Ceramics and Modernity in Japan offers a set of critical perspectives on the creation, patronage, circulation, and preservation of ceramics during Japan's most dramatic period of modernization, the 1860s to 1960s. As in other parts of the world, ceramics in modern Japan developed along the three ontological trajectories of art, craft, and design. Yet, it is widely believed that no other modern nation was engaged with ceramics as much as Japan-a "potter's paradise"-in terms of creation, exhibition, and discourse. This book explores how Japanese ceramics came to achieve such a status and why they were such significant forms of cultural production. Its medium-specific focus encourages examination of issues regarding materials and practices unique to ceramics, including their distinct role throughout Japanese cultural history. Going beyond descriptive historical treatments of ceramics as the products of individuals or particular styles, the closely intertwined chapters also probe the relationship between ceramics and modernity, including the ways in which ceramics in Japan were related to their counterparts in Asia and Europe. Featuring contributions by leading international specialists, this book will be useful to students and scholars of art history, design, and Japanese studies.

Many of the greatest avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century were Ukrainians or came from Ukraine. Whether living in Paris, St. Petersburg or Kyiv, they made major contributions to painting, sculpture, theatre, and film-making. Because their connection to Ukraine has seldom been explored, English-language readers are often unaware that figures such as Archipenko, Burliuk, Malevich, and Exter were inspired both by their country of origin and their links to compatriots. This book traces the avant-garde development from its pre-war years in Paris to the end of the 1920s in Kyiv. It includes chapters on the political dilemmas faced by this generation, the contribution of Jewish artists, and the work of several emblematic figures: Mykhailo Boichuk, David Burliuk, Kazimir Malevich, Vadym Meller, Ivan Kavaleridze, and Dziga Vertov.

A distinguished list of contributors explores a variety of perspectives on the artistic culture of France and surrounding countries during the period 1870 to 1914. Aspects of dance, cinema, theater, poetry, prose, painting, social and political science, history, and medicine are covered in interdisciplinary essays that are both useful to researchers and accessible to students.

The first part of the book, which concentrates on France, assembles essays on the prose, poetry, and painting of Symbolism and Decadence, in particular Mallarme and Moreau; on avant-garde dance and performance; on women's writing; and on early cinema from Lumiere, Villiers, and Verne.

The second part explores the relations between France and several cultures. These cross-cultural investigations range from studies of the Anglo-Celtic "Rhymers' Club" to the Italian Crepusculari and include discussions of Belgian Symbolism and the Franco-Anglo-American Axis. The essays consistently point beyond the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth as they explore the multiple beginnings -- as well as the false starts -- that characterize the period.

"It was sheer chance that I encountered David Bohm's writing in 1958 ... I knew nothing about him. What struck me about his work and prompted my initial letter was his underlying effort to seek for some larger sense of reality, which seemed a very humanized search." - Charles Biederman, from the foreword of the book
This book marks the beginning of a four thousand page correspondence between Charles Biederman, founder of Constructivism in the 1930s, and David Bohm the prestigious physicist known for his interpretation of quantum theory. Available for the first time, we are given a rare opportunity to read through and engage in a remarkable transatlantic, intellectual discussion on art and science, creativity and theory.

The historic encounter around 1911 between the composer Arnold Schonberg and the painter Wassily Kandinsky occurred at a moment when the first wild revolts against traditional art - Dada and Futurism - had just manifested themselves. This volume is a collection of the papers presented at the conference on Schonberg and Kandinsky at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in January 1993. The conference focused on the varying aspects of the avant-garde from 1910 to 1913, when both Schonberg and Kandinsky formulated their far-reaching views on the ways in which music and painting should develop, and discussed their common interest in new theatrical forms of presentation.

