Artists, Architects, Photographers

The celebrated art nouveau architect Antoni Gaudi was a contradictory figure: a deeply religious, politically right-wing man who nevertheless created revolutionary, lyrical buildings. This book explores Gaudi's life, work and influences, from Catalan...

Barbara Hulanicki tells the story of the rise and fall of the tiny, energetic boutique that grew into a vast emporium and epitomised Swinging London. The Biba store was to become an icon of hip '60s and '70s London and a hangout for artists, film stars...

'If a Louis Wain cat were reading this book, he would raise his topper in tribute' - The Times 'Excellent ... Hughes reveals a fascinating, forgotten aspect of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain: how the British fell in love with felines'...

Learn about key movements like impressionism, cubism and symbolism in The Art Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Art in this overview guide to the...

This is the stunning story of how Divine Intervention quietly stepped in and shattered the classic boundaries of watercolours. It happened to one artist in one magnificent flash, in one inconsequential basement studio, in one precise magical stroke...

When Christian Brechneff first set foot on the Greek island of Sifnos, it was the spring of 1972 and he was a twenty-one-year-old painter searching for artistic inspiration and a quiet place to work. There, this Swiss child of Russian emigres, adrift and...

A revealing and beautifully open memoir from pioneering industrial music artist, visual artist, and transgender icon Genesis P-Orridge-now in paperbackIn this groundbreaking book spanning decades of artistic risk-taking, the inventor of "industrial...

THE TIMES AND WATERSTONES BEST ART BOOK OF 2023 'Marvellous . . . intimate and insightful . . . reads like a novel by Samuel Beckett' Paul Theroux A portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest sculptors from one of our most eminent art...

In 1954, following her death, Frida Kahlo's possessions were locked away in the Casa Azul in Mexico City, her lifelong home. Half a century later, her collection of clothing, jewellery, cosmetics and other personal items was rediscovered. Frida Kahlo:...

An attractive new hardcover edition of the classic biography of Tamara de Lempicka, whose paintings defined Art Deco and whose life epitomised the Jazz Age. As F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed the mad glories of the 1920s on the printed page, ...

'That word, "vacation," makes me sweat.' Coco Chanel on taking a break'You must do it irregardless, or it will eat its way out of you.' Zora Neale Hurston on writing'One has to choose between the Life and the Project.' Susan Sontag on choosing artFrom...

The first half of this fascinating book contains a detailed exploration of Van Gogh's life, including his background, early career, influences and relationships. Beginning with his birth in 1853, it details his childhood, family life, education and...

MADONNA. ANDY WARHOL. KEITH HARING. FAB 5 FREDDIE. DEBBIE HARRY. JULIAN SCHNABEL. Jean-Michel Basquiat's transition from the subways to the chic gallery spaces of Manhattan brought the artist into the company of many of New York's established and...

Who was the man behind The Scream, the iconic painting that so acutely expresses the anguish of the twentieth century? Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944) was twenty-eight when he embarked on a lifelong effort to paint his 'soul's diary' - and began a perverse...

The intimate memoirs of one of the most acclaimed and controversial artists of her generation.Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamt it would be like this.'Frequently affecting...intriguing, almost...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch...

Sunday Times Art Book of the Year 2018'If you are interested in modern British art, the book is unputdownable. If you are not, read it.' - Grey Gowrie, Financial Times 'All the good stories, and more, are here ... this is a genuinely encyclopaedic work,...

'Fascinating' Sunday Times'Deeply sourced and rich with anecdotes' The Times'Like a nonfiction version of The Devil Wears Prada' Elizabeth Day'Odell's extensive reporting dredges up a wealth of delightful details' New York TimesThis definitive biography...

'Utterly fascinating' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday TimesBenjamin Franklin took daily naked air baths and Toulouse-Lautrec painted in brothels. Edith Sitwell worked in bed, and George Gershwin composed at the piano in pyjamas. Freud worked sixteen hours a day,...

'Her bravest work of performance art to date . . . Rawly intimate' ObserverThis memoir spans Marina Abramovic's five decade career, and tells a life story that is almost as exhilarating and extraordinary as her groundbreaking performance art. Taking us...

Every inch of Grayson's childhood bedroom was covered with pictures of aeroplanes, and every surface with models. Fantasy took over his life, in a world of battles ruled by his teddy bear, Alan Measles. He grew up. And in 2003, an acclaimed ceramic...

'An absorbing book, beautifully told and with the writer fully in command of a huge body of research' Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday There was an epic sweep to Michelangelo's life. At 31 he was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world;...

Fifty Years of New York Graffiti Art and Beyond is the first monograph of Puerto Rican born artist Lee Quinones presenting his monumental work and following his evolution over five decades. 'An inspired outlaw with a meticulous design process and...

Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist's work, and a moving and intimate...

Volumes have been written by and about Patrick Leigh Fermor, but his wife Joan is almost entirely absent from their pages. Now Simon Fenwick, the first archivist to see the Leigh Fermor papers, reveals a woman hitherto only fleetingly glimpsed. A...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781590170014Author Henri MichauxFormat PaperbackPage Count 200Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

The #1 New York Times Bestseller 'Walter Isaacson is not an art historian, he's simply a lover of Leonardo, who manages to communicate the sheer joy of this remarkable man'Books of the Year - The Times He was history's most creative genius. What secrets...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'Quite possibly the best living writer in Britain' Daily TelegraphMuch attention has been paid to so-called late style - but what about last style? When does last begin? How early is late? When does the end set in?In this...

Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most fascinating artists in history. Apprenticed at an early age to her father, the seventeenth-century painter Orazio Gentileschi, she rapidly became more famous than he was, for her rich, dramatic canvases. But her...

* 'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe,...

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times).Set amid the most turbulent social and political...

Francoise Gilot was a young painter in Pasis when she first met Picasso - he was sixty-two and she was twenty-one. During the following ten years they were lovers, worked closely together and she became mother to two of his children, Claude and Paloma...

Leonardo's Notebooks is a biography of the genius in his own words, connecting moments of his life to artistic accomplishments through his writings, drawings, and intimate thoughts.Leonardo da Vinci -- artist, inventor, and prototypical Renaissance man...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded... A jewel in its own right' The Times 'Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written and...

WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK BIOGRAPHY PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSelected as a Book of the Year in the Herald In 1845, a Reading bookseller named John Snare came across the...

Graduating from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s, Martin Margiela (and his contemporaries in the Antwerp Six) transformed global fashion with his aggressive restatement of traditional fashion design and a polemical approach to luxury...

The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian RenaissanceAs he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781250074836Author Emmanuel CarrereFormat PaperbackPage Count 352Imprint St. Martin's PressPublisher St. Martin's PressWeight(grams) 454gDimensions(mm)...

Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art. Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781936440399Author Marcel DuchampFormat PaperbackPage Count 110Imprint Badlands UnlimitedPublisher Badlands Unlimited