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!

Over his long and successful career David Remfry MBE RA RWS has achieved a mastery of watercolour that few have matched. Unusually for the medium, he works on a large scale and often focuses on people, exploring the dance hall and the nightclub in breathtaking images that are at once beautiful and edgy. This book is the first full-length monograph devoted to the artist's watercolours. Its author, James Russell, is well known for his writing on 20th-century British artists. Russell brings his scholarship, humour and fascination for people and their lives to his study of Remfry's career, tracing the evolution of a remarkable talent, looking in depth at the most significant works and placing Remfry in the context of both the British watercolour tradition and international contemporary painting. This is at once a glorious art book and an intimate portrait of city life. Having spent 20 years living and working at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, Remfry has a following on both sides of the Atlantic. New Yorkers - often in party mode - feature in many of his watercolours, and his recollections of people and places add colour to the text.

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.

The Art of Winold Reiss brings to light the creative and forward-thinking work of this German-born artist. Winold Reiss (1886-1953) arrived in New York in 1913, the year of the ground-breaking Armory Show. The exhibition shook the American art scene to its core and ushered in a radically new artistic sensibility, whilst Reiss's exuberant, dynamic designs anticipated the American passion for the new European avant-garde art. Steeped in a German aesthetic, Reiss brought his unique brand of modernism to the United States, and established a reputation and material presence in New York's cultural and commercial landscape. This vibrantly illustrated volume showcases over 140 examples of Reiss's work, ranging from his early graphic creations for advertisements, menus, packaging, calendars, and books, to his architectural and interior designs. Reiss's portraits of African Americans include leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance as well as members of the professional and working classes. Essays by leading specialists provide an overview of Reiss's life and artistic achievements, examining his interior designs of iconic New York restaurants and bars, his portraits and his decorative arts, including his work in new 20th-century materials.

This book is the first to examine Henry Darger's conceptual and visual representation of "girls" and girlhood. Specifically, Leisa Rundquist charts the artist's use of little girl imagery-his direct appropriations from mainstream sources as well as girls modified to meet his needs-in contexts that many scholars have read as puerile and psychologically disturbed. Consequently, this inquiry qualifies the intersexed aspects of Darger's protagonists as well as addresses their inherent cute and little associations that signal multivocal meanings often in conflict with each other. Rundquist engages Darger's art through thematic analyses of the artist's writings, mature works, collages, and ephemeral materials. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in art history, art and gender studies, sociology, and contemporary art.

Connecting the Dots showcases the remarkable contribution of one designer, Garry Emery, to Australian culture internationally over 60+ years. It publishes a selection of Emery's writings, alongside notes he calls 'ramblings' as well as presenting EmeryStudio's design work. Connecting the Dots collects ad-hoc design thinking, comments, insights, thoughts, quotations, snippets, questions, answers, essays, articles, meditations, opinions, ambiguities, dogmas, observations, ideas, remnants, contradictions, realities, episodes, moments, fantasies, threads, traces, snapshots, ramblings, ruminations, not so many facts, no certainties. 'As this book shows, Emery's work is much more than graphic design. It is the design of alphabets, pages, books, branding and websites, but also of walls, installations, exhibitions, furniture, rooms, postage stamps, car parks, building facades and busy streets. How do we read a page or a poster; how do we find our way around crowded, chaotic cities?' - James Button, writer and editor

