This book contains more than 350 masterworks of artists such as Hiroshite, Utamaro, Harunobu, Eisen, and Hokusai, all from the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Amedeo Modigliani experimented with sculpture and drawing, but is primarily known for his paintings of nudes and portraits characterized by elongated figures, faces, and necks. He began painting in his youth in Italy before moving to Paris in 1906, during the height of the avant-garde movement. Influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Cezanne, Modigliani developed his own unique, uncharacterizable style. His nudes upended traditions at the time due to their immodesty, candid sexuality, and ability to convey the subject's personality. Because of the works' scandalous nature, Modigliani had very little success with his paintings while he was alive. This volume features stunning full-page illustrations of Modigliani's works, along with information about his life, including his bohemian, over-the-top lifestyle and his untimely, tragic death. Featuring some of Modigliani's best-known works, this book gives an insightful and comprehensive overview on the artist known for modernizing figurative painting.

His Great Wave off Kanagawa is the most famous work in East Asian art. Hokusai, a self-confessed eccentric and obsessive, created with his pictures of the floating world a veritable encyclopedia of Japanese daily life and thus became a major source for Europeans seeking to understand the art and culture of Japan.