George Barbier (1882-1932) is one of the great French illustrators of the early twentieth century. He is famous for his elegant art deco works that were heavily influenced by orientalism and Parisian couture. Born in Nantes, France in 1882, he skyrocketed to fame and notoriety after his first exhibition in 1911. Known as one of "the knights of the bracelet" for his luxurious and glamorous lifestyle and work, George Barbier also received renown for costumes and set designs he did for theater, film, and ballet. Even today, his modern and stylish illustrations are popular all over the world.
With critical essays on such topics as coloration and composition, this volume is a complete compendium of Barbier's work. This valuable reference book is categorized by Barbier's major projects in fashion, book illustration, theater art, and editorial design and is perfect for illustrators and graphic designers as well as a beautiful gift for someone very special.

The first monograph on Richard Smith, a key figure in the development of British art. Richard Smith (1931-2016) was one of the most original painters of his generation, and one of the most underrated. As Barbara Rose said of Smith's major Tate Gallery retrospective in 1975, he was 'at once in and out of touch with the currents of the mainstream ... au courant and aloof at the same time.' That he latterly slipped under the radar to some extent is partly explained by his detachment from the mainstream as well as by his frequent switching of studios between England and the USA, although this helped charge his creative batteries. He is the only artist of his stature who has not been represented by a monograph, which the dazzling presentation of images in Richard Smith: Artworks now fulfils. It has been produced with the generous collaboration of the Richard Smith Foundation. Richard Smith: Artworks traces Smith's entire career, from the breakthrough lyrical abstraction of the early Pop-inflected paintings, through the radical shaped canvases and three-dimensional works that he produced in the 1960s, to the 'Kite' works beginning in 1972 and, eventually, his return to the flat canvas. As a Senior Curator at Tate, Dr Chris Stephens knew Smith well, and he contributes a wide-ranging introduction to Smith's art and life. Prof David Alan Mellor investigates and explains the Anglo-American cultural contexts that drove Smith's art, while Alex Massouras's two themed essays, 'Young and British' and 'From Motion Pictures to Flight', explore Smith's originality from fresh perspectives. The book is completed with an Afterword by its editor, Martin Harrison.

An updated edition of this classic survey, a thorough overview of Paul Cezanne's life and work. For Picasso he was 'like our father'; for Matisse, 'a god of painting'. Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is widely regarded as the father of modern art. In this authoritative and accessible study, Richard Verdi traces the evolution of Cezanne's landscape, still-life and figure compositions, from the turbulently romantic creations of his youth to the visionary masterpieces of his final years. The painter's biography - his fluctuating reputation and strained relations with his parents, wife and close friend Emile Zola - is vividly evoked using excerpts from his own letters and from contemporary accounts of the artist. Cezanne was torn between the desires to create art and to seek inspiration - to master the themes of the past, through his copying sessions in the Louvre, and to explore the eternal qualities of nature in the countryside of his native Provence. In this way the artist sought 'to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums'. In this richly illustrated overview Verdi explores the strength, vitality and magnitude of Cezanne's achievement.

"Stuart Devlin was probably the most original and creative goldsmith and silversmith of his time, and one of the greats of all time. His originality of design marked him out as a master craftsman and his prolific output was a tribute to the width of his imagination." - Foreword by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. This book gives an idea of Stuart Devlin's extraordinary creativity, his skill, and the beauty of his work. It comprises over 500 pages with hundreds of images of Devlin's gold, silver and coins as well as his jewellery, sculpture and furniture. Many collectors will recognise pieces that they originally commissioned or have bought. Also shown are numerous sketches and working drawings. The short sections of text include concise captions and reviews from primary sources. Although it has been impossible to encompass everything ever designed or produced by Devlin, the book highlights how remarkable it is that this wealth of ideas was conceived by just one man. Stuart Devlin was a pioneer goldsmith who rejected the anonymity of corporate design during the 1960s. He adapted old techniques and devised many new ones. His commissions included those for the Royal Households, cathedrals, the armed forces, sporting bodies and universities, as well as abundant private commissions. He was also a coin and medal designer. Australian born, recognition came to Devlin after designing the Australian decimal coinage in 1963. He went on to design coins for more than 30 countries.

The first book dedicated to Picasso's self-portraits, many held in private collections and published here for the first time. Much has been said and written about Picasso's life and art, but until now his self-portraits have never been studied and presented in a single book, perhaps because the artist always left many doubts about his work. However, there is no doubt that Picasso represented himself ceaselessly, whether in a dashed-off pencil sketch, as a flourish at the bottom of a letter, or on a giant canvas. At the suggestion of Picasso's widow Jacqueline, the distinguished art historian Pascal Bonafoux began researching Picasso's self-portraits more than forty years ago. This meticulously researched book presents the fruits of his decades-long project. From the first attributed painting in 1894 as a thirteen-year-old boy, until Picasso's final self-portrait in 1972, a year before his death, Bonafoux charts the evolution of the artist's life and art. Here is Picasso as a student; as a young bohemian; an impetuous artist in Paris; as harlequin; as lover, husband and father; and finally, as an old man confronting his mortality. The book comprises about 170 drawings, paintings and photographs, some from private collections and previously unpublished, bringing together for the first time the attributed self-portraits of this genius of 20th-century art.

Bridget Riley, one of the leading abstract painters of her generation, holds a unique position in contemporary art. She has developed and extended the range of her interests ever since her first success in the 1960s, creating a body of work which is both consistent and highly varied. This volume, now fully revised and updated, reveals the mind behind this remarkable aachievement, drawing together the most important texts and interviews of the last fifty years. Riley's writings show a passionate engagement with her subjects and a great insight paired with a freshness of approach and an exceptional clarity of expression. Quite apart from providing a key to understanding her own work, this book is a fascinating document reflecting the issues and problems facing an artist in the 21st century.

This is the most thorough and detailed monograph on the artwork of Raymond Jonson. He is one of many artists of the first half of the twentieth-century who demonstrate the richness and diversity of an under-appreciated period in the history of American art. Visualizing the spiritual was one of the fundamental goals of early abstract painting in the years before and during World War I. Artists turned to alternative spirituality, the occult, and mysticism, believing that the pure use of line, shape, color, light and texture could convey spiritual insight. Jonson was steadfastly dedicated to this goal for most of his career and he always believed that modernist and abstract styles were the most effective and compelling means of achieving it.

C. Behind the Black is the story of an artist's struggle with addiction and the beautiful journey to understand a world lost inside the throes of creative passion. The author wrote it to gain a better understanding of just what magic lies behind the creation of a work of art, what struggles it takes to live the life of a professional artist, and a few surprises along the way that are destined to lift and inspire the hearts of a wide array of readers. This is a journey through the darkness in a struggle to find balance in the beautiful lights and shadows of truth.

Covers the brief but groundbreaking career of the self-proclaimed 'anarchitect' Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), one of the most influential American artists of the 1970s. The immense ambition and scale of Gordon Matta-Clark's projects, and their fearless reimagining of the urban landscape, challenged city-dwellers to reconsider the very notion of built structure and the fragility of seemingly unassailable edifices. Matta-Clark's first interventions took place in abandoned, derelict structures, upon which he performed his famous 'building cuts' and 'intersects'. First published in 2008 (for a show at SMS Contemporanea in Siena), and organised thematically and chronologically, this substantial volume looks at these and other bodies of work, such as the Food restaurant, the performances, the 'estates' and the artist's pursuit of alternative economical housing. The catalogue also includes a filmography and critical essays, plus an interview done by Judith Russi Kirshner in 1978. Text in English and Italian.

Zorzi da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione: an artist who has so few confirmed works attributed to him, and about whose life little is known. Yet, after a career span of just over ten years, Giorgione has achieved a fame that has remained unchanged over the centuries. Starting from Giovanni Bellini's lessons on spirituality and harmony between man and nature, and from the use of colour by Giovan Battista Cima da Conegliano, the master from Castelfranco offers a very particular synthesis of musical lyricism, connecting bodies and landscape with a soft and dense light. This tonal painting, set by Cima and Bellini, becomes with Giorgione the language of initiation of the formidable brood protagonist of the great Venetian 16th century, the season of Palma il Vecchio, Sebastiano del Piombo and Tiziano Vecellio.

Drawing was central to Cezanne's indefatigable search for solutions to the problems posed by the depiction of reality. Many of his watercolours are equal to his paintings, and he himself made no real distinction between painting and drawing. This book's six chapters are arranged thematically covering the whole range of Cezanne's oeuvre: works after the Old Masters such as Michelangelo and Rubens; his period as one of the Impressionists; his exploration of both portraiture and the human figure, including the magnificent bathers; his interaction with landscape, particularly in his native Provence and the dominating form of Mont Sainte-Victoire; and finally the magisterial still lifes. In the Introduction, as well as throughout the book, Lloyd sets the drawings and watercolours in the context of Cezanne's life and overall artistic development. The result is a greater understanding of the process that led to some of the most absorbing art ever produced.

For more than five centuries The Last Supper has been an artistic, religious and cultural icon. The art historian Kenneth Clark called it 'the keystone of European art', and for a century after its creation it was regarded as nothing less than a miraculous image. And yet there is a very human story behind this artistic 'miracle'. Ross King's Leonardo and the Last Supper is both a 'biography' of one of the most famous works of art ever painted and a record of Leonardo da Vinci's last five years in Milan.