The historic encounter around 1911 between the composer Arnold Schonberg and the painter Wassily Kandinsky occurred at a moment when the first wild revolts against traditional art, Dada and Futurism, had just manifested themselves. Independently of those sometimes spectacular activities, both Schonberg and Kandinsky had already concluded that the material and the compositional methods they had relied on in the past were exhausted and did not satisfy the development of their artistic ideas.
Both artists had already submitted their modes of production to a critical analysis which resulted in Schonberg's Theory of Harmony and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, both of 1911 - indeed the two artists had already been putting their self-criticism into practice for some time. In Schonberg's case this led to breaking with tonality; Kandinsky effected the transition to abstract painting.
This book is a collection of the papers presented at the conference on Schonberg and Kandin

Rudolph Ihlee (1883-1968) was a prize-winning student at the Slade where his contemporaries included Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, C.R.W. Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. Turning his back on a flourishing career in London, he relocated to the southern French town of Collioure, where the Mediterranean light had mesmerised artists such as Derain and Matisse before him. Exploring for the first time Ihlee's impressive oeuvre in the context of a fascinating biography, this book provides a lively account of the career of an accomplished but under-appreciated artist, who found creative freedom and personal contentment on the inspirational Catalan coast.

This title was first published in 2003. Problem pictures were very popular during the Edwardian period. These pictures invited multiple interpretations of modern life and were often slightly risque. Pamela Fletcher explores how these works of art engaged with questions of gender, sexuality and identity during their heyday.

This title was first published in 2001. An examination of art and patronage in Britain during the post-war years. It consists of five case studies, initially written as MA theses, that closely investigate aspects of the mechanisms of patronage outside the state institutions, while indicating structural links within it. The writers have sought to elucidate the relationship between patronage, the production of art and its dissemination. Without seeking to provide an inclusive account of patronage or art production in the early post-war years, their disparate and highly selective papers set up models for the structure of patronage under specific historical conditions. They assume an understanding that works of art are embedded in their social contexts, are products of the conditions under which they were produced, and that these contexts and conditions are complex, fluid and imbricated in one another.

LONG LISTED FOR THE WILLIAM MB BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2022. A major survey of Dame Laura Knight, first female Royal Academician and popular British artist of the 20th century. Laura Knight (1877-1970) was one of the most famous and popular English artists of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, in 1965. In the following decades her realist style of painting fell out of fashion and her work become largely overlooked. A new generation has rediscovered her work, finding a contemporary resonance in her depictions of women at work, of people from marginalized communities and her contributions as a war artist. This beautifully illustrated book, which accompanies a major exhibition at MK Gallery, provides an overview of Knight's illustrious career: from her training at Nottingham Art School at the age of 13 and her time in North Yorkshire and Cornwall, to her visits to traveller communities and a segregated American hospital. It also features her circus, ballet and theatre scenes, paintings of women during the war and her late paintings of nature. The selection of over 160 works combines celebrated paintings with less known graphic and design works, including ceramics, jewellery and costumes that reflect the artist's enduring interest in the everyday activities of people from all walks of life.

The Art of Fine Gifts: Twentieth-century painter, designer and wood engraver Eric Ravilious was responsible for a fascinating range of different works, from illustrations for books to designs for ceramics for the established Wedgwood pottery firm. This gorgeous new book features beautiful woodcut images of countryside life, watercolours of rolling landscapes and many of Ravilious' acute and profound war paintings.

This beautifully illustrated book is the first full-length critical study to focus on the watercolours of multitalented British artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903-1942). Adopting the wide-ranging approach familiar to readers of his previous books on the artist, author James Russell explores the evolution of a remarkable talent. An introductory section offers an intimate portrait of Ravilious, an artist for whom personal relationships, particularly with women, were paramount. It goes on to describe the extraordinary achievements of an all-too-brief career, drawing on new research to seek out artistic influences and examine Ravilious's relationships with fellow-artists, as well as the development of his mark making. There follows the most comprehensive display of Ravilious watercolours yet assembled. Some have never been published, while others are familiar and well loved. Many are explored in short accompanying essays, some with full-bleed images that show details of paintings at full size. These texts are designed to entertain and enlighten, looking at composition, technique, influence and inspiration, or discussing the significance of particular subjects and the people behind the scenes. This is the definitive guide to the luminous, evocative and timeless watercolours of Eric Ravilious, an artist now regarded as one of the finest of the twentieth century.

