Rare Special Editions available from ACC Art Books –  More Information

One of the issues children face from a very young age is bullying. That’s why it becomes very important for them to be prepared and this book comes in help! The first “bullies” the children meet are, in fact, the evil villains of fairy tales. But they can always be defeated. 12 super famous villains from fairy tales: find the stories of Cinderella’s stepsisters or that of the Ogre from Tom Thumb and most importantly how to overcome their teasing and their threats. A very up-to-date topic: these simple yet symbolic stories will help children to overcome the bullies in everyday life. Ages: 7 plus

Not all heroes wear capes, some just a yellow trench! Greta is only the last of a series of eco-heroes who, with their strength and loud voice, brought world’s attention to ecological issues to defend nature and the environment. This title presents some of the most important “eco-heroes”, both men and women, some of a very young age, who battled for a cleaner world or the safety of animals. From WWF’s founder Julian Huxley, to Greenpeace’s, from National Geographic explorers Mike Fay and Michael Nichols to Swedish Greta Thunberg: read their stories and what they have accomplished! Great examples for children to follow: everyone who has a voice and strong ideas can become an eco-hero! Ages: 9 plus

“This book is here to remind long-time movie fans why these important 20th-century icons will forever remain the Fabulous Faces of our time.”
— The Eye of Photography

“Enigmatic, dazzling and fabulous: the faces of Hollywood’s golden age.” — The Times
“A new book pulls together glamorous portraits of film stars from the 1920s to the 60s who could draw an audience with their name alone.”

— The Guardian

“Intense close-ups, staged embraces and smouldering, emotive glances exude star power in this fitting tribute to a bygone age.”
“Star quality emanates from every page.”
  — The Lady Magazine
Fabulous Faces of Classic Hollywood brings together some of the greatest portraits taken by leading Hollywood portrait photographers during the motion picture industry’s golden years of 1920 to 1960. Little-seen negatives, long buried in the remarkable and internationally renowned archives of the John Kobal Foundation, have been unearthed and printed to reveal some of Hollywood’s favourite stars at the height of their careers. Full-page images of Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, as well as lesser lights including Anna May Wong, Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez and Ramon Novarro, will remind long-time movie fans why these important 20th-century icons will forever remain the fabulous faces of the movie world.

Selected by best-selling author Robert Dance and writer and award-winning film producer Simon Crocker, over 200 photographs are presented alongside an essay by Dance, describing what it takes to become a fabulous face and an international icon.

Manhattan Masters shows the most beautiful Dutch Masters from the Golden Age in The Frick Collection, New York. The book elaborates the creation of The Frick Collection, brought together during America’s Gilded Age in the last quarter of the 19th century. This book, published to accompany the exhibition, focuses exclusively on Dutch paintings of the 17th century and features outstanding works by renowned artist of that period, including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Ruisdael.

“THANK YOU BYE was born out of a need to put down somewhere what I have experienced over the last five years. Although it gives the impression of a veil being lifted, it is simply a record of my personal experience. The intention, through these hundreds of photos, is to transcribe the absurd, crazy and little-known world of modelling, by means of an unpublished souvenir album of my time spent in fashion. The result is THANK YOU BYE, which owes its name to the phrase uttered by casting directors every time you walk in front of them. It recounts my moments of sadness, my anxieties, my unease, my questions, but also our laughter, our travels, our togetherness, our mutual support. Five years during which I fought not to lose myself. Thrown at the age of 18 at a speed I found hard to manage into a dimension that was not my own, I embrace all the models who ‘pose’ in this book and who, without realising it, helped me to escape. What you hold in your hands is none other than the last chance to prove that I was still worth something. When you turn the last page, you’ll know that I’ve resigned and can finally say that I’m happy.” – Clémentine Balcaen

“With this collection, I attempt to clarify that these are not only textile designs. There is a lot more to it than that: making links to developments in the fields of art, culture and politics is only logical and at least as important. My collection seeks above all to stimulate curiosity when reading (or learning to read) images.” – Marc Van Hoe

The Van Hoe Collection – Grammar of Textiles presents The Van Hoe Collection which mainly consists of textile designs, in part weaves and a number of rare books from the period from 1830 to 1990: a period of great artistic and aesthetic changes. Including essays by Mireille Houtzager – Dutch Textile & Costume historian and Johan Valcke, Hoanry Director, Design Flanders, and others.

Text in English and Dutch.

Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London in his early teens, he graduated with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1973. In the early 1970s, he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art.

Solo exhibitions for Stezaker were rare for some time, however, in the mid-2000s, his work was rediscovered by the art market; he is now collected by several international collectors and museums.

