In June of 1938, Action Comics debuted with a new kind of comic-book character on its cover: a costumed man with two identities, who possessed extraordinary strength and powers-a man able to protect the public when ordinary measures would not do. He was not the first super hero, but the Man of Steel would become the prototype for all super heroes thereafter. Superman's story, and those of Batman, Wonder Woman, and hundreds of other DC Comics characters, are all told in The Golden Age of DC Comics. Expanded from the Eisner Award-winning XL book, 75 Years of DC Comics, this edition offers readers the ultimate insight on DC's first decades, from its pulp origins up to the comic-book burnings of the McCarthy '50s. More than 600 pages of covers and interiors, original illustrations, photographs, film stills, and ephemera bring the story lines, the characters, and their creators to vibrant life. Also included is an exclusive interview with legendary artist Joe Kubert. Copyright (c) 2019 DC Comics. All related characters and elements (c) & TM DC Comics. (s19)

Named after Maximilian I's literary alter ego, Freydal is the largest extant tournament book of the Late Middle Ages, inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World program. This reprint from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum commemorates the 500th anniversary of Maximilian's death, combining all 255 gold- and silver-heightened miniatures with essays and a modern retelling of the 64 tournaments.

Man Ray (1890-1976) was a polymath modernist, working in painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, and poetry. But it was his work in photography, with nude studies, fashion work, and portraiture that saw him pioneering a new chapter in the history of camerawork and art. With a wide-ranging collection of both his famous and lesser-known works, this monograph gives a vivid overview of Man Ray's multifaceted practice and photographic legacy. It traces Ray from his artistic beginnings in New York through to his central role in the Parisian avant-garde, where he featured in the first Surrealist exhibition with Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso and produced such now iconic works as Noire et blanche and Le Violon d'Ingres. Through numerous examples of still life, portraiture, and beyond, we see how Ray constantly experimented with new techniques, pushing photography out of its documentary domain into ethereal, poetic expressions through multiple exposure, solarization, and the particular brand of photograms he wittily termed "rayography."

An Expressionist before the term was coined, James Ensor (1860-1949) was the classic insider-outsider enigma. He knew all the right art-world figures but loathed most of them. His style lurched from the Gothic fantastical to the Christian visionary. He was a cosmopolitan trailblazer of modernism, but lived reclusively in an attic room in the resort town of Ostend. For all his elusiveness, Ensor influenced generations of artists through his vivid often gruesome paintings, prints, and drawings. He is cited in particular for his use of dark satire and allegory, his innovative lighting, and for his interest in carnival and performance, showcased in The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889 as well as in his repertoire of self-portraits in which he employs masking, travesty, and role-playing to adopt such varied guises as Christ on the Cross and a gender-bending dandy. This introduction to Ensor explores the richness and variety of his imagery through key examples of his macabre, maverick oeuvre.

This platinum tome is the most comprehensive visual history of surfing to date, marking a major cultural event as much as a publication. Following three and a half years of meticulous research, it brings together more than 900 images to chart the evolution of surfing as a sport, a lifestyle, and a philosophy. The book is arranged into five chronological chapters, tracing surfing culture from the first recorded European contact in 1778 by Captain James Cook to the global and multi-platform phenomenon of today. Utilizing institutions, collections, and photographic archives from around the world, and with accompanying essays by the world's top surf journalists, it celebrates the sport on and off the water, as a community of 20 million practitioners and countless more devotees, and as a leading influence on fashion, film, art, and music. An unrivaled tribute to the breadth, complexity, and richness of surfing, this book is a must-have for any serious player on the surfing scene and anybody who aspires to the surfing lifestyle. As one surfing scribe has declared, "There has never been a book like this, and there will never be another one again."

In 1965, Tom of Finland began flirting with the idea of an ongoing character for his panel stories, the ultimate Tom's Man. He tried out a blond named Vicky-a common male name in Finland-followed by a Tarzan-inspired Jack. Then in 1968 Tom settled on Kake, a dark-haired, mustached leatherman who often wore a tight white T-shirt bearing the motto "Fucker." Kake lived up to this moniker, a sort of post-Stonewall, hyper-masculine Johnny Appleseed traveling the world on his motorcycle to spread the seeds of liberated, mutually satisfying, ecstatically explicit gay sex. Tom lived out many of his most personal fantasies through Kake, and Kake's international fans made him the template for what came to be known as the gay clone look of the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1986, Tom published 26 episodes of Kake adventures, most as 20-page booklets.Tom of Finland - The Complete Kake Comics collects all of these stories in one volume. Return with Kake to the days when men were men, sex was carefree, and everyone wore a big thick mustache.

At once a cosmopolitan metropolis, venue for a pensive stroll, and emblem of the modern, Paris has been a source of inspiration for countless artists and writers down through the ages. But not least it is the home and constant muse of a relatively young art: photography. Since the earliest days of the daguerreotype right up to our time, renowned photographers such as Joseph Nicephore Niepce, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, and Jeanloup Sieff have lived and worked in the city of lights. Over the years a love affair developed between Paris and photography, giving rise to a remarkable record of the metropolis and a telling history of a new art form. This volume takes the reader on numerous walks, camera in hand, through the streets of Paris. Atmospheric black-and-white photos, shot by great photographers over two centuries, reveal the dramatic and the tranquil, the historic and the everyday-in the capital's parks and gardens, boulevards and backstreets, passages and arcades, bistros and nightclubs.

Taxi Driver has long been regarded as a cinematic milestone, and Robert DeNiro's portrait of a trigger-happy psychopath with a mohawk is widely believed to be one of the greatest performances ever filmed. Time magazine includes the film in its list of 100 Greatest Movies, saying: "The power of Scorsese's filmmaking grows ever more punishing with the passage of time."Steve Schapiro-whose photographs were featured in TASCHEN's Godfather Family Album-was the special photographer on the set of Taxi Driver, capturing the film's most intense and violent moments from behind the scenes. This book-more than a film-still book, rather a pure photo book in its own right-features hundreds of unseen images selected from Schapiro's archives, painting a chilling portrait of a deranged gunman in the angry climate of the post-Vietnam era. With a foreword by Martin Scorsese!First published in TASCHEN's limited edition-now available in this standard TASCHEN edition

The beauty of nature and man's loneliness are dominant themes in the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). The artist often places a small human figure in a broad landscape, as in his famous paintings Monk by the Sea and The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. For a long time the importance and influence of this great Romantic painter were underestimated. When he died, Friedrich had already been forgotten by his contemporaries and was only rediscovered in the early 20th century. Today he is considered to be the most important German painter of his generation and a precursor of Expressionism. Once Friedrich gave the following advice to an artist-colleague of his who was constricted by academic rules: "Shut your physical eye so that you first see your painting with your spiritual eye. Then bring to light what you saw in the dark so that it has an effect on others, shining inwards from outside." In other words, concentration and not imitation, essence and not frivolous brushwork.

Through the turbulent passage of time, graphic design-with its vivid, neat synthesis of image and idea-has distilled the spirit of each age. Surrounding us every minute of every day, from minimalist packaging to colorful adverts, smart environmental graphics to sleek interfaces: graphic design is as much about transmitting information as it is about reflecting society's cultural aspirations and values. This second volume rounds off our in-depth exploration of graphic design, spanning from the 1960s until today. About 3,500 seminal designs from across the globe guide us in this visual map through contemporary history, from the establishment of the International Style to the rise of the groundbreaking digital age. Around 80 key pieces go under the microscope in detailed analyses besides 118 biographies of the era's most important designers, including Massimo Vignelli (New York subway wayfinding system), Otl Aicher (Lufthansa identity), Paula Scher (Citibank brand identity), Neville Brody (The Face magazine), Kashiwa Sato (Uniqlo brand identity), and Stefan Sagmeister (handwriting posters). With his sweeping knowledge of the field, author Jens Muller curates the standout designs for each year alongside a running sequence of design milestones. Organized chronologically, each decade is prefaced by a succinct overview as well as a stunning visual timeline, offering a vivid display of the variety of graphic production in each decade as well as the global landscape which it at once described and defined. This collection of important graphic works represents a long-overdue reflection on the development of a creative field constantly changing and challenging itself. These key pieces act as coordinates through contemporary history, helping us trace the sheer influence of graphic design on our daily lives. Combined with Volume One-which spans from the field's very beginnings until 1959-the tomes offer the most comprehensive exploration of graphic design to date.

While anchoring his practice in the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) paved the way for modern sculpture. From a very early stage, he was interested in movement, the expression of the body, chance effects, and the incomplete fragment. It was these elements that gave shape, and the impression of life, to such famous works as The Kiss and The Thinker. Produced in collaboration with the Musee Rodin, this TASCHEN Basic Art introduction examines the formative years of Rodin's training as well as the key stages of his subsequent career. It retraces the genesis of his sculptures and monuments from both a historical and an aesthetic point of view and illuminates the links between his different works. The reader gains access to the artist's ideas, as well as to the real material processes in his studio-the modeling in clay, the passage from plaster to bronze or to marble, enlargement, the creation of assemblages, and his deeply sensual erotic drawings. An inexhaustible source of inspiration for subsequent generations of artists, Rodin's work incorporated innovation and transgression, but above all an unrivaled passion for working in front of the living model and for capturing the truth of human experience and forms. With rich illustration and texts from Francois Blanchetiere, this book invites us to discover-and rediscover-this priceless legacy.

Until restaurants became commonplace in the late 1800s, printed menus for meals were rare commodities reserved for special occasions. As restaurants proliferated, the menu became more than just a culinary listing: it was an integral part of eating out, a clever marketing tool, and a popular keepsake.Menu Design is an omnibus showcasing the best examples of this graphic art. Illustrated in vibrant color, this compact volume not only gathers an extraordinary collection of paper ephemera but serves as a history of restaurants and dining out in America. Featuring both covers and interiors, the menus offer an epicurean tour and insight to more than a hundred years of dining out. An introduction on the history of menu design by graphic design writer Steven Heller and extended captions by culinary historian John Mariani accompany each piece throughout the book. Various photographs of restaurants round out this compendium that will appeal to anyone who enjoys dining out and its graphic and gastronomic history.

Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, and many paintings and drawings beyond, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the portrayal of mood and place through paint, pencil, charcoal, or chalk. Yet as he was deploying the lurid colors, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms that would subsequently make his name, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would eventually claim his life, when, in 1890, he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday. This richly illustrated introduction follows Vincent van Gogh's story from his earliest pictures of peasants and rural workers, through his bright Parisian period, to his final, feverish burst of creative energy in the South of France during the last two and a half years of his life.

Whether it's a snowy trek through Bohemia's remote Jizera Mountains or a cruise across the Great Lakes on a cargo ship, the journey itself is the destination in the Road, Rail & Trail volume of TASCHEN's Explorer series with The New York Times. Follow Virginia Woolf's footsteps as you explore gardens in the English countryside with Francine Prose. Marvel at India's vibrant bird life with Somini Sengupta. Or sit back and watch Siberia's moonlit forests and Soviet-era relics zip by from the comfort of a train with Finn-Olaf Jones. The Times writers are your guides through 25 dream trips, and the wealth of color photographs that accompany their writing capture the beauty and unique spirit of both far-flung and familiar locales. The Explorer series takes travel beyond the obvious with adventures in exotic places and new perspectives in familiar ones, all based on the distinguished travel journalism from The New York Times. Each journey features a first-person narrative and postcard-perfect photography that capture the unique personality of the destination-as well as practical information to help get you on your way. Edited by Barbara Ireland, whose 36 Hours travel series has been a TASCHEN best seller, the Explorer series is available in four volumes: Beaches, Islands & Coasts; Mountains, Deserts & Plains; Cities & Towns; and Road, Rail & Trail.

In our imaginings of Paris, painter and graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) has no small role to play. In his prints, posters, paintings, and drawings, the artist immortalized the city's Belle Epoque nightlife and put the northern neighborhood of Montmartre on the global map of creative-hedonist hotspots. The son of old French nobility, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have been drawn early on to visions of a demimonde, centering his attention on the dance halls, cabarets, and brothels of Montmartre and adopting famed dancers and singers as his subjects, most notably Jane Avril. His works include both lively performance scenes and quiet, tender "after-hours" portraits such as The Sofa and In Bed. Stylistically, he mastered both bold graphics, as celebrated in his promotional posters of Jane Avril, and a loose yet evocative sketchwork. Though he died aged just 36, due to complications from alcoholism and syphilis, Toulouse-Lautrec's cultural influence was immense. This introductory book takes a walk through his world of singers, dancers, musicians, and prostitutes to reveal an artist of great humanity, striking figurative skill, and a pronounced sense for the energy and stories of a city.

