The Parisian café is an integral part of the city’s daily life no matter the weather, the time of day or year, the mood or neighbourhood. It is the spirit of the café, the dance of the waiters, the camaraderie of the patrons, the perpetual movement and joy, that brings Joanie Osburn to share a dollop of history, a shot of insight, and a boatload of images that celebrate the Paris café as a cultural heritage worth celebrating and preserving.
Café Society: Time Suspended, The Cafés, & Bistros of Paris is neither a history book nor a cookbook, but a non-traditional travel guide, coffee table, and lifestyle book about a treasured lifestyle. Osburn’s unique perspective, honed over many decades as an American in Paris exploring and capturing images of café society, captivates and amuses with anecdotes and insider recommendations.
Café Society: Time Suspended, The Cafés, and Bistros of Paris is a book that matters now as the world reopens and eager travellers return to Paris. The spirit of the café brings Joanie Osburn to share a dollop of history, a shot of insight, and a boatload of images that celebrate the Paris café as a cultural heritage worth preserving.
Recaptioning Congo places the colonial Congo’s photography history in new perspectives. Six writers and everyday Congolese urban voices take an African-centered look at imperial archival images and provide them with creative, contemporary and/or literary ‘captions’. The book, linked to an exhibition in the photography museum FOMU Antwerp, is based upon the extensive research of the photographic history of colonial Congo (1885 – 1960), conducted by Dr. Sandrine Colard. It contains a wealth of revealing images that highlight the relationship between past and present, Africa and Europe and Belgium and Congo.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
“Fascinating and lucid . . . a stunningly illustrated and illuminating life of a singular painter.” — Sue Roe, Wall Street Journal
“Not just another art history book, no title in recent memory recalls with such exactitude the style of an era that, in retrospect, has become increasingly golden. . . . The book and its prose shimmer.” — New York Times
“Never before have Sargent’s talents been so gloriously displayed as they are here. Quite simply, this Abbeville edition is a stunner, a book as satisfyingly extravagant as a Sargent portrait.” — Christian Science Monitor
“The spontaneity, elegance, and grace that characterize Sargent’s work are everywhere evident on these large, luminous pages. . . . A visual delight, well written.” — Art and Antiques
The classic monograph on a much-loved artist—reissued in a spectacular oversize format
In the early work of John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Henry James saw “the slightly ‘uncanny’ spectacle of a talent which on the threshold of its career has nothing more to learn.” Sargent’s talent, nay, genius was indeed uncanny, sustained with equal intensity through his famed society portraits, like the scandalous Madame X; his full-size showpieces, like The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit; his thousands of watercolours executed en plein air from Venice to Corfu to Maine to Montana; and his ambitious mural decorations for the public monuments of Boston. In Carter Ratcliff, Sargent has found a biographer and critic nearly his match in style and subtlety. Ratcliff expertly evokes the expatriate American milieu into which the artist was born, and offers penetrating insights into every phase of his career, every aspect of his work. Now, for the first time, this landmark monograph is offered in a special oversize format, with all of its 310 illustrations reproduced in stunning full colour, many at full-page size, allowing the reader to appreciate the master’s every brushstroke. This new edition of John Singer Sargent will be a treasured reference for artists and an unalloyed delight for art lovers.
Collectors design their homes with their prized objects in mind. In this book 20 art and design collectors open the doors to their homes, many for the first time. You will be amazed at what you’ll see: from a Giacometti sculpture to a garbage bag by Gustav Metzger, from an iconic Eames lounge chair to the Living Tower by Verner Panton. This successor to the successful book Homes for Nomads (9789401477437) offers pages and pages of inspiration for all those who love beautiful and real-life interiors, and who perhaps live with, and love, their own collections.
“Laura Mary Todd’s new book delivers surprises. Her perspective is architectural and international.” — Old House Journal
Wallcoverings have moved far beyond the classic floral wallpaper. New designs and new techniques are opening up a whole range of inspiring possibilities for inventive wall treatments. This book brings together the best ideas from an international roster of architects. Included here are wallcoverings with reliefs, textures, and fabrics, along with advice on how best to incorporate repetitive patterns, neutral touches, and artwork: everything is possible. The book contains practical information and how-tos to help you get started and personal insights from interior designers who are eager to use wallcoverings and share their tips.
An Architect’s Address Book is memoir in 18 chapters of the places Robert Lemon has lived, studied, and worked over the past six decades. Some are of places that he has visited many times and are important to his career.
Studying architecture and conservation, Lemon has lived in Ottawa, Paris, London, Rome, and York. His work has involved projects in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Dorset, the High Arctic, and Xi’an. Other stories are about visiting the buildings of Andrea Palladio and Carlo Scarpa in the Veneto, Arne Jacobsen and Kay Fisker in Denmark, and five iconic 20th-century houses in France, in company of colleagues.
Most of the chapters focus on someone influential to Lemon’s career; and his vast interest in food is a thread through most stories.
History Reinterpreted, the second published work from celebrated architect and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects Patrick Ahearn, explores the renovation and reimagination of the 1871 Myles Standish Hotel in Duxbury, Mass., as a grand single-family residence. Highlighting how new life and modernity can be breathed into an historic structure while still respecting the past, the volume includes the architect’s own hand-drawn elevations, before and after floor plans, and countless full-colour photos from yesteryear and today to delight architecture and history enthusiasts alike.
Brick has long been a trusted material, used worldwide by builders who appreciate its strength and versatility. It offers proven value to both traditional works and contemporary designs. The venerable material has even become a trendsetter; as the New York Times recently reported, “Bricks Return with Style in New High-End Buildings.” Following the popular first volume of Folio, Folio 2 features the most inspiring new brick buildings in North America and Australia. Here single-family homes, university buildings, cultural centres, showroom interiors, and more show the possibilities of brick. Each project uses material manufactured by Glen-Gery in a variety of shapes, colours, and textures, from conventional brick to glass brick to custom-designed brick for unique implementations. The buildings are thoroughly documented in photos and drawings, and with texts based on new interviews with their designers — a who’s who of both up-and-coming and established architecture firms.
Facades: Beauty. Utility. Performance illustrates the depth and breadth of the many innovative exterior wall facades that were designed from 2007–2020 at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG). The featured projects, both built and unbuilt, are explored through photographs, renderings, model images, detail drawings, narratives, and illustrations. Each project addresses a series of environmental concerns, offering site-specific, performative solutions and innovative techniques that harvest resources and maximise efficiencies.
Urban Jungle: Living and Styling with Plants is a source of inspiration, ideas and a manual for all of those who want to bring more plants into their home. The book guides the reader through different “green” homes in five European countries and shows how beautiful, unique, creative and even artistic living with plants can be. More than that the reader finds endless ideas for styling from the bloggers of the “Urban Jungle Bloggers” community. To complete the topic of indoor plants the book offers easy help for taking care of the plants and DIY tips.
What are the best burger joints in San Francisco? Which local craft breweries are worth visiting? Where should you go to find the coolest surf gear? The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco is the perfect guide for anyone who’s keen to explore the city’s best-kept secrets. It guides the reader to the places not typically included in tourist guides. Like a secret fairy door in Golden Gate Park or the truly steepest hills in the city. At the same time, it also lists fantastic places frequented by San Francisco residents, like where to shop for local goods and antiques, or where to go for a fabulous brunch and the best craft cocktails in the city. Packed with hundreds of places to go, things to do, and good-to-know facts about the city, The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco will help you make the most of your visit to one of the United States’ coolest towns.
Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com
Eliseo Mattiacci: Sculpture in Action in Rome is a fresh examination of the developments in Mattiacci’s sculpture from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, dates that embrace the two decades he spent living and working in Italy’s vibrant capital. New research by the contributors to this book reveal how the exceptional constellation of studios, galleries and institutional spaces as well as the architectural and landscape settings Rome offered were the crucial factor in Mattiacci’s rapid sophistication as an artist. In the mid-1960s the city was already a major centre for art, literature, theatre and cinema, and the setting for numerous avant-garde performative ‘actions’ and ‘happenings’. The Piazza del Popolo district was crowded with bars and galleries, and Mattiacci soon became warmly acquainted with various gallerists and artists, including the Arte Povera practitioners Jannis Kounellis and Pino Pascali. In this challenging and competitive environment Mattiacci sought to establish his own distinctive exploratory style, investigating materials, forms, sounds, presentations and actions in endlessly novel and inventive ways. The extraordinary Tubo, the long flexible yellow coil of metallic tubing that could be endlessly rearranged and even carried out of a gallery into the streets by files of admirers, was first exhibited in 1967, and made his name. The following year he staged Lavori in corso, a trio of very popular performances, in the Circo Massimo, which involved spinning huge umbrellas in imitation of the Earth’s rotations and revolutions. Percorso, in 1969, was Mattiacci again in action, this time driving a noisy roadroller into and around a gallery.
In the 1970s – a difficult decade of political violence in Italy – Mattiacci continued to explore both outwardly and inwardly. He was increasingly fascinated by archaeology, antique alphabets and non-literate cultures, notably the USA’s First Peoples, and he created actions and presentations that ranged from exhibitions of x-rays of his own inner organs to appearances encased in ‘bandaging’ and plaster. In 1981 he first showed the admired Roma, a collection of 50 large sinuous metal shapes inspired by the volutes of classical and Baroque architecture, once again an artwork that is endlessly rearrangeable, indoors or out. Sculpture in Action is the beautifully illustrated account of Mattiacci’s artistic creativity in those decades.
The Art & Times of Daniel Jocz presents the entrancing and challenging work of American jewellery artist and sculptor Daniel Jocz. There is a spontaneous quality to the work, yet it is always rich with meaning. His open spirit is fully embodied in the 2007 neckpiece series An American’s Riff on the Millstone Ruff. Inspired by the extravagant scale of 17th-century Dutch ruffs at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, he decided to update them with automobile paint.
Jeannine Falino takes an in-depth look at the twists and turns of Jocz’s long career, from his early geometric sculptures to the fashion-forward flocked Candy Wear collection, and from his ruminations on Marlene Dietrich in the form of necklaces featuring enamel smoked cigarettes to the wall reliefs he explores today. Wendy Steiner considers Jocz’s place in the avant-garde through the lens of fashion and culture, while Patricia Harris and David Lyon explore his involvement in the rollicking Boston jewellery scene of the late 20th century.
The Tekkieh Moaven is a significant religious monument in Kermanshah and one of the most important national memorials in Iran. Following the building’s destruction in the early 20th century, it was rebuilt and furnished with exclusive tiles, the focal point of this publication. Since 1975, it has also been a popular museum visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. The tiles illustrate the fascinating world of art in the Persian empire and Islamic era and are distinguished by colourful illustrations featuring floral, calligraphic, and also figurative motifs. Author Hadi Seif weaves the recollections of the ancient guardian Sojdehpur into his narratives, contributing valuable insights into the evolutionary history of these impressive tiles. This is the first major English-language publication dedicated to this outstanding cultural monument.
Zhu Pei’s Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum recalls a time of glory of the once “Millenium Porcelain Capital” city, Jingdezhen, and extends these memories to the present. Inspired by the perception of Jingdezhen’s specific regional culture (porcelain) and the survival wisdom of the locals, the museum is a symbol of the past and future. The contemporary architecture magnificently resonates the ages: the building form is reminiscent of ancient traditional brick kilns, and its landscape — with mirror pools, bamboo groves, kiln ruins, and courtyards — recreates an impression of Jingdezