Geoff Hunt is known to millions of readers across the world as the artist responsible for the covers of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and more recently for those of Julian Stockwin's Thomas Kydd books. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the leading marine artists of his generation. More than a showcase of the versatility and creativity of his work, this book, written by the artist himself, also reveals its accuracy, through five key case studies that explain the initial inspirations, gathering of source material and often lengthy artistic progression that leads to the creation of a finished painting. The artist has selected over 150 paintings and sketches to illustrate his prolific career, painting techniques and influences, dividing them into sections on Nelson's Navy, The American War of Independence, illustrating the naval writers and the Modern Maritime Scene, which includes recent commissions from the commercial sector and yachting community.

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was an English surrealist artist and writer who emigrated to Mexico after the Second World War. This volume approaches Carrington as a major international figure in modern and contemporary art, literature and thought. It offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the intellectual, literary and artistic currents that animate her contribution to experimental art movements throughout the Western Hemisphere, including surrealism and magical realism. The book contains nine chapters from scholars of modern literature and art, each focusing on a major feature in Carrington's career. It also features a visual essay drawn from the 2015 Tate Liverpool exhibition Leonora Carrington: Transgressing Discipline, and two experimental essays by the novelist Chloe Aridjis and the scholar Gabriel Weisz, Carrington's son. This collection offers a resource for students, researchers and readers interested in Carrington's works. -- .

Pablo Picasso's artistic output is astonishing in its ambition and variety. This handsome publication examines a particular aspect of his legendary capacity for invention: his imaginative and original use of paper. He used it as a support for autonomous works, including etchings, prints and drawings, as well as for his papier-colle experiments of the 1910s and his revolutionary three-dimensional 'constructions', made of cardboard, paper and string. Sometimes, his use of paper was simply determined by circumstance: in occupied Paris, where art supplies were hard to come by, he ripped up paper tablecloths to make works of art. And, of course, his works on paper comprise the preparatory stages of some of his very greatest paintings, among them Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). With reproductions of more than 300 works of art and additional texts by Violette Andres, Stephen Coppel, Emmanuelle Hincelin, Christopher Lloyd, Johan Popelard and Claustre Rafart Planas, this sumptuous study reveals the myriad ways in which Picasso's genius seized the potential of paper at different stages throughout his career.

Van Gogh's brother Theo was his confidant and companion, and, in his letters to him, Van Gogh reveals himself as artist and man. Even more than if he had purposely intended to tell his life story, Van Gogh's letters lay bare his deepest feelings, as well as his everyday concerns and his views of the world of art.

From Pulitzer-Prize-finalist Amy Ellis Nutt, comes the moving and inspiring story of Jon Sarkin. Sarkin's personality dramatically changed after he underwent experimental brain surgery and suffered a massive stroke. Remarkably, he could still remember his old self. Yet, once an ordinary family man, he suddenly found himself compelled to make art, always feverishly creating and only existing in the present. He has since gone on to become an acclaimed artist. Sarkin's story is beautifully interspersed with fascinating nuggets of history about man's struggle to understand the brain and the fragile nature of identity.

The extraordinarily revealing interviews with Francis Bacon conducted over a period of 25 years by the distinguished art critic David Sylvester amount to a unique statement by Bacon on his art and on art in general. In the book, a classic of its kind, Bacon considers the problems of realism and sheds new light on aspects of his life. With a rare and brilliant use of language, Bacon talks about his aims as a painter and ways in which he works, responding always with vivacity and candour to Sylvester's searching questions. Bacon's obsessive effort to record and re-create the human form, his practice of making variation on old masters' painting and on photographs, his dependence on chance, and his views about the way in which his work has been interpreted are only some of the many subjects discussed and investigated in depth during these historic encounters.

Meet the artist whose majestic breaking wave sent ripples across the world. Hokusai (1760-1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also a founding father of Western modernism, whose prolific gamut of prints, illustrations, paintings, and beyond forms one of the most comprehensive oeuvres of ukiyo-e art and a benchmark of japonisme. His influence spread through Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and beyond, enrapturing the likes of Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Vincent van Gogh. Hokusai was always a man on the move. He changed domicile more than 90 times during his lifetime and changed his own name through over 30 pseudonyms. In his art, he adopted the same restlessness, covering the complete spectrum of Japanese ukiyo-e,"pictures of the floating world", from single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors to erotic books. In addition, he created album prints, illustrations for verse anthologies and historical novels, and surimono, which were privately issued prints for special occasions. Hokusai's print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, published between c. 1830 and 1834 is the artist's most renowned work and, with its soaring peak through different seasons and from different vantage points, marked the towering summit of the Japanese landscape print. The series' Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known simply as The Great Wave, is one of the most recognized images of Japanese art in the world. This TASCHEN introduction spans the length and breadth of Hokusai's career with key pieces from his far-reaching portfolio. Through these meticulous, majestic works and series, we trace the variety of Hokusai's subjects, from erotic books to historical novels, and the evolution of his vivid formalism and decisive delineation of space through color and line that would go on to liberate Western art from the constraints of its one-point perspective and unleash the modernist momentum. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

