Burst! Abstract Painting After 1945 looks at the close, but previously unexplored relationship between Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel. Through texts and close to 100 illustrations, the book describes a vital creative exchange across the Atlantic that would entirely redefine painting. Big, expansive, paint-splattered surfaces; spontaneous actions captured on canvas; new ideas of freedom. A story of post-war recovery and Transatlantic dialogue. On both sides of the ocean, society was reacting to the horrors of the Second World War, the Holocaust and the coming of the atom bomb. The book shows how artists searched for new ways to deal with these shattering events. With works by Jean Dubuffet, Natalia Dumitresco, Helen Frankenthaler, Asger Jorn, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Georges Mathieu, Hedda Sterne and Clyfford Still, and more.
Tony Sarg (1880–1942), an American artist born in Guatemala to a diplomatic family, first achieved professional success as an illustrator in London and New York. But in the 1920s, he gained even greater renown for his touring puppet shows based on classic tales like Alice in Wonderland and Robinson Crusoe. Fusing the time-honoured craft of traditional marionette shows with a playful modern sensibility, Sarg’s productions were foundational to American puppetry: Jim Henson can be considered a direct artistic descendant. Yet this was only one facet of Sarg’s varied accomplishments: he was also a pioneer in animated films and children’s books, and, as a longtime designer for Macy’s, he invented the gigantic balloons used in the firm’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (He also employed one of his parade balloons in the famous Nantucket Sea Serpent hoax of 1937.)
This abundantly illustrated volume, published to coincide with a major exhibition organised by the Norman Rockwell Museum, is the first to survey Tony Sarg’s protean career. It brings together imagery and artifacts from numerous public and private collections, and includes special sections on Sarg’s long association with the island of Nantucket and his influence on American puppetry. Tony Sarg: Genius at Play will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of popular culture.
Diamonds tell stories that are captivating and timeless. On the one hand, they are just stones, pieces of pure carbon with optical properties that make them glitter and sparkle like stars. On the other, they are mystical entities hypnotically drawing the viewer into a time machine as it were, wherein a cinematic montage of their journey unfolds. Diamonds Across Time presents a sweeping overview of diamonds across time and space, featuring ten essays by world-renowned scholars in love the stone. Here, these authors present new discoveries; explore extraordinary collections; investigate histories, science, and trade; the nature of diamonds; legendary gems, jewellery collections, and great designers. Above all, they tell the human stories that underpin the adoration of diamonds.
Diamonds Across Time is a richly illustrated publication with high-quality images of gems and jewels, archival documents, rare drawings, and fabulous photographs. The volume places diamonds in the context of the time in which they were discovered, and on the political, social, and cultural stage on which their histories were etched. In a rapidly changing world, diamonds are eternal. They were created by nature and grew in the womb of the earth. They tell stories, and they record history. With this book, diamonds will finally have their own storytellers.
The Romanov Diamonds: History of Splendour – Stefano Papi; The Londonderry Jewels, 1819-1959 – Diana Scarisbrick; Dress to Impress in Southeast Asia – René Brus; Powerful Women, Important Diamonds – Ruth Peltason; One in Ten Thousand: The Unique World of Coloured Diamonds – John M. King.
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, located next door to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam’s Museumpark and designed by MVRDV, is the first art depot in the world to be fully accessible to the public. Visitors can see the result of over 170 years of collecting: more than 151,000 objects of art and design, housed in 14 storage spaces, are arranged by material, size, and sometimes chronology or geography. All the activities involved in the management and conservation of a collection are also on view. This is a fascinating account of a unique new type of museum building and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen collection.
This book covers all the phases in its creation, from the first crazy ideas to the last work of art to be rehoused. It takes you on a journey through the building and provides brief glimpses of the storage compartments on each floor. The essays describe the growing collection, its storage conditions over the last 172 years, and the Depot’s design and construction process. And includes details of the designers and artists involved about their contributions to the building.
