In small, stunningly rendered self-portraits, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted herself cracked open, hemorrhaging during a miscarriage, anesthetized on a hospital gurney, and weeping beside her own extracted heart. Her works are so incendiary in emotion and subject matter that one art critic suggested the walls of an exhibition be covered with asbestos.

In this beautiful book, art historian Hayden Herrera brings together numerous paintings and sketches by the amazing Mexican artist, documenting each with explanatory text that probes the influences in Kahlo's life and their meaning for her work. Included among the illustrations are more than eighty full-color paintings, as well as dozens of black-and-white pictures and line illustrations. Among the famous and little-known works included in Frida Kahlo: The Paintings are The Two Fridas, Self-Portrait as a Tehuana, Without Hope, The Dream, The Little Deer, Diego and I, Henry Ford Hospital, My Birth, and My Nurse and I. Here, too, are documentary photographs of Frida Kahlo and her world that help to illuminate the various stages of her life.

This book analyses the animal images used in William Hogarth's art, demonstrating how animals were variously depicted as hybrids, edibles, companions, emblems of satire and objects of cruelty. Beirne offers an important assessment of how Hogarth's various audiences reacted to his gruesome images and ultimately what was meant by 'cruelty'.

Focusing on his evocative and profound references to children and their stories, Children's Stories and 'Child-Time' in the Works of Joseph Cornell and the Transatlantic Avant-Garde studies the relationship between the artist's work on childhood and his search for a transfigured concept of time. This study also situates Cornell and his art in the broader context of the transatlantic avant-garde of the 1930s and 40s. Analisa Leppanen-Guerra explores the children's stories that Cornell perceived as fundamental in order to unpack the dense network of associations in his under-studied multimedia works. Moving away from the usual focus on his box constructions, the author directs her attention to Cornell's film and theater scenarios, 'explorations', 'dossiers', and book-objects. One highlight of this study is a work that may well be the first artist's book of its kind, and has only been exhibited twice: Untitled (Journal d'Agriculture Pratique), presented as Cornell's enigmatic tribute to Lewis Carroll's Alice books.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1950s, German writer and artist Unica Zurn produced a wealth of remarkable textual and visual material within psychiatric institutions across Germany and France. While Zurn is often discussed in relation to her partner, the controversial artist Hans Bellmer, this innovative book moves beyond the familiar model of the overlooked 'significant other' and re-introduces her as a member of the French Surrealist group. This is the first monograph on the life and work of the Unica Zurn in English. Esra Plumer presents Zurn's life and work in light of the artist's individual experiences with WWII, Post-war Surrealism and mental illness, at the same time revealing wider aspects of her artistic practice in relation to her contemporaries. She also reveals how the techniques of anagrams and automatism (writing and drawing methods designed to unlock the subconscious mind) form the pillars of Zurn's artistic creative output, which carry her work into the wider theoretical circles of psychoanalytic theory and post-structuralist thought.

In 1874 Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise caused uproar among the critics and a revolution in painting. His inventiveness was inexhaustible: with paintings of haystacks, poplars and, finally, the enchanting water-lilies of Giverny, Monet captured light in all its fleeting qualities. At last, almost blind - 'I fear the dark more than death' - he feverishly produced near-abstract landscapes of water and reflection, a vision of nature that paved the way for the art of our own times. Including hundreds of beautiful reproductions and contemporary illustrations, comprehensive text, documentary witness accounts and letters, this pocket-sized book is perfect both for the lover of Monet and of the history of Impressionism.

The first book-length feminist analysis of Eileen Gray's work, Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In argues that Gray's unusual architecture and design - as well as its history of abuse and neglect - emerged from her involvement with cultures of sapphic modernism. Bringing together a range of theoretical and historical sources, from architecture and design, communication and media, to gender and sexuality studies, Jasmine Rault shows that Gray shared with many of her female contemporaries a commitment to designing spaces for sexually dissident modernity. This volume examines Gray's early lacquer work and Romaine Brooks' earliest nude paintings; Gray's first built house, E.1027, in relation to Radclyffe Hall and her novel The Well of Loneliness; and Gray's private house, Tempe A Pailla, with Djuna Barnes' Nightwood. While both female sexual dissidence and modernist architecture were reduced to rigid identities through mass media, women such as Gray, Brooks, Hall and Barnes resisted the clarity of such identities with opaque, non-communicative aesthetics. Rault demonstrates that by defying the modern imperative to publicity, clarity and identity, Gray helped design a sapphic modernity that cultivated the dynamism of uncertain bodies and unfixed pleasures, which depended on staying in rather than coming out.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934), the father of modern neuroscience and a Nobel laureate, was an exceptional artist. He devoted his life to the anatomy of the brain, the body's most complex and mysterious organ. His superhuman feats of visualisation, based on fanatically precise techniques and countless hours at the microscope, resulted in some of the most remarkable illustrations in the history of science. Beautiful Brain presents a selection of his exquisite drawings of brain cells, brain regions and neural circuits with accessible descriptive commentary. An art book at the crossroads of art and science, Beautiful Brain describes Cajal's contributions to neuroscience, explores his artistic roots and achievement and looks at his work in relation to contemporary neuroscience imaging techniques.

