At the end of 2024, more than 100 masterpieces were put on display at the Gallery of Modern Contemporary Art and the former Church of St. Ignazio in Arezzo, for an exhibition event with an international scope that represented the culmination of “Arezzo. The City of Vasari”, the program of events organised to celebrate Vasari in his hometown on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his death. Unpublished works, monumental works and loans from some of the world’s most prestigious museums and private collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Musée du Louvre in Paris, as well as national treasures held by the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and other Italian museums were included. The monumental works – which rarely leave their original locations represent some of the most significant masterpieces of Vasari’s artistic production. This catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition.
Discover the magic of beloved the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood with The Storyteller sound books. This innovative collection offers young children a new way to experience these timeless tales: designed for those who are not yet able to read independently, each book allows children to explore the stories by turning the pages while listening to the corresponding text read aloud at the touch of a button. The book becomes a modern storyteller, presenting the fairy tales with beautiful illustrations and engaging narration that brings the stories to life.
Other titles in the collection include:
9788854421707 The Storyteller: Peter Pan
9788854421714 The Storyteller: Pinocchio
9788854421721 The Storyteller: Snow White
Ages 4 plus.
Yoga and the City photographically documents a variety of people who are committed to yoga philosophy and yoga lifestyles in big cities – people, who live in the middle of hustle and bustle, but manage to maintain their harmony and happiness. It doesn’t matter what is surrounding them, what really matters is how they look at everything around them. Possibly, when people see this photography, they will decide to try yoga or meditation. Yoga and the City combines art, spirituality, and sport. It is a reflection of strength and power – strength to overcome adversities and to find balance while living in a fast paced environment. Yoga is a way to find alignment, to become closer to your spiritual core.
This series of board books will help children to make the right choice when coming to recycling and saving the planet! On each page, after a short explanatory introduction, children will find a turning wheel. If they place it on the right recycling action, the following page will result in a happy ending. If they make the wrong decision, something bad for the environment will happen… but they can learn from that experience and start all over again thinking about their choices! A simple yet effective idea to make children understand that their actions have an impact on the planet. They can learn from it and make the right choice also in real life. Ages: 5 plus
Fifteen years ago, Eduardo Mencos (farmer, landscape designer and photographer) and Charles Quest-Ritson (historian, writer, journalist and editor) conceived the idea of going on a trip around the world, like Jules Verne, but with the olive tree playing the leading role. The outcome of that adventure through 26 countries is this book, which tells the story of humankind through the olive tree and its fruit. In the book, the authors take an in-depth look at a tree that is so familiar to us all and yet still remains so much of a mystery in terms of its many different guises.
With over 200 spectacular photographs taken by Eduardo Mencos, accompanied by an erudite text written by Charles Quest-Ritson, the book sweeps through the manifold manifestations of the olive tree and its distinguishing traits. It covers the origin and later domestication of the tree, all of the different roles it has played and the significance it has had at different times throughout history, its importance in the Bible, right through to the most innovative contemporary methods used today for growing and cloning olive trees, together with the prominent place it holds in the Mediterranean diet and its different uses.
The intention of this long journey is to awaken a vision of the olive tree that is imbued with beauty, poetry and curiosity.
The Labyrinth of Rooms is a story with one character, Human, who is an allegorical representation of us all. Human suddenly awakes in a square room with no memory of a prior life. A corridor leads them from that room to the next, then another, and so on until they reach the end of a 63-room labyrinth. As the journey progresses, Human contemplates their surroundings, studying the unique shape of each room and how it affects their thoughts, feelings, and actions. To understand the significance of the rooms’ architecture, Human engages in different types of thinking: questioning why the rooms were designed as such, imagining situations the rooms can host, praising what they find geometrically pleasing, speculating about the nature of the labyrinth, and even complaining about their forced existence within it. This variety is reflected in the writing of the book, which intentionally juxtaposes different genres, including storytelling, philosophical reasoning, dialogues, and prose poetry. In The Labyrinth of Rooms, the human life is conceived as a series of settings, or stated otherwise: a coevolution of our mental space and physical space.
‘The publishers are to be congratulated for their exemplary production’ – Curtis’s Botanical Magazine‘…this will go down as one of the greats of plant exploration literature…’ – Roy Lancaster ‘The appeal of the book lies as much in Ward’s prose as in the thrilling story of exploration and discovery. He was a fine writer and it is a cause for celebration that one of his best books is now again available after a gap of 70 years’ – Ursula Buchan, The Independent ‘There’s no doubt that such an elegant and exciting book new book richly deserves a new readership… the story behind its reissue is no less gripping than Kingdon Ward’s own narrative’– Ambra Edwards, Gardening Which?