Based on documentation originating in the environmental sciences, history of science, philosophy and art, Architecture of Nature explores the materiality and the effects of the forces at play in the history of the earth through the architect’s modes of seeing and techniques of representation. This book presents research work developed for the past eight years in the Advanced Research graduate studio ‘Architecture of Nature/ Nature of Architecture’, created and directed by Diana Agrest at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of the Cooper Union. Architecture of Nature departs from the traditional approach to nature as a referent for architecture and reframes it as its object of study. The complex processes of generation and transformations of extreme natural phenomena such as glaciers, volcanoes, permafrost, and clouds are explored through unique drawings and models, confronting a scale of space and time that expands and transcends the established boundaries of the architectural discipline.
This is the exceptionally rich story of Rembrandt’s fame and influence in Britain. No other nation has witnessed such a passionate – and sometimes eccentric – enthusiasm for Rembrandt’s works. His imagery has become ubiquitous, making him one of the most recognised artists in history. In this book, some of the world’s leading experts reveal how the taste for Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings and prints evolved, growing into a mania that gripped collectors and art lovers across the country. This reached a fever pitch in the late 1700s, before the dawn of a new century ushered in a re-evaluation of Rembrandt’s reputation and opportunities for the wider public to see his masterpieces for themselves.
The story of Rembrandt’s profound and inspirational impact on the British imagination is illustrated by over 130 sumptuous works by the master himself, as well as by some of Britain’s best-loved artists, including William Hogarth, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Eduardo Paolozzi and John Bellany.
Foreword; Introduction; 1 Rembrandt’s Fame in Britain, 1630 1900: An Overview- Christian Tico Seifert; 2 Rembrandt and Britain: The Modern Era – Patrick Elliott; 3 ‘The Finest Possible State’: Cataloguing and Collecting Rembrandt’s Prints, c.1700 1840 – Stephanie S. Dickey; 4 From Studio to Academy: Copying Rembrandt in Eighteenth-century Britain – Jonathan Yarker; 5 Regarding Rembrandt: Reynolds and Rembrandt – Donato Esposito; 6 Rembrandt: Paragon of the Etching Revival – Peter Black; 7 Rembrandt and Britain: A ‘Picture Flight’ in Three Stages, 1850 1930 – M.J. Ripps; Catalogue; Bibliography.
Issue 20 of LA+ journal brings you the results of our fifth international design ideas competition. LA+ EXOTIQUE asked entrants to redesign the forecourt of the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The Museum—founded in 1793—sits within the Jardin des Plantes grounds, which include themed gardens, a zoo, and five themed galleries. In addition to its collections, the Museum is an active research institution studying the evolution of life on this planet. LA+ EXOTIQUE showcases the award-winning designs and a comprehensive Salon des Refusés. The issue will also feature an essay by LA+ creative director Catherine Seavitt and interviews with jurors Julia Czerniak, Sonja Dümpelmann, Catherine Mosbach, Signe Nielsen, and Marcel Wilson.
James Ensor (1860–1949) was a Belgian painter known for his provocative and innovative works, often featuring masks and grotesque figures. Through mediums like etching and lithography, Ensor delved into themes of existential exploration and the macabre. His graphic oeuvre showcases his mastery of line and form, inviting us into a realm where masks, skeletons, and surreal landscapes converge to challenge conventions and provoke thought. But how did Ensor make prints? What techniques did he use? Which old masters inspired him and in what way did he experiment with this medium? James Ensor and the Graphic Experiment gathers the most remarkable results of Ensor’s graphic experiments: preparatory drawings, copper plates and various states of prints.
Image © Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp
For ten years, Abbie Zabar – artist and bestselling author of The Potted Herb – had unique early-morning access to the Great Hall at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each week, from 1994 to 2004, she drew the magisterial bouquets that adorned the soaring neoclassical entrance to one of the world’s most visited art institutions.