A beautiful new gift art book all about Edvard Munch, the Norwegian artist behind the first truly Expressionist picture The Scream. Absorbed by such motifs as love, life, death and anguish, Munch's paintings captured the psychological feelings evoked by man. Beginning with a fresh and captivating introduction to Munch's life and art, the book showcases several of his works in all their glory.

A spectacular book showing life and work of the Finnish icon from an unknown perspective with around 150 illustrations and well researched texts.

Tom of Finland has became the most famous and influential Finnish artist of the 20th century. Born Touko Laaksonen in 1920, his iconic depiction of self-confident and life-affirming gayness gave decisive impulses to the international gay movements from the 1960s onwards. But although we clearly associate his portrayals of sensual and powerful cowboys, farm hands, soldiers and leathermen with the USA, Tom of Finland’s rise to gay icon received the game-changing impetus neither in his native Finland nor in the USA. It was, of all places, the city of Hamburg and Tom’s friendship with key exponents of the local gay scene in the early 1970s that helped him to his first exhibition ever.

He even created a grand mural for the legendary “Tom’s Bar”, until today the only one legitimately named after him. Regular commissions to design posters and ads for gay events in Hamburg allowed him to launch his artistic career after quitting his day job as advertising executive, and led to the creation of the most extensive private collection of his drawings to date. Galerie Judin is now devoting an exhibition and a comprehensive publication to these seminal, but thus far little researched years, the art they generated and the friendships they formed. The book includes texts by Juerg Judin, Pay Matthis Karstens, Kati Mustola and Alice Delage, conversations with Durk Dehner and Michael P. Hartleben - and a facsimile of the artist’s German travel diary from 1955.

The ultimate monograph on one of the most important artists of the twentieth century - a key figure in Arte Povera

This book is the final, most comprehensive book ever made by Greek-born Jannis Kounellis, one of the key artists in the Arte Povera movement. Following his breakthrough in the late 1960s in Rome, when he questioned the traditionally sterile environment of the gallery by exhibiting live animals within its walls, Kounellis went on to include diverse materials in his work, including fire, earth, gold, wood, and charcoal, quickly establishing himself as one of the most innovative sculptors of our time.

Writings by the artist and a collection of tributes from people who have known and worked with him over the years, such as Pierre Audi, David Hammons, Gloria Moure, Giulio Paolini, Vassili Vassilikos, and many others, are included.

Jannis Kounellis is the latest addition to the acclaimed Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series.

Creative Infrastructures is a new collection of connected essays that examines the relationships between art, innovation, entrepreneurship and money. Essig uses her extensive knowledge of the field of arts entrepreneurship and puts it to broader practical use and greater impact by offering a theory for arts entrepreneurship that places more emphasis on means over ends. Essig uses illustrative case studies to show how her theoretical framework explains a number of innovative efforts in culturally and racially diverse communities. The Ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, is a visual metaphor deployed by Essig in the opening essay to shift commonly held perspectives on, especially, the relationship between art and money. Art is the head; money is the tail, feeding and nourishing the head in a cycle that enables the organism to not only survive but also thrive. Between the art and the money is the body: innovation and entrepreneurship. Innovation is understood to be a novel idea that is implemented and has impact on a domain. For that is what the artist does: create something new and unique that has impact. Entrepreneurship is conceived of as the discovery or creation of a mediating structure that can convert the artistic innovation into capital (financial and other types) that can be re-invested in the artist and the making of more art. This book endeavours to untie the knotty relationships between artists and entrepreneurship in order to answer the question 'How can artists make work and thrive in our late-capitalist society?' Other essays in the collection consider a range of topics including how aesthetic and cultural value are transmitted from the artist to the audience; the complexity of the tension between what art fundamentally is and the reproduction of that work and the recent foregrounding of the idea that art can produce positive social change - through current and late-twentieth-century trends in 'social impact art' or 'art for change'. As in sports, business and other sectors, the star artists, the top 1 per cent, have disproportionately influenced the public expectations for what 'a successful artist' means. It isn't necessary to retell the stories of the one per cent of arts entrepreneurs; instead Essig looks instead at the quotidian artist, at what they do and why, not what they make. All too often, artists who are attentive to the 'business' of their creative practice are accused of 'selling out'. But for many working artists, that attention to business is what enables an artist to not just survive, but to thrive. When artists follow their mission, Essig contends that they don't sell out, they spiral up by keeping mission at the forefront. The closing essay is a work of speculative fiction, based in all that comes before, both in the preceding essays and in Essig's work as an artist, arts advocate and scholar of cultural policy. Returning to the symbol of the Ouroboros, it connects the head (art) to the tail (not money specifically, but resources), and back again. It is a 'future imaginary', in which she profiles three fictional artists in the year 2050. The field of arts entrepreneurship is growing - thanks in large part to the work of Linda Essig. The case studies in the book are US-based, but the issues addressed are universal. This book is ideal for use in training programmes for arts administrators and advocates; policy analysts and business schools that are looking to add in arts programmes. It will be of great interest and significance to people working in the cultural industries in the United Kingdom and Europe, especially Germany, where there has also been some recent research interest on similar topics. It is also relevant to the many artists who participate in training and professional development programmes in their community, as well as those who are just starting out.

