Caravaggio was one of the most important Italian painters of the 17th century. He was, in fact, the wellspring of Baroque painting. In Hibbard's words, Caravaggio's paintings "speak to us more personally and more poignantly than any others of the time". In this study, Howard Hibbard evaluates the work of Caravaggio: notorious as a painter-assassin, hailed by many as an original interpreter of the scriptures, a man whose exploration of nature has been likened to that of Galileo.

In her most personal book to date, Yayoi Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving insight into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her work and daily life.

With a new focus on Kusama’s use of language, this book gives an impressive overview of her poetry, which the artist creates alongside her work in other media. Highlighting the importance of language to Kusama, the book draws special attention to the captivating poetic titles of her paintings, such as in I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW YOU THE INFINITE SPLENDOR OF STARDUST IN THE UNIVERSE and FIGURE OF THE MIDNIGHT DARKNESS OF THE UNIVERSE THAT I DEDICATED ALL MY HEART. These visionary titles are a quintessential part of Kusama’s eye-catching artworks, but also hold their own as unique aphorisms and appealing statements of cosmic spirituality. The poetry collected here touches on Kusama’s personal triumphs and trials, her human ideals, and her heroic pursuit of art and peace above all else.

Centered around EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, Kusama’s acclaimed exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, this book features more than 300 pages of new paintings, sculptures, and Infinity Mirrored Rooms. It also includes photographs of Kusama over time, offering a unique visual timeline of this iconic artist.

As he turns 100, the definitive monograph of Wayne Thiebaud's work is now available in a reformatted, accessibly priced edition, and including his most recent paintings. This is the most comprehensive monograph to date on Wayne Thiebaud, with new works added, in a reformatted size. Spanning the length of his career from the 1950s to the present, the book has been made in close collaboration with the artist. Thiebaud selected the works himself, making the book an act of autobiography in a sense. At age 100, he looks back over his life and his work, rich with breakthroughs in painting and masterful individuality. Required reading for those who have a healthy appetite for provocative art. -Bloomberg Business This comprehensive monograph of more than 200 illustrations can literally be considered eye candy. American artist Wayne Thiebaud is famed for his brightly coloured canvases of cakes, diner pies, pastries, ice cream cones, candy and brightly coloured gumball machines. . . . Whether still lifes or landscapes, Thiebaud's paintings are akin to visual Prozac; you simply cannot be in a bad mood looking at them. -Kansas City Magazine While Thiebaud is best known for his heavily pigmented still lifes of cakes, pies, and candies, [this] book shows his broader range, from vibrant landscapes depicting highways and farmland to portraits of solitary figures. . . The texts examine Thiebaud's influences as well as his impact on the art world and the individual viewers of his work. -Architectural Digest

This publication offers a rich and expansive visual record of Julie Brook's artistic practice, and proposes a unique collaboration between Brook and distinct voices from the nature writing and craftsmanship traditions. Situating Brook's practice in the context of critical reflections by Robert Macfarlane, Alexandra Harris and Raku Jikinyu, the publication presents a striking visual narrative of Brook's landscape and tidal sculptural work, and a sense of its timeless yet contemporary resonance. Documenting in depth a number of recent works made in the Hebrides, Japan and Namibia, their shared attention to the elements and their key pre-occupations of the fleeting, mobile forces of light, time, and gravity demonstrate Brook's coherent vision within vastly contrasting environments. Throughout her oeuvre, the balance between what Brook makes in relation to the environment and materials themselves is paramount. Including film stills, photography and drawing, which are all integral languages for conceptualising and communicating the work, plus insightful extracts from Brook's notebooks, this beautiful publication succeeds in providing the reader with a unique understanding of the artist's 'monuments to the moment'.

Glorious catastrophe presents a detailed critical analysis of the work of Jack Smith from the early 1960s until his AIDS-related death in 1989. Dominic Johnson argues that Smith's work offers critical strategies for rethinking art's histories after 1960. Heralded by peers as well as later generations of artists, Smith is an icon of the New York avant-garde. Nevertheless, he is conspicuously absent from dominant histories of American culture in the 1960s, as well as from narratives of the impact that decade would have on coming years. Smith poses uncomfortable challenges to cultural criticism and historical analysis, which Glorious catastrophe seeks to uncover. The first critical analysis of Smith's practices across visual art, film, performance and writing, the study employs extensive, original archival research carried out in Smith's personal papers, and unpublished interviews with friends and collaborators. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in the life and art of Jack Smith, and the greater histories that he interrupts, including those of experimental arts practices and the development of sexual cultures. -- .