Published for the first time, Abbie’s exquisite colour pencil drawings of these floral masterpieces are presented in a beautifully fashioned gift book. Each drawing showcases her signature flair, her understanding of botanical elements, and her subtle use of colour. Whether a Christmas arrangement with magnolia leaves, red berries and flyaway branches, or a summer fiesta of palm leaves, red hot pokers, and birds of paradise, in the hands of their secret chronicler, these floral arrangements are alive with all the beauty and joy of nature. A timeless treasure for patrons of the museum; anyone drawn to florals and botanical art; gardeners and long-time fans of Abbie’s work. The perfect gift for any occasion.
This catalogue documents an exhibition at the Baur Foundation that brings together work by the French painter Pierre Soulages (b.1919) and the Japanese master bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV (b. 1973). Soulages, still working at 102 years old, has painted almost exclusively in black since 1979 and is known as the “master of luminous blacks”. Tanabe Chikuunsai IV is a renowned bamboo artist, known for his twisting organic sculptures and room-sized installations made from tiger or black bamboo. The aim of this exhibition is to explore how their work resonates, despite different approaches, in the dark and light effects of their materials.
Text in French and English.
Published to accompany an exhibition at the Baur Foundation in Switzerland, a museum of Far Eastern Art, from November 2021–March 2022.
The Baga, along with the Nalu and the Landuma, are a small rice-growing community living along the coast of Guinea, in West Africa. They became famous following the discovery of their extraordinary sculptures by explorers, colonial administrators, ethnologists, collectors, and art dealers towards the end of the nineteenth century. Nowadays, the art of the Baga is admired in the public and private collections of northern European countries. Their works consist mainly of different types of wooden masks and statues of various sizes, as well as wonderful percussion instruments, chiefs’ seats, and other skilfully carved utilitarian objects. All these sacred objects were once created and used as important features in their ritual behaviour based on the manifestation of their divinities, ancestor worship, rites of passage, secret brotherhoods, and the performance of important social ceremonies like weddings, funerals, and harvesting. But more recently they have also included entirely new sculpted works created by talented, highly skilled craftsmen who were influenced by colonisation and newly introduced religions, while at the same time finding inspiration in traditional myths and legends. Fascinating examples of this eclecticism are the figures of colonists depicted standing, on horseback, or riding birds, the many different kinds of female busts representing Mami Wata, the sea goddess, winged figures, bestiaries associated with tales and legends, and the personifications of the heroic founders of their villages. To this day, the young men of the Baga continue to make certain commemorative and emblematic objects, such as the large D’mba mask, and still produce sculptures connected with their history and culture. All these artefacts have their place in the dances and events that play such an important part in village life and in relations between villages and beyond.
Great Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the epicentre of the development of modern industrial design. This book – the fourth volume in the MoMA Design Series featuring works in the Museum’s collection – explores this legacy, tracing the growth of British design from the eighteenth century to the Millennium Dome and beyond. In its more than two-hundred-year scope, British Design explores the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes of World War II, the Mini car and Dyson vacuum cleaner, the ‘Cool Britannia’ cultural explosion in the late 1990s, and British designers’ take on the digital devices that define entertainment and communication in the early twenty-first century. An introduction by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, provides an overview of design culture in Great Britain; an essay and timeline by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, curator, former design critic for The New Statesman, and author of World Design and New American Design, illuminates the masterpieces of modern British design superbly reproduced in the volume’s plate section.
Together with the Indigenous communities of the Wanjina Wunggurr – comprising the Ngarinyin, Worrorra, and Wunambal peoples – we look back at the Frobenius Expedition to the Kimberley Region of North West Australia in 1938-39. Organised by the former Institute for Cultural Morphology and the Frankfurt Museum of Ethnology (today: the Frobenius Institute and the Weltkulturen Museum), it was the first comprehensive ethnographic research expedition to a region still today characterised by a vibrant rock art tradition. The publication accompanying the exhibition of the same name is the result of a joint exploration of the expedition’s research history and includes contemporary interpretations of the collections acquired at the time.
Exhibition: Country bin pull’em at the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. From 1 November 2024-31 August 2025.
