Artists, Architects, Photographers

Annette Kuhn's work as a theorist of culture has won her a wide reputation for dissecting film and other images in books such as Women's Pictures and The Power of the Image. In Family Secrets, she turns her attention to the deconstruction of pictures...

Aristocrat, literary celebrity, 'Rose Queen', devoted wife, lesbian, recluse, iconoclast - Vita Sackville-West was many things, but she was never straightforward. Her life is re-told here in a dazzling new biography. Vita Sackville-West was a...

In Floor Sample, the author of the international bestseller The Artist's Way weaves an honest and moving portrayal of her life. From her early career as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine and her marriage to Martin Scorsese, to her tortured...

This is an expert and detailed account of the painter Claude Monet, one of the key founders of the Impressionist movement and arguably the most influential painter of modern times. It is an insightful biography that tells the story of his life, the...

In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect.Through character sketches and anecdotes he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in his...

The definitive biography that unlocks the remarkable story of Vivian Maier, the nanny who lived secretly as a world-class photographer, featuring nearly 400 of her images, many never seen before, placed for the first time in the context of her life...

Judy Chicago is America's most dynamic living artist. Her works comprise a dizzying array of media from performance and installation to the glittering table laid for thirty- nine iconic women in The Dinner Party (now permanently housed at the Brooklyn...

Now in paperback, a beautifully illustrated account of of Tove Jansson's life and artThe definitive biography of one of the most unique and beloved children's authors of the 20th century, the creator of the Moomins. Tove Jansson (1914-2001) led a long,...

Eye-opening and candid, David Bailey's Look Again is a fantastically entertaining memoir by a true icon.'Rollicking . . . with roguish tales as vivid as his era-defining photos' - Daily Mail'Brilliant' - TelegraphDavid Bailey burst onto the scene in 1960...

In this autobiography Unity Spencer writes about her unconventional childhood, her unconventional father and her life as an artist in her own right.About the AuthorUnity Spencer has exhibited widely and still teaches printmaking to the many students who...

Few artists have captured the emotional, sexual, and political chaos of modern urban life as perceptively as David Wojnarowicz, whom Out magazine has called "an acute observer of the unmapped region surrounding his heart and one of the best writers...

In this fully revised and richly illustrated edition, author and journalist Will Ellsworth-Jones pieces together a complete picture of the life and work of Banksy, perhaps the most iconic, enigmatic and controversial artist of modern times. For someone...

Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries to the golden epoch of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Great men, and their immortal works, are brought vividly to life, as Vasari...

It is said that asphyxiation brings on a state of hallucinatory intoxication...in which case the 71 year old artist who lay in his sprawling Provencal villa died happy. In the early afternoon of Monday 4 October 1999, wracked with Parkinson's, and unable...

Born into a large, musical, and bohemian family in London, the British artist John Craxton (1922-2009) has been described as a Neo-Romantic, but he called himself a "kind of Arcadian". His early art was influenced by Blake, Palmer, Miro, and Picasso...

SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATOR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 'This exceptional book is far from...

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartetsBeethoven's sixteen string quartets are some of the most extraordinary and challenging pieces of music ever written. They have inspired artists of all kinds - not...

Black artists in Britain have long been making major contributions to art history. While some of these artists have been embraced at times by the art world, for the most part they have not received the recognition they deserve. Taking as its starting...

Since her death in 2011, the legendary Surrealist Leonora Carrington has been reconstructed and reinvented many times over. In this book, Gabriel Weisz Carrington draws on remembered conversations and events to demythologise his mother, revealing the...

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black...

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9782080203724Author Willy RonisFormat HardbackPage Count 600Imprint FlammarionPublisher Editions FlammarionWeight(grams) 3780g

Laura Knight (1877-1970) was one of the most distinguished women artist of the early 20th century with an international reputation. This highly readable and objective biography covers her early years in Nottingham, her relationship with her husband...

** WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY **'Exhilarating.' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year'Sharp-eyed and revealing.' The New Yorker'Brilliant . . . Remarkable.' New York Journal of BooksStephen Crane produced...

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over...

Immensely skillful and inventive, Hans Holbein molded his approach to art-making during a period of dramatic transformation in European society and culture: the emergence of humanism, the impact of the Reformation on religious life and the effects of new...

"For those of you-and your numbers are growing-gardening in drought-stricken parts of the country, The Bold Dry Garden will quench your thirst for inspiration." -New York Times Book Review Ruth Bancroft is a dry gardening pioneer. Her lifelong love of...

Take a look inside the homes of some of your favourite artists and explore how each one reflected their spirit and creativity. From William Morris and Pablo Picasso to Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, Artists at Home showcases the quiet retreats,...

He was an anthropologist, a filmmaker, a painter, a folklorist, a mystic, and a walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary, jammed with Thelonious Monk, lived with Allen...

"I have been weaving tapestries for more than half a century. It is as much a part of my everyday as eating, sleeping-or dreaming. It is an utterly ordinary activity for me." One of the world's most influential tapestry weavers, renowned for bringing...

King of Pop Art Andy Warhol is one of the greatest artists of all time. Rarely venturing into public without his camera and tape recorder, Warhol was a great observer and documentarist of the American social scene.Somewhere within the iconic images,...

A major new biography of James McNeill Whistler, one of most complex, intriguing, and important of America's artists This engaging personal history dispels the popular notion of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) as merely a combative, eccentric, and...

'As fresh, poignant and individual as his paintings' Lucy Beckett, TLS, Books of the Year 2018'Here is my soul. Look for me here; here I am, here are my pictures, my roots'Marc Chagall, one of the twentieth century's most popular artists, grew up in a...

Guillermo del Toro is a complete and intimate study of the life and work of one of modern cinema's most truly unique directors, whose distinct aesthetic and imagination are unmatched in contemporary film. Widely regarded as one of the most imaginative...

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...

Titian's works are often seen as embodying the famous tradition of Venetian Renaissance painting. But how 'Venetian' was Titian, and can his unique works be taken as truly representative of his adoptive city? This comprehensive new study, covering...

'All my life my Stradivarius had been waiting for me, as I had been waiting for her . . .'At 7 years old Min Kym was a prodigy, the youngest ever pupil at the Purcell School of Music. At 11 she won her first international prize. She worked with many...

An intimate study of three of Ireland's greatest writers from one of its best-loved contemporary voices, Colm Toibin__________________In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Colm Toibin takes three of Ireland's greatest writers - Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats and James...

A visual and global chronicle of the triumphs, challenges, and impact of over 100 women in architecture, from early practitioners to contemporary leaders. Marion Mahony Griffin passed the architectural licensure exam in 1898 and created exquisite...

A detailed examination of the last 15 years of Crowley's life* Reveals Crowley's sex magick relations in London and his contacts with important figures, including Dion Fortune, Gerald Gardner, Jack Parsons, Dylan Thomas, and black equality activist Nancy...