An innovative retrospective look at the work of one of America's most iconic artists, utilizing the concepts of mirroring and doubling, which have long preoccupied Johns Jasper Johns (b. 1930) is arguably the most influential artist living today. Over the past 65 years, he has produced a radical and varied body of work marked by constant reinvention. Inspired by the artist's long-standing fascination with mirroring and doubles, this book provides an original and exciting perspective on Johns's work and its continued relevance. A diverse group of curators, academics, artists, and writers offer a series of essays-including many paired texts-that consider aspects of the artist's work, such as recurring motifs, explorations of place, and use of a wide array of media. These include Carroll Dunham on nightmares, Ruth Fine on monotypes and working proofs, Michio Hayashi on Japan, Terrance Hayes on flags, and Colm Toibin on dreams, among many others. The various themes are further explored in a series of in-depth plate sections that combine prints, drawings, paintings, and sculptures to draw new connections in Johns's vast output. Accompanying "mirroring" exhibitions held simultaneously at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this lavishly illustrated volume features a selection of rarely published works along with never-before-published archival content and is full of revelations that allow us to engage with and understand the artist's rich and varied body of work in new and meaningful ways. Distributed for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Philadelphia Museum of Art (September 29, 2021-February 13, 2022) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (September 29, 2021-February 13, 2022)

At the dawn of the 1950s, a promising and dedicated young painter named Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, moved back home to New York City to make her name. By the decade's end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring paintings of her day and came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love. Fierce Poise is an exhilarating ride through New York's 1950s art scene and a brilliant portrait of a young artist through the moments that shaped her.

In the mid-1950s, Yves Klein (1928-1962) declared that "a new world calls for a new man." With his idiosyncratic style and huge charisma, this bold artist would go on to pursue a brief but bountiful career, producing more than 1,000 paintings over seven years in an oeuvre now considered a mainstay of postwar modernism. Klein made his name above all with his large monochrome canvases in his own patented hue of blue. International Klein Blue (IKB), composed of pure pigment and binding medium, is at once rich and luminous, evocative and decorative, and was conceived by Klein as a means of evoking the immateriality and infinitude of the world. The works of this "Blue Revolution" seem to draw us into another dimension, as if hypnotized by a perfect summer sky. Klein was also renowned for his deployment of "living brushes," in which naked women, daubed in International Klein Blue, would make imprints of their bodies on large sheets of paper. This Basic Art introduction presents key Klein works to introduce an artist who was at once a showman, inventor, and pioneer of performance art. With page after page of the ever-alluring International Klein Blue, it is both an essential guide to a modern art master and a meditation on the unique effects of a single color. 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

Leonardo's enduring fascination with water-from its artistic representation to aquatic inventions and hydraulic engineering Formless, mutable, transparent: the element of water posed major challenges for the visual artists of the Renaissance. To the engineers of the era, water represented a force that could be harnessed for human industry but was equally possessed of formidable destructive power. For Leonardo da Vinci, water was an enduring fascination, appearing in myriad forms throughout his work. In Watermarks, Leslie Geddes explores the extraordinary range of Leonardo's interest in water and shows how artworks by him and his peers contributed to hydraulic engineering and the construction of large river and canal systems. From drawings for mobile bridges and underwater breathing apparatuses to plans for water management schemes, Leonardo evinced a deep interest in the technical aspects of water. His visual studies of the ways in which landscape is shaped by water demonstrated both his artistic mastery and probing scientific mind. Analyzing Leonardo's notebooks, plans, maps, and paintings, Geddes argues that, for Leonardo and fellow artists, drawing was a form of visual thinking and problem solving essential to understanding and controlling water and other parts of the natural world. She also examines the material importance in this work of water-based media, namely ink, watercolor, and oil paint. A compelling account of Renaissance art and engineering, Watermarks shows, above all else, how Leonardo applied his pictorial genius to water in order to render the natural world in all its richness and constant change.

In How to See, David Salle explores how art works and how it moves us, informs us and challenges us. This internationally renowned painter's incisive essay collection illuminates the work of many of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Engaging with a wide range of Salle's friends and contemporaries-from painters to conceptual artists such as Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, Roy Lichtenstein and Alex Katz-How to See explores not only the multilayered personalities of the artists themselves but also the distinctive character of their oeuvres. Salle writes with humour and verve, replacing the jargon of art theory with precise and evocative descriptions that help the reader develop a personal and intuitive engagement with art. The result is a master class on how to see with an artist's eye.

