Rare Special Editions available from ACC Art Books –  More Information

Pioneering Edinburgh photographers David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848) together formed one of the most famous partnerships in the history of photography.

Producing highly skilled photographs just four years after the new medium was announced to the world in 1839, their images of people, buildings and scenes in and around Edinburgh offer a fascinating glimpse into 1840s Scotland. Their much-loved prints of the Newhaven fisherfolk are among the first images of social documentary photography.

In the space of four and a half years Hill and Adamson produced several thousand prints encompassing landscapes, architectural views, tableaux vivants from Scottish literature and an impressive suite of portraits featuring key members of Edinburgh society.

Anne M. Lyden, International Photography Curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, discusses the dynamic dispute that brought these two men together and reveals their perfect chemistry as the first professional partnership in Scottish photography.

Illustrated with around 100 masterpieces from the Galleries’ unique, vast collection of the duo’s ground-breaking work.

New York reduced to a miniature city? In New York Resized, photographer Jasper Léonard offers you a completely new perspective on The Big Apple. His Tilt-Shift technique creates a dazzling bird’s-eye perspective. Taking pictures from rooftops, helicopters or even drones, Léonard points his lens at the skyscrapers and yellow cabs from above, transforming the city into a swirling ant-hill of miniature people. His images are accompanied by the best quotes about New York, and his unique style guarantees that this is the most original photobook about New York that you will ever see. Praise for Antwerp Resized: “What started as a dissertation with homemade lenses has resulted in a surprising photo book” – Gazet van Antwerpen (newspaper) – “Thanks to his special tilt-shift lenses the photographer creates the illusion you are watching miniature sculptures. Not people but puppets. Not buildings but maquettes” – De Morgen (newspaper) Facebook: Jasper Leonard Photography Twitter: @jasperleonard Instagram: jasper.leonard www.jasperleonard.be Also available: Belgium Resized ISBN 9789401434614 Antwerp Resized ISBN 9789401432702

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is the only patriarchal basilica of the four in Rome to have retained its paleo-Christian structures. The Basilica dates back to 425 AD and in this elegant and triumphal photographic masterpiece accomplished at the height of today’s technology, we can admire in detail the grandeur of all its artistic details: the mosaics of the nave; the ceremonial arch dating to the pontificate of Pope Sixtus III (432-440 AD); those of the apse made at the behest of Pope Nicholas V (1288-1292); the Cosmatesque floor; the coffered ceiling designed by Giuliano da San Gallo; the Nativity scene by Arnolfo di Cambio; the High Altar by Ferdinando Fuga; the Borghese, Cesi, Sforza, and Sistine Chapels; and the Crucifix and St. Michael chapels by Luigi Valadier.

The Basilica is Pope Francis’ final resting place.

Tradition has it that the Virgin Mary herself inspired the choice of the Esquiline Hill for the church’s construction. Appearing in a dream to both the Patrician John, the landowner of the Esquiline Hill, and Pope Liberius, she asked that a church be built in her honour on a site she would miraculously indicate.

Text in English and Italian.

Get ready for the Winter Olympics with this exciting book about the greatest women figure skaters of all time.

With their flying spins and graceful leaps over the ice, figure skaters exemplify what it means to be an athlete and an artist. Legends of Women’s Figures Skating features short biographies of 28 of the greatest women figure skaters of all time, from pioneers like Sonja Henie and Carol Heiss; to the American legends of the ’90s, such as Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan; to the rising stars of today, like Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu. Filled with colourful photos, fascinating stories, and key stats, this book will inspire both passionate fans and aspiring figure skaters.

Quartier Brugmann – L’Art de Vivre in Brussels’ Most Stylish Area translates the unique atmosphere of this neighbourhood, compared to London’s Notting Hill and Paris’ Saint-Germain, into a book of three parts:

I. A short architectural introduction through the Brugmann district, explaining the origins of the place and the important houses and buildings of the Brugmann square, the Avenue Lepoutre, the Avenue Molière…

II. Interviews with 30 Ambassadors who talk about their interest in the neighbourhood: why they live and/or work there, which are the addresses they can recommend…

III. A walk along the best addresses (galleries, boutiques, restaurants…) of the place Georges Brugmann, the Rue Franz Merjay and the surrounding avenues and streets.

Text in English and French.

