark exhibition of the same name organized by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam invites the reader to promenade along the most remarkable spots in the city, from Las Ramblas, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and the Palau de la Musica; to Els Quartes Gats, the cafe where Picasso and his friends met; and Parc Guell and Gaudi's Sagrada Familia."

This new title, with text by Peyton Skipwith and Brian Webb, contains more than 170 images, several not illustrated before. The book focuses on Ravilious as a designer, in particular his work as an illustrator and wood engraver, and his work in ceramics and textiles. The book builds on the success of the first and bestselling book in this series which featured the work of Ravilious and his friend Edward Bawden - Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious: Design. This book will form an excellent and affordable introduction to the work of this brilliant and popular artist.

The Wiener Werkstatte, founded by Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Fritz Waerndorfer, was an artists' and craftsmen's collective that existed in Vienna from 1903 until 1932. The artists' goal was to bring high-quality design and craft into all areas of life and to elevate everyday objects into pieces of art. During that time, the collective produced items in a variety of media including ceramics, furniture, glass, jewelry, metalwork, and textiles. The Wiener Werkstatte style influenced generations of architects from Bauhaus to Art Deco. This book features the work of well-known Wiener Werkstatte members such as Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Dagobert Peche along with lesser known designers such as Gudrun Baudisch, Carl Otto Czeschka, and Ugo Zovetti. It also includes in-depth essays that explore the Wiener Werkstatte's long history and legacy.

A penetrating inquiry into the motives, moral dilemmas, and compromises of Walter Gropius, Emil Nolde, and other celebrated artists who chose to remain in Nazi Germany "What are we to make of those cultural figures, many with significant international reputations, who tried to find accommodation with the Nazi regime?" Jonathan Petropoulos asks in this exploration of some of the most acute moral questions of the Third Reich. In his nuanced analysis of prominent German artists, architects, composers, film directors, painters, and writers who rejected exile, choosing instead to stay during Germany's darkest period, Petropoulos shows how individuals variously dealt with the regime's public opposition to modern art. His findings explode the myth that all modern artists were anti-Nazi and all Nazis anti-modernist. Artists Under Hitler closely examines cases of artists who failed in their attempts to find accommodation with the Nazi regime (Walter Gropius, Paul Hindemith, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Barlach, Emil Nolde) as well as others whose desire for official acceptance was realized (Richard Strauss, Gustaf Grundgens, Leni Riefenstahl, Arno Breker, Albert Speer). Collectively these ten figures illuminate the complex cultural history of Nazi Germany, while individually they provide haunting portraits of people facing excruciating choices and grave moral questions.

Winner, Canadian Museums Association's Outstanding Achievement in Research Award and IPPY Awards Silver Medal -- Fine Art CategoryA Toronto Star Holiday Gift Guide SelectionA Like Vision is a lavish celebration of the legacy of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Canada's canonical landscape painters. The Group's depiction of the rugged beauty of the Canadian landscape -- from the coastal mountains of British Columbia to the north shore of Lake Superior, the villages of rural Quebec, and the rocky, windswept coves of Newfoundland -- charged Canadians to experience their country in a bold new light and changed the face of Canadian art forever. Through their vigorous and expressive painterly style and vibrant colours, the Group of Seven significantly contributed to Canada's sense of autonomy and identity as a modern state in the aftermath of the First World War. Featuring three hundred full-colour images, A Like Vision includes a lead essay by Ian A. C. Dejardin, Executive Director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and contributions by a host of artists, curators, and writers. Among them are Indigenous art historian and curator Gerald McMaster, filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, novelists David Macfarlane and Jane Urquhart, painters John Hartman and Robert Houle, and Inuk writer Tarralik Duffy. One hundred years on from the Group's first exhibition in 1920, A Like Vision is both a chance to review the Group's legacy and a tribute to these giants of Canadian art and culture.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Sketch Books Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. The thick paper stock makes them perfect for sketching and drawing. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Klimt's Fulfillment

Why did the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York, and art collectors and curators such as Katherine Dreier and Alfred Barr, collect modern German art in the first half of the twentieth century? And why did certain works of art belong to the canon while others did not? In this book, Gregor Langfeld argues that National Socialism played a crucial role in the canonization of movements such as Expressionism and the Bauhaus. A role which undermined the post-1945 reputations of many artists associated with classical and figurative trends. Langfeld offers important new insights into the political and ideological motivations behind the New York art world's fluctuations in opinion, fashion, and price.

It was the decade of Coco Chanel and Josephine Baker, Art Deco and Surrealism, cafe culture and cabarets. Americans Hemingway and Man Ray mingled with emigres Brancusi, Chagall and Archipenko and painters from Matisse and Picasso to Dali in the bohemian arts scene of Montparnasse, while Brassai photographed the pulsating dance halls of Montmartre. This portrait spanning literature, painting, fashion and film takes a fresh look at the annees folles of 1920s Paris.