Made across a 32-year span, the works in Tabula Rasa unite the central themes in the art of celebrated British artist John Stezaker, from the capacities of collage to the current flow in an age of mass media. This volume brings silkscreens on canvas from the early 1990s and film still collages from the 1990s and 2009 together for the first time. An essay by art critic and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell looks at the connections within Stezaker’s practice, centering on notions of screens, voids and cut-outs.

Federico Garolla’s photography (Naples, 1925 – Milan, 2012) moved hand in hand with Italian history during a period of notable social change after the war. He quickly became Italy’s leading photographer in the 1950s and 1960s during the golden age of illustrated magazines when television was still a luxury for the few.

He belonged to a new generation of photojournalists who knew how to combine elegance and discretion to portray the world of entertainment and communication, as well as the socio-cultural life of their age. Their work provides a picture of a nation, the Italian people, in need of rediscovering its identity as it set about rebuilding the country through a combination of optimism and economic growth. With his unmistakable style, Garolla captured this transformation in all its modernity and also its deep contradictions. He provided an overview of the salient events of the day, taking a sensitive and also attentive look at social realities and contexts. His photographs reflected the liveliness and complexity of post-World War II Italian society, contributing to the image of Italy as it underwent rapid change, ready to embrace its dynamic, bourgeois future.

Garolla witnessed the rise the great fashion houses in Rome, actually becoming a key player in their success as he turned photo shoots into photo reports embedded in everyday life. An elegant narrator, influenced by masters like Cartier-Bresson, he moved beyond mere visual documentation to capture the very essence and spirit of a constantly changing era.

Text in English and Italian.

In the pre-digital age, before email and cell phones, letters carried an importance that few who were not part of those times will understand. The words on the pages of a love letter carry the nuances and emotions of love and desire, passion and anger in a deeply confidential way.

The urgency and the intimacy of the writers can be clearly felt in this collection of letters between Lee Miller, Photographer, and Roland Penrose, Surrealist Artist, as they conduct their long-distance romance. It begins with their meeting in Paris in 1937 and runs to 1939 when Lee Miller left her Egyptian husband Aziz Eloui Bey in Cairo and joined Roland Penrose in London at the start of World War 2.

In this real-life romantic drama, the period and their connections give us a supporting cast that includes Dora Maar and Picasso, Nusch and Paul Eluard, Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst, Ady Fidelin and Man Ray.

The nearly 300 pages of love letters in this book show that as the relationship grew it produced and supported some of the world’s best loved art and photography. The letters have never been published before and have only been read by a handful of people since they were first written.

Unfurling Dragon – The Multicultural Art of Vietnam is a companion volume to From the Red River to the Mekong Delta ISBN 9786164510722. A collection of over 20 essays from the world’s leading authorities on the art, history or archaeology of Vietnam. From the Bronze Age lowlanders who settled the Red River Valley, the technologically advanced people in the 10th century who stopped a Chinese fleet and declared sovereignty, a Buddhist state that would continue to expand southwards to dominate the long established and artistically advanced Hindu, Buddhist then Islamic culture of multiple ethnic Cam coastal settlements. Finally, in the 18th century the Nguyễn – Dynasty and absorbed the Khmer-Camic culture of the Mekong River Delta.

The Way We Feel is a valuable book to help young children recognise, name, and understand their emotions through simple, illustrated stories. The six primary emotions—joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and surprise— become the narrating voices of four stories each, in which each one features a little protagonist struggling with a new and intense feeling that needs to be learned and managed. From the roars of an angry lion cub to a baby bird’s thrilling first flight, each story helps children understand how emotions arise and how to develop emotional intelligence. Written with the support of a child psychologist, this book provides practical insights for both children and adults, making it an essential tool for emotional growth.

Ages 4 plus.

A sumptuously illustrated book exploring every nook and cranny of this legendary New York apartment house—its distinguished architecture, its extravagant decoration, its tumultuous history, and its storied tenants.

The Osborne, at 205 West 57th Street, was one of New York’s first luxury apartment houses; along with peers like the Dakota, it helped to popularise the idea of apartment living among New York’s affluent classes. A monument to the Gilded Age, the Osborne features a rusticated brownstone facade with both Romanesque and Renaissance motifs, and a foyer and lobby elaborately adorned with marble, mosaics, murals, gilding, and stained glass. Although many of its grand apartments were gradually subdivided, the Osborne has always remained a habitat for the interesting and influential, including many habitués of across-the-street neighbour Carnegie Hall, such as Leonard Bernstein and Van Cliburn.