Upon setting foot in Dhaka, with its beautifully landscaped gardens adorning ancient mosques and monuments, it becomes clear that this is a city steeped in history. One of the oldest settlements in Bangladesh, it is today among the largest cities in the world, and rapid, often unplanned, urbanisation has vastly outpaced sustainability, threatening the historic buildings and communities that make up the city’s cultural soul. But, despite bursting at the seams, Dhaka’s six centuries of history are still visible if we look carefully in the shadows of the tall buildings, in the spaces between the speeding cars. Dhaka-based architect Kashef Chowdhury’s camera captures a record of the capital city of the local character that may soon be lost due to urban development. In Chowdhury’s photographs, a woman hangs sheets of polythene to dry and resell, a blind man sings mystic love songs. Other photographs reflect Dhaka’s state of social and cultural flux, like an image of weary night-shift workers returning from a wholesale market in the late morning or of the barely visible lights of a pick-up truck concealed to prevent theft. Chowdhury is one of South Asia’s most renowned architects, and Dhaka: Memories or Lost constitutes his deeply personal tribute to the city.

Please Look in the Basement is a quirky collection of posters of lost cats, dogs, birds and other pets, carefully curated from the collection of Maarten Inghels, Jan Lemaire, Jean-Michel Meyers, Denis Meyers and Nicolas Marichal from Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. Fellow collector and writer Maarten Inghels took the posters as the starting point for conversations with the owners. Apart from the posters, this maverick collectible bundles whimsical anecdotes about loneliness and friendship in the big city. How do you find an escaped animal? Does a cat survive a fall from the fourth floor? And did the fortune-teller really see the location of the lost dog in her crystal ball? Please Look in the Basement is an ode to the bizarre occurrences of our four-legged friends and the doltish typography of homemade posters. Inghels tells the stories of pets who one day decide to go their own way.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

Mudlarking’ is the act of searching the riverbed for historical treasures. Mudlarks comb the river’s foreshore, which is only accessible for a few hours a day at low tide, in their hunt for objects, untouched since they were lost hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Jutten is about men in boots mudlarking the bank of the Scheldt river in Antwerp, in search of shards of the past, the larking, the scouring, the scavenging. One tea towel after another filled with coins, marbles, pipes.

“Finds have a strange hold over us. There’s a magic to them that shines on a lot longer than the soon fading glimmer of things we intentionally choose. That purposefulness is probably what kills our enthusiasm after a week or so. Because when we make a choice, there’s too much of ourselves in the object already. We don’t deem a consciously picked item deserving of a tea towel display. The more trash we’ve dug through to get to our treasure, the more it becomes. Hence the mud-crusted trouvailles. So we go hunting for crap that’s out of place. Crap that becomes a find, simply because it was lost.” – extract from a text by Annelies Desmet & Jill Mathieu

This love letter in photographs to the unique beauty and mystery of Venice is an evocative compilation of vintage photographs, prints, and ephemera. It is a tactile ode to the sensuality of the city, filled to the brim with all manner of Venetian memorabilia: 19th century photographs, engravings, hand-coloured magic lantern slides, vintage postcards, old luggage labels, keys from long-lost luxury hotels, golden ducats from the 18th century, Carnival ball invitations. With gilt-edged pages and antique Venetian lettering, it is not a travel or walking guide, but an atmospheric pilgrimage that pays homage to this ever-fascinating city. Serge Simonart’s engaging commentary on Venetian history and culture introduces each subject with affection and insight.

“Every day, a nervous traveller visiting the City of Doges for the first time asks the best way to get to their hotel. ‘The shortest or the most beautiful?’, I once heard the concierge at Hotel Des Bains ask. The tourist who opted for the most beautiful route is still wandering around the city. This is a unique photobook in which to wander and lose oneself.” – Serge Simonart

Tribal Rugs: Treasures of the Black Tent is the definitive work on this subject. Dedicated to one of the most ancient crafts of the world, this book leads its reader through the history of the tribal rug. Featured content ranges from the oldest complete rug in the world (dated to the fifth century BC) to the weavings of the nomadic peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia, compiled from the 19th Century up to the present day. Each chapter introduces a different group of tribes, illustrating the rugs, carpets, kilims and utilitarian bags attributed to their weavers. This book is both a celebration of the woven legacy left by the tribes and a tribute to the skill and artistry of the women who created these magnificent artworks. It aims to provide an introduction for the novice, and entice the more knowledgeable to further study. This new 2017 edition features a marvellous array of new photography showcasing the finest work of each tribe, which will excite anyone with an eye for the tribal aesthetic.

