In 1951, Joan Eardley visited the coastal fishing village of Catterline in north-east Scotland for the first time. Her visit sparked a fascination that would last the rest of her life. She made the village her home and found inspiration in the dramatic light and rapidly changing weather. The gentle landscapes and wild rolling seascapes she painted of Catterline in wind, snow, rain and sun are among her best-loved works. Unpublished archival material and interviews with many of those who knew her shed new light on Eardley's life in Catterline. A vivid portrait is painted both of Eardley and of the village, showing the vital part Catterline played in her development as an artist. The story of her experiences on the wild Scottish coast is evocatively told and beautifully illustrated with some of her most remarkable drawings and paintings.

In the first three decades of the 20th century Augustus John (1878-1961) was widely considered one of the greatest living British artists, famous almost as much for his extraordinary Bohemian lifestyle as for his outstanding portraits, etchings and drawings. John was born in Wales in 1878 and educated at the Slade School of Art in London in the 1890s, where the onus of teaching was on the daily life class and a close study of the Old Masters. He soon emerged as a wonderfully gifted draughtsman - indeed, the American painter John Singer Sargent would declare that John's youthful drawings were amongst the fi nest seen since the Renaissance. Dividing his life between England, Wales and France, and reaching his prime in the years immediately before the outbreak of the Great War, by 1910 John would be likened to a British Gauguin, a Welsh Post-Impressionist using bold colours and a willfully naive and primitive style to explore the complex combination of romanticism, escapism and alienation engendered by 20th-century life. The great American collector John Quinn considered John and his sister Gwen key European artists, and his work would be included in the infl uential Armory Show in New York in 1913. After the War he would become Britain's leading society portraitist, earning a fortune in commissions - though it was his more personal paintings of friends, lovers, family and fellow artists and writers such as W.B. Yeats, T.E. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, Ottoline Morrell and his muse/ mistress Dorelia McNeill that best revealed his great talents. Published to coincide with exhibitions at Poole Museum in Dorset in the summer of 2018 and at Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire in the summer of 2019, Augustus John: Drawn from Life re-examines the life and work of this signifi cant but increasingly overlooked British artist. Focusing on around sixty works drawn from private and public collections, including the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Wales, the book will off er new insights into John's life and development as an artist from the late 1890s to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Hua Yan (1682-1756) and the Making of the Artist in Early Modern China explores the relationships between the artist, local society, and artistic practice during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Arranged as an investigation of the artist Hua Yan's work at a pivotal moment in eighteenth-century society, this book considers his paintings and poetry in early eighteenth-century Hangzhou, mid-eighteenth-century Yangzhou, and finally their nineteenth-century afterlife in Shanghai. By investigating Hua Yan's struggle as a marginalized artist-both at his time and in the canon of Chinese art-this study draws attention to the implications of seeing and being seen as an artist in early modern China.

A collection of essential quotations from the renowned fashion designer, DJ, and stylist Abloh-isms is a collection of essential quotations from American fashion designer, DJ, and stylist Virgil Abloh, who was a major creative figure in the worlds of pop culture and art. Abloh began his career as Kanye West's creative director before founding the luxury streetwear label Off-White and becoming artistic director for Louis Vuitton, making Abloh the first American of African descent to hold that title at a French fashion house. Defying categorization, Abloh's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums and galleries, most notably in a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Gathered from interviews and other sources, this selection of compelling and memorable quotations from the designer reveals his thoughts on a wide range of subjects, including creativity, passion, innovation, race, and what it means to be an artist of his generation. Lively and thought-provoking, these quotes reflect Abloh's unique perspective as a trailblazer in his fields. Select quotations from the book: "I believe that coincidence is key, but coincidence is energies coming towards each other. You have to be moving to meet it." "Life is collaboration. Where I think art can be sort of misguided is that it propagates this idea of itself as a solo love affair-one person, one idea, no one else involved." "Black influence has created a new ecosystem, which can grow and support different types of life that we couldn't before."

Considered on of the most important religious structures of the twentieth century, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence was regarded by Matisse himself as his great masterpiece. He dedicated four years to the creation of this convent chapel on the French Riviera, and the result is one of the most remarkable and comprehensive ensemble pieces of twentieth-century art. Every element of the chapel bears the artists touch, from the vivid Mediterranean hues of the stained glass windows to the starkly powerful murals; even the vestments and altar were designed by Matisse. This beautifully illustrated volume captures the chapel in exquisite detail, allowing an unparalleled view of this iconic and sacred space. With stunning new photography that captures the dramatic effects of the changing light in the building throughout the day, this book is the first to present the experience of being within the chapel exactly as Matisse himself envisaged it, while Marie-Therese Pulvenis de Selignys authoritative and insightful text explores the extraordinary story of the chapels creation and the challenges faced by the 77-year-old artist in realising his great vision."

Little is known about Walter Leblanc (1932-1986), one of the key representatives of kinetic and optical art in the mid-20th century. This comprehensive monograph, the first on this artist for an international audience, includes unpublished materials, which provide insight not only into the art of LeBlanc, but also into the ZERO artist movement to which he was connected and with which he was in close dialogue beginning in the 1950s. Walter Leblanc is based on extensive studies of the artist's work: with about 150 images of his paintings and sculptures, comparative works, historical photos and documents, it includes a selection of Leblanc's writings, an iconographic mapping of selected works in museums around the world, and a bio-bibliographical appendix. Demonstrating the wealth of his creative output, the book reaffirms the enduring role Leblanc played in the development of modern and contemporary art on a global scale. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

Tony Narducci fell in love with Tennessee Williams's poetry when he was fourteen years old. For Narducci, Williams was the genius who redefined theater in America, most accomplished modern playwright, and perhaps one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. So when thirty-three-year-old Narducci met Williams at a Key West bar in February 1982, the encounter was more than coincidence. It was destiny.

In In the Frightened Heart of Me, Narducci narrates the story of how, after that first meeting, he was drawn deep into Williams's life and work-a journey that would change Narducci's life in every way. Companions until Williams's death in February 1983, this biography shares how their time together was an odyssey of adventure, emotional entanglement, and insight.

While providing a glimpse into the Key West of the early 1980s, In the Frightened Heart of Me blends the events and sorrows of Williams's last year on earth with Narducci's life-changing story and the effects of their relationship. It tells how 1983 was the year Narducci evolved from a floundering, young aspiring artist to a focused business entrepreneur. It was the year he watched his literary hero, a titan of literature, become a frightened, dying old man-and the year AIDS took the lives of many of his loved ones. It was the year that defined his life.