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Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Individual artists
A fearless innovator who inspired designers, models,
photographers, and artists, Diana Vreeland, the famed editor of
Vogue, reinvented the way we think about style. In this first
full-length biography, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart tells the story of
Vreeland's childhood on New York's Upper East Side, her first job
at Harper's Bazaar, her renowned post at Vogue, and her role as
special consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Empress of Fashion is an intimate and surprising
look at an icon who made a lasting mark on the world of
couture.
The horror of the First World War brought out a characteristic
response in a group of English artists, who resorted to black
humour. Among these, John Hassall, a pioneering British illustrator
and creator of the influential 'Skegness is so bracing' poster,
holds a special place. Early in the war, he hit on the idea of
drawing a parody of the Bayeux Tapestry to satirize German
aggression and add to the growing genre of war propaganda. Taking
the scheme of the famous tapestry which celebrates William the
Conqueror's invasion of England, Hassall uses thirty pictorial
panels to tell the story of Kaiser Wilhem II's invasion of
Luxembourg and Belgium. In mock-archaic language he narrates the
progress of the German army, never missing an opportunity to
lampoon 'bad' behaviour: 'Wilhelm giveth orders for frightfulness.'
The caricatured Germans loot homes, make gas from Limburg cheese
and sauerkraut, drink copious amounts of wine and shamefully march
through Luxembourg with 'women and children in front.' With comic
inventiveness Hassall adapts the borders of the original to
illustrate the stereotypical objects with which the English then
associated their enemy: they are decorated with schnitzel,
sausages, pilsner, wine corks and wild boar. Drawn with Hassall's
distinctive flat colour and striking outlines, Ye Berlyn Tapestrie
is a fascinating historical example of war-induced farce, produced
by a highly talented artist who could not then have known that the
war was set to last for another two years. Together with an
introduction which sets out the historical background of its
creation, every page of this rarely seen publication is reproduced
here in a fold-out concertina, just like the original, to resemble
the style of the Bayeux Tapestry.
'Ought to become a classic. It is an enshrinement of [Meades's]
intense baroque and catholic cleverness' Roger Lewis, The Times
'One of the foremost prose stylists of his age in any register . .
. Probably we don't deserve Meades, a man who apparently has never
composed a dull paragraph' Steven Poole, Guardian 'There are more
gems in this wonderful book than I could cram into a dozen of these
columns' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 'Such a useful and important
critic . . . He is very much on the reader's side, bringing his
full wit to bear on every single thing he writes' Nicholas Lezard,
Spectator This landmark publication collects three decades of
writing from one of the most original, provocative and consistently
entertaining voices of our time. Anyone who cares about language
and culture should have this book in their life. Thirty years ago,
Jonathan Meades published a volume of reportorial journalism,
essays, criticism, squibs and fictions called Peter Knows What Dick
Likes. The critic James Wood was moved to write: 'When journalism
is like this, journalism and literature become one.' Pedro and
Ricky Come Again is every bit as rich and catholic as its
predecessor. It is bigger, darker, funnier and just as impervious
to taste and manners. It bristles with wit and pin-sharp eloquence,
whether Meades is contemplating northernness in a German forest or
hymning the virtues of slang. From the indefensibility of
nationalism and the ubiquitous abuse of the word 'iconic', to John
Lennon's shopping lists and the wine they call Black Tower, the
work assembled here demonstrates Meades's unparalleled range and
erudition, with pieces on cities, artists, sex, England, France,
concrete, faith, politics, food, history and much, much more.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A burst of springtime joy' Daily
Telegraph 'A springboard for ideas about art, space, time and
light' The Times 'Lavishly illustrated' Guardian David Hockney
reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural
Normandy On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic
tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the
change of the seasons; a place to keep the madness of the world at
bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little
difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy
farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to
paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced
isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.
Spring Cannot be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms
art's capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of
new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and the art
critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their
exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney's new,
unpublished Normandy iPad drawings and paintings alongside works by
van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others. We see how Hockney is
propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of
wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for
sixty years yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics
or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of
northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for
decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees. He has
much to teach us, not only about how to see... but about how to
live.
W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany
contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of
topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades
following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour
artist, he quickly turned to the more lucrative field of book
illustration and developed his forte in satirical drawings and
cartoons. He was regularly commissioned by the editors of Tatler
and The Sketch and in great demand from advertising companies.
Collections of his drawings were subsequently published in many
different editions and became so successful as to transform Heath
Robinson into a household name, celebrated for his eccentric brand
of British humour. Presenting such innovations as the 'Zip-Opening
Bonnet', the 'Duo-car for the Incompatible' and the handy 'New Rear
Wheel Gear for Turning the Car in One Movement', this volume of
Heath Robinson illustrations with commentary by K.R.G. Browne will
appeal to 'everybody who is ever likely to drive, be driven in, or
get run over by a mechanically propelled vehicle'.
Featuring four films by the young Irish filmmaker Kevin Gaffney,
Unseen By My Open Eyes is the first publication on the artist's
work, exploring the psychological landscapes that the artist
devises to explore the construction, projection and manipulation of
identity. Within the book, Gaffney's films are presented through a
series of richly illustrated sections, providing an excellent
insight into the artist's methodologies. The book explores subjects
ranging from: daily life in Iran; selfhood and military
conscription in Taiwan; geographic, political and emotional
separations in South Korea, with characters imagining what the moon
looks like from North Korea; and food consumption in a
self-sustaining militarised Ireland of the near future where
climate change has benefited agricultural production.The book
features English scripts of the five films, with an annex compiling
the scripts in Korean, Chinese, Persian and Gaeilge (Irish
Gaelic).Gaffney's works are contextualised through an accompanying
essay by Irish critic Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith.Gaffney was the
first Irish recipient of a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship in 2015,
and was an UNESCO-Aschberg laureate artist in residence at the
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's Changdong
Residency in South Korea in 2014. His work features in the Irish
Museum of Modern Art's collection, and solo exhibitions have been
held at the Linenhall Arts Centre (Ireland), Millennium Court Arts
Centre (Northern Ireland) and CAI02 Contemporary Art Institute
(Japan).
One of the most visible, popular, and significant artists of his
generation, William Hogarth (1697-1764) is best known for his
acerbic, strongly moralising works, which were mass-produced and
widely disseminated as prints during his lifetime. This volume is a
fascinating look into the notorious English satirical artist's
life, presenting Anecdotes of William Hogarth, Written by Himself-a
collection of autobiographical vignettes supplemented with short
texts and essays written by his contemporaries, first published in
1785.
At the start of the March 2020 lockdown, Ian Beck would walk his
greyhound Gracie through the early morning streets of Isleworth in
west London, revelling in the light and the silence that the
restrictions had brought. The familiar became charged with new
meaning, inspiring Ian to paint the scenes around him for their own
sake, something that he hadn't done since his student days in the
sixties. Suburban streets, trees, fences, shrubs and overgrown
alleyways - all are transformed in the quiet intensity of Ian's
lockdown paintings. He painted interiors too: the moon shining
through a bedroom window, objects on mantelpieces, the eeriness of
back gardens at dusk. As the year progressed, the crisp light of
spring gave way to the haze of summer and the gloom of autumn fogs.
The Light in Suburbia collects sixty of Ian's paintings from this
period: a remarkable record of his year spent trying to capture the
beauty of the unprepossessing everyday.
"Martin Bailey has written some of the most interesting books on
Vincent's life in France, where he produced his greatest work" -
Johan van Gogh, grandson of Theo, the artist's brother Studio of
the South tells the story of Van Gogh's stay in Arles, when his
powers were at their height. For Van Gogh, the south of France was
an exciting new land, bursting with life. He walked into the hills
inspired by the landscapes, and painted harvest scenes in the heat
of summer. He visited a fishing village where he saw the
Mediterranean for the first time, energetically capturing it in
paint. He painted portraits of friends and locals, and flower still
life paintings, culminating in the now iconic Sunflowers. He rented
the Yellow House, and gradually did it up, calling it 'an artist's
house', inviting Paul Gauguin to join him there. This encounter was
to have a profound impact on both of the artists. They painted side
by side, their collaboration coming to a dramatic end a few months
later. The difficulties Van Gogh faced led to his eventual decision
to retreat to the asylum at Saint-Remy. Based on extensive original
research, the book reveals discoveries that throw new light on the
legendary artist and give a definitive account of his fifteen
months in Provence, including his time at the Yellow House, his
collaboration with Gauguin and its tragic and shocking ending.