What were Montmartre and Montparnasse really like in their hey-day, roughly between 1904, when the youthful Picasso had just arrived on the Hill of Martyrs, and 1920, when Amedeo Modigliani, justly called `the prince of Bohemians', died of consumption and dissipation in Montparnasse? This book, written by an Englishman who lived in Montmartre for 30 years and knew its famous habitue intimately, gives a vivid description. It reveals the truth behind the many legends, is packed with authentic stories about writers and painters whose name are now household words, and contains much hitherto unpublished information about the life and career of Modigliani obtained from his family and friends. Much of the text was written in Montmartre amid the scenes described, and after personal consultation with survivors of the great days when Frede presided over the Lapin Agile and Libion, patron of the Cafe de la Rotonde, was beginning to rival him in Montparnasse. It is the most complete account which has yet been written in English of the birth of Cubism and other contemporary movements in modern painting, and of the lives and loves who started them.

From the late 1910s through the 1950s, particularly, the Caribbean nation of Haiti drew the attention and imaginations of many key U.S. artists, yet curiously, while significant studies have been published on Haiti's history and inter-American exchanges, none analyze visual representations with any depth. The author calls not only on the methodologies of art history, but also on the interdisciplinary eye of visual culture studies, anthropology, literary theory, and tourism studies to examine the fine arts in relation to popular arts, media, social beliefs, and institutional structures. Twa emphasizes close visual readings of photographs, illustrations, paintings, and theatre. Extensive textual and archival research also supports her visual analysis, such as scrutinizing the personal papers of this study's artists, writers, and intellectuals. Among the literary and artistic luminaries of the twentieth century that Twa includes in her discussion are Richmond Barthe, Eldzier Cortor, Aaron Douglas, Katherine Dunham, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alexander King, Jacob Lawrence, James Weldon Johnson, LoA-s Mailou Jones, Eugene O'Neill, and William Edouard Scott. Twa argues that their choice of Haiti as subject matter was a highly charged decision by these American artists to use their artwork to engage racial, social, and political issues.

This book investigates architecture as a form of diplomacy in the context of the Second World War at six major European international and national expositions that took place between 1937 and 1959. The volume gives a fascinating account of architecture assuming the role of the carrier of war-related messages, some of them camouflaged while others quite frank. The famous standoffs between the Stalinist Russia and the Nazi Germany in Paris 1937, or the juxtaposition of the USSR and USA pavilions in Brussels 1958, are examples of very explicit shows of force. The book also discusses some less known - and more subtle - messages, revealed through an examination of several additional pavilions in both Paris and Brussels; of a series of expositions in Moscow; of the Universal Exhibition in Rome that was planned to open in 1942; and of London's South Bank Exposition of 1951: all of them related, in one way or another, to either an anticipation of the global war or to its horrific aftermaths. A brief discussion of three pre-World War II American expositions that are reviewed in the Epilogue supports this point. It indicates a significant difference in the attitude of American exposition commissioners, who were less attuned to the looming war than their European counterparts. The book provides a novel assessment of modern architecture's involvement with national representation. Whether in the service of Fascist Italy or of Imperial Japan, of Republican Spain or of the post-war Franquista regime, of the French Popular Front or of socialist Yugoslavia, of the arising FRG or of capitalist USA, of Stalinist Russia or of post-colonial Britain, exposition architecture during the period in question was driven by a deep faith in its ability to represent ideology. The book argues that this widespread confidence in architecture's ability to act as a propaganda tool was one of the reasons why Modernist architecture lent itself to the service of such different masters.

The political and social turmoil of the twentieth century took Magda Nachman from a privileged childhood in St. Petersburg at the close of the nineteenth century, artistic studies with Leon Bakst and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin at the Zvantseva Art Academy, and participation in the dynamic symbolist/modernist artistic ferment in pre-Revolutionary Russia to a refugee existence in the Russian countryside during the Russian Civil War followed by marriage to a prominent Indian nationalist, then with her husband to the hardships of emigre Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s, and finally to Bombay, where she established herself as an important artist and a mentor to a new generation of modern Indian artists.