The final edition of the late Tom Phillips's 'defining masterpiece of postmodernism'. In 1966 the artist Tom Phillips discovered A Human Document (1892), an obscure Victorian romance by W.H. Mallock, and set himself the task of altering every page, by painting, collage or cut-up techniques, to create an entirely new version. Some of Mallock's original text remains intact and through the illustrated pages the character of Bill Toge, Phillips's anti-hero, and his romantic plight emerges. First published in 1973, A Humument - as Phillips titled his altered book - quickly established itself as a cult classic. From that point, the artist worked towards a complete revision of his original, adding new pages in successive editions. That process is now finished. This final edition presents an entirely new and complete version of A Humument. It includes a revised Introduction by the late artist, in which he reflects on the 50-year project, and 92 new illustrated pages.

A selection of works by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, including some never previously released, together with his latest creations, come to life through the work of a large group of military miniaturists who have found inspiration in his paintings for their models. One of the most famous artists of historical realism at both a national and international level, the artist's work can be seen along with the figures and dioramas based on them. These works have been crafted by some of the most outstanding Spanish miniaturists, which today are among the best in the world in this field and can rightly join the world of the arts.

Today we view Cezanne as a monumental figure, but during his lifetime (1839-1906), many did not understand him or his work. With brilliant insight, drawing on a vast range of primary sources, Alex Danchev tells the story of an artist who was never accepted into the official Salon: he was considered a revolutionary at best and a barbarian at worst, whose paintings were unfinished, distorted and strange. His work sold to no one outside his immediate circle until his late thirties, and he maintained that 'to paint from nature is not to copy an object; it is to represent its sensations' - a belief way ahead of his time, with stunning implications that became the obsession of many other artists and writers, from Matisse and Braque to Rilke and Gertrude Stein. Beginning with the restless teenager from Aix who was best friends with Emile Zola at school, Danchev carries us through the trials of a painter tormented by self-doubt, who always remained an outsider, both of society and the bustle of the art world. Cezanne: A life delivers not only the fascinating days and years of the visionary who would 'astonish Paris with an apple', with interludes analysing his self-portraits, but also a complete assessment of Cezanne's ongoing influence through artistic imaginations in our own time. He is, as this life shows, a cultural icon comparable to Monet or Toulouse.

The intimate memoirs of one of the most acclaimed and controversial artists of her generation. Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamt it would be like this. 'Frequently affecting...intriguing, almost incantatory' Telegraph Tracey Emin's Strangeland is her own space, lying between the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers and her own, private-public life in present-day London. Her writings, a combination of memoirs and confessions, are deeply intimate, yet powerfully engaging. Tracey retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty. Her capacity both to create controversies and to strike chords is unequalled in British life. A remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind. 'As spare and poignant as one of Emin's line drawings' Marie Claire

Larry Hama (b. 1949) is the writer and cartoonist who helped develop the 1980s G.I. Joe toyline and created a new generation of comic book fans from the tie-in comic book. Through many interviews with Hama, this volume reveals that G.I. Joe is far from his greatest feat as an artist. At different points in his life and career, Hama was mentored by comics' legends Bernard Krigstein, Wallace Wood, and Neal Adams. Though their impact left an impression on his work, Hama has created a unique brand of storytelling that crosses various media. For example, he devised the character Bucky O'Hare, a green rabbit in outer space that was made into a comic book, toy line, video game, and television cartoon-with each medium in mind. Hama also discusses his varied career, from working at Neal Adams and Dick Giordano's legendary Continuity to editing a humor magazine at Marvel, developing G.I. Joe, and enjoying a long run as writer of Wolverine. This volume also explores Hama's life outside of comics. He is an activist in the Asian American community, a musician, and an actor in film and stage. He has also appeared in minor roles on the television shows M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live and on Broadway. Editor and historian Christopher Irving compiles six of his own interviews with Hama, some of which are unpublished, and compiled others that range through Hama's illustrious career. The first academic volume on the artist, this collection gives a snapshot of Hama's unique character-driven and visual approach to comics' storytelling.