David Hopkins analyses the extensive network of shared concerns and images in the work of Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst, the greatest names associated with Dada and Surrealist art. This book covers a broad period from c.1912 to the mid-1940s, during which the emergence of Dada and Surrealism in Europe and the United States challenged earlier movements such as Cubism and Expressionism, creating scope for the expression of the unconscious fears and desires of artists acutely sensitive to the troubled nature of their times. Examining Duchamp's and Ernst's subversion and manipulation of religious and hermetic beliefs such as Catholicism, Rosicrucianism and Masonry, David Hopkins demonstrates the ways in which these esoteric concerns intersect with themes of peculiarly contemporary relevance, including the social construction of gender and notions of ordering and taxonomy. This detailed comparison of components of Duchamp's and Ernst's work reveals fascinating structural patterns, enabling the reader to discover an entirely new way of understanding the mechanisms underlying Dada and Surrealist iconography.

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum, launched in early 2013, strives to advance the achievements of contemporary Chinese artists by commissioning major pieces that will be exhibited in the museum and enter its permanent collection. Selected for the first commission, Beijing-based artist Wang Jianwei is recognized throughout Asia and Europe for his bold experiments in new media, video, performance, conceptual and installation art. His highly innovative works consider space and time in elaborate ways, working from the notion that the production of artwork can be a continuous rehearsal. The exhibition comprises a multifaceted space that includes painting, installation, sculpture, film, and a theatrical production. The accompanying catalogue includes three texts in English and Chinese: a curatorial essay on Wang's artistic practice; a look at the artist's recent work by Gao Shiming; and a text by the artist on contemporary Chinese art. In addition, this volume includes a chronology of the artist's oeuvre to date.

Albert Durer was born in Nuremberg on 21 May 1471. He began his career under the tutelage of Michael Wolgemut, the eminent German painter and printmaker, before travelling through Germany and to parts of Italy. In 1494 he returned to Nuremberg, where he remained until his death on 6 April 1528. Although an artist and a fluent and engaging writer, it is Durer's woodcuts and engravings that most demonstrate his enviable creative skills. Indeed, the editor of this volume, T. D. Barlow, argues that Durer can indeed be reckoned one of the all-time masters of his craft. Within this 1926 volume, Barlow has chronologically catalogued almost 300 of Durer's engravings; it is the result of many years' work. The finished product will be of great interest as a reference work for scholars engaged in the study of Durer's work and in the distribution of his impressions and their reproductions.

Claude Monet's water lily paintings are among the most iconic and beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these entrancing images were created at a time of terrible private turmoil and sadness for the artist. The dramatic history behind these paintings is little known; Ross King's Mad Enchantment tells the full story for the first time and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most popular and cherished artists. By the outbreak of war in 1914, Monet, then in his mid-seventies, was one of the world's most famous and successful painters, with a large house in the country, a fleet of automobiles and a colossal reputation. However, he had virtually given up painting following the death of his wife Alice in 1911 and the onset of blindness a year later. Nonetheless, it was during this period of sorrow, ill health and creative uncertainty that - as the guns roared on the Western Front - he began the most demanding and innovative paintings he had ever attempted. Encouraged by close friends such as Georges Clemenceau, France's dauntless prime minister, Monet would work on these magnificent paintings throughout the war years and then for the rest of his life. So obsessed with his monumental task that the village barber was summoned to clip his hair as he worked beside his pond, he covered hundreds of yards of canvas with shimmering layers of pigment. As his ambitions expanded with his paintings, he began planning what he intended to be his legacy to the world: the `Musee Claude Monet' in the Orangerie in Paris. Drawing on letters and memoirs and focusing on this remarkable period in the artist's life, Mad Enchantment gives an intimate portrayal of Claude Monet in all his tumultuous complexity, and firmly places his water lily paintings among the greatest achievements in the history of art.

Piece together the world of the genius that is Frida Kahlo in this art history jigsaw puzzle that tells the story of her life, her art and her career.

Taking centre stage is Frida herself surrounded by iconic elements of her life. Woven into the bustling Mexican scene are a huge cast of contemporary extras, from Kahlo’s family and famous friends, as well as her various exotic pets. Those with a keen eye will also spot many references to her art and the tragedies and triumphs of her career. For those just discovering Kahlo the included poster guides the puzzler along the journey with facts about the 25 references found in the jigsaw.

Known for her self-portraits and representation of her Mexican heritage, the colourful scene in this puzzle conveys the spirit of Kahlo and her world. Travel through the medical traumas, family, love and loss that encapsulated Kahlo’s life and discover the surrealist artist in a new light.

With 1000 pieces and a keepsake poster, The World of Frida Kahlo is an art puzzlers dream.

Included references:

• Paintings, including Viva la Vida (Long Live Life) and Memory of the Heart
• Medical struggles from contracting polio and a tragic bus accident
• Her iconic traditional Zapotec Mexican dresses as well as Kahlo’s early career gender subverting suits
• Her husband and artist, Diego Rivera
• Family relationships and her beloved pets
• Religious and political influences

Raphael is one of the rare artists who have never gone out of fashion. Acclaimed during his lifetime, he was imitated by contemporaries and served as a model for painters through the nineteenth century. Because of the artist s renown, his works have continuously been subject to care, conservation, and restoration. In this book, Cathleen Hoeniger focuses on the legacy of Raphael s art: the historical trajectory or afterlife of the paintings themselves. The appreciation of Raphael was expressed and the restoration of his works debated in contemporary treatises, which provide a backdrop for probing the fortune of his paintings. What happened to his panel-paintings and frescoes in the centuries after his death in 1520? Some were lost altogether; others were severely damaged in natural disasters; and many were affected by uncontrolled climactic conditions, by travel from one place to another, and by the not always cautious and careful hands of restorers. This book reveals the five-hundred-year story of many of Raphael s most well-known paintings.

Ronnie Wood is one of the foremost rock guitarists in the world, but his artistic talents extend beyond music. Throughout his stellar musical career from The Birds to the Faces and the Rolling Stones, Ronnie has never lost his passion for painting, drawing and sculpture. Exuding the same irrepressible energy as Ronnie himself, Ronnie Wood: Artist is the first ever comprehensive collection of his paintings and other artworks, created to mark the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The bright, bold volume brings together the fruits of a lifetime in the arts, brimming with six decades of memorable and diverse work, from his art college portfolio (he studied alongside Pete Townshend) to the intimate work of his personal life today. Inside, a generous selection of his Stones work, including rare watercolours of Mick, Keith and Charlie backstage, meets acrylics of contemporaries Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck and Keith Moon. Portraits of formative jazz innovators Count Basie, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday sit alongside blues heroes Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy. Paintings of Hollywood's elite - Paul Newman, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe - juxtapose real-time fashion sketches of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and deft pastel compositions from his residency at the Royal Ballet. The artist himself provides the captions and insights into the thought and motivation behind each piece. With an introduction by Emmanuel Guigon (director of the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, where Ronnie will be beginning a residency in 2018) and an afterword by none other than Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood: Artist exists where fine art and rock 'n' roll collide. This extensive and eclectic collection offers unique insights into the entire world of Ronnie Wood, and, with close to 400 works, is a fitting testament to the artistic range and ambition of rock 'n' roll's most successful artist

The livre d'artiste, or 'artist's book', is among the most prized in rare book collections. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the greatest artists to work in this genre, creating his most important books over a period of eighteen years from 1932 to 1950 - a time of personal upheaval and physical suffering, as well as conflict and occupation for France. Brimming with powerful themes and imagery, these works are crucial to an understanding of Matisse's oeuvre, yet much of their content has never been seen by a wider audience. In Matisse: The Books, Louise Rogers Lalaurie reintroduces us to Matisse by considering how in each of eight limited-edition volumes, the artist constructs an intriguing dialogue between word and image. She also highlights the books' profound significance for Matisse as the catalysts for the extraordinary 'second life' of his paper cut-outs. In concert with an eclectic selection of poetry, drama and, tantalizingly, Matisse's own words, the books' images offer an astonishing portrait of creative resistance and regeneration. Matisse's books contain some of the artist's best-known graphic works - the magnificent, belligerent swan from the Poesies de Stephane Mallarme, or the vigorous linocut profile from Pasiphae (1944), reversed in a single, rippling stroke out of a lake of velvety black. In Jazz, the cut-out silhouette of Icarus plummets through the azure, surrounded by yellow starbursts, his heart a mesmerizing dot of red. But while such individual images are well known, their place in an integrated sequence of pictures, decorations and words is not. With deftness and sensitivity, Lalaurie explores the page-by-page interplay of the books, translating key sequences and discussing their distinct themes and creative genesis. Together Matisse's artist books reveal his deep engagement with questions of beauty and truth; his faith; his perspectives on aging, loss, and inspiration; and his relationship to his critics, the French art establishment and the women in his life. In addition, Matisse: The Books illuminates the artist's often misunderstood political affinities - in particular, his decision to live in the collaborationist Vichy zone, throughout World War II. Matisse's wartime books are revealed as a body of work that stands as a deeply personal statement of resistance.