Winifred Knights (1899-1947) is one of the outstanding, but until recently neglected, British women painters of the first half of the 20th century. Copiously illustrated in colour throughout, this book provides the first full account of her life and work, examining Knights' art in the context of interwar Modernism and assessing her contribution to the revival in this period of both Decorative Painting and religious imagery.Author Sacha Llewellyn traces the artist's career from her years at the Slade School of Art and her First World War evacuation to rural Worcestershire through to the time she spent at the British School at Rome in the early 1920s and the many commissions she completed between 1926 and 1939. Presenting the artist as the central protagonist, and with models selected from her inner circle, Knights' paintings were deeply autobiographical. She consistently re-wrote fairy-tale and legend, Biblical narrative and Pagan mythology to explore women's relationship to war, the natural world, working communities, marriage, motherhood and death. Drawing on previously unpublished documentary material, including letters, diaries, sketchbooks and photographs, Sacha Llewellyn makes a strong case for recognising Knights as one of the most talented artists of her generation. The book reproduces all of Knights' major works, including her masterpiece, The Deluge, which is among the most remarked upon works at Tate Britain, having been on almost permanent display there since 1995.

The first fully illustrated account of the life and work of English painter Christopher Wood (1901-30), this authoritative work, which includes over 150 images, provides extensive visual analysis of individual paintings, set designs and drawings created by Wood in both Britain and France so bringing fresh perspective to his unique artistic development on both sides of the Channel.Wood's short career drew on a multitude of influences, all of which contributed to the development of his faux-naive style. His oscillation between diverse artistic reference points is borne out in Katy Norris' fascinating narrative that analyses Wood's engagement with the Parisian avant-garde on the one hand, and the attraction of the simpler life he encountered in Cornwall, Cumbria and Brittany on the other. The emotional turmoil of his final years underlines the tensions between the two worlds that Wood inhabited and which he was ultimately was unable to reconcile.Filling a surprising gap in the published literature about this early 20th-century painter, Christopher Wood will appeal to readers who are yet to encounter Wood's work, as well as collectors and enthusiasts.

This collection includes previously unpublished letters from Jack to his father, John Quinn 'The Man from New York' and Sarah Purser. Introduced by Bruce Stewart of the University of Coleraine, the work is edited by Sligo-man Declan J. Foley, originator and organizer of three John Butler Yeats seminars in Chestertown (JBY's burial ground) New York in 2001, 2004 and 2007. The book contains drawings and illustrations by Jack B. Yeats, and for the first time shows the six works he exhibited at the Armory Show in New York. Most vitally, it will introduce Jack and his prodigal father John Butler Yeats to a new generation of readers.

A reissue of the beautifully illustrated and authoritative biography of Frida Kahlo, publishing in time for a major London exhibition

Frida is the story of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary women, the painter Frida Kahlo. Born near Mexico City, she grew up during the turbulent days of the Mexican Revolution and, at eighteen, was the victim of an accident that left her crippled and unable to bear children. To salvage what she could from her unhappy situation, Kahlo had to learn to keep still – so she began to paint.

Kahlo's unique talent was to make her one of the century's most enduring artists. But her remarkable paintings were only one element of a rich and dramatic life. Frida is also the story of her tempestuous marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera, her love affairs with numerous, diverse men such as Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky, her involvement with the Communist Party, her absorption in Mexican folklore and culture, and of the inspiration behind her unforgettable art.

John Nash (1893-1977) was a highly versatile artist who responded to the British landscape with a unique vision that still resonates today. He also created some of the most memorable paintings of the First World War. Over a sixty-year career he produced paintings in oil and watercolour and was also an illustrator, cartoonist, wood-engraver and arguably the finest botanical draughtsman of his era. Unlike his older brother Paul, John received no formal art training, but emerged almost fully fledged into the London art world of 1913. Held in high regard by his contemporaries, Nash was part of a wide network of artist friends, including Walter Sickert, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, Cedric Morris and of course his brother Paul, and he in turn influenced Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. John Nash: The Landscape of Love and Solace examines these personal and working relationships, and in particular that with his wife Christine Kuhlenthal. An extraordinary voice in her own right, revealed here for the first time through her letters and journals, Christine's influence was critical to Nash's career during a long marriage which also encompassed both partners having many other relationships. Their life story is an extraordinary one, which as this book shows was touched by many hitherto untold events. Drawing on original research, this fascinating and long-overdue biography provides a much fuller picture of John Nash and his work than previously and is at the same time an intimate and compelling narrative, embracing love, tragedy and the pursuit of solace.

Nude Descending a Staircase is one of the best known works of art in tihs century. It caused a sensation at the historic Armory Show of 1913, being damned by one critic as "an explosion in a shingle factory." Yet the criticism in no way perturbed it imperturable creator, Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp's "readymades" (the urinal singed by R. Mutt and entitled Fountain, the snow shovel entitled In Advance of the Broken Arm, and other objects bought and exhibits as works of art) are by now familiar objecs of critical derision and delight. And Duchamp's influence has been pervasive throughout modern art, fosterin Neo-Dada, Op Art, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art. Marcel Duchamp's major work, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) was left in a state of "definitive incompletion" in 1923. The notes for this extradordinarywork form the largest part of SALT SELLER. Duchamp collected many of them for his Green Box in 1934, when their publication was immediately hailed by Andre Breton as a major intellectual event. The notes themselves will help the curious but mystified spectator of The Large Glass in no simple or straighforward way. They do, however, demonstrate wht an extraordinarily original process the making of The Bride Stripped Barde by Her Bachelors, Even was. Duchamp's wit is nowhere in greater evidence than in the section "Rrose Selavy & Co." Duchamp was photographed in women's apparel by Man Ray and created a "readymade" female alter-ego Rrose Selavy ("Eros c'est la vie" or "arroser la vie" - drink it up; celebrate life). Rrose printed a calling card and her company advertised - "For practical wear, a Rrose Selavy creation: The oblong cress, designed exclusively for ladies afflicted with hiccups." The company also had a service department which made "...home deliveries: domestic mosquitoes (half stock.)" The surrealists had proclaimed in the twenties that words were no longer playing around but had started making clove. This description seems to fit the sayings of Rrose Selavy who fashioned some of the most joyour and ingenious couplings and uncouplings in modern literautre.' In the section "Marcel Duchamp, Criticavit", the more serious side of Duchamp is represented by two informative interviews and two important statements on art, "The Creative Act" and "Apropos of Readymades." His more experimental writings are grouped under the title "Texticles." Taken together these varied writings constitute a major document of modern art. Whether the reader sits back and enjoys the charms of Duchamp or studies and attempts to decipher his inner-most secrets, the reader will find SALT SELLAR a compendium of delight.

The first book in English on Maruja Mallo, this volume is an insightful examination of the life and work of this seminal artist of the Spanish avant-garde. Previously sidelined by a culture that treated women as "insider-outsiders" and by her own mythmaking, Mallo no longer can be viewed as simply a muse to famous counterparts such as Salvador DalA and Federico GarcA a Lorca; her role has been re-contextualized to demonstrate that she was a driving force in the flowering of Spanish culture through the 1920s and 1930s. The analysis of Mallo's unique life and extraordinary art is set against the complicated social and political backdrop of interwar Madrid. This book highlights the struggle of Mallo and other women artists against the rampant misogyny of both Spanish culture and the avant-garde community of the time. The effects of the Spanish Civil War are also analyzed-in Mallo's case, Franco's victory forced her into exile in South America for almost 30 years, with profound effects on her art and her life. Added to this rich context, the author's numerous interviews with members of the Mallo family provide essential new background material. Maruja Mallo and the Spanish Avant-Garde recasts this artist as a vital figure in the heretofore all-male establishment of the Spanish artistic vanguard.