Little explored and virtually inaccessible, the Tsangpo Gorge in south-east Tibet is the world’s deepest gorge. Through it twists the Yarlong Tsangpo, Tibet’s great river, emerging from below on the plains of India. This is the story of its exploration and the rich plant and animal life found there. Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges, first published in 1926, is the fascinating account of plant-hunter and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward’s most important expedition. Kenneth Cox, Kenneth Storm, Jr. and Ian Baker spent over ten years retracing the route of the 1924-25 expedition and managed to reach further into this magical and only partly explored land.
The book contains the original Kingdon Ward text and extensive additional material, including a history of the exploration, geography and religious significance of the area and more than 250 colour photographs with detailed captions on the plants of the area, most of which are described by Kingdon Ward in the original text. There are first person accounts of expeditions to the area by Kenneth Cox and Kenneth Storm. Jr. and a photographic essay documents, for the first time in a book, the new Hidden Falls located in the portion of the gorge left unexplored by Frank Kingdon Ward and Lord Cawdor in 1924.
A collaboration with UNESCO’s GEM Report, Mother Nature in the Bardo explores the impact between art, culture, and the environment. The book illuminates the innate connections between creativity and nature and inspires crucial conversations about humanity’s relationship with nature, sustainability and climate change. Bringing together historical and contemporary artworks from over 100 renowned international artists, galleries, institutions, estates and foundations, Mother Nature in the Bardo speaks to the most critical global dialogues of our time.
The best-selling guide to the first year of fatherhood, trusted by hundreds of thousands of new dads and their partners.
This indispensable handbook, from the author of the million-selling Expectant Father, provides a reassuring month-by-month overview of your baby’s first year. It covers the milestones in your child’s development; ways you can bond with your child and support your partner; and what’s going on with you, as a new dad.
The fourth edition of The New Father features a user-friendly new design and is updated from cover to cover with the latest information about healthcare, financial planning, parental leave and work-life balance, and much more. It incorporates the expertise of leading pediatricians and researchers, and the real-life experiences of hundreds of dads and mums.
Illustrated with stress-relieving cartoons, The New Father is a friendly, readable, and inclusive companion for all new dads. (Mums will love it, too!).
The 500 Hidden Secrets of Rome helps you set out to discover the most attractive, fun and unique places in Italy’s capital. Luisa Grigoletto and Christopher Livesay share 500 addresses and facts that many tourists don’t know, sometimes off the beaten track, but always loved by the locals and worth a visit.
This book lists, among other things, the 5 best gelaterías, the 5 most beautiful historic shops, 5 breathtaking palazzi which played an important role in art history and 5 sites where major Italian films were shot. It is the perfect book for those who wish to discover the city, but avoid all the usual tourist haunts, as well as for residents who are keen to track down the city’s best-kept secrets.
Jan Verlinden refers to himself as a “Scenery Sculptor,” specialising in the creation and design of green spaces for exceptional country homes and castles in Belgium and France. His work emphasises a harmonious balance between humanity and nature through intuitive design. In this first monograph, he showcases his eight favourite garden and landscape designs from recent years, richly illustrated with his stunning drawings and accompanying texts. Jan is introduced by three prominent figures in the field: architect Bart Moors, “Solitair” owner Dirk Cools, and the Pas-Partoe architecture and interior design studio.
World-renowned photographer Thomas De Bruyne (Cafeine, with over 140,000 followers on Instagram) has taken on the challenge of capturing the landscape and garden poetry of Jan Verlinden in stunning photographs.
Text in English and Dutch.
“The quality of the reprint is nearly perfect, with a good selection of papers for the three sequential parts of the book: the texts, the drawings, and the black-and-white photographs. Text and drawings are on matte heavyweight pages, while the photos are on glossy paper. The inks make everything read well; in particular, the drawing reproductions are exquisite.” — Archidose
Edwin Lutyens, one of the most famous architectural names of the 20th century, died in 1944. As a memorial, three large volumes of his drawings and photographs were commissioned from the thousands found in his office, and were published by Country Life.
All three volumes will be republished in 2023. The first volume contains his own plans, elevations and copious details of the finest examples of his domestic buildings, on which his huge reputation principally rests. The book embodies the quintessence of the man and his work; the variety of style and design seen in the houses brings together in one volume the many strands of Lutyen’s fertile mind. Two further volumes will include his corporate and public buildings.
The genius of Lutyens is now universally recognised. In the work featured in this book, we can now see not just the professionalism of a great architect, but also the loving care with which he set down the most minute detail, with the result that this is one of the few books in existence that can be used to provide working drawings.
