For the first time, iconic fetish photographer G. Elliott Simpson is showing his works in a monograph. This book features cutting-edge fetish photography showcasing rubber and latex, aesthetically appealing and skillfully made. The Toronto-based photographer manages to approach the topic in a tasteful way, allowing viewers from the outside to explore an unknown world of lust and desire.

This work talks about an animator and concept artist for gaming companies featured in hits like "Starcraft", "Diablo" and "World of Warcraft". That's all well and good for a day job, but when the sun goes down, Maxx's mind drifts off to nastier realms, filled with bizarre creatures, foul aliens and oh yes, drop dead gorgeous girls.

Analysis of a group of images of kingship and queenship from Anglo-Saxon England explores the implications of their focus on books, authorship and learning. Between the reign of Alfred in the late ninth century and the arrival of the Normans in 1066, a unique set of images of kingship and queenship was developed in Anglo-Saxon England, images of leadership that centred on books, authorship and learning rather than thrones, sword and sceptres. Focusing on the cultural and historical contexts in which these images were produced, this book explores the reasons for their development, and their meaning and functionwithin both England and early medieval Europe. It explains how and why they differ from their Byzantine and Continental counterparts, and what they reveal about Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history and gender, as well as the qualities that were thought to constitute a good ruler. It is argued that this series of portraits, never before studied as a corpus, creates a visual genealogy equivalent to the textual genealogies and regnal lists that are so mucha feature of late Anglo-Saxon culture. As such they are an important part of the way in which the kings and queens of early medieval England created both their history and their kingdom. CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professorof Art History at the University of Leeds.

This book analyzes the philosophical origins of dualism in portraiture in Western culture during the Classical period, through to contemporary modes of portraiture. Dualism - the separation of mind from body - plays a central part in portraiture, given that it supplies the fundamental framework for portraiture's determining problem and justification: the visual construction of the subjectivity of the sitter, which is invariably accounted for as ineffable entity or spirit, that the artist magically captures. Every artist that has engaged with portraiture has had to deal with these issues and, therefore, with the question of being and identity.

A new account of painting in early modern England centered on the art and legacy of Anthony van Dyck As a courtier, figure of fashion, and object of erotic fascination, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) transformed the professional identities available to English artists. By making his portrait sittings into a form of courtly spectacle, Van Dyck inspired poets and playwrights at the same time that he offended guardians of traditional hierarchies. A self-consciously Van Dyckian lineage of artists, many of them women, extends from his lifetime to the end of the eighteenth century and beyond. Recovering the often surprising responses of both writers and painters to Van Dyck's portraits, this book provides an alternative perspective on English art's historical self-consciousness. Built around a series of close readings of artworks and texts ranging from poems and plays to early biographies and studio gossip, it traces the reception of Van Dyck's art on the part of artists like Mary Beale, William Hogarth, and Richard and Maria Cosway to bestow a historical specificity on the frequent claim that Van Dyck founded an English school of portraiture. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Human forms can be intensely intimate or broadly universal. Here, figurative artists use the human form as a tool to express varied content and contemporary issues. These paintings depict our feelings and sentiments, our sense of belonging to a larger community in the contemporary world, while capturing the impulses behind the range of figuration presented by today's contemporary international artists. Portraitist Marlene Dumas presents figures in a gritty, unsentimental manner, evoking the essence of the human condition, while Kerry James Marshall paints the life of African-Americans in the twentieth-century, employing recent historical review to document the social challenges. British artist Jenny Saville paints the figure in massive scale, combined with an overt, never-ending interest in the pure rendering of human flesh. Hope Gangloff paints her figures as characters, intimate friends, and acquaintances, narrating a drama from their canvases. An important resource for those interested in contemporary figurative painting.

Taking inspiration from artists of the Renaissance to Rococo periods, contemporary artist Arabella Proffer has re-imagined the mannerist portrait with a pop surrealist twist. After researching fashion history, heraldry, and peerage protocol, she went on to create her own world parallel to that of old world Europe. Concocting a family legacy -- ancestors that could belong to anyone it has become an impulse and a passion the artist continues to explore, adding characters and stories to her ever-growing private empire of punks, goths, and nobility behaving badly. Included are over 40 portraits created between 2000 and 2011, their stories, family trees, map and more, as well as a foreword by Josh Geiser of Creep Machine and Paper Devil.

For Japan the existence of the 20th century was announced apocalyptically by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Whatever clothes the Emperor wore that day, they were useless to him now. And no sooner had the revelation of Western civilisation been so awesomely visited upon the Rising Sun than came the 21st century, gizmoid and insensible, surreal and plastic. In Reflex, 40 urban young artists and performers realise the manifestations of modern Japan through their own unique brand of self-portraiture. Superficially many of them seem simply weird - two gay Sumo wrestlers fighting in a bathhouse, for instance, thereby subverting the parameters of traditional, male-orientated Manga culture, or amateur photography of Geishas and phallic steam trains. But they are more than that. By identifying six distinct Japanese reflexes to the 21st century, namely the Kid Reflex, Naked Reflex, Manga Reflex, Group Reflex, Amateur Reflex and the Imaged Reflex, these artists have provided, in a myriad of self-representations, the concerns of young Japan, shocking to anyone ignorant of the pressures at work in their society. The amateur auteur seeking to explain; the group methodology seeking to conform; the liberated innocence of nakedness at odds with nudity; the mass-market phenomenon of a strictured teenage audience; the professional artist and above all, the powerful Manga culture - these are bewildering and fantastic concepts, illustrated by images both sublime and confusing. Reflex is a compilation by 40 contemporary Japanese artists, professional and amateur photographers, Manga illustrators and renegade artists in Japan. It is co-edited by Mark Sanders (Senior Editor for Another Magazine), KyoichiTsuzuki (artist and editor of the award-winning Roadside Japan), and Fumiya Sawa (consultant and co-curator on the Barbican Gallery's exhibition JAM: Tokyo - London).

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. David A. Cross portays a complex personality, prone to melancholy, who held himself aloof from London's Establishment and from the Royal Academy, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds was President, and chose instead to find his friends among that city's radical intelligentsia.

Drawing on hundreds of tombstones from Rome, Italy and the Western provinces, this study assesses how parents visualised childhood. By considering the most popular funerary themes and iconographic models, it emphasises both the emotional and social investment placed in children, bringing to the fore many little-known examples. From Britannia to Dacia, Aquitania to Pannonia, it highlights the rich artistic diversity of the provinces and shows that not all trends were borrowed from the capital. With a wide range of social groups in evidence, including freedmen, soldiers and peregrini, it also considers the varying reasons which underlay child commemoration and demonstrates the importance of studying the material in context. Amply supported by a catalogue of examples and over a hundred images, it will be essential reading for anyone working on Roman childhood or family studies.

Whether you re an aspiring artist or new to the medium, seasoned instructor and accomplished artist Nathan Fowkes makes drawing portraits in charcoal not only accessible, but also a real pleasure! From stocking the best supplies to using them effectively, and composing a portrait while avoiding common mistakes, How to Draw Portraits in Charcoal by Nathan Fowkes will place you firmly on the path to producing the charcoal portraits you've dreamed of creating. His easy-to-follow tips, in-depth tutorials, and valuable exercises make this guide your first step toward building an understanding and appreciation for every face you draw. This handy book will equip you with the skills to capture them in beautiful charcoal fashion."