No single living artist has created as many myths, rumors and legends as Banksy. In his home town of Bristol almost everyone seems to have a Banksy story. Many of the tales in this book are from Bristol and some are from further afield. What they share is that they are all told with the wide-eyed wonder which Banksy inspires. Compiled between 2009 and 2011, some of these stories are quite old and have been told so many times they have become the stuff of legend, while others are more questionable and best described as myths.

Some are laugh out loud bollocks and some are simply gossip. You be the judge. These stories illustrate the incredible audacity, originality and sheer bloody mindedness of Banksy, who obviously will be best remembered for his art and exposing the hypocrisy and idiocy of our modern lives. The myths will be viewed as a distraction to some or part of the appeal for others. One thing is certain, the art and the myths are both larger than life.

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.

A beautifully designed gift book devoted to the work of the renowned ceramics firm Wedgwood. Looking back at key moments in Wedgwood's design history, this book celebrates the visual power and great design encapsulated by Wedgwood from its founding in 1759 to the present day. The name 'Wedgwood' has come to stand for something far beyond its illustrious and energetic founder: uniting art and industry; introducing design and artistic collaborations; the iconic blue and white of Wedgwood jasper. This book tells that story through the lens of design, reflecting the continuing role that Wedgwood and its designers, artists and employees played in setting trends, responding to the market and producing high-quality, desirable ceramics for a broad range of consumers, yet tied to the traditions established by Josiah Wedgwood in the eighteenth century. It presents highlights from the V&A Wedgwood Collection, reflecting the unique proposition of Wedgwood's business: by operating in both the 'ornamental' and 'useful' markets, Wedgwood was able to bring innovative ceramic design to large areas of a captive market. These ceramics and their stories demonstrate the artistic heritage, craft and innovation that have become synonymous with the Wedgwood name.

By the time of his death in 1904, critics, arts reformers, and government officials were near universal in their praise of Art Nouveau designer Emile Galle (1846-1904), whose works they described as the essence of French design. Many even went so far as to argue that the artist's creations could reinvigorate France's fading arts industries and help restore its economic prosperity by defining a modern style to represent the nation. For fin-de-siecle viewers, Galle's works constituted powerful reflections on the idea of national belonging, modernity, and the role of the arts in political engagement. While existing scholarship has largely focused on the artist's innovative technical processes, a close analysis of Galle's works brings to light the surprisingly complex ways in which his fragile creations were imbricated in the political turmoil that characterized fin-de-siecle France. Examining Galle's works inspired by Japanese art, his patriotically inflected designs for the Universal Exposition of 1889, his artistic manifesto in support of Dreyfus created in 1900, and finally, his late works that explore the concept of evolution, this book reveals how Galle returns again and again to the question of national identity as the central issue in his work.

Maria Spilsbury Taylor (1776-1820) lived and worked in London and Ireland and was patronized by the Prince Regent. A painter of portraits, genre scenes, biblical subjects and large crowd compositions - an unusual feature in women's art of this period - she is represented in major museums and art galleries as well as in numerous private collections. Her work, hitherto considered on a purely decorative level, merits closer attention. For the first time, this volume argues the relevance of Spilsbury's religious background, and in particular her evangelical and Moravian connections, to the interpretation of her art and examines her pervasive, and often inovert references to the Bible, hymnody and religious writing. The art that emerges is distinctly Protestant and evangelical, offering a vivid illustration of the mood of patriotic, Protestant fervour that characterized the quarter century succeeding the French revolution. This focus may be situated in the general context of increasing interest in the religious faith of historical actors - men and women - in the eighteenth century, and in the related contexts of growing acknowledgement of a religious aspect to "enlightenment" art, as well as investigations into Protestant culture in Ireland. The book is extensively illustrated and contains a list of all of Spilsbury's known works.

Although Jim Jarmusch is best known for his storied career in independent cinema, over the years he has produced hundreds of pieces of collage art, the majority of which has been rarely seen by the public. Drawing inspiration from the largest medium of cultural documentation-newspapers-Jarmusch delicately crafts each work by layering newsprints on cardstock. These small-scale (notecard-size) pieces are often characterized by their tongue-in-cheek nature: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's faces are affixed to nameless suits, two Andy Warhols are posed in a X-Files-esque tunnel, various musicians perform with ever-so-timely surgical masks. Collected here for the first time, [Untitled] showcases Jarmusch's profanely assembled vision.