Walk into any bar, in almost any part of the world, and there, on the back shelf you’re likely to see Baijiu, Cognac, Vodka, Scottish and Irish Whisky, Shochu, Tequila, Bourbon, Rum, Gin, and Absinthe. These drinks helped shape our culture; inspired authors and painters, brought both anarchy and harmony and even, in some cases, induced mass hysteria. In Ten Drinks That Changed the World, bartender, poet and writer Seki Lynch tells the stories behind the spirits. Tracing the origins of each drink, he dissects the ingredients and locates the first makers, exploring how perceptions and consumption levels have ebbed and flowed through the centuries. Cocktail recipes, lists of artisan makers and insights from the great, good and notorious drinkers of history help complete the résumé for each drink. London artist Tom Maryniak has created original illustrations of each drink for the book.
A stunning exploration of London’s most beautiful, interesting and unusual members’ club architecture and interiors.
London has more private members’ clubs than any other city, with new locations opening every year. The UK capital has exclusive clubs for everyone from plutocrats and bishops to jockeys and spies. Written by Andrew Jones, travel writer for the Financial Times and author of The Buildings of Green Park, this large-format picture book is richly illustrated with newly commissioned photographs by Laura Hodgson, covering 300 years of the capital’s architecture and interior design.
The London Club: Architecture, Interiors, Art offers a fascinating take on the structures and decorations inside some of the most niche spots in London, giving readers a one-off glimpse into the hidden corners of the city’s social infrastructure.
Daniela Keiser ranks among the most renowned contemporary artists in Switzerland. In 2017 she was awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim as well as a studio grant from Landis & Gyr Stiftung that enabled her to embark on an extended stay in London’s East End. There she discovered the Idea Store, the public library on Whitechapel Road built by British architect David Adjaye in 2001–05. Upon its opening to the public, this institution quickly became a meeting place for a broad spectrum of society including for socially disadvantaged people. The goal of the Idea Stores – eight of them have so far been opened in various London boroughs – is to enhance formerly neglected neighbourhoods and offer a low-threshold source of education and information.
From that initial Idea Store on Whitechapel Road, Daniela Keiser began to take pictures of the goings-on in the street outside. Her Library – Idea Store series reveals a calm, repetitive but insistent image of the city and offers insight into the small everyday variations of the surrounding world. Her photographic reflection is accompanied by a conversation between David Adjaye and art and architecture historian Philip Ursprung. They talk about Keiser’s perception of the site and – without actually showing the building – the impact of urban design and the architect’s intentions.
The ‘golden age’ of advertising is usually seen to be the last decades of the 20th century, centred on Fitzrovia, vast in quantity, swamping the plethora of magazines and newspapers appearing (and disappearing) at that time, and making optimal use of the novelty of commercial television. But the true ‘golden age’ of British advertising was in the decades immediately after the First World War, when zealous entrepreneurs banded together in local clubs and in national bodies to take the activity from the back room of jobbing printers or from being sketched on the back of envelopes on ego-driven managers’ desks to becoming a valid profession.
It was in the inter-war years that Titans in the field, such as William Crawford and Charles Higham, not only built their own empires and taught the government how to publicise itself, but even morphed the concept of advertising and publicity from something rather shady and disreputable to having a moral status of being a crucial arm of the nation’s economy and an educator of the masses. This book tells the story of some of these early agencies and the contribution they made.
The Griffoni Polyptych is regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Published for the exceptional reunification – after 300 years – of its constituent parts, this book offers the results of a new analysis carried out for this important occasion.
Commissioned by Floriano Griffoni for the family chapel in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, the polyptych was painted by Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de ‘Roberti between 1470 and 1472. The Ferrarese artists created a fundamental work in the search for a modern feeling of space and volumes, proposing a ‘compositional mosaic’ which can be considered an alternative to the contemporary works of Piero della Francesca or Andrea Mantegna.
Dismantled in 1725 by the new owner of the chapel, the polyptych was never again reunited: the paintings that formed it entered the antiques markets and 16 pieces arrived in the nine museums that still preserve them today.
This volume is the most complete monograph on this masterpiece.
The Grid examines the multiple uses of the grid in contemporary art. Textile weaves, graphic grids, framework for materials, typological systems, spatio-temporal frameworks, computer matrix, narratives and documentary devices. The Grid presents works by renowned artists including Max Bill, François Morellet, Vera Molnár, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Dennis Oppenheim, Esther Ferrer, Gina Pane, Christian Boltanski, Sherrie Levine, Claudia Andujar, Analívia Cordeiro and Anna Bella Geiger.