From black cats to iconic snowscapes, Maud Lewis paints our waking dreams.One of Canada's most beloved folk artists, Maud Lewis was famous in her lifetime for her brightly coloured and endearing paintings of rural Nova Scotia. Working from her tiny, road-side house in Marshalltown, she produced hundreds of small works that captured aspects of rapidly changing country life. Until now, the story of her difficult life has dominated the discussion of her art: her triumph over her physical disabilities and poverty, the harsh treatment she received at the hands of her family, and her alliance by chance with her husband Everett Lewis, who enabled her successful painting career over many decades.This book, accompanied by an exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, will examine the aesthetic achievements of Maud Lewis's paintings -- her serial repetition of images and motifs and the dizzying variety that she brought to the problems of picture making. From her black cats and kittens, to her cart horses and oxen hauling logs, to her quayside scenes of ships in port and the Maritime landscape in all seasons, Maud Lewis made paintings that still delight in their optimism and buoyant vitality.Featuring a comprehensive selection of paintings drawn from leading Maud Lewis collectors in Nova Scotia, Maud Lewis: Paintings for Sale offers a unique opportunity to experience the range and depth of her work.

Territorial Hues: The Color Print and Washington State, 1920-1960 will consist of prints that display the cultural and stylistic influences used by Washington State artists to produce highly exceptional works that reflect the color, light, and atmosphere that is unique to this region. The book focuses on several mediums including color woodcut, intaglio, serigraphy, and lithography. The influences of Japanese prints and regional appropriations of international movements will be examined as well as the local production of white-line prints.

Radical Women tells an original story of British modernism from the perspective of Jessica Dismorr's career, along with the women artists - some famous, some lesser-known - she worked and exhibited with. The work of Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939) has been described as encapsulating 'the stylistic developments of twentieth-century British Art', and her oeuvre certainly encompasses some of its most exciting moments - from Rhythm in the early 1910s, through Vorticism, towards post-war modernist figuration and finally into the abstraction she shared with radical political artists groups in the 1930s. Within this period of intense creativity, which extended beyond art to literary and design accomplishments too, Dismorr was privileged to work and exhibit alongside some of the most exciting female artists of the time, including Barbara Hepworth and Winifred Nicholson, to lesser-known figures such as Dorothy Shakespear, Anne Estelle Rice and Helen Saunders. Bringing a web of fascinating connections to light for the first time, this publication provides a fresh interpretation of a pioneering period and the role women played within it.

The Hungarian-born French painter Simon Hantai (1922-2008) is best known for abstract, large-format works produced using pliage: the painting of a crumpled, gathered, or systematically pleated canvas that the artist then unfolds and stretches for exhibition. In her study of this profoundly influential artist, Molly Warnock presents a persuasive historical account of his work, his impact on a younger generation of French artists, and the genesis and development of the practice of pliage over time. Simon Hantai and the Reserves of Painting covers the entirety of Hantai's expansive oeuvre, from his first aborted experiments with folding around 1950 to his post-pliage experiments with digital scanning and printing. Throughout, Warnock analyzes the artist's relentlessly searching studio practice in light of his no less profound engagement with developments in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Engaging both Hantai's art and writing to support her argument and paying particular attention to his sustained interrogation of religious painting in the West, Warnock shows how Hantai's work evinces a complicated mixture of intentionality and contingency. Appendixes provide English translations of two major texts by the artist, "A Plantaneous Demolition" and "Notes, Deliberately Confounding, Accelerating, and the Like for a 'Reactionary,' Nonreducible Avant-Garde." Original and insightful, this important new book is a central reference for the life, art, and theories of one of the most significant and exciting artists of the twentieth century. It will appeal to art historians and students of modernism, especially those interested in the history of abstraction, materiality and Surrealism, theories of community, and automatism and making.

In a post-digital media landscape tracked endlessly by streams and feeds of images, it is clearer than ever that photography is an art poised between arresting singularity and ambiguous plurality. Drawing on work in visual culture studies that emphasizes the interplay between still and moving images, In and Out of Sight provides a provocative new account of the relationship between photography and modernist literature-a literature which has long been considered to trace, in its formal experimentation, the influence of modern visual technologies. Making pioneering claims about the importance of photography to the writing of Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alix Beeston traverses the history of photography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the composite experiments of Francis Galton to the epic portrait project of August Sander; from the surrealist self-fashioning of Claude Cahun to the reappropriation of lynching photographs by black activist groups; from the collectable postcards of Broadway stars to the glamour shots of Hollywood celebrities-these and other serialized photographic projects provide essential contexts for understanding the fragmentary, composite forms of literary modernism. In a series of richly detailed literary analyses, Beeston argues that the gaps and intervals of the composite literary text model the visual syntax of photography-as well as its silences, absences, and equivocations. In them, the social and political order of modernity is negotiated and reshaped. Moving in and out of these textual openings, In and Out of Sight pursues the fleeting, visible and invisible figure of the woman-in-series, who recasts absence and silence as forms of presence and witness. This shadowy figure emerges as central to the conceptual space of modernist literature-a terrain not only gendered but radically constructed around the instability of female bodies and their desires.