In this handsome volume, Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch, a longtime resident and the leading authority on the Osborne, traces every stage of the building’s history—from the tangled tale of its financing and construction to its present status as a proud 19th-century survivor on Billionaires’ Row—profiling its most colourful tenants along the way. Original colour photography and archival illustrations bring the Osborne’s apartments and public spaces to vivid life, and a study of the building’s stained glass by noted expert Julie L. Sloan clarifies the respective contributions of the John La Farge and Tiffany studios.

Published on the occasion of Albert Bitran’s first solo exhibition at Dirimart, Land of Shadows Land of Sky (3 May–2 June 2024), this trilingual catalogue presents a comprehensive selection of works created between 1956 and 2013 by one of the pioneering figures of post-war abstract expressionism in Paris. The book highlights Bitran’s enduring spatial sensibility and the fluid transitions between his different series, offering readers a deeper understanding of his unique visual language. Essays by art historian and critic Clotilde Scordia and poet, writer, and pianist Laure Cambau provide critical insights into Bitran’s practice and its evolution across decades. The publication also includes inventory numbers from the artist’s catalogue raisonné, to be released in 2026. Beyond mere chronology, it invites readers to engage with Bitran’s abstractions as dynamic reflections of light, space, and perception.

Text in English, French and Turkish.

Silicon Valley has become the Mesopotamia of the Digital Age, built on cycles of innovation and disruption, monstrous ambition, and a steady supply of labour and capital. Yet for all that’s known about companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook – and the personas behind those companies – the culture of Silicon Valley remains elusive and contradictory, even to many locals. This unique guidebook, written by longtime local Floriana Petersen, takes you on an insider’s tour of 111 cool, offbeat, and very compelling places that offer insight into the evolving character of Silicon Valley. Visit the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford to see drawings done by Leland Jr. Stanford, after whom the university was named after his death at age 15 in 1884. Sit at the Rosewood Hotel bar to witness the mating habits of venture capitalists. Go to the Music@Menlo Festival to listen some of the best chamber music to be found anywhere in the country. Enjoy the Stanford Powwow, a festival to celebrate some of the great American Indian tribes of Northern California. Visit Steve Jobs’ final resting place, or spend an afternoon at the Hakone Japanese gardens. Explore the Filoli Estate, a living testimony to the wealthy families who used the Gold Rush to build the infrastructure that has become Silicon Valley.

Red Flags is a visual field guide to modern behaviour — part satire, part mirror, and part survival manual. Created by Belgian designer and visual storyteller Bart Kiggen, the book unpacks the characters, archetypes, and micro-cultures that shape our digital and emotional lives. From the Ghoster to the Apex Pretender, from the Brand Messiah to the Yuppie Mephistopheles, each red flag is drawn, described, and decoded with wit and precision. Blending staged photography, cultural critique, and design, Red Flags turns online performance into visual anthropology. It examines how attention became identity and how charisma, care, or confidence can all tip into manipulation.

Each portrait is both absurd and familiar, reminding us that the red flags we recognise in others often reflect our own. In this carefully composed and conceptually sharp book, Bart Kiggen uses imagery, humour, and typography to explore the psychology of the age of exposure. Red Flags invites readers to look closer, laugh more softly, and perhaps notice a few signals in themselves before it’s too late.

Raphael Brunk. Digital Imaging is the first comprehensive publication of the work of Raphael Brunk, who studied as a master student under Andreas Gursky at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. This book brings together the most important series from the last 10 years while simultaneously tracing the developmental curve in the oeuvre of an artist who has consistently refined a new form of digital image production. Brunk understands his approach as “algorithm photography”—an approach that re-evaluates the relationship between the image, the tools, and artistic authorship. The series of works featured in this publication show how Brunk transforms digital processing methods into pictorial instruments, employing the algorithm as an active co-author. The combination of illustrations, art historical texts, and hitherto unpublished background materials provides a glimpse beneath the surface at the creative processes, conceptual considerations and aesthetic logic behind Brunks’ series. As such, this publication represents a central reference source for a body of work asserting its unique voice in the digital age.

Text in English and German. 

This enchanting book invites young readers to explore mythical beings that inhabit the expanse of the earth and the depths of the ocean. Children will learn fascinating details about extraordinary creatures and enjoy reading the legends associated with each one. Filled with tales from international folklore and traditions, The Great Book of Legendary Creatures brings to life magical beings from around the world through rich illustrations that leave young readers with a sense of wonder.

Legends Come to Life: Combines folkloric legends and traditions with imaginative exploration and detail-rich, vivid illustrations.

Engaging Storytelling: Each legend is introduced with a lively, narrative text, offering cultural curiosities and clear explanations tailored perfectly for a school-age audience.

The Famous and the Forgotten: Meet well-known figures like the mighty Kraken, mysterious mermaids, and regal griffins, alongside lesser-known beasts with incredible stories and visual appeal.

Worldwide View: Creatures from multiple continents and folkloric traditions.

For Fans of Magic and Wonder: Includes mythical beings that will captivate and inspire creative young minds.

Age 7 plus.

Costume jewellery is commonly understood to mean fashionable yet affordable adornments made from non-precious material. Originating in in mid-1700s France with the rise of the bourgeoise, the earliest ‘costume jewellery’ mimicked fine jewellery styles. Since then, costume jewellery has always been evolving. From Victorian sentimentalism to the mass-produced ornaments available today, costume jewellery has developed into an artform in its own right. An encyclopaedic study of its history is long overdue. Flush with expert information, identification tips and historical anecdotes, Adorning Fashion explores the development of costume jewellery across the past four centuries. The styles of each era – Victorian, Edwardian, Arts & Crafts, Jugenstil, Art Nouveau, and each decade of the twentieth century – are given individual attention. Production methods are also explained in depth. Alloys and gilded electroplating can mimic silver and gold, while the refraction index of treated glass can, to the untrained eye, be mistaken for diamond.
Adorning Fashion
discusses the contributions of a remarkable roster of designers and innovators, including Kokichi Mikimoto, Arthur L. Liberty, Carlo Giuliano, René Lalique, Elizabeth Bonté, the Castellani brothers, Jean Fouquet, Jean Després, Fulco di Verdura, Jean Schlumberger, Salvador Dalí, Miriam Haskell, Lina Baretti, Countess Cissy Zoltowska, Line Vautrin, Kenneth Jay Lane, Francisco Rebajes, Diane Love, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel, Van Cleef & Arpels, Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent, Napier, Haskell, Trifari, Brania, Bulgari, Versace and more.

Whilst many books have been published about war, the role of the prisoner of war has been largely ignored or paid scant attention. This book, along with the author’s other title – A History of Napoleonic and American Prisoners of War 1756-1816: Hulk, Depot and Parole – aims to correct this imbalance, and is the result of his quest over thirty years into this almost-forgotten field of history.
Illustrated here is an extensive selection of items from museums around the world and the author’s own collection – one of the largest private collections of prisoner of war artefacts in existence – revealing the incredible skills of these imprisoned craftsmen. The items – delicate, intricate and highly detailed – include boxes, toys and automata made from bone, straw or paper, as well as paintings by artists whose work is now much in demand. The creation of these pieces seems even more remarkable when the conditions under which they would have been made and the extreme limitations the prisoners would have endured in terms of access to materials and resources are considered.
This book records in great detail the fascinating accounts of the lives and occupations of the prisoners of war, and the prison markets in which they were permitted to sell their wares. It also tells of the comings and goings of the highly interesting variety of characters who lived and worked alongside the prisoners, or were paroled prisoners themselves, and who would travel for many miles to trade with these, quite literally, captive audiences.
Providing an excellent insight into general life at the time, much information, such as the laws, and the trading and working conditions of both the prisoners and their non-prisoner acquaintances is given as background to the former’s stories.
A detailed account of the historical background to the wars that saw these men become prisoners can be found in the author’s, A History of Napoleonic & American Prisoners of War 1756-1816: Hulk, Depot & Parole.

This is the first publication in a single work of all known Chester punch marks, and continues the tradition of the standard volumes of Jackson, Grimwade, Culme and Pickford. It is also the first time that the twentieth-century Chester marks have been published. It is produced in dictionary format, in alphabetical order from 1570, the date of the earliest known mark, to 1962 at which time the Chester assay office was closed. The authors, both members of the Silver Society, were given unlimited access to the Chester Assay Office records covering 1686 to 1962, and to the Chester Goldsmiths’ Company records dating from the 16th century.

The compendium has four sections. The preface provides an historical background and details of all extant records and copper plates. Part 1 is devoted to assay office marks, with a full set of date letter tables to assist the reader in dating wares. Part 2 covers nearly 10,000 entries for makers’ marks, including pictograms and monograms. Finally, the appendices include items on assay volumes and charges, thimble makers, and Liverpool watchcase makers.

Since over 2,000 of the entries have Birmingham addresses, the new work will also enhance available information on jewellers and silversmiths working in this important trade centre. The format of the marks’ tables and the extensive index will also allow future research into the relationships between companies and agents.