Rilke's prayerful responses to the french master's beseeching art
For a long time nothing, and then suddenly one has the right eyes.
Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view a Cezanne exhibition. Nearly as frequently, he wrote dense and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his dismay before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life.
Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired his New Poems. But Cezanne's impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke's sense of kinship with Cezanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letters -- passages from them appear verbatim in Rilke's great modernist novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Letters on Cezanne is a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art.
The first monograph on New York-based contemporary artist Richard
Phillips, best known for his large-scale paintings that are
'ultra-cool' in execution and very hot in effect. Richard
Phillips's hyper realistic oil paintings embody themes as broad as
power, politics, celebrity, fashion, ideology, beauty, and sex, and
pose questions about the status of painting today: Does the medium
remain valid, or has it become a historical pastime? Pornography,
propaganda, advertising, entertainment, fashion-Phillips
incorporates material from a range of sources to confront what is
at the core of contemporary image making, from the power of
celebrity branding to complicity between viewer and viewed. The
book's exploitative design strategy celebrates the commercial and
fashion alliances of the artist's practice, while revealing the
complex politics behind the imagery the artist chooses to paint.
The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian
architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff
of legend. Enormously talented and ambitious artists, they met as
contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome, became
the greatest architects of their era by designing some of the most
beautiful buildings in the world, and ended their lives as bitter
enemies. Engrossing and impeccably researched, full of dramatic
tension and breathtaking insight, "The Genius in the Design" is the
remarkable tale of how two extraordinary visionaries schemed and
maneuvered to get the better of each other and, in the process,
created the spectacular Roman cityscape of today.
Sue Clyne is emerging as the UK's leading fantasy artist. She grew
up in the Norfolk countryside of rolling hills and woodlands. Her
school books were littered with doodles and sketches in margins and
on pages. She remains an intuitive artist. She has taken her lead
from a varied selection of great artists including Josephine Wall,
the late Susan Seddon Boulet and Salavador Dali.
The first monograph and only substantial publication on the work of
Patrick George (born 1923), this book will reveal to a largely
unsuspecting public the lyrical paintings of a rare and original
talent. George is better known as a teacher; he taught for forty
years at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London
before eventually becoming Director there. He has only shown his
work infrequently, yet perceptive commentators have identified him
as a School of London painter, to be viewed in the same context as
Lucian Freud (a friendly rival), Frank Auerbach (a strong supporter
of George's work), and Euan Uglow (George's close friend and
colleague). For too long dismissed as a follower of Coldstream,
Patrick George is in fact very much his own man, a Northern
European landscape and figure painter, working in the tradition of
Gainsborough and Constable. In this book, his unique contribution
to the development of contemporary landscape painting is for the
first time examined and evaluated.
William Morris was an outstanding character of many talents, being
an architect, writer, social campaigner, artist and, with his
Kelmscott Press, an important figure of the Arts and Crafts
movement. Many of us probably know him best, however, from his
superb furnishings and textile designs, intricately weaving
together natural motifs in a highly stylized two-dimensional
fashion influenced by medieval conventions. William Morris
Masterpieces of Art offers a survey of his life and work alongside
some of his finest decorative work.
The work of counterculture artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster, whose
art is a complex punk-rock take on modern consumer culture.
Enormous neon signs, intricate silhouette portraits constructed of
trash heaps, and a work titled Instant Gratification: British
artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster thrive on the thrills of
illumination, love, language, shadows, garbage, and cash. "British
Rubbish" showcases their work in all its splashy glory. Their art
evokes both gaudy Vegas culture and down-and-dirty punk rock: a
combination of cynical extravagance and a defiant, rebellious
sensibility. Extravagant, irreverent, sometimes coarse, and always
sharply clever, "British Rubbish" is both a paean to and sly
denunciation of conspicuous consumption.
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