Over the last three decades, Jacqueline Humphries (b.1960) has, through an innovative painterly process, challenged the limits of abstraction. She has produced a body of work that reaches beyond modernism, Abstract Expressionism, and abstraction as we know it. Multi-layered in application, Humphries challenges the viewer to interact with her painting in diverse ways, inviting new approaches to looking and being with a work. Expertly analysing the ways in which Humphries has challenged convention and placed abstract painting at the centre of our twenty-first century visual environment, Frances Guerin's illuminating text reveals an artist at the peak of her powers.

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci remains the quintessential Renaissance genius. Creator of the world's most famous paintings, this scientist, artist, philosopher, inventor, builder, and mechanic epitomized the great flowering of human consciousness that marks his era. As part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, Leonardo da Vinci - The Graphic Work features top-quality reproductions of 663 of Leonardo's drawings, more than half of which reside in the Royal Collection of Windsor Castle. From anatomical studies to architectural plans, from complex engineering designs to pudgy infant portraits, delve in and delight in the delicate finesse of one of the most talented minds, and hands, in history. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

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.

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.

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.

With a few notable exceptions, the fundamental role that women played in the development of abstract art has long been underestimated, and their work has not received the same critical attention as that of their male counterparts. Now, at last, the tide is turning. The latest historiographical advances illustrated by numerous recent publications, monographs and thematic exhibitions make it possible to reassess the importance of the contribution of women artists to the different currents of abstraction, while at the same time questioning the patterns of the past. Edited by Christine Macel, this catalogue and the exhibition it accompanies highlights the contributions of a hundred or so women artists to abstraction up to the 1980s, with a few unprecedented forays into the 19th century. By focusing on the careers of artists so often unjustly eclipsed, the book questions the established canons and offers an alternative history of abstraction, from the symbolist abstraction of Hilma Af Klint, to the sensual abstraction of Huguette Caland, to the purist non-objective approach of Verena Von Loewensberg. Essays by noted scholars explore the techniques, concerns and legacies of these women, shedding light on their unique experiences and offering keen new reflections on their work and the movement as a whole. With 350 illustrations

Timed to coincide with the release of Walter Isaacson's latest biography on the famous painter and inventor, as well as the latest thriller in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code series, this book includes 101 in-depth facts about Leonardo Da Vinci. 101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci provides you with all the fascinating facts you didn't know about the famous artist, inventor, and creator of the Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man, including details about his personal life, information about his inventions and art, his interactions with his contemporaries, and his impact on the world since his death. Some facts include: -Da Vinci was left handed, and wrote from right to left, even writing his letters backwards. -Da Vinci's The Last Supper started peeling off the wall almost immediately upon completion, due to a combination of the type of paint Leonardo used and the humidity -Among Leonardo's many inventions and creations was a mechanical lion he created to celebrate the coronation of King Francois I of France Whether you're seeking inspiration, information, or interesting and entertaining facts about history's most creative genius, 101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci has just what you're looking for!

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.

Godefridus Schalcken: A Late 17th-century Dutch Painter in Pursuit of Fame and Fortune is the first book in English dedicated to the entire artistic output of seventeenth-century Dutch artist Godefridus Schalcken (1643-1706). It examines the artist's paintings and career trajectory against the background of his ceaseless pursuit of fame and fortune. Combining a comprehensive analysis of Schalcken's artistic development and style with our increasing biographical knowledge, it provides an authoritative overview of Schalcken's ample production as an artist. It also integrates his art into the circumstances of his life in relation to his ambitious career aspirations, exploring how economic conditions, a concomitantly oversaturated art market, talent and ambition, demographics, and even sheer luck all played a role in Schalcken's great professional success. Since Schalcken's art, like that of all Dutch painters, provides a plethora of information about seventeenth-century culture-its predilections, its prejudices, indeed, its very mind-set-the book inevitably links his work to the broader socio-cultural contexts in which it was created.

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.

Artemisia Gentileschi was the greatest female artists of the Baroque age. In Artemisia Gentileschi, critic and historian Jonathan Jones discovers how Artemisia overcame a turbulent past to become one of the foremost painters of her day. As a young woman Artemisia was raped by her tutor, and then had to endure a seven-month-long trial during which she was brutally examined by the authorities. Gentileschi was shamed in a culture where honour was everything. Yet she went on to become one of the most sought-after artists of the seventeenth century. Yet she went on to become one of the most sought-after artists of the seventeenth century. Gentileschi's art communicated a powerful personal vision. Like Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois or Tracey Emin, she put her life into her art. 'Lives of the Artists'is a new series of brief artists biographies from Laurence King Publishing. The series takes as its inspiration Giorgio Vasari's five-hundred-year-old masterwork, updating it with modern takes on the lives of key artists past and present. Focusing on the life of the artist rather than examining their work, each book also includes key images illustrating the artist's life.

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.

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.

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 work of Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) received mixed critical success during his lifetime, and his later life was overshadowed by the death of his elder son. Largely forgotten after his own death in 1881, Palmer began to attract renewed interest in the mid-twentieth century and he is now recognised as a key figure in English Romanticism. First published in 1892, this combination of a biography and a collection of Samuel Palmer's letters was written and compiled by his surviving son, A. H. Palmer, who later, in 1909, burned large quantities of his father's sketchbooks and notebooks. The letters published here, which date from 1829 to 1881, include correspondence with other members of 'the Ancients', such as John Linnell, George Richmond and Edward Calvert. The book also includes a range of sketches and etchings, as well as a catalogue of exhibited works.

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.