“Each grid has its own texture, uniqueness, individuating features, capacities for creative enactment, and relationship to other grids, as much as each person combines and utilises a grid for him- or herself.’ Hannah B. Higgins
A.S. Jasper’s memoir of growing up in the East End of London before the First World War was acclaimed as a classic when it was described by the Observer as ‘Zola without the trimmings.’ In this definitive new edition, it is accompanied by the first publication of the sequel detailing the author’s life in the cabinet-making trade, The Years After.
Illustrated with line drawings by James Boswell and Joe McLaren.
Women Garden Designers presents twenty-seven of the most important and influential women garden designers and their gardens from around the world, showing both their finest commissions as well as the gardens they designed for themselves, in their own space. The carefully researched text examines their influences and their legacy to garden design. Beginning with the remarkable Gertrude Jekyll and Beatrix Farrand, who were working simultaneously, though on different sides of the Atlantic, the book then moves on into the 20th century, featuring international designers as diverse as Florence Yoch – who created gardens for film sets and for glamorous Hollywood homes – and Vita Sackville-West – whose regular gardening column in the Observer, along with her own garden at Sissinghurst, influenced those in Britain. In Australia, Edna Walling supplemented her income from her practice with regular articles in life-style magazines. Increasingly with picture-led articles, designers found a way to publicise and advertise their work, thus gaining new clients in emancipated women who were in a position to place their own commissions. Women designers were more likely and quicker to embrace the ecological garden movement particularly in Germany and Sweden in the middle of the 20th century. They are represented by Herta Hammerbacher and Rosemary Weisse, who created the glorious perennial plantings in Munich’s West Park and Ulla Bodorff in Sweden, as well as Isabelle Greene in California with her dry native plantings. The modern movement includes Monica Gora and Topher Delaney, for whom spirituality and landscape as works of art are important. The more conventional structured approach is represented by Penelope Hobhouse and Rosemary Verey, who began creating gardens later in their lives, following motherhood. Haruko Seki from Japan and Isabel du Prat from Brazil express their own special cultural qualities in their trans-global practices. Contents: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932, English); Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959, American); Norah Lindsay (1876-1948, English); Marian Coffin (1876-1957, American); Florence Yoch (1890-1972, American); Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962, English); Edna Walling (1895-1973, Australian); Brenda Colvin (1897-1981, English); Herta Hammerbacher (1900-1985, German); Sylvia Crowe (1907-1997, English); Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974, Italian); Joane Pim (1904-2002, South African); Ulla Bodorf (1913-1982, Swedish); Rosemary Verey (1918-2001, English); Cornelia Oberlander (1921-, Canadian); Rosmarie Weisse (1927-2002, German); Penelope Hobhouse (1929- English); Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002, French); Isabelle Greene (1934- American); Arabella Lennox-Boyd (1938- Italian); Nancy Goslee Power (1942- American); Topher Delaney (1948- American); Isabel du Prat (1954- Brazilian); Petra Blaisse (1955- Dutch); Monica Gora (1959- Swedish); Haruko Seki (1959- Japanese).
In the late decades of the 19th century a textile manufacturer sent his teenage son to Leeds to develop the business. Little did Mr. Holme senior know what that move would lead to. The young man, Charles Holme, happened to attend a lecture given by a business man just returned from the Far East. In very little time the inspired youth was travelling across Far Eastern countries developing his own business. On his travels he came to the conclusion that countries didn’t get along together because of the barrier of language. He thought that if they could be exposed to each others cultures visually all would be peace and light. It was that notion that led Charles Holme on his retirement from trading, without any relevant training or experience, to become a publisher, his business entitled The Studio Ltd., its first publication, The Studio. For over 50 years, involving three generations, The Studio Ltd. grew to be Britain’s biggest publisher of magazines and books on art and design in the first half of the 20th century. Its story is told here.
50 Ways to Cycle the World is the kind of book you’d give to a friend or family member who’s considering cycling somewhere in the world but feels that there are too many obstacles to overcome. 50 Ways encapsulates 50 unique cycling projects accomplished by 75 cyclists from 23 countries. It serves as the ultimate visual guide and encyclopedia to travelling by bicycle no matter what your personal situation is. You’ll find impressive, powerful, emotional and incredibly fun stories on almost every page, accompanied by the beautiful and inspiring photography shot all over our planet by the many cyclists who’ve shared their cycling stories.
Want to know what it’s like to cycle alone, with a dog or a cat, with kids, or with strangers you meet on the road? Or how to travel by tandem, folding bicycle, e-bike or on a bamboo frame? Or maybe you’re simply in need of that last little push over the doorstep, inspired by those who’ve seen the world by bike. Featuring over 400 revealing questions and answers, we’re sure 50 Ways to Cycle the World will tell you exactly what you need to know in order to overcome whatever is holding you back from starting out on your big adventure.