From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, exciting things were happening in American architecture. Emerging talents were focusing on innovative projects that integrated at once modern design and low-cost materials. The trend was most notably embodied in the famous Case Study House Program, a blueprint for modern habitation championed by the era's leading American journal, Arts & Architecture. The complete facsimile of the ambitious and groundbreaking Arts & Architecture was published by TASCHEN in 2008 as a limited edition. This new curation-directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen-brings together all the covers and the highlights from the first five years of the legendary magazine, with a special focus on the Case Study House Program and its luminary pioneers including Neutra, Schindler, Saarinen, Ellwood, Lautner, Eames, and Koenig. A celebration of the first brave years of a politically, socially and culturally engaged publication, this special selection is also a testimony to one of the most unique and influential events in the history of American architecture.

Founded in 1928 as a "living diary" by the great Milanese architect and designer Gio Ponti, domus has been hailed as the world's most influential architecture and design journal. With style and rigor, it has reported on the major themes and stylistic movements in industrial, interior, product, and structural design. This fresh reprint of the 1970s domus coverage brings together the most important features from an era marking seismic changes in architecture and design. It was a time when individualism gained momentum as a novel style, and we began to notice the first postmodernist tendencies. Faced with the global energy crisis, architects and designers imbued their methods with a new ecological awareness. For work to be featured in the magazine it had to offer function, spatial clarity, intellectual persuasion, relevant originality, and/or grace. Those groundbreaking projects and practitioners that made the cut include Shiro Kuramata, Verner Panton, Joe Colombo, Richard Meier, the modernist structures by Foster Associates and the Centre Georges Pompidou by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.domus distilled Seven volumes spanning 1928 to 1999 Over 6,000 pages featuring influential projects by the most important designers and architects Original layouts and all covers, with captions providing navigation and context New introductory essays by renowned architects and designers Each edition comes with an appendix featuring texts translated into English, many of which were previously only available in Italian A comprehensive index in each volume listing both designers' and manufacturers' names

Across small cottages and lavish villas, beach houses and forest refuges, discover the world's finest crop of new homes. This cutting-edge global digest features such talents as Shigeru Ban, MVRDV, and Marcio Kogan alongside up-and-coming names like Aires Mateus, Xu Fu-Min, Vo Trong Nghia, Desai Chia, and Shunri Nishizawa. Here, there are homes in Australia and New Zealand, from China and Vietnam, in the United States and Mexico, and on to less expected places like Ecuador and Costa Rica. The result is a sweeping survey of the contemporary house and a revelation that homes across the globe may have more in common than expected. Among guava trees and abandoned forts in Western India is a sanctuary designed for and by Kamal Malik of Malik Architecture. The House of Three Streams is a sprawling spectacle with high ceilings, verandas, and pavilions, perched atop a ridge overlooking two ravines. A medley of steel, glass, wood, and stone, the house weaves along the contour of the landscape, almost as an extension of the forest. Encina House by Aranguren & Gallegos, an elegant, sloping structure reminiscent of a gazebo, similarly inhabits its surrounding vista. Ensconced in a pine forest north of Madrid, the lower level is embedded in rock and connected to the upper by a natural stone wall. Shinichi Ogawa's Seaside House is an immaculate two-story minimalist marvel in Kanagawa that overlooks the Pacific. Its living area spills onto a cantilevered terrace and infinity pool, almost dissolving into the ocean as one seamless entity. In Vietnam, Shunri Nishizawa's House in Chau Doc exudes tropical sophistication with exposed timber beams, woven bamboo, plants, concrete panels, and inner balconies and terraces. Its corrugated iron panels act as moveable walls and shutters, ushering in views of surrounding rice fields.These homes-along with more than 50 others-are each remarkably distinct in design. They all, however, toe the line between inside and outside, each one symbiotic with its surroundings.

It might seem like the sitters and subjects of art history's greatest nude paintings have little left to show, but don't be fooled: there is more than meets the eye in these naked masterworks. Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen guide us into the secrets of the flesh, coupling extended discussions with crisp, enlarged details of 12 iconic works from the canon of art history. Biblical tales of morality or modern portrayals of leisure, works such as Tintoretto's Susanna and the Elders or Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass offer diverse visions of natural beauty. Each artwork is presented in reproductions of the highest quality, sourced directly from the original, located in collections of the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Uffizi, and many others. From works depicting ultimate feminine grace, like Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, to Hans Baldung's mesmerizing image of the body's decline in The Three Ages of Man and Death, these paintings are unified in their masterful rendering of the bare human form-both in life and beyond. Through this exploration into the covert secrets of nude works, they cease to be two-dimensional and come to full hot-blooded life.

This title includes topics such as: Luxury Sailing - Astondoa: Astondoa 102 glx, Astondoa 122 glx, Wally (motorboat): 70 Wallypower, 47 Walypower, Wally Tender; Lurssen: Linda Lou, Oasis, Capri; Aicon: Aicon 85 Fly; Riva: 115 Athena, 68 Ego, 85 Opera Super; Sea Independence (Ocean Independence): My Avella (Azimut), Wally (sailboat): 43 Meter Esense, 24 Meter Shaka, 24 Meter Tango, Wally B; Nawtor's Swan: Swan 82S, Swan 131, Club Swan 42; Hanse: 630e, 540e; Ferreti: Ferretti 880; Benetti: Amnesia; Holland Jachtbouw: Whisper; Royal Huisman: Maria Cattiva; Sunseeker: Sunseeker 105, Luxury Flying; Gulfstream: G450, Gulfstream V; Dassault Falcon: Falcon 7X; Hawker - Beechcraft: Hawker 750, Hawker 4000; Cessna: Citation X, Mustang, Luxury Driving; Corvette: Z06; Maserati: Quattro Porte; Hummer: Hummer H2 Special Edition; Rolls Royce: Phantom Drophead Coupe; Bentley: Brooklands, Continental GTC; BMW: HP2 Megamoto (motocycle); K 1200 R Sport (motocycle); Z4 Coupe; and M6 Convertible.It also covers: Mercedes-Benz: S65 AMG L; SLR McLaren; Lamborghini: Murcielago LP640 Coupe, Gallardo Superleggera; Jaguar: XKR; Harley Davidson: Screamin' Eagle Ultra Classic Electra; Yahama: FJR 1300 AS, MV Agusta: F4 CC; Maybach: Maybach 62; Porsche: Carrera GT; Ferrari: Enzo; Luxury Destinations; W Retreat and Spa Maldives (Fesdu Island, North Ari Atoll, Maldives); Casa Triton (Careyes, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico); Dolce & Gabanna Beauty Farm and Bar Martini (Milan, Italy); Bulgari Resort (Bali); Almyra (Pafos, Cyprus); Villa Amista (Verona, Italy); Steamworks (Toronto, Canada); Burj Al Arab (Dubai); Uma Paro (Paro, Bhutan); Gramercy Park Hotel (New York, USA); Luxury Moments; Delafee: Chocolate with gold; Whisky Dalmore: Whisky aged 62 years; Whisky The Isla of Jura 40 years; Dunhill: Dunhill d-Eight Black (luggage); Sidecar writing instruments; Wally: Skis; Yamaha: FX Cruiser HO (waverunner); Hublot: 1 M $ watch; and Iced Out Emz: World's most expensive Shift knob. It discusses: Altadis: Cohiba Behike (Most expensive cigar of the world); Girard-Perregaux: Laureato Regatta Tourbillon Chronograph; The Tourbillon Fountain Pen; Cartier: Pasha 42 mm; Tortue XL Cronometro Pulsador; Montblanc: Mystery Masterpiece (fountain pen, limited edition); Alexander Von Humboldt (fountain pen, limited edition Patron of Art); Timewalker Gold (watch); Callaway Golf: Big Bertha Heavenwood Hybrids-X-20 Irons; HR Diamonds: Royal Chess Charles Hollander Collection; Diamond Backgammon; Diamond Lighter; Diamond Golf Ball; Chanel: (not confirmed yet); Skis; Football; Henk Luggage Collection; Bang & Olufsen: Beovision 7-40; Home Theatre-BeoVision 4; Beosound 4 Music System; Pat Says Now: Scattered Diamond Mouse; Greenwood Golf Clubs; Globbe Trotter Collection; Wines: Krug Vintage, 1985, Champagne; Grand Cru Montrachet, 2002, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Borgona; PETRUS, 1990, DOC Pomerol, Borgona; and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, 1945, Medoc, Burdeos.It deals with: Screaming Eagle 1999, Napa Valley, California; Tokaji Eszencia 1947, Tokaji, Hungria; Pingus, xxxx, Dominio de Pingus, Ribera del Duero; Vinho de Porto, 1934, Bodegas Niepoort, Valle do Douro; Luxuriator Sunglasses; GoldVish Illusion: Mobile phone with diamonds; White Lake USB stick: USB with diamonds; MeiVici by Serotta: Bicycle; CM/by Bowers and Wilkins: Loudspeakers; CD lector 1621 A, by MBL; and Reference Line System: Sound system.

When the excavations at Pompeii were first placed on a scholarly archaeological footing in the 19th century, brothers Fausto and Felice Niccolini were close at hand and ready to respond. Making use of the newly introduced technique of color lithography, they documented the buildings, frescos, statues, as well as the most ordinary everyday objects, of the city buried in just 24 hours by the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius and preserved for over 1,600 years under a mantle of volcanic ash. The Niccolinis' goal was to illustrate all aspects of life in the antique city. Their publication, Le case ed i monumenti di Pompei ("The Houses and Monuments of Pompeii"), which was issued in installments between 1854 and 1896 in Naples, presented over 400 color plates providing not only views, maps, and groundplans of the city and its public buildings, but also offered unprecedented access to Pompeii's private residences. They revealed the astonishing painted wall decorations that adorned these long-buried abodes, their intricate works of art, and the practical utensils of everyday use, conjuring up a vivid picture of each house as a real domestic space. In total, the plates illustrated more than 1,000 items, each extensively specified and located for the first time, making the publication a major reference in Pompeii research. In addition, "animated" representations visualized daily life in Pompeii's workshops, taverns, and shops, on its public squares, and in its temples, theaters, and baths. This meticulous facsimile revives the Niccolinis' extraordinary achievement with all color plates and two introductory essays setting the project in its contemporary context and presenting the historical protagonists of the Vesuvian excavations. In addition, we explore the remarkable influence exerted by Pompeian art-and by the haunting plaster casts made of victims of the eruption-on the visual arts. Across painting, sculpture, and interior design, we trace the Pompeii legacy in the work of Robert Adam, Anton Raphael Mengs, Angelika Kaufmann, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Pablo Picasso, and Giorgio de Chirico, right through to recent masters Duane Hanson and George Segal.

It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich's rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought. This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin's Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls; the crowded kinos and flapper fashion; the advances in technology and transport; the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains; the soaring buildings; the cinematic masterworks; and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money. Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Hoech's The Journalists; Lotte Jacobi's Hands on Typewriter; Otto Dix's Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden; Peter Behrens's project of theAlexanderplatz; and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.

