Born in Guizhou, Xie Jinglan (nicknamed Lalan ) was a multidisciplinary artist trained across various art forms, including painting, music, and dance. Excelling in all such categories, Lalan united these fields in her artistic practice to create an oeuvre that epitomized synthesized art. Her lifelong explorations resulted in an unusual kind of exhibition/performance named Spectacle, which assimilates dance and music within her artworks. Her works can be found in important Western and Asian museums, such as the Centre Pompidou Musee National d Art Moderne, and Musee d Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Shanghai Art Museum, and others. This book reviews her entire career by selecting her most representative masterpieces and celebrating her life journey as the backdrop, between dream and drama. The materials in this book have been collected by a dedicated research team through a painstaking process lasting more than two years. Lalan s paintings are a melting pot of many important features inspired by traditional Chinese culture on the one hand (including the spirit of Taoism, the practice of qigong, and the essence of ink landscapes during the Song Dynasty), and Western abstract painting on the other.

During her 40-year career, Margit Koppendorfer has designed costumes for the greats of theatre history: characters from Shakespeare, Brecht, and Handke, directed by Berghaus, Peymann, and Tabori, performed in Vienna, Zurich, and Berlin. Margit Koppendorfer: Costume Designs presents Koppendorfer's often life-sized mixed-media design sketches on transparent paper and reveals through these unique illustrations how the costume designer accords identity to the characters. By alienating the real in a visionary way, a latent truth emerges. While author Elfriede Jelinek and actress Maria Happel emphasise in their texts the masterful embodiment of the costumes, and of their characters, Margit Koppendorfer herself says of her work, "I dance into the set with my characters." Text in English and German.

In his Illuminated Books, William Blake combined text and imagery on a single page in a way that had not been done since the Middle Ages. For Blake, religion and politics, intellect and emotion, mind and body were both unified and in conflict with each other: his work is expressive of his personal mythology, and his methods of conveying it were integral to its meaning. There is no comparison with reading books such as Jerusalem, America, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in Blake's own medium, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colors. Tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction, and liberation. Blake's hope that his books would obtain wide circulation was unfulfilled: some exist only in unique copies and none was printed in more than very small numbers. Now, for the first time, the plates from the William Blake Trust's Collected Edition have been brought together in a single volume, with transcripts of the texts and an introduction by the noted scholar David Bindman. Includes: Jerusalem; Songs of Innocence and of Experience; All Religions are One; There is No Natural Religion; The Book of Thel; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Visions of the Daughters of Albion; America a Prophecy; Europe a Prophecy; The Song of Los Milton a Poem; The Ghost of Abel; On Homers Poetry and] On Virgil; Laocoon; The First Book of Urizen; The Book of Ahania; The Book of Los.

Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry, 1741-1806 through an interdisciplinary methodology, The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775-1809 is the first full-length study of the artist's writings. Liam Lenihan critically assesses the artist's own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan's book delves into the connections between Barry's writings and art, and the cultural and political issues that dominated the public sphere in London during the American and French Revolutions. Barry's writings are read within the context of the political and aesthetic thought of his distinguished friends and contemporaries, such as Edmund Burke, his first patron; Joshua Reynolds, his sometime friend and rival; Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, with whom he was later friends; and his students and adversaries, William Blake and Henry Fuseli. Ultimately, Lenihan's interdisciplinary reading shows the extent to which Barry's faith in the classical tradition in general, and the genre of history painting in particular, is permeated by the hermeneutics of suspicion. This study explores and contextualizes Barry's attempt to rethink and remake the preeminent art form of his era.

One of the most powerful painters of our age, Francis Bacon lived and worked for the last thirty years of his life in a modest building in London's South Kensington. After he died in 1992, access was granted to award-winning photographer Perry Ogden to work undisturbed for days on end to produce this riveting record of the house and its contents. In the studio itself, thirty years of inspired artistic endeavor had accumulated unchecked: the slashed and discarded canvases scattered across the floor; the brushes, rags, and tins encrusted with paint; the doors and walls used as impromptu palettes; the piles of photographs of friends and models; the crumpled and torn pages of magazines and books that served as a stimulus for Bacon's work; the notes, sketches, and ideas for paintings jotted down and then cast aside; the last unfinished self-portrait on the easel.

