Through the 1880s the very essence of representation, meaning and process in Western art were profoundly interrogated. Plausible representations of the external world were cast aside in favour of non-naturalism expressed in varying degrees, from modest distortions of reality to pure abstraction. The decades that followed, up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, were a complex, vibrant period of artistic questioning, searching, risk-taking and innovation. Concentrating on this period of great upheaval, this book will explore the constructive dialogue between painting and sculpture, and the influential roles played by three giants of the era, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, across European art as a whole. While acknowledging the centrality of Paris as a cultural capital, it will also uniquely highlight other centres of artistic ferment in Europe, from Brussels and Barcelona to Berlin and Vienna, and track the variety of routes into modernism in the early twentieth century. This fully illustrated catalogue will contain four essays, introductions to each city of ferment and biographies of the artists. Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The National Gallery, London 25 March–13 August 2023

At the turn of the century, Sigmund Freud's investigation of the mind represented a particular journey into mental illness, but it was not the only exploration of this 'territory' in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Sanatoriums were the new tourism destinations, psychiatrists were collecting art works produced by patients and writers were developing innovative literary techniques to convey a character's interior life. This collection of essays uses the framework of journeys in order to highlight the diverse artistic, cultural and medical responses to a peculiarly Viennese anxiety about the madness of modern times. The travellers of these journeys vary from patients to doctors, artists to writers, architects to composers and royalty to tourists; in engaging with their histories, the contributors reveal the different ways in which madness was experienced and represented in 'Vienna 1900'.

Gemma Blackshaw is Reader in Art History at Plymouth University. She is currently working on a Leverhulme-funded book on portraiture in Vienna circa 1900. She co-curated the exhibition Madness and Modernity: Art, Architecture and Mental Illness in Vienna 1900 (London and Vienna, 2009-10) and co-edited the exhibition catalogue.

Sabine Wieber is Lecturer in Art History at the University of Glasgow. She has published on German and Austrian design culture, German national identity and constructions of gender in Vienna circa 1900. She co-curated the exhibition Madness and Modernity: Art, Architecture and Mental Illness in Vienna 1900 (Vienna, 2010).

Jugendstil, that is Germany's distinct engagement with the international Art Nouveau movement, is now firmly engrained in histories of modern art, architecture and design. Recent exhibitions and publications across the world explored Jugendstil's key protagonists and artistic centres to firmly anchor their activities within the trajectories of German modernism. Women, however, continue to be largely absent from these revisionist accounts. Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design argues that women in fact actively participated in the cultural and socio-economic exchanges that generated German design responses to European modernity. By drawing on previously unpublished archival material and a series of original case studies including Elsa Bruckmann's Munich salon, the Photo Studio Elvira and the Debschitz School, the book explores women's important contributions to modern German culture as collectors, consumers, critics, designers, educators, and patrons. This book offers a new interpretation of this vibrant period by considering diverse manifestations of historical female agency that pushed against historically entrenched conventions and gender roles. The book's rigorous approach reshapes Jugendstil historiography by positing women's lived experiences against dominant ideologies that emerged at this precise moment. In short, the book advocates women as an integral part of the emergence, dissemination and reception of Jugendstil and questions the deeply gendered histories of this key period in modern art, architecture and design.

An engaging look at how the middle classes of fin-de-siecleVienna used innovative portraiture to define their identity During the great flourishing of modern art in fin-de-siecleVienna, artists of that city focused on images of individuals. Their portraits depict artists, patrons, families, friends, intellectual allies, and society celebrities from the upwardly mobile middle classes. Viewed as a whole, the images allow us to reconstruct the subjects' shifting identities as the Austro-Hungarian Empire underwent dramatic political changes, from the 1867 Ausgleich (Compromise) to the end of World War I. This is viewed as a time when the avant-garde overthrew the academy, yet Facing the Modern tells a more complex story of the time through thought-provoking texts by numerous leading art historians. Their writings examine paintings by innovative artists such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele alongside earlier works, blurring the conventionally-held distinctions between 19th-century and early-20th-century art, and revealing surprising continuities in the production and consumption of portraits. This compelling book features works not only by famous names but also by lesser-known female and Jewish artists, giving a more complete picture of the time. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The National Gallery, London (10/09/13-01/12/14)