On the 150th anniversary of the painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the Musee Matisse in Cateau-Cambresis, which was founded by the artist in his hometown in 1952, pays tribute to the lesser-known man of the North, who became one of the greatest masters of the 20th century. You thought you knew everything about Matisse's work? This exhibition reveals the mystery of the first 20 years of his career and the awakening of a genius moving from shadow to light. It honours his early works from the revelation of painting, and his academic training until the end of his academic studies in Paris, where he taught until 1911. This decisive and defining period of his identity helps us to understand how he grew into a painter on his Hauts-de-France lands. It dissects the creative process of the man copying the ancients, drawing inspiration from the greatest masters of the past and his contemporaries, to shake the codes with 'luxury, calm and voluptuousness' and impose himself on the rank of those he has contemplated. Text in English and French.

One of the most prestigious contemporary art awards, the Marcel Duchamp Prize was created in 2000 by the ADIAF, Association for the international diffusion of French art which groups together 400 contemporary art collectors rallied around the French scene. Its ambition is to bring together the most innovative artists and help them raise their international profile. Each year, the Marcel Duchamp Prize is awarded to one of four artists, either French or living in France, all of them working in the field of the plastic and visual arts. Since the outset, this collectors' prize benefits from a close partnership with the Centre Pompidou who invites the four nominated artists for a 3-month group show in its Galerie 4. The winner is chosen by an international jury of collectors and directors of leading institutions. Text in English and French.

Offers an exhaustive account of this unique human, artistic and intellectual adventure through a comprehensive and up-to-date art historical analysis of Leonardo's work. Accompanied by spectacular illustrations. In the Quattrocento, an era when the representation of the human figure was dominated by timeless images based on Botticelli's example, Leonardo worked with light and colour to achieve a modelling that would restore three-dimensionality to the face and soften the rigours of perspective in a misty landscape, no longer a mere backdrop but a vivid pictorial transposition of careful scientific studies and refined psychological analyses. In Leonardo's pictures, it is the changing atmospheric conditions that complement and breathe life into the delicate rendering of the forms and the emotional experiences of the subjects. Thus the artist created powerfully expressive religious pictures and secular portraits that have a modern and disquieting quality in which the faces are true 'windows of the soul', highlighting a silent psychological dialogue between the painting's subject and the observer. Artistic innovations are sustained by a new sensitivity, as well as by study of the refraction of colour, to which much space is dedicated in the Florentine master's theoretical writings. The present book offers an exhaustive account of this unique human, artistic, and intellectual adventure through a comprehensive and up-to-date art historical analysis of Leonardo's work accompanied by spectacular illustrations.

The glorious Manifattura Lenci of Turin is the protagonist of this volume, which presents one hundred and fifty works belonging to the Ferrero Collection. Small plastics and decorative sculptures have made the fortune of this historical manufacture, first active in the field of cloths and dolls, for 'toys in general, furniture, furnishings and children's clothing', and subsequently, since 1927, in the ceramic sector. The Lenci production was inspired by the fashion magazines of its time, between customs and bon ton, reflecting the taste of an era and a society, which had identified in its products the bourgeois status symbol. Lenci was characterised over the years by the creative contribution of important artists such as Sandro Vacchetti, Elena Konig Scavini, Marcello Dudovich, Gigi Chessa, Mario Sturani, and Abele Jacopi, who made the ceramic production unique and inimitable. In 1934 Sandro Vacchetti, former artistic director of Lenci manufactory, founded the successful Essevi ceramics, which follows in the footsteps of Lenci and constitutes a continuation of their style.

Paintings, installations, sculptures and photographs from around fifty artists compose a chronological course of the different currents of non-conformist art in the former U.S.S.R and Russia. The Tretyakov Collection was created between 1983 and 2008 on the initiative of Russian art critic Andrei Erofeev to create a museum of the history of art mavericks in Moscow, as no Soviet institution was interested in the avant-garde. Originally composed of more than 5000 pieces, a selection of this collection eventually became part of the Tretyakov National Gallery, making it the first institution to house a department of Russian contemporary art. The exhibition thus allows a new dive in to this 'Underground' of the years 1960-2000. Each chapter brings together artists from the same movement and highlights their affinity with Tachism, kinetic art, Pop Art, conceptual art, or performance. The composition of the collection, revealing the sometimes-complex relationships between artists, official art of the Soviet era and institutions, will be evoked by historical documents, chronological friezes and an educational program. Text in English and French.