In 1945 Bob Mizer began taking photographs of strapping young men on Muscle Beach in Venice, California. In December of that year he formed the Athletic Model Guild to market his photos, and "physique photography" was born. Before Mizer there were bodybuilders and men who photographed them, but AMG photos, even those of the same men, were different, subtly provocative, discretely aimed at a gay audience. They weren't nude, but showed as much as the law allowed in 1945. In 1951 Mizer launched Physique Pictorial, America's first indisputably gay magazine, bringing his photos of top bodybuilders to grateful readers worldwide. By the late '50s Mizer had photographed over 1,000 men, moving from the beach to his quirky Los Angeles studio, where he introduced props including Greek columns, Roman headdresses, rear projection, and famously, his mother's glassware, for theatrical Hollywood effect. In 1957 he published a catalog featuring all his men, titled 1000 Model Directory. In 1968 a second 1000 Model Directory followed, with the men photographed in the intervening years. The little 98-page books became instant collectibles, but the photos were so small, 12 to a page, that they were as frustrating to view as they were titillating. TASCHEN's two-volume edition 1000 Model Directory prints from Mizer's original 4 x 5 negatives to present these handsome hunks in stunning clarity. Editor Dian Hanson trawled through a quarter million male nudes to select this lineup of top models, including movie stars Sammy Jackson, Richard Harrison, and Ed Fury. Glenn Corbett of TV's 77 Sunset Strip is also here, as well as Nick Adams, star of The Rebel, and top bodybuilders Chris Dickerson, Dick Dubois, Vince Gironda, Bill Grant, Zabo Koszewski, Henry Lenz, Don Peters, Bob Shealy, Charles Stroeder, Armand Tanny, and John Tristram. An hour-long DVD is also included, containing 18 films made by Bob Mizer between 1954 and 1968, in black and white and color, all edited specifically for this book. They range from simple posing routines by bodybuilding stars Keith Stephan and AMG favorites Forrester Millard, John Davidson, and Steve Buono, to sword and sandal star Ed Fury's first physique film, to gladiator extravaganzas, wrestling adventures, crime dramas, and-a Bob specialty-humorous morality tales, starring Jim Paris, John Tristram, Monte Hanson, and other models featured in the book. Mizer's take on Dr. Frankenstein's monster, in posing straps, is a standout.

At the turn of the 20th century, architecture took an imaginative leap. As new construction materials and technologies met such far-flung stimuli as the Far East, nirvana, and the unleashed unconscious of Freudian psychoanalysis, buildings by the likes of Gaudi, Horta, Hoffmann, Loos, and Mackintosh instilled structure with the sinuous lines of nature, surfaces with a fairy-tale shimmer, and spaces with an ethereal wash of light or shadowy, mysterious hush. For this dramatic portfolio, printed for the first time ever in a book with five colors including gold, the late architectural photographer Keiichi Tahara traveled across Europe to present the finest examples of this Art Nouveau architecture. From the glamorous facade of the Grand Hotel Europa to the elaborate sweep of a staircase or the perfect poise of a single chandelier, Tahara captures the intricate details as much as the holistic spatial effects of these ambitious, marvelous structures. With an eye attuned to the style's organic detailing, he surveys its floral patterns, vine-like balustrades, and the soft, hollow interiors that seem to summon us into some primordial place. Drenched in sunshine or draped in dramatic shadows, Tahara's pictures excel in evoking not only the unrivaled aura of these buildings but also the particular, fin-de-siecle spirit of their age, caught on the axis of a century, and characterized by reflection and yearning, as much as technological, philosophical, and political advance. Texts by Riichi Miyake accompany Tahara's pictures to describe the buildings' floor plans, designs, and the broader context of their dreamlike environments.Limited and numbered edition of 10,000 copies

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) is widely considered the father of Western architecture. Strongly influenced by formal temple designs in Ancient Greece and Rome, he pioneered a revival of Classical symmetry and perspective, and with it created a universal architectural language. From his humble beginning as a stonemason's apprentice, Palladio rose to become Chief Architect of the Republic of Venice, at the time the epicenter of European innovation. There, he designed the Church of the Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore on the landmark promontory between the Giudecca Canal and the greater Venetian Lagoon. In nearby Vicenza, Palladio built the world-famous Basilica, the Villa Rotonda, the Teatro Olimpico, and in the surrounding Veneto countryside numerous rural villas noted for their inclusion of local, vernacular architecture within a Classical scheme and the use of porticos to provide liminal spaces between the interior and exterior. Both the Palladian villas and the City of Vicenza are today designated UNESCO World Heritage sites. Over time, Palladio's architecture evolved into the Palladian style, a universal language of cool, calm elegance that informed buildings from Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to Thomas Jefferson's home in Monticello, Virginia, to St Paul's Cathedral, London. This foundational book from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 collates Palladio's most significant structures into one dependable introduction, documenting his development into one of the most influential architects of all time.