History

As its title suggests, Negative/Positive begins with the negative, a foundational element of analog photography that is nonetheless usually ignored, and uses this to tell a representative, rather than comprehensive, history of the medium. The fact that a...

According to Vasari, the young Michelangelo often borrowed drawings of past masters, which he copied, returning his imitations to the owners and keeping originals. Half a millennium later, Andy Warhol made a game of "forging" the Mona Lisa, questioning...

Charting Japan's unique engagement with modernity during the Meiji era, through an extraordinary selection of objects in American collections This exhibition catalogue takes a fresh look at the art of Japan's Meiji era (1868-1912), through a vivid...

We live in an age of the mobile image. The world today is absolutely saturated with images of all kinds circulating around the world at an incredible rate. The movement of the image has never been more extraordinary than it is today. This recent kinetic...

Montage has been hailed as one of the key structural principles of modernity, yet its importance to the history of modern thought about cities and their architecture has never been adequately explored. In this groundbreaking new work, Martino Stierli...

Inspiration Islam - European artists in dialogue with Islamic art and culture. The art and architecture of the Islamic world strongly influenced the development of Western modernism. Some 170 works from the mid-19th century to the present day...

A handsomely illustrated monograph that examines in depth Rubens's two greatest landscape paintings: A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning and The Rainbow Landscape. Painted as pendants, the pair of paintings have been in London since 1803. This...

"My husband Jan finished me on 17 June 1439. . . . My age was 33 years." So speaks Margaret van Eyck from the frame of her portrait. This painted inscription honors its maker Jan van Eyck, even as it blurs the distinction between living subject and...

This comprehensive monograph offers a detailed examination of the paintings of the acclaimed German painter Neo Rauch (b.1960). Rauch's paintings deftly blend the iconography of Socialist Realism from his upbringing and art-school training in GDR-era...

Herculaneum, located on the picturesque Bay of Naples, was buried in the same volcanic eruption as its larger neighbour, Pompeii. But while Pompeii was covered by a relatively shallow layer of loose volcanic ash, Herculaneum was submerged in deep flows...

A scintillating account of the cultural freedom and empowerment that American women experienced as leaders in the avant-garde scene in early twentieth-century Paris For the American women who made Paris their home during the early decades of the...

Kurt Schwitters was a major protagonist in the histories of modern art and literature, whose response to the contradictions of modern life rivals that of Marcel Duchamp in its importance for artists working today. His celebrated Merz pictures--collaged...

"I sing of arms and of a man: his fate had made him fugitive: he was the first to journey from the coasts of Troy as far as Italy and the Lavinian shores." The resonant opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid rank among the most famous and...

The first major publication devoted to weaver and designer Dorothy Liebes, reinstating her as one of the most influential American designers of the twentieth century At the time of her death, Dorothy Liebes (1897-1972) was called "the greatest modern...

When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that...

This book is an entertaining, informative and enchanting introduction to its subject - just as those medieval banes of the farmyard, the Fox and the Vixen, were enchanting in escapades from fables and funny tales, from beastly epic poems and bestiaries,...

William Bell Scott's screen, The King's Quair, was commissioned by James Leathart, an important collector of Pre-Raphaelite art. The beautifully decorated folding screen took as its inspiration The Kingis Quair, a 15th-century Scots poem attributed to...

The Great Landscape with a Tempest in Vienna is one of Peter Paul Rubens's largest and most dramatic landscapes. Starting from the far-reaching discoveries during the latest restoration, the volume provides a comprehensive insight into the process of...

Donald Hankey was a writer who saw himself as a 'student of human nature' and peacetime Edwardian Britain as a society at war with itself. Wounded in a murderous daylight infantry charge near Ypres, Hankey began sending despatches to The Spectator from...

An intimate study of the friendship and creative dialogue between two artists, offering an in-depth understanding of their work and the upheavals of 1960s New YorkIrrational Judgments examines the close friendship and significant exchange of ideas...