This volume celebrates Luigi Pericle, painter, but also thinker, literate, scholar of theosophy and esoteric doctrines, revealing his extraordinary history, made of profound research and great encounters. From well-known collector Peter G. Staechelin to Sir Herbert Read, trustee of the Tate Gallery; from the museologist Hans Hess, curator of the York Art Gallery, to the famous German artist and director Hans Richter - everyone was attracted by his charisma, his versatile personality, his 'clairvoyant' art. With Luigi Pericle, the history of informal art of the second post-war period unexpectedly opens to philosophy, to alternative spirituality, to the mysteries of the cosmos, against the background of the space age. Essays by: Marco Pasi, Luca Bochicchio, Chiara Gatti, Michele Tavola, Andrea Biasca-Caroni, Valeria Malossa, and Giovanni Cavallo. Text in English and Italian.

Christian Dior was born in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, France: while his family had hoped that he would become a diplomat, Dior preferred art. His preternatural talent resulted in him being hired by Robert Piquet in 1937, and subsequently worked alongside Pierre Balmain and Lucien Lelong. Dior was an instant sensation after the Second World War. His designs, which asserted femininity, were a strong rebuke to the utilitarian, unisex clothing of wartime and came to symbolise the 'New Look'. Dior had an extremely close relationship with his sister, Catherine - honouring her work during the war in the French Resistance with the popular perfume Miss Dior. She was his muse. The book features around 60 haute couture designs from the collections of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs along with an equivalent number of iconic pieces belonging to Dior Heritage (the house's own archives of original runway prototypes or garments ordered by clients), supplemented by fragrances and accessories. The items on display thus offer a panorama of Christian Dior's haute couture creations since 1947, always the epitome of modern elegance, with the selection taking as its unifying thread the fabric of dreams and the passing on of an aesthetic vision. Text in English and Arabic.

Christine Rebet is fascinated by sleight of hand and optical illusions, the principal forms of entertainment before the invention of motion pictures. She combines history and fiction by creating fantasy universes that play with her viewers’ unconscious by means of deceptive measures, still employed in contemporary politics and the media. Drawing is at the heart of her artistic process and is closely linked to language and mime, as well as to sound and music. Christine Rebet uses animation, a hybrid medium in which the repetition of a drawing gives the illusion of movement, creating what she calls her ‘paper cinema’. Text in English and French.

Painting, ceramics, sculpture, textile works, immersive installations, performances: the third exhibition at MOCO Hotel des collections is an ode to the Amazon Basin seen through the art and the ecological, economic and political stakes that characterise it. This exhibition catalogue showcases more than a hundred works coming from Catherine Petitgas's collection, based in London. Artists: Sol Calero, Anna Bella Geiger, Teresa Margolles, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Helio Oiticica, Ivan Serpa, Luiz Zerbini. Text in English and French.

This volume offers the first overview of American photorealist and Pop painter Howard Kanovitz (1929-2009), dubbed by Barbara Rose the grandfather of photorealism. Howard Kanovitz's landmark 1966 Jewish Museum solo exhibition is widely deemed to have launched the genre of photorealism.

This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition Baghdad: Eye's Delight, that celebrates Baghdad as the most important and influential city ever created in the Islamic world, revealing its outstanding heritage as the capital of the great Abbasid caliphs (750-1258 CE) but also its renewed period of prosperity in the 20th century thanks to the discovery of oil. The display will take visitors on an imaginary tour across centuries, highlighting Baghdad's role as a city of power, scholarship and riches, ending the tour with a look at the city's social fabric, its cosmopolitan population, and many traditions, which have - despite war and destruction - enabled the city to thrive, time and time again. This catalogue brings together a collection of essays written by some of the best-known scholars in the field. Their essays touch upon the history of the city across many periods and themes, following the divisions of the exhibition while offering unique insights into the complicated and layered history of one of the most fascinating cities of the Middle East.

