Written by the art dealer and friend who was among the first to recognise Rousseau's importance, these Recollections present a movingly personal portrait of the artist known as Le Douanier (the Customs Officer).

Elijah Pierce (1892-1984) was born the youngest son of a former slave on a Mississippi farm. He began carving at an early age when his father gave him his first pocketknife. Pierce became known for his wood carvings nationally and then internationally for the first time in the 1970s. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, this publication seeks to revisit the art of Elijah Pierce and see it in its own right, not simply as 'naive'. Elijah Pierce made his living as a barber; he was also a qualified preacher. Just as his barber shop was a place for gossip and meeting, so his art reflects his own and his community's concerns, but also universal themes. Through his carvings Pierce told his own life story and chronicled the African-American experience. His subjects ranged from politics to religious stories but he seldom distinguished the race of his figures - he thought of them as everyman. His secular carvings show his love of baseball, boxing, comics and the movies, and also reflect his appreciation for American heroes who fought for justice and liberty. In 1932, Pierce completed 'the Book of Wood', which he considered his best work. Originally carved as individual scenes, the completed 'Book' tells the story of Jesus carved in bas-relief. He and his wife Cornelia held "sacred art demonstrations" to explain the meaning of the Book of Wood. Pierce's work was first appreciated in the art world thanks to a fellow sculptor, Boris Gruenwald, who saw the expressive power of his work. As a later critic wrote, "There are 500 woodcarvers working today in the United States who are technically as proficient as Pierce, but none can equal the power of Pierce's personal vision". Pierce became known primarily in circles promoting 'naive' art, winning first prize at the International Meeting of Naive Art in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1973. The vast majority of his work is now held in Columbus, Ohio, which had become his home town. This book revisits Pierce's art seeking to see it in its own right, and not simply as 'naive'. Another critic wrote: "He reduces what he wants to say to the simplest forms and compositions. They are decorative, direct, bold and amusing. He uses glitter and all kinds of devices to make his message clear. It gives his work an immediacy that's very appealing" - an appeal arising from a sophisticated art with its own particular voice.

A reassessment of self-taught artist William Edmondson, exploring the enduring relevance of his work This richly illustrated volume reintroduces readers to American sculptor William Edmondson (1874–1951) more than 80 years after his historic solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Edmondson began carving at the onset of the Depression in Tennessee. Initially creating tombstones for his community, over time he expanded his practice to include biblical subjects, the natural world, and recognizable figures including nurses and preachers. This book features new essays that explore Edmondson’s life in the South and his reception on the East Coast in the 1930s. Reading the artist through lenses of African American experience, the authors draw parallels between then and now, highlighting the complex relationship between Black cultural production and the American museum. Countering existing narratives that have viewed Edmondson as a passive actor in an unfolding drama—a self-taught sculptor “discovered� by White patrons and institutions—this book considers how the artist’s identity and position within history influenced his life and work. Distributed for the Barnes Foundation  Exhibition Schedule: The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (June 25–September 10, 2023)  

Henri Rousseau was the first naive artist in the history of Western art to be recognized for his true worth. His paintings have now entered popular consciousness to such an extent that it is difficult to imagine how strongly they were resisted at the time. Much of the credit for his transformation is due to the author of these Recollections, dealer and art historian Wilhelm Uhde. It was Uhde who mounted the first exhibition of Rousseau's work, and the catalog he wrote for the occasion is the basis of the Recollections. In it, he painted a picture of a man of naivete, humor, and total commitment to an art of whose importance he was utterly convinced.

An in-depth exploration of how the iconic artist created his works over the course of his full career Among the most celebrated figures of modern art, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) has been the subject of many exhibitions and publications, but none until now has examined in depth how the artist created his paintings and sculptures. Drawing on research using the latest scientific techniques, the authors explore the artist's reuse of materials in his early years; his pivot from artistic trends such as Cubism to engage with a stylized form of figuration; the timeline of his evocative sculptures; and the evolution of his approach from heavily worked canvases to more ethereal paintings. The richly illustrated book also looks at the role of Albert C. Barnes, an early collector of Modigliani's work, in shaping the Italian artist's critical reception in the United States. The Barnes Foundation today owns one of the most important groups of Modigliani works in the world. These, together with some forty other paintings and sculptures from public and private collections worldwide, are interpreted through the lens of new studies carried out by leading international museums. Distributed for the Barnes Foundation Exhibition Schedule: The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (October 16, 2022-January 29, 2023)

This publication celebrates for the first time the important creative collaboration between the artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and his muse, the dancer Jane Avril (1868-1943). Avril was one of the stars of Moulin Rouge in the 1890s, and was nicknamed 'La Melinite' after a form of explosive. She was known for her alluring style and exotic persona, and her fame was assured by a series of dazzlingly inventive posters designed by Lautrec.

This engaging volume describes the creation and restoration of the extraordinary large-scale drawing The Temptation of Saint Anthony-a work by late 19th-century Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949)-on the occasion of its first public showing in more than 60 years. The piece is composed of 51 separate sheets of paper collaged into a hallucinatory social critique and artist's manifesto. Each sheet of the nearly six-foot-high work is reproduced at actual size, revealing Ensor's remarkable technique and fertile imagination. Here, Saint Anthony is surrounded not with nature, as customary, but with the moral decay of society. Replete with tiny scenes depicting both sexual temptation and spiritual piety, Ensor splices potent imagery from travelogues, popular science, and technology magazines into a Symbolist masterpiece. Susan M. Canning, Patrick Florizoeone, and Nancy Ireson analyze the drawing's meaning; Herwig Todts details its origins and early history; and Kimberly J. Nichols recounts the work's restoration. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition Schedule: The J. Paul Getty Museum (06/10/14-08/31/14) The Art Institute of Chicago (11/23/14-01/25/15)