“Fully illustrated, the charm of his English Roses comes across on every page, even if the reader has to imagine their scent.” – The Irish Garden

“Experts will appreciate the notes on each rose’s breeding.” – Historic Gardens Foundation

Informative, accessible and stunningly illustrated, David Austin’s English Roses introduces the reader to the world of rose propagation and care. The book focuses on English Roses, bred by David Austin to combine the sumptuousness of Old Roses with the strength and practical virtues of Modern Roses. It will be greatly prized by rose-growers and rose-lovers everywhere, whether professional or amateur.

F.H.K Henrion was one of a distinguished group of graphic designers – refugees from Europe just prior to World War II, who brought cutting-edge continental design to the rather parochial English scene. He quickly made his mark as a poster designer for the Ministry of Information, and, parallel to this, began to build up a career in exhibition design, culminating in two highly original pavilions for the Festival of Britain.
However, Henrion is best remembered for his evangelical work in corporate identity design whereby he raised the status of the graphic designer to boardroom significance. He established the authority of the profession as total re-branders of organisations, from logo, through retail outlets and vehicles, to stationery and labels.
The Design series is the winner of the Brand/Series Identity Category at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2009, judges said: “A series of books about design, they had to be good and these are. The branding is consistent, there is a good use of typography and the covers are superb.”
Also available:

Claud Lovat Fraser ISBN: 9781851496631 GPO ISBN: 9781851495962 Peter Blake ISBN: 9781851496181 David Gentleman ISBN: 9781851495955 David Mellor ISBN: 9781851496037 E.McKnight Kauffer ISBN: 9781851495207 Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious ISBN: 9781851495009 El Lissitzky ISBN: 9781851496198 Festival of Britain 1951 ISBN: 9781851495337 Harold Curwen & Oliver Simon: Curwen Press ISBN: 9781851495719 Jan Le Witt and George Him ISBN: 9781851495665 Paul Nash and John Nash ISBN: 9781851495191 Rodchenko ISBN: 9781851495917 Abram Games ISBN: 9781851496778

Commissioned by the Water Colour Society of Ireland, this book is the first to chronicle in depth the history of this distinguished Society, established in Lismore, County Waterford in November, 1870 and recognised today as being one of the oldest and most outstanding art societies in these islands. Members have included such prominent participants as Sir William N.M. Orpen, R.A., R.I., H.R.H.A., Sarah H. Purser, R.H.A., Walter F. Osborne, R.H.A., Mildred A. Butler, R.W.S., H.B.A.S., Mainie Jellett, Paul Henry, R.H.A., Evie Hone, H.R.H.A., Tom Carr, H.R.H.A., R.U.A., R.W.S., O.B.E and many others who succeeded in achieving recognition for their work not only in Ireland but on the international stage. The author sets out to trace the historical development of watercolour painting in Ireland, the difficulties encountered by artists in relation to exhibiting watercolours in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland. Brief accounts of the establishment of the Royal Dublin Society’s Drawing Schools are included together with the influence of the nineteenth century English watercolour tradition in relation to Irish students, the foundation of the N.G.I, the role of the governess and drawing master, together with the influences which the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art exerted on countless future members of the Society.   The difficulties encountered by women in establishing themselves as either professional or amateur artists in nineteenth century Ireland, the opportunities for training not only in the field of art but in crafts such as wood-carving and lace and the availability to pursue an art academic training abroad all form part of this book. The vital role of Sketching Clubs and Drawing Societies which led to the birth of the Amateur Drawing Society (later to become known as the Water Colour Society of Ireland) are included. Founded by six enterprising ‘Lady Artists’, their largely unknown biographical information is provided here for the first time.   Descriptions of early exhibitions, the aristocratic glamour attached to openings, conversaziones, the day to day running of the Society and the need by many artists, particularly women to transform themselves into professional painters form part of the early development of this remarkable Society. The birth of the nineteenth century exhibition watercolour and the requirement by members to market and sell their work throughout Ireland and the U.K. is described.   The author provides concise biographies of over one hundred W.C.S.I artists from the relatively unknown to the widely acclaimed together with illutrations of works from both public and private collections, the latter, due to the generosity of their owners being illustrated here for the first time.

London’s record shop scene is at its most vital and buoyant point since the 1990s, following a resurgence of interest in vinyl over recent years. Tom Greig, who has immersed himself in the world of London’s record shops for close to two decades, profiles and tells the story of 60 distinctive independent record stores, selling both new and used vinyl. Vinyl London is at once a practical guide, featuring maps, addresses, opening times and stock information, and an attractive visual celebration of London’s record shops. The book is organised geographically, and contains the following chapters; Soho; North; East; South; West; Suburbs; Markets; Vinyl Cafes. Also in the series: Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182 Art London ISBN 9781788840385