The ancient treasures collected over the past 20 years by Ludovic Donnadieu, hail from a myriad of ancient cultures, famous or obscure, across all five continents. The selection maintains a balanced representation of different geographical areas, ensuring that all regions of the world and all historical or prehistoric periods are accounted for. Through this comprehensive panorama, the viewer is invited on a cultural and anthropological journey through time and space.

The showcased artworks are “miniatures”; few exceed a size of 20 centimetres. Indeed, an artwork doesn’t need to be monumental to evoke profound emotional impact and fascination! Fragility can endure, the minuscule can embody grandeur, and singular detail can convey a universal message.

This selection of 99 works, forming a unique ensemble worldwide, adheres to a triple criterion: authenticity, aesthetic quality, and balance, both among the represented subjects and across different forms, materials, or functions. The period covered spans from 6,000 BC to the early 20th century. Presenting this collection to the public holds a dual significance: in a world threatened by uniformity, it celebrates the richness and diversity of human cultures while also highlighting the beauty and grandeur of small-scale formats and the need to protect what is fragile.

The Donnadieu Foundation was established in 2023, under the aegis of the Foundation for Childhood, by Ludovic Donnadieu, art collector, certified public accountant, and founder of the firm Donnadieu & Associates, which specialised in securing funds entrusted to NGOs. The Foundation aims to enable young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to broaden their horizons and engage in civic activism, while also raising awareness among the general public and policymakers about the importance of culture for the world’s youth.

Text in English and French.

The ultimate volume on Ferrari production enhanced by the artistic photos of Christian Martin. Immerse yourself in a visual journey through legendary Ferrari models: 250 GTO, Testarossa, F40 and more.

This exceptional work on Ferrari fuses art, automobile photography and a catalogue raisonné. It offers a captivating journey through legendary Ferrari models, such as the 250 GTO, the Testarossa, the F40, the Enzo, and the 458 Italia. You will also discover rare treasures, including the Ferrari P4/5, a unique creation by Battista Pininfarina.

Christian Martin sublimates each model with photos that capture speed, elegance and sensuality. His photos pay homage to the vision of Enzo Ferrari, where each curve of the bodywork evokes movement and power. The legendary Ferrari models appear here in their best light, revealing a timeless aesthetic.

This book goes beyond a simple automobile collection. It is a visual and emotional immersion in the world of the prancing horse. Page after page, it celebrates the mechanical treasures that continue to fascinate generations of enthusiasts. A unique experience where art and speed meet to offer a vibrant tribute to Ferrari.

Text in English and French.

Visions in Silk presents the first comprehensive exploration of exquisite Japanese fine art textiles from the Meiji era (1868-1912), showcasing the unparalleled treasures from the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

This beautifully illustrated volume reveals how Japanese artists and craftsmen ingeniously adapted centuries-old textile traditions to create innovative art textiles that captivated international audiences, won exhibition awards, and served as prestigious diplomatic gifts.

Featuring over 300 spectacular examples, the book examines dazzling works of embroidery, yuzen resist-dyed silk and cut velvet, tapestry, and oshi-e raised silk, ranging from elegant panels, hangings and screens to grand exhibition showpieces. Each represents the pinnacle of artistic collaboration and hitherto unsurpassed technical mastery.

Written by leading international experts, this landmark publication provides unprecedented insight into these remarkable yet understudied treasures. Visions in Silk will enchant anyone interested in Japanese art, textile design, Japonisme, and the cultural transformations that occurred during the Meiji era, when Japan opened to the outside world.

“I have never read a text which goes even half as far as this one in expressing the particular poignancy which lay at the heart of the impressionist movement. I say this as an art critic. As a novelist I would simply like to pay my tribute to the mastery of language, portraiture and storytelling which Figes has now at her command.” – John Berger
“A small masterpiece” – Susan Hill
“A luminous prose poem” – Joyce Carol Oates

This shimmering novel is an extraordinary portrait of a day in the life of an artist at work and at home. In prose as luminous as the colours Monet is using to portray his garden, Eva Figes guides us from dawn (‘midnight blueblack growing grey and misty’) through midday (‘the sun was high now… shrinking what little shadow remained, fading colours, the pink rambler roses on the fence by the railway track looked almost white’) to evening (‘the tide of shadows rising as the sunset glow faded outside.’) Monet’s wife, grieving for a lost daughter; a living daughter, fretting that she will not be able to marry the man she loves; their friend the abbé, eating and drinking with them; two children playing, closest to Monet in the freshness and certainty of their vision; all experiencing in different ways the richness of the light that Monet works unceasingly to pin down in his last, great paintings.

This book is a photographic odyssey through the lands of the First World War. For more than ten years the photographer traveled from the dust of the Namib deserts to the frozen heights of the Vosges to create a unique collection of images that document how time and nature have transformed these places of horror and killing into landscapes of great beauty and tranquillity… If anyone wants the reason for these photographs then they need look no further than the thoughts of a veteran leaving the shattered fields of the Somme who wrote: “No, they would not be lonely, I saw that bare country before me… the miles and miles of torn earth… the litter, the dead trees. But the country would come back to life, the grass would grow again, the wild flowers return. They would lie still and at peace below the singing larks, beside the serenely flowing rivers. They could not feel lonely, they would have one another. And… though we were going home and leaving them behind, we belonged to them, and they would be a part of us for ever.” (P. J. Campbell).

Text in English, French, and Spanish.

When we see a bird, do we really see it? It’s perfectly possible to go through life with an almost total disregard for birds. However, in Britain, there are more than a million members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. And thanks to Instagram – and other networking sites – there is also a growing number of bird photographers opening our eyes to unimagined treasures.

From the giants of our skies to the sweetest singing garden warbler, from Matthew Stadlen’s London street to the Indian jungle and taking in countries as far afield as Albania and Australia, this book is, in a way, also a story of his life. 

Along with 150 full-colour glossy illustrations of the terracotta, earthenware, stone, silver, and copper objects, a Pre-Columbian art lover and prestigious curator journey into a fine art collection, describing the rich cultural context and artistic merits of each work. On his part, the acclaimed author, explorer, and filmmaker Hugh Thomson gives a detailed, exciting narrative – based upon extensive research – of the role art played in the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés and of Peru by Francisco Pizarro. It is rare that a collector takes such a personal, descriptive part in publishing his treasure trove, but in this lavishly illustrated book, Stuart Handler describes why he gathered Pre-Columbian art, what attracted him to the individual pieces, and what artistic attributes make these objects outstanding works. Contents: The Collection and Patrimony by Stewart Handler; Introduction: Beginning the Journey, by Stewart Handler; Traveling with Cortés, by Hugh Thomson; Traveling with Pizarro, by Hugh Thomson; The Stuart Handler Collection; Index.

Despite some field research our knowledge of the sacred among the Mumuye is still embryonic. In all these acephalic groups of a binary and antinomic nature, the complex va constitutes an extremely varied semantic field in which certain aspects are accentuated depending on the circumstances. Religious power is linked to the strength contained in sacred objects, of which only the elders are the guardians. Moreover, this gerontocracy relies on a system of initiatory stages which one must pass to have access to the status of ‘religious leader’. Geographically isolated, the Mumuye were able to resist the attacks of the Muslim invaders, the British colonial authority and the activities of the different Christian missions for a long time. As a result the Mumuye practised woodcarving until the beginning of our century. In 1970 Philip Fry published his essay on the statuary of the Mumuye of which the analysis of the endogenous network has so far lost nothing of its value. Basing himself on in situ observations, Jan Strybol attempted to analyse the exogenous network of this woodcarving. Thus he was able to document about forty figures and some masks and additionally to identify more than twenty-five Mumuye artists as well as a specific type of sculpture as being confined to the Mumuye Kpugbong group. During and after the Biafran war, hundreds of Mumuye sculptures were collected. Based on information gathered between 1970 and 1993 the author has demonstrated that a certain number of these works are not Mumuye but must be attributed to relic groups scattered in Mumuye territory.

In recent years, the images shot by the Cologne-based architectural photographers Hugo (1879-1938) and Karl Hugo Schmölz (1917-1986) have been winning wide acclaim and are receiving more and more attention. After completing his photography training and working in various positions, Hugo Schmölz set himself up as an architectural photographer in Cologne in 1911. Later, his son Karl Hugo took over the company. While the work of the two photographers fell into oblivion over the years, it is being rediscovered today and reveals its breathtaking aesthetic originality and technical perfection. Due to the development of a special, additional exposure technique, Schmölz was able to capture dark interiors in astounding detail even at the beginning of the century and to create dazzlingly elegant pictures which have lost none of their expressive power. For the first time ever, the book presents a series of photos, taken mostly in the Rhineland and the Ruhr district between 1935 and 1957, together with pictures showing movie theatres which were brand new at the time. Most of these cinema auditoriums have since been destroyed, but the light in the photos gives them a three-dimensionality that evokes a striking sculptural effect. They are certainly not imbued with nostalgia, on the contrary, they appear to be strangely lost in time and, owing to their extremely delicate gray nuances, seem almost hyperreal.

