In 1752 Charles-Joseph Natoire, then a highly successful painter, assumed the directorship of the prestigious Academie de France in Rome. Twenty-three years later he was removed from office, criticised as being singularly inept. What was the basis for this condemnation that has been perpetuated by historians ever since? Reed Benhamou's re-evaluation of Natoire's life and work at the Academie is the first to weigh the prevailing opinion against the historical record. The accusations made against Charles-Joseph Natoire were many and varied: that his artistic work was increasingly unworthy of serious study; that he demeaned his students; that he was a religious bigot; that he was a fraudulent book-keeper. Benhamou evaluates these and other charges in the light of contemporary correspondences, critics' assessment of his work, legal briefs, royal accounts and the parallel experiences of his precursors and successors at the Academie. The director's role is shown to be multifaceted and no director succeeded in every area. What is arresting is why Natoire was singled out as being uniquely weak, uniquely bigoted, uniquely incompetent. The Charles-Joseph Natoire who emerges from this book differs in nearly every respect from the unflattering portrait promulgated by historians and popular media. His increasingly iconoclastic students rebelled against the traditional qualities valued by the French artistic elite; the Academie went underfunded because of the effects of war and a profligate king, and he was caught between two competing institutional regimes. In this book Reed Benhamou not only unravels the myth and reality surrounding Natoire, but also also sheds light on the workings of the institution he served for nearly a quarter of a century.

Delve into the world of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his Glasgow School of Art-trained contemporaries who forged a unique and distinct vision in both art and architecture at the end of the Victorian era. The Glasgow Style is the name given to the work of a group of young designers and architects working in Glasgow from 1890-1914. At its centre were four young friends who had trained at Glasgow School of Art; two architects and two artists - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Herbert MacNair, Margaret Macdonald and Frances Macdonald - who were simply known by their friends and contemporaries as 'The Four'. Their work was a personal vision in the new international style of the 1890s, Art Nouveau, and is perhaps best known for Mackintosh's architecture and furniture. But at the root of this new style was a graphic language which all four shared. Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Art of The Four presents the most coherent story to date of this important group, concentrating on the entirety of their artistic imagery and output, far beyond the best known work of the 1890s, and charting the constantly changing relationships between the artists and their work.

This is the first major publication on the art and lives of twentieth-century Fort Worth artists Scott (1942-2011) and Stuart (1942-2006) Gentling. Prolific modern-day Renaissance men, the brothers created an extensive body of landscapes; portraits of regional and national luminaries; historical studies ranging from a visual reconstruction of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan to subjects drawn from the French and American Revolutions; and natural history illustrations of the flora and fauna of Texas. Realist painters, they drew inspiration from past masters such as Jacques-Louis David and John James Audubon, and they corresponded and collaborated with contemporaries such as Andrew Wyeth and Ed Ruscha. The Gentling brothers' place within the canon of twentieth-century American art is established here. Along with 290 images, including 120 plates, the book includes five essays, two by scholars Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame and Barbara Mundy of Fordham University; a trio of Carter museum curators provide deep analyses of the Gentlings' artistic process, the output of their fifty-year career, and a chronology of their lives; plus several brief and incisive takes on specific aspects of the brothers' multifaceted art and lives are featured throughout.

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Rembrandt makes the world's greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. Celebrated for his penetrating portraits, richly detailed landscapes, and evocative narrative paintings, the seventeenth century artist Rembrandt is generally considered one of Europe's greatest painters and printmakers, and the master of the Dutch School. His work is distinguished by broad brushwork, luminous palettes, and a sense of order and movement that recalls the finest Renaissance art. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers fullpage spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details--allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

Etel Adnan (1925-2021) was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and visual artist. This is the first book to present a full account of Adnan's fascinating life and work, using the drama of her biography, the complexity of her identity, and the cosmopolitan nature of her experience to illuminate the many layers and dimensions of her paintings and their progress over several crucial decades. Adnan came relatively late to painting - her first images were created in the late-1950s in response to the Californian landscape. Her vocabulary of lines, shapes and colours changed little over time, and yet there are huge variations in mood, texture, composition and material. Similarly, there is a balance between understanding her paintings as pure abstractions, emulating the shape of thought, and seeing them for the actual landscapes of the many places Adnan loved, embraced and responded to. Tackling the complexities of her subject with skill and insight, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie unpacks Adnan's multi-layered career to capture the full scope of her artistic endeavours and impressive achievements.

Bruno Munari was one of the most important and eclectic twentieth-century European artists. Dubbed the "Leonardo and Peter Pan" of contemporary art, he pioneered what would later be labelled kinetic art, playing a key role in the constitution and definition of the aesthetic programmes of groups such as Movimento Arte Concreta and Programmed Art. He became an internationally recognized name in the field of industrial design, winning the prestigious "Compasso d'Oro" prize four times, while also being a prominent figure in Italian graphic design, working for magazines such as Tempo and Domus, as well as renowned publishing companies such as Einaudi and Bompiani. He left an indelible mark as an art pedagogue and popularizer with his famous 1970s artistic laboratories for children and was the author of numerous books, ranging from essays on art and design to experimental books. Capturing a resurgent interest in Munari at the international level, the exceptional array of critical voices in this volume constitutes an academic study of Munari of a depth and range that is unprecedented in any language, offering a unique analysis of Munari's seven-decade-long career. Through original archival research, and illuminating and generative comparisons with other artists and movements both within and outside Italy, the essays gathered here offer novel readings of more familiar aspects of Munari's career while also addressing those aspects that have received scant or no attention to date.