Piet Mondrian had a decisive influence on the development of painting from figuration to abstraction. On the occasion of his 150th birthday, Mondrian Evolution is dedicated to his multifaceted work and artistic development. Initially working in the tradition of Dutch landscape painting of the late 19th century, Symbolism and Cubism subsequently took on great significance for him. It was not until the early 1920s that the artist focused on a wholly non-representational pictorial vocabulary, limited to the rectangular arrangement of black lines with surfaces in white and the primary colors blue, red and yellow. In separate chapters, this path is traced through motifs such as windmills, dunes, and the sea, farms reflected in the water, and plants in various forms of abstraction.

Wayne Thiebaud's famous, literally candy-colored still lifes of pies, cakes, gumball machines, and lipsticks reflect the promise and abundance of the American way of life - a society of plenty, where supply exceeds demand. The tactile impression created by his pasty layers of paint brings the objects to life and creates an atmosphere in which irony and melancholy are carefully balanced. Testing the possibilities of painterly expression, Thiebaud's brilliant painting technique explores the boundaries of the real and imagined world. This catalog presents all aspects of the legendary American artist's oeuvre, including still lifes and portraits, as well as his deserted, multi-perspective cityscapes and river landscapes, in luminous pastels that exude a peculiar summertime sadness.

That incomparable melancholy in Edward Hopper's pictures occasionally leads us to look at the details of his life. Where exactly did this master of loneliness live and work? What were his most important influences while he was working on his great paintings of America? In this wonderful, simply structured, A-to-Z book, Ulf Kuster pursues these themes, which say a great deal about the painter and his interests, and yet he never loses sight of the artist and the necessary distance to his inimitable pictures. Thus, Kuster strolls through the ABCs of Hopper's life and work, from the "American landscape," "Buick" "Goethe," and "shadow and sunlight" to the key word, "time." On the way he opens up many new doors or insights, enriching the views of Hopper's paintings and make it possible to interpret them in new ways. An entertaining and informative book.

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was born on December 25, 1911. This book, which is devoted to the central themes of the late artist's oeuvre, is being published on the occasion of her one-hundredth birthday. It examines her life, her exploration of the works of other artists, and the transformation of her emotions into works of art. Over the course of nine chapters, characteristic works are presented in the context of art history by comparing and contrasting them with works from the Beyeler Collection. The book brings home the fact that Bourgeois not only offset the important antagonism between the figurative and the abstract in modernism, she also helped to provide a unique interpretive level to modern art beyond that of the purely visible. This publication is an introduction to the life and work of a woman who was one of the most important artists of her time.

Edward Hopper's world-famous paintings articulate an idiosyncratic view of modern life. With his impressive subjects, independent pictorial vocabulary, and virtuoso play of colors, Hopper continues to influence to this day the image of the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. He began his career as an illustrator and became famous around the globe for his oil paintings. They testify to his great interest in the effects of color and his mastery in depicting light and shadow. The Fondation Beyeler is devoting its large exhibition in the spring of 2020 to Hopper's iconic images of the vast American landscape. The catalogue gathers together all of the paintings, watercolors, and drawings from the 1910s to the 1960s on display in the exhibition, and supplements them with essays focused on the subject of depicting landscape.

The recently deceased French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was one of the most important artists of the last century. Her fleshy blobs, skeletal spiders and the aggressive fragility of her work offered a new solution to the antagonism between the figurative and the abstract that had previously been part and parcel of modernism. Bourgeois herself provided a unique interpretive level to modern art through the uses she made of childhood trauma, family life and sexuality. This accessible study serves as both an ideal introduction to the central themes of the late artist's oeuvre and as a commemoration of her one-hundredth birthday. Over the course of nine chapters, it examines her life, her exploration of the works of other artists and the transformation of her emotions into such works of art as the now iconic pieces "Destruction of the Father," "Fillette," "Cells" and "Maman."

The works of the British painter Peter Doig (* 1959 in Edinburgh), who divides his time between Trinidad, London, and New York, are densely atmospheric and sometimes uncanny. They are often based on found or private images, which the artist pieces together into dreamlike compositions full of melancholy and angst. Employing an unusual color palette and pos-sessing an immense sensitivity for his medium, Doig creates superb images, following in the footsteps of great masters such as Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, and Henri Matisse. This publication presents him as an artist with a conceptual practice-as a visual thinker who is not only fascinated by the history of painting but also the painting process itself. The large-format paintings and works on paper repro-duced in the volume allow the viewer to share Doig's creative passion and his enthusiasm for the power of paint. (German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3868-2) Exhibition: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel 23.11.2014-22.3.2015

The uncommonly rich paintings and watercolors of Berlin-based Uwe Kowski (born in 1963 in Leipzig) walk a fine line between abstraction and representation. They are delicate, complex compositions whose layers of paint can hide written words or any of many art-historical references, from the Impressionists to Jasper Johns.

Leipzig-born painter Uwe Kowski (born 1963) creates colorful abstractions in which gestural lines blur into jumbles of typography (the latter perhaps influenced by his apprenticeship as a sign painter), establishing a vibrant, "all-over" effect. This volume presents new canvases made between 2008 and 2011.