The map, as it appears in Gilles Deleuze's writings, is a concept guiding the exploration of new territories, no matter how abstract. With the advent of new media and digital technologies, contemporary artists have imagined a panoply of new spaces that put Deleuze's concept to the test. Deleuze's concept of the map bridges the gap between the analog and the digital, information and representation, virtual and actual, canvas and screen and is therefore best suited for the contemporary artistic landscape. Deleuze and the Map-Image explores cartography from philosophical and aesthetic perspectives and argues that the concept of the map is a critical touchstone for contemporary multidisciplinary art. This book is an overview of Deleuze's cartographic thought read through the theories of Sloterdijk, Heidegger, and Virilio and the art criticism of Laura U. Marks, Carolyn L. Kane, and Alexander Galloway, shaping it into a critical tool through which to view the works of cutting edge artists such as Janice Kerbel and Hajra Waheed, who work with digital and analog art. After all, Deleuze did write that a map can be conceived as a work of art, and so herein art is critiqued through cartographic strategies.

This magnificent boxed-set features stunning, accordion-fold, color reproductions of Monet's essential works, accompanied by a separate booklet with background and descriptions of each painting. Fans of Impressionism will delight in seeing some of their favorite works presented in generously sized accordion fold pages, which bring Monet's representations of nature to exquisite life. Arranged chronologically, this volume helps readers appreciate the achievements of a long and fruitful career. Natural beauty, color and light were the object of Monet's incessant research, and he never lost sight of what was essential to him - the truth of his sensations. From the faithful transcription of the landscape in his early days to the gestural drawing of the final water lilies at Giverny, this book allows us to follow and understand the evolution of his creativity. The themes of Monet's work (the seashore, the Seine, gardens, the seasons) are discussed, as well as the techniques he used, such as the decomposition of light and color through the brushstroke; the use of repetition and series to better reflect atmospheric variations; and the progressive dissolution of forms, which led to him being considered the precursor of abstraction. Packaged in an elegant slipcase, this volume reflects the beautiful artistry and timeless traditions that are embodied in the artworks themselves.

-- Stunning watercolour paintings by one of Sweden's best-loved artists -- Fascinating insight into Swedish rural and artistic life in the late nineteenth century -- Accompanied by an explanatory text giving more detail about his life and techniques Carl Larsson is one of Sweden's best-loved artists. His stunning watercolours of his home and family from the end of the nineteenth century are acclaimed as one of the richest records of life at that time. The paintings in this book are a combined collection which depict Larsson's family -- his wife Karin and their eight children -- his home in the village of Sundborn, and his farm, Spadarvet. The accompanying text provides a fascinating insight into Larsson family and farm life, and his painting techniques. Today, over 60,000 tourists a year visit Sundborn to admire Larsson's home and work. Also published as three separate volumes: A Home, A Family, and A Farm.

Glorious catastrophe presents a detailed critical analysis of the work of Jack Smith from the early 1960s until his AIDS-related death in 1989. Dominic Johnson argues that Smith's work offers critical strategies for rethinking art's histories after 1960. Heralded by peers as well as later generations of artists, Smith is an icon of the New York avant-garde. Nevertheless, he is conspicuously absent from dominant histories of American culture in the 1960s, as well as from narratives of the impact that decade would have on coming years. Smith poses uncomfortable challenges to cultural criticism and historical analysis, which Glorious catastrophe seeks to uncover. The first critical analysis of Smith's practices across visual art, film, performance and writing, the study employs extensive, original archival research carried out in Smith's personal papers, and unpublished interviews with friends and collaborators. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in the life and art of Jack Smith, and the greater histories that he interrupts, including those of experimental arts practices and the development of sexual cultures. -- .