Nicole Callebaut (1935) is an internationally renowned Belgian visual artist who has tirelessly explored for 50 years the relationship between line and surface, between light and colour in a desire for both pictorial and intellectual research. After studying decorative arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, she became a journalist for Belgian radio and television, co‐wrote the book on Rites and Mysteries in the Near East published by Robert Laffont, co‐directed films for ethnographic character before settling for several years in New York where she reconnected with painting, then founded an art school in Loulé in Portugal and continued tirelessly to make her paper in the tank, to paint and to exhibit on both sides of the Atlantic, testifying to an apparently inexhaustible vitality. Her works are among others in the collections of the Center Pompidou (Paris), the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington DC), the Museum of Sharjah (USA), the French Community of Belgium, the Museum of Mons, the Museum of Ixelles (Brussels), the Centro Cultural Loulè and the Centro Cultural Faro (Portugal).
Text in English and French.
Abstract and mysterious, the sculptures of Lisa Seebach (b. 1981) are reminiscent of industrial objects like gas cylinders or oil drums, which she transforms into autonomous actors in a poetically enigmatic staging filled with associative meta-narratives. In the labyrinth of postapocalyptic science fiction, dark utopias, and posthuman aesthetics, they point to potential threats in the face of dystopian escalation and explore ways of escaping them.
Earthy Liquids and Heavy Metal [Hypersleep] is Lisa Seebach’s largest solo museum exhibition to date and shows numerous works from the last 10 years alongside works specially conceived for the exhibition space at Lechner Museum in Ingolstadt. The publication of the same name brings together numerous images of the installation and accompanying texts.
Text in English and German.
Lam Partners has blazed the trail in architectural lighting design for more than 60 years. The visionary team of designers, architectural imaginers, and technical gurus have illuminated prominent and prestigious buildings, landmarks, and spaces across the United States and around the world.
William Lam founded his eponymous studio in 1961, pioneering the field of modern lighting design and establishing the core philosophies and principles that continue to lay the foundation for Lam Partners and the lighting industry today. Now led by its third generation of principals, Lam Partners collaborates closely with architects to develop custom lighting designs that bring their vision to life. Their passion for architecture and lighting is evident in the energy and enthusiasm injected into the design process, and the technical and creative strategies that enrich architecture and space, and elevate the human experience.
This beautifully presented monograph showcases 25 architectural lighting projects by Lam Partners, including the United States Institute of Peace, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Yad Vashem Memorial Museum, The TOWER at PNC Plaza, Salt Lake City Public Library, and SoFi Stadium. It also features a selection of legacy projects, such as the Washington D.C. Metro and Union Station, and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, considered to be some of Lam’s greatest contributions to architectural lighting.
Chemical Alterations presents a photographic series by Doug Fogelson (b. 1970) that reflects the range of impacts caused by climate change around the planet. Using a process that combines traditional landscape photography with a chemical bath of toxic cleaning products to alter the original analogue film, Fogelson illustrates what are often invisible changes to the environment. Such changes culminate as disastrous events like fire, flood, drought, increasingly powerful storms, and overall global warming. Images of natural spaces that include mountains, deserts, volcanoes, jungles, oceans, rivers, and forests become represented in a state of flux. Through the processing of the film, traces such as bubbles, crystals, fingerprints, and dust are integrated into the images, probing the borderline of abstraction.
The Chemical Alterations series has been in-progress over a decade and exhibited through various iterations internationally at both galleries and museums including: The Royal Geographic Society, United Kingdom, Museum Belvedere, Netherlands, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Alpenium Produzentengalerie, Luzern, SFO Museum, San Francisco, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Sasha Wolf Projects, NYC, Klompching Gallery, NYC, The Arts Club of Chicago and others. It has been covered by The Brooklyn Rain, Humble Arts Foundation, Ain’t Bad, The OD Review, Great Lakes Writers Corps, and others.
Distillations: Nancy Goldring Drawings and Foto-Projections 1971–2021 surveys 50 years of visual and conceptual explorations by artist and writer Nancy Goldring. Material is arranged according to predominating themes throughout her career: Thresholds, Sites, Sets, Perspectives, Dreams and Visions, and Chiaroscuro. The book reveals her unique process, how she devised her technique of melding graphic and photographic material through projection, and tracks its evolution from the sandwiching of black-and-white graphic and photographic images through to the creation of her “foto-projections” and large installation work. Included are interviews with the artist and an introduction by Jarrett Earnest with essays by writers and curators Paolo Barbaro, David Levi Strauss, Michael Taussig, and Ellen Handy.
Pont-Aven has lent its name to one of the most famous schools of painting in modern art and is now automatically associated with Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. In 1888, in this Breton village in southern Finistère, the two painters set about inventing the features of a completely new style of painting: Synthetism. Breaking with academic orthodoxy and heavily influenced by Japanese prints, they introduced novel aesthetic principles distinguished especially by a belief in simple forms and the use of colour applied in large patches edged by a dark line. This approach further distanced itself from the art that preceded it in its taste for matt tones and the rejection of traditional perspective. This new book reveals to a wider public the important collection that Alexandre Mouradian amassed in only a few years. The collection reflects its creator’s great passion for the artists of the Pont-Aven group, as well as others in Brittany and beyond who embraced the new ideas of Bernard and Gauguin without ever losing their individuality. Whether in painting or printmaking, each of these was able to move beyond the imitation of observed reality to express the deepest aspect of his personality: his emotions. The works selected by the collector eloquently show the international reach of what was not strictly speaking a school, in the full sense of the term. Since the private Paris academies were closed during the summer, artists from all over Europe went to Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu to seek inspiration and ‘to dare’ like Gauguin. Written contributions by Jean-Marie Rouart of the French Academy and the author and art historian Adrien Goetz, are supported by detailed notes on the works by the museum curator Estelle Guille des Buttes, providing invaluable insights into this exceptional collection.
In Edo Japan, woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e (“pictures of the Floating World”) captured the entertainment culture of the urban elite and eventually many other subjects as well. These beautiful prints were the result of a meticulous craft process, in which an artist’s initial drawing was translated by expert carvers into multiple printing blocks for different colours. In this attractive volume, Sarah E. Thompson, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, provides a highly readable overview of the cultural and artistic history of ukiyo-e, showcasing 120 exceptional prints from the museum’s world-class collection, by masters including Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige. She explores each of the principal genres in turn: beauty and fashion, the kabuki theatre, landscape, nature, history and literature, and fantasy. Pictures of the Floating World features a traditional Japanese stab binding and is housed in a durable slipcase together with three remarkable prints, suitable for framing. It will be a must-have for all art lovers.
A visual history of fashion that fits in the palm of your hand.
Drawing from the extensive Textile and Fashion Arts Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this miniature history of European and American fashion features some 275 garments, accessories, and related works of art from the 17th century to the present. Dress historian Allison Taylor introduces each new era with a concise overview of the period’s fashionable styles and silhouettes, as well as the underlying historical and cultural influences. This chic Tiny Folio is the perfect gift for fashionistas and fashion historians alike.
Switzerland has been globally connected and entangled with colonies established by the seafaring European nations in Africa, the Americas, and Asia since the 16th century. Colonial — Switzerland’s Global Entanglements offers a timely overview of this highly topical matter, placing a wide range of aspects in historical context and addressing as well questions of colonial continuities.
Contributions by distinguished scholars and experts from various disciplines investigate questions such as the involvement of Swiss companies in the trade with enslaved people, Swiss mercenaries in the service of colonial powers, the colonial legacy of the country’s missionary societies, and the research and collection of artefacts by Swiss scientists in former colonies. Light is shed also on the involvement of anthropological institutes at the universities of Zurich and Geneva in scientific racism.
Conceived as an illustrated reader, this volume is both an invitation and a stimulus to explore and to engage critically with Switzerland’s history of global interdependence.
Text in French.