Delving into a hitherto unexplored aspect of Irish art history, Painting Dublin, 1886-1949 examines the depiction of Dublin by artists from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Artists' representations of the city have long been markers of...

This abundantly illustrated book examines the figure of Balthazar, one of the biblical magi, and explains how and why he came to be depicted as a Black African king. According to the Gospel of Matthew, magi from the East, following a star, traveled to...

Thoughtful Images demonstrates that there is a rich tradition of illustrations of philosophy that originated in Ancient Greece, spread throughout Europe, thrived in twentieth century America, and continues to this day. It is the first book to isolate...

Russian-born conceptual artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov are among the most celebrated artists of their generation. Known for their pioneering large-scale environments and installations, the artists' work fuses the everyday with the conceptual. Deeply...

In August 1939, curators at the Louvre nestled the world's most famous painting into a special red velvet-lined case and spirited her away to the Loire Valley as part of the biggest museum evacuation in history. As the Germans neared Paris in 1940, the...

From the 1860s through to the early 20th century the rise of Japonisme and the Art Nouveau movement meant that few could ignore or resist the obsession with all things Japanese. Superbly crafted and often highly decorated Japanese objects - lacquer,...

Notre-Dame of Amiens is one of the great Gothic cathedrals. Its construction began in 1220, and artistic production in the Gothic mode lasted well into the sixteenth century. In this magisterial chronicle, Stephen Murray invites readers to see the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9784756247131Author PIE BooksFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint PIE BooksPublisher PIE Books

During his 60-odd years as a painter Francis Bacon fearlessly tackled the unruly imagery of life, remaining defiantly committed to giving this purposeless existence a meaning. His insistence on depicting the mysteries of human experience had been rare in...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780312425852Author Calvin TompkinsFormat PaperbackPage Count 352Imprint St. Martins Press-3PLPublisher St. Martins Press-3PLWeight(grams) 340gDimensions(mm)...

Providing a thematic overview of the multifarious work produced by Derek Boshier (b.1937) from the post-war period to the digital age, this fascinating publication reveals how Boshier’s deceptively playful imagery offers analytical commentaries on...

Bringing together essays by museum professionals and academics from both sides of the Atlantic, Art and its Publics tackles current issues confronting the museum community and seeks to further the debate between theory and practice around the most...

Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991) was one of the most influential Turkish artists, best known for her large-scale abstract paintings. Marrying influences from Islamic, Byzantine and Eastern art with the bold colour of the Fauvists, the geometrical dissonance...

This wide-ranging survey, now established as the best single-volume introduction to Andean art and architecture on the market today, describes the strikingly varied artistic achievements of the Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Nasca, Chimu and Inca cultures,...

Mackintosh is a celebration of the extraordinary career of one of the most intriguing and influential artists of his time, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. This book follows his artistic development, from his early architectural and interior designs in...

Early in his career, as he grappled with the idea of becoming an artist, Vincent van Gogh attempted portraiture, possibly with a mission in the religious sense. His models were impoverished miners, weavers and peasants. Later, his great achievement was...

After the Crisis offers a platform for discussions between some of today's leading artists, writers, theorists, curators, and historians aimed at questioning the very status of photography today. Contributors come from the realms of critical theory,...

This book offers a range of views on spolia and appropriation in art and architecture from fourth-century Rome to the late twentieth century. Using case studies from different historical moments and cultures, contributors test the limits of spolia as a...

This beautifully illustrated book documents the life and work of one of Canada's greatest modern painters. David Milne's (1882-1953), vast body of work shows him to be an artist of true originality and vision. Like the members of the Group of Seven,...

What connects Marliyn Monroe, Disneyworld, "The Satanic Verses" and cyber space? Answer: Postmodernism. But what exactly is postmodernism? This Graphic Guide explains clearly the maddeningly enigmatic concept that has been used to define the world's...