Text in English and German.

In 2008, a discovery was made that brought the works of Marie Goslich to light. Part of her estate, long thought to have been lost, was rediscovered in a guesthouse in Geltow at the Schwielowsee lake. Some 400 glass plate negatives exist today, survivors of the chaos of both world wars. This book makes Goslich’s photos available to the public 100 years after their capture, celebrating her as a bold pioneer and a grande dame of German photojournalism and social critique. Born in Frankfurt (Oder) in 1859, Marie Goslich tried her hand at various things before beginning to work as a journalist and editor. Cited in Berlin’s residents register, these professional titles alone were remarkable for a woman of her time. To cap it all, she began training as a photographer at the age of 44 in order to be able to provide her articles with pictures. As a result, she is one of the first professional female photographers in the world. With social injustice being her main concern, Goslich wrote and illustrated many articles, some of which were quite radical, to address the causes of suffering and misery. Again and again, her works denounce the gap between rich and poor. They portray travelling people, street vendors, beggars, ragmen and tinkers. All of her pictures betray her empathy towards her subjects, giving her photos a very intimate and rousing effect. Text in English and German.

This beautifully illustrated book, with numerous essays by an international roster of leading art historians, examines Jacopo Tintoretto’s masterpiece Angel Foretelling the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, painted between 1560 and 1570 for the Church of San Geminiano in Venice. It was displayed in this location for some 250 years until the church was demolished in 1807, and in 1818 the painting was sold into private hands. It was, famously, the centrepiece of the late rock star David Bowie’s collection, being one of the first artworks he acquired. He had it for nearly 30 years, and named his record label after the artist (the Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment Company LLC). In 2016 it was purchased at auction by a private collector and donated to the Rubens House in Antwerp, where it is on long-term loan. This book accompanies the display of the painting, back in Venice for the first time in 200 years as part of an exhibition at Palazzo Ducale.

Lightstream represents Nigel Grierson’s most recent foray into photographic abstraction as he makes long exposures of figures beside the light of the ocean. Taking the maxim from Dieter Appelt “A snapshot steals life that it cannot return. A long exposure (creates) a form that never existed”, Grierson makes beautiful images, which on the surface might appear to owe as much to the medium of painting as they do to photography. However, it is important to him that these are un-manipulated images straight from the camera: “From the outset, my work has been largely about ‘photographic seeing’ as I’m fascinated by what Garry Winogrand so simply described as ‘how something looks when photographed’. Hence, a sense of discovery within the work itself is very important to me; finding something new that I didn’t already know. There’s a huge element of ‘chance, and the embrace of the happy accident within this approach, which is a sort of photographic equivalent of action painting. I’m often more interested in what something suggests rather than what it actually is, each image becoming a starting point for our imagination as it edges towards abstraction”.

Yet what is unique about photography is that it always keeps something of the original subject. So there’s a dynamic duality, a dramatic to and fro in the viewer’s mind, between what it is and what it suggests. The marks and traces created by the moving light, at times have a simplicity like a child’s drawings. On occasion, the residue of a human figure might be reduced to little more than their posture or demeanor, which then seems more significant than ever, a sort of essence, whether that be elusive or illusive.

Vikings and Frisians. Inhabitants of the North Sea coasts. Blond and sturdy, with shared cultural characteristics and a similar language. Almost like family. Or were they? From 810 AD onwards Frisia, at that time part of the Frankish empire, suffered fierce Viking raids. What were the consequences of these devastating dragon ship attacks on Frisia, the elongated coastal area between the Zwin and the Weser? Were all Frisians opposed to Viking aggression, or did they occasionally turn Viking themselves? Critically questioning accustomed sources, We Vikings aims to unearth fresh material from a long-lost landscape and to offer a new perspective on existing ideas.

William Underhill (1933–2022) was one of the great talents and enigmas of the modern American studio craft movement. He became an acclaimed master of lost-wax casting, pursuing the sculptural potential of bronze vessels with unrivalled persistence and virtuosity. He “molded and scratched the wax until the final bronze surface embodied all of the mystical connotations of a ritualistic object,” said Lee Nordness in his ground-breaking Objects USA (1969) survey of modern studio crafts. But Underhill then left the limelight and went on to ceaselessly explore both the power of beauty and form-making as a way to shape the spirit.