Vincent van Gogh used art to express his intensely emotional response to the world around him. Enraptured by the beauty of nature and tormented by the sorrows of human existence, he produced in his tragically short life some of the most powerfully expressive paintings ever seen. Many have made the mistake of thinking him mad, and he did suffer throughout his life periods of mental anguish. But Van Gogh's paintings are not the works of a madman. Van Gogh famously sold only one painting during his life, but within a few years of his death he was recognized as one of the greatest modern painters.

Though very much an individual and spiritual artist, Alphonse Mucha was a defining figure of the Art Nouveau era and is loved for his distinctive lush style and images of beautiful women in arabesque poses among the plethora of paintings, posters, advertisements and designs he produced. Admire a whole range of his work here in its full glory with succinct accompanying text.

Varied and deliberately diverse, this group of essays provides a reassessment of the life and work of the popular nineteenth-century artist Samuel Palmer. While scholarly publications have been published recently which reassess Palmer's achievement, those works primarily consider the artist in isolation. This volume examines his work in relation to a wider art world and analyses areas of his life and output that have until now received little attention, reinstating the study of Palmer's work within broader debates about landscape and cultural history. In Samuel Palmer Revisited, the contributors provide a fresh perspective on Palmer's work, its context and its influence.

The first biography of Anne Damer since 1908, The Life of Anne Damer: Portrait of a Regency Artist, by Jonathan Gross, draws on Damer s notebooks and previously unpublished letters to explore the life and legacy of England s first significant female sculptor. Best known for her portraits of dogs and other animals, Damer also created busts of England s most important political heroes, sometimes within days or hours of their historical accomplishments. This in-depth biography traces her life during the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Peace of Amiens and the Hundred Days. Damer was convinced that art could have significant political influence, sending her bust of Nelson to the King of Tanjore to encourage trade with India. Her art stands at the transition between neoclassicism and romanticism and provides a wealth of insight into 19th century British sculpture. In the last twenty years, there has been a strong revival of interest in Damer s life, particularly in gay and lesbian studies due to her famous relationship with author Mary Berry. This text serves as a deeper investigation of this fascinating and important figure of British art history. The emotional menage a trois of Anne Damer, Mary Berry, and Horace Walpole forms the heart of this new biography. Gross contends that all three individuals, had they led more conventional lives, would never have given the world the literary and artistic gifts they bestowed in the form of Strawberry Hill, Belmour, and Fashionable Friends. The struggles they faced will encourage modern readers to appreciate anew the fluidity of sexual identity and passionate friendship, as well as the restraints put in place by society to control them. Anne Damer s life has much to teach a new generation concerned with the complex relationship between love, art, and politics. The Life of Anne Damer will interest historians of Georgian England, and readers in the fine arts, literature, and history.

"The Ordinary and The Odd" is the first book from artist and graphic designer, Swen Swenson. Swenson's use of simple and minimilst illustrations, evoking playful and sometimes odd encounters is a pleasure for any viewer of his work. His style is instantly recognisable and each image conjures the imagination to create stories that can be both quirky and also calming. In this book we see Swenson encapsulate a variety of themes including: urban landscape, nature, transport and engineering and human life. Through subtle and peaceful tones, each image touches on a quiet moment that is perhaps contrasted with a surprising twist or sense of anticipation. Graphic illustration is ever more present in our visual world and media. Characters and scenes depicted are relatable to a wide audience and Swenson's work is relates to our lives through recognisable content in his art, requiring us to stay still, consider the scene and reflect.

This title was first published in 2000: In their stunning simplicity, George Romney's portraits of eighteenth-century gentry and their children are among the most widely recognised creations of his age. A rival to Reynolds and Gainsborough, Romney was born in 1734 on the edge of the Lake District, the landscape of which never ceased to influence his eye for composition and colour. He moved in 1762 to London where there was an insatiable market for portraits of the landed gentry to fill the elegant picture galleries of their country houses. Romney's sitters included William Beckford and Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton. An influential figure, one of the founding fathers of neo-classicism and a harbinger of romanticism, Romney yearned to develop his talents as a history painter. Countless drawings bear witness to ambitious projects on elemental themes which were rarely executed on canvas. Richly illustrated, this is the first biography of Romney to explore the full diversity of his oeuvre.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was highly skilled in jewellery design, ceramics, enamels, and metalwork but he is best known for his beautiful stained-glass designs. Using opalescent glass in a variety of colours and textures, he created a stunning range of jewel-like Art Nouveau works that influenced much of American modern art. This sumptuous new book features page after page of astounding work, showing Tiffany's skill as a colourist and a craftsman, with works that still inspire artists and audiences today.

This timely follow-up to Conway's highly successful Marine Art of Geoff Hunt (2004) presents the considerable artistic output of Britain's leading marine painter since 2003. This new volume is heavily illustrated with images ranging from large paintings to sketchbook drawings with text written by the artist himself. The new book reflects Hunt's developing career during a time in which he served a five-year term as President of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, worked on large-scale paintings such as the definitive Mary Rose,and also completed numerous outdoor sketches and paintings. The book is divided into six sections: 1. The Sea Painter's World, an introduction to the artist's studio work at Merton Place, London and his plein air work on the River Thames; 2. Home Waters; 3. The Mediterranean; 4. In the Wake of Nelson; 5. North America and 6. The West Indies and Beyond. This concept sets Geoff's work in a broadly geographical context, showcasing the artist's freer plein air style alongside the exhaustively researched maritime history paintings to which he owes his standing as Britain's leading marine artist.

This title was first published in 1980: Drawing upon released documents, memoirs and party-history works, the process and impact of the political campaigns in China between 1950 and 1965 is documented. Complete with extensive interviews with Chinese scholars and former officials, the book reviews the findings of the first edition.

The second volume of Leonardo Studies explores a dual theme of nature and architecture, offering a wide-ranging overview of current Leonardo scholarship on these two abundant subjects. While Leonardo worked on his Treatise on Painting, he noted that understanding the physical properties of nature must precede individual projects of painting or designing buildings. The volume begins with the Trattato, and follows with physics, geology, painting that imitates architectural structure and vice-versa, and proceeds to architectural projects, questions of attribution, urban planning, and and the dissemination of Leonardo's writings in the Trattato and its historiography. This impressive group of articles constitutes not only new research, but also a departure point for future studies on these topics. Contributors are: Janis Bell, Andrea Bernardoni, Marco Carpiceci, Paolo Cavagnero, Fabio Colonnese, Kay Etheridge, Diane Ghirardo, Claudio Giorgione, Domenico Laurenza, Catherine Lucheck, Silvio Mara, Jill Pederson, Richard Schofield, Sara Taglialagamba, Cristiano Tessari, Marco Versiero, and Raffaella Zama.

The sixteen studies in this book include six specially translated from Greek and another two published here for the first time. They deal with the art of painting in Crete at a time when the island was under Venetian rule. The main emphasis is on the 15th century and especially on the painter Angelos. More than thirty icons with his signature survive, and at least twenty more can be reliably attributed to him. Angelos was the most significant artist of a particularly significant era. It was at this time that the centre of artistic production migrated from Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire to Candia, the capital of Venetian-occupied Crete. These studies try to reconstruct the personality of this late Byzantine painter, Angelos, not only through his icons but also through his will (1436), now in the State Archives in Venice. In this context they also explore the status of the Cretan painter in society. The large number of extant Cretan icons clearly indicates the striking increase in production from the 15th century onwards. Similarly, archival documents are used to examine the trade of icons in Crete and the way Cretan artists had to organize their workshops in order to meet the requirements of the market.

Everyone needs things to look forward to: big things and small things, on good days and on bad days, whether we actively create delight for ourselves or simply allow it to enter our lives. In these pages, beloved author and illustrator Sophie Blackall has gathered a collection of joys for all of us - reminders that every day the sun comes up and new babies are born. She includes suggestions that you bake muffins for a friend, or draw a face on an egg and put it in the fridge where it will smile at you each time you open the door. With wisdom, whimsy, and compassion, the 52 illustrated ideas in this book offer moments of uplift and serendipity for yourself and your loved ones. A message of hope and solace in hard times and of joyful anticipation at times of new beginnings - whether you're grieving a loss or starting a new chapter - and for all the days in between - THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO is full of gentle reminders of the objects, occasions, gestures, and ideas that warm our hearts. There is always something bright on the horizon, and sometimes that horizon can be a lot closer than we think.