Davide Balliano (Turin, IT 1983) is an artist whose research operates on the thin line of demarcation between painting and sculpture. Utilising an austere, minimal language of abstract geometries in strong dialogue with architecture, his work investigates existential themes such as the identity of man in the age of technology and his relationship with the sublime. Through a practice that is self-described as monastic, austere and concrete, Balliano’s meticulous paintings appear, upon first glance, clean and precise. However, closer inspection reveals scrapes and scratches that uncover the organic wooden surface underneath the layers of paint, as a decaying façade of abandoned modernistic intentions. In addition to painting, Davide Balliano is also known for his sculptural work, which translates the visual vocabulary found in his paintings into solid objects, often in stainless steel or ceramic. The volume, which offers a wide selection of works that offer a complete overview of his production, contains a conversation between Osman Can Yerebakane and the artist, and a critical text by Michele Robecchi. Text in English and Italian.

The Bonnard Museum has the privilege of unveiling, in the summer of 2019, a selection of remarkable works from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, preserved by an exceptional private collection. Privilege in more than one way since such an ensemble also highlights the fruitful relations between museums and private collectors. Text in English and French.

A selection of pictures from the international motorbike event where riders can have fun with style. Deus Swank Rally is an international event, bizarre, eccentric and highly amusing. The name says it all: elegance, swank, but it's still a rally, so motorbikes and riders inevitably douse themselves in mud and dust. All the motorbikes are welcomed: studded specials, enduros with carburettors, even the most inappropriate. During the day gentlemanly competitions are held, self-timed, no cheating; in the evening there is a party among friends. What happens at a Swank Rally? It's all been captured in the beautiful pictures of this book. Text in English and Italian.

Published on the occasion of the first presentation of the future Art Mill Museum, due to open in 2030 in Doha, Qatar. This box comprises nine booklets, including one booklet with essays introducing the future museum. One booklet on the architecture, one on the landscape, a poster reproducing the models from the Art Mill Museum International Design Competition, and booklets on the museum's first artist commissions by Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Francois-Xavier Gbre, Ali Kazma, Amal Al Muftah and Shaima Al-Tamimi.

The illustrated stories published in the Christmas issues of the youth magazines have left lasting memories with Finnish children. Translated in French for the first time, these charming stories take us into landscapes of forests and lakes, squirrels and tits, leprechauns and trolls - more facetious than worrisome. Text in French.

By retracing the salient moments through the words of its protagonists, this book illustrates the DesertX project: the first Ducati specifically designed for off-roading. A bike built to transform our wildest travel dreams into reality, DesertX is not just enjoyment, performance and the timeless appeal of legendary Dakarian feats. It is also a design challenge, creative rather than solely engineering-based, that harnesses all the Borgo Panigale manufacturer’s technological passion and developmental drive. Text in English and Italian.

Collectors played an essential yet misunderstood role in the success of Impressionism. Even though they were not immune to economic and social woes, they were often engaged in defending this artistic movement that they had helped come to life, establish itself or make known, each according to their times. It is this group of committed collectors that the present work seeks to examine. From assembling a collection to donating it to a museum, from supporting artists within the borders of France to publicising the movement internationally, from the first intimate private showings to the questions raised by the presentation of these works in museums, collectors were present at every stage of the development of Impressionism, from the dawn of the movement to the middle of the 20th century. This volume aims to re-examine and reassess the importance of these collectors in the political, social and economic contexts of their times through the contributions of 16 international specialists. Depeaux, De Nittis, the Palmers, O'Hara, Buhrle, Caillebotte, Fayet: whether they are the subjects of dedicated case studies or part of a broader discourse, the multiplicity of profiles of these collectors and the paths they followed will allow readers to gain a better understanding of their importance in the history of the Impressionist movement.

"Marialuisa Tadei succeeds in giving the mystery of life abstract form, implying that it trascends the nature in which it ordinarily manifests itself suggesting that it is unwordly - beyond space and time - like God's creative wisdom." - Donald Kuspit Tadei's sculptures encourage the awareness of a vital and universal spirituality, leaving the mind free to find its sense of immortality. This monograph dedicated to the artist showcases her works, characterised by her bold use of colour and materials, including mosaic, glass, bronze and feathers, and by the lyrical and spiritual qualities of her artistic language.