Since the fifteenth century, tarot cards have remained a source of wonder and fascination for those seeking to divine the future. Drawing the card depicting the coveted wheel of fortune is believed to foretell favorable events, but turn over the tower or death card and adversity may be headed your way. Mysterious, rich in symbolism, and hinting at the arcane, tarot cards also display considerable artistry and visual appeal." "In "Francesco Clemente: The Tarots," Clemente uniquely reinterprets the deck with a star-studded group of unexpected subjects. Presented here are the seventy-eight watercolors that make up the artist's tarot card series. Begun in 2008, the paintings include family and friends and reflect important personal relationships. Since 1981, Clemente has been a resident of New York and many of the paintings--including the twenty-two cards of the higher arcana--depict New Yorkers, making this series, in the artist's words, "my portrait of the city." Among the personalities whose likenesses are included this series are Salman Rushdie, Fran Lebowitz, Jasper Johns, Philip Glass, Diane von Furstenberg, Colm Toibin, and Scarlett Johansson. Clemente has always had a keen interest in the spiritual, and the book also includes twelve self-portraits representing each of the twelve apostles. Rounding out the extensive illustrations are essays by Max Seidel, Marzia Faietti, Antonio Natali, and Francesco Pellizzi examining the series. Clemente is among the most recognized and established contemporary artists in America today, and this book--created to accompany an exhibition at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence--makes his most recent work available to readers for the first time.

The father and son team of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano are among the most important sculptors of the thirteenth-century Italian Gothic, and their work--especially the ornately carved pulpits in Italy's Pisa and Siena Cathedrals--continues to inspire wonder and awe. Never before--nor since--have a father and son met on an artistic level in quite this way, and this two-volume set goes beyond a typical biography to explore this fascinating collaboration. Drawing on extensive new archival research, Max Seidel offers a broad examination of both artists' styles, paying particular attention to the emergence of Giovanni Pisano's practice under his father's guidance and the social and iconographic aspects of both artists' work. The Pisanos' sculptures in France and Rome are of paramount importance to the development of their styles and Seidel therefore treats them in considerable depth. The second volume comprises five hundred newly-published illustrations, making this a truly comprehensive overview of these two masters of European sculpture.