This book, which accompanies the first major exhibition devoted to David Hockney's drawings inover 20 years,will explore Hockney as a draughtsman from the 1950s to now, with a focus on himself, his family and friends. From Ingres to the iPad -this book demonstrates the artist's ingenuity in portrait drawing with reference to both tradition and technology. David Hockney is recognised as one of the master draughtsmen of our times and a champion of the medium. This book will feature Hockney's work from the 1950s to now and focus on his depictions of himself and a smaller group of sitters close to him: his muse, Celia Birtwell; his mother, Laura Hockney; and his friends, the curator, Gregory Evans, and master printer, Maurice Payne. This book will examine not only how drawing is fundamental to Hockney's distinctive way of observing the world around him, but also how it has been a testing ground for ideas and modes of expression later played out in his paintings. From Old Masters to modern masters, from Holbein to Picasso, Hockney's portrait drawings reveal his admiration for his artistic predecessors and his continuous stylistic experimentation throughout his career. Alongside an in-depth essay from the curator, this book will feature an exclusive interview between author and curator, Sarah Howgate, and artist, David Hockney. In addition, an 'In Focus' essay by British Museum curator Isabel Seligman, will explore the relationship between Hockney, Ingres and Picasso drawings.

J. D. Fergusson (1874-1961) is one of the four artists known as the Scottish Colourists, the others being F. C. B. Cadell, G. L. Hunter and S. J. Peploe. Fergusson was born in Leith, and was essentially a self-taught artist. In Paris 1907 he became involved with the avant-garde scene and exhibited at the progressive Salon d'Automne. More than any of his Scottish contemporaries, Fergusson assimilated and developed the latest developments in French painting. In 1913 Fergusson met the dance pioneer Margaret Morris (1891-1980). Morris's creative dance movements and her students continued to be one of Fergusson's main sources of inspiration and models. In 1929 Fergusson returned to Paris where he was involved with the Anglo-American art circles. Most summers were spent in the south of France where Morris held her celebrated Summer Schools. The couple moved to Glasgow in 1939 being founder members of the New Art Club and of its off-shoot the New Scottish Group. This book reasserts the artist's place at the forefront of British modernism.

Turn the pages of this lavishly-produced book to discover a collection of monsters, creatures, and characters created by self-taught concept artist Francisco Garces, AKA Dibujante Nocturno. The artist and illustrator shares his journey, revealing how his self-taught skills have evolved over the years, resulting in the demonic yet exquisite style that has earned him over 400,000 followers on Instagram. In addition to a specially curated gallery of his past work, there are new pieces created exclusively for this book, including step-by-step tutorials that break down not only the artist's workflow and routine, but also his intricate pen linework techniques, cleverly chosen color palettes, and detailed rendering. Being self-taught, the artist has honed his skills in a completely unique way, allowing readers to glean not only unique tips and techniques, but also inspiration and insight into how they can practise, improve, and develop their own style. His experience of teaching art ensures he knows how to effectively communicate ideas, concepts and practical techniques. From his elegantly drawn linework to the darkest character creation, this is a unique opportunity for fans of fantasy art and creature design to see what goes into the epic art of Dibujante Nocturno.

Born near the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815, Domenico Brucciani became the most important and prolific maker of plaster casts in nineteenth-century Britain. This first substantive study shows how he and his business used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture and the nationalisation of art education to monopolise the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. Based in Covent Garden in London, Brucciani built a network of fellow Italian emigre formatori and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles-including Elkington the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland the makers of Parian ware and Benjamin Cheverton with his sculpture reducing machine-to bring sculpture into the spaces of learning and leisure for as broad a public as possible. Brucciani's plaster casts survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, but the extraordinary breadth of his practice-making death masks of the famous and infamous, producing pioneering casts of anatomical, botanical and fossil specimens and decorating dance halls and theatres across Britain-is revealed here for the first time. By making unprecedented use of the nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain establishes the significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond.

This beautiful book explores the beloved writer's achievements as a storyteller, artist, and naturalist. Beatrix Potter's universe of characters-Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddleduck-have delighted audiences for over a century. A creative pioneer and determined entrepreneur, she combined scientific observation with imaginative storytelling to create some of the world's best-loved children's books. This volume showcases Potter's charming charac-ters against the backdrop of her exquisite botanical drawings, humorous illustrated letters to friends, Lake District landscapes, and rarely seen photographs. Beatrix Potter's endearingly hand-painted world of animals and gardens made her one of the most celebrated children's book authors of all time, yet this is but one facet of her creative life. Drawn to the picturesque English countryside after a London childhood, Potter had a passion for nature that influenced her many achievements as a naturalist, artist, storyteller, and later in life as a fervent conservationist and "gentlewoman" farmer. This book sheds light upon the connections between her art, entrepreneurial success, and legacy in preservation.