For some of those close to Bacon, the studio was a heroic statement, a work of art in its won right, secretly constructed over many years to distill and give form to his aesthetic intentions. Now in this astonishing book we are invited to take a privileged look around this private space, to become intimate witnesses to the amazing conditions in which Bacon lived and worked, to gain unrivaled insights into how, why, and what he painted.

Henri Rousseau was the first naive artist in the history of Western art to be recognized for his true worth. His paintings have now entered popular consciousness to such an extent that it is difficult to imagine how strongly they were resisted at the time. Much of the credit for his transformation is due to the author of these Recollections, dealer and art historian Wilhelm Uhde. It was Uhde who mounted the first exhibition of Rousseau's work, and the catalog he wrote for the occasion is the basis of the Recollections. In it, he painted a picture of a man of naivete, humor, and total commitment to an art of whose importance he was utterly convinced.

On June 10, 1935, Dorse Lanpher was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. After he was resuscitated by the doctor, Dorse began living a meaningful life ruled by his vivid imagination, artistic talent, and passion for creating unforgettable special effects environments for the animated characters.

In his memoir, Dorse shares a revealing glimpse into his fascinating life as an artist in the animated film industry. He begins by offering entertaining childhood anecdotes that describe cherished moments like skinny-dipping with his friends, saving his money and buying his family their first television, and constructing a homemade golf course in a field of wild grass. After he graduated from high school in California and entered the Art Center School of Los Angeles, Dorse's talent was recognized by his teachers; after five challenging semesters, however, he left the school. As Dorse embarked on a journey to conquer a new world with nothing but a portfolio of his best art and a desire to live his dream, he soon discovered that, with a little tenacity, he could do anything.

Dorse's captivating story proves that following one's passion is never free from struggle, but staying true to a dream can lead to a life fulfilled.

William Reid Dick (1878-1961) was one of a generation of British sculptors air-brushed out of art history by the Modernist critics of the late twentieth century. This long-overdue monograph adds to the recent revival of interest in this group of forgotten sculptors, by describing the life and work of arguably the leading figure of the group in unprecedented depth. The facts of Reid Dick's life and his most important works are presented against a backdrop of the historical, social and aesthetic changes taking place during his lifetime. Dennis Wardleworth elucidates why Reid Dick's reputation plummeted so quickly, and why his position in the history of British art deserves to be restored. This study draws upon a wealth of previously unpublished material, including over 2000 letters, and press cuttings and photographs in the Tate Archive, as well as letters and photographs held by Reid Dick's family. It traces the sculptor's story from his birth in the Gorbals in Glasgow, to his election to the Royal Academy and knighting by George V, to the decline of his career and his late-life connection with American millionaire and art collector Huntington Hartford. The first monograph on Reid Dick since 1945, the book also includes images of over 40 of his works and a listing of over 200 works identified by the author.

A classic monograph in the World of Art series, offering a a detailed insight into Rembrandt's life and work. Rembrandt is among the few Old Master artists to retain universal appeal among art lovers today, his striking self-portraits lauded the world over - yet he remains an elusive, enigmatic figure. Here, the distinguished art historian Christopher White carefully considers the known facts to build a sensitive and thorough account of the artist's life and work. He describes the radiant happiness of Rembrandt's marriage, tragically cut short by the death of his wife, and discusses the catastrophe of his bankruptcy. The psychological factors that may have awakened Rembrandt's sudden interest in landscape are also explored, as is the artist's final decade, when he retreated into the private world of his imagination. This comprehensive introduction has now been revised and updated to reflect recent scholarship, and the bibliography has been expanded; Rembrandt's artworks are now faithfully reproduced in colour throughout.

"Looking for Alfred" documents Johan Grimonprez's prize-winning film of the same name, an homage to Alfred Hitchcock in the form of a search for the perfect Hitchcock doppelganger and vignettes starring those multiple would-be Hitchcocks, reenacting his cameos. Casting calls and screen tests in London, Rotterdam, Los Angeles and New York are documented in film stills and photos. (Professional Hitchcock impersonator Rob Burrage says, "I thought I was safe until you guys came along, digging up all those other Hitchcock look-alikes. Now we will have to find ways of disposing of them.") Line-readings from Truffaut's famous 1960s interview with the master and scenes in which Hitchcock acted as an extra are further grist for the mill. Beyond the work's mockumentary structure, Grimonprez evokes the Hitchcockian universe uncannily, and connects back--through the recurring motif of a man in a suit and a bowler hat--to another great modern auteur, Rene Magritte.

Following the worldwide success of his Poemotion trilogy, Takahiro Kurashima presents a title that is in no way inferior to the previous ones in terms of surprise and viewing pleasure. On the contrary: here, the motifs are combined to form a visual narrative that is revealed when the static basic image is set in motion by means of the striped foil. Then an astonishing panorama of unseen moires and patterns unfolds. The artist uses the digital tools for his creations in a virtuoso manner. At the same time he continues to catch up with the great models of kinetic art. Moiremotion is a school of vision and offers contemplative recreation for our eyes.

Internationally acclaimed artist Dale Chihuly’s site-specific installations in the form of architectural commissions and exhibitions

Forty years of Dale Chihuly’s spectacular site-specific glass installations are captured in this large-format publication examining architectural commissions, temporary art installations, and museum exhibitions around the world. Chihuly’s installations on walls, windows, ceilings, stairways, courtyards, and fountains are closely examined. Chihuly and Architecture explores entire rooms and galleries, glasshouses and castles, and travels from the canals of Venice to the Citadel in the Old City of Jerusalem, providing rare insight into Chihuly’s inspiration and global footprint.

One of "The Eight"--a major group in the history of American painting--John Sloan was also an illustrator and cartoonist. Sloan kept an almost daily diary for eight years, for the most part to entertain his first wife, Dolly. Sloan's second wife and widow, Helen Fan Sloan, turned over the diaries and his letters, as well as notes and drawings to Bruce St. John of the Delaware Art Center, which houses the Sloan collection.

John Sloan was interested in every social issue that went on around him: the people across the street, the people in the parks, and the policies of his country. He and Dolly entertained almost every night, though they were so poor that often the only dish was spaghetti, and their guests included Robert Henri (Sloan's mentor) and Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, Rollin Kirby, Stuart Davis (and his father), Alexander Calder (and his father), Rockwell Kent, John Butler Yeats, William Glackens, and George Luks.

Even if John Sloan had not been such an important figure in the American art world, these diaries would be splendid reading: they reveal a perceptive man and the city that fascinated him during one of its most interesting epochs. The editor writes that Sloan "was a direct and honest man, not afraid of expressing his opinions." This fascinating, unique, first-person view of New York City is a masterpiece. This edition includes a new introduction by Herbert I. London, providing insight into the social and political vision that animated Sloan's art.

Students new to the work of William Morris will find the full range of his achievements covered in this reissue of Peter Faulkner's excellent biography, first published in 1980. The author has carefully placed Morris in the context of the Victorian age, but has also suggested the relevance of his ideas today. The six chapters are organised biographically and cover all aspects of Morris's work in poetry, fiction, design and socialist politics. The emphasis is on his continuous struggle against the age in which he lived, seen as an idealism which went through various stages from the wistfulness of The Earthly Paradise through the practical activities of the firm of Morris & Company to the socialism of Morris's later years. The book quotes freely from writings by Morris not easily accessible at present and gives an overall account from which the student can develop his specialist interests. This reissue will appeal to sixth-formers and undergraduates interested in the Victorian period, as seen through one of its most striking personalities.

It happened after leaving the Slade School of Art. Anthony Green realised that Mary Cozens-Walker would be the subject of his life's work. Anthony's Green art foregrounding his wife, Mary Cozens-Walker has resulted in an impressive body of work. It encompassed over 50 years of creative enterprise: paintings, sculptures, and prints. Since 1988, Green has produced two to three prints each year, many of which have featured at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. Anthony Green: Printed Pictures features the University of Buckingham Collection which included almost all of Green's prints to date. His extraordinarily colourful palette has been faithfully reproduced, alongside captions for each print, revealing new and specific information about their background and production. Dr Paul Davis' fascinating introductory essay draws on the recent interviews with Anthony Green, as well as art critics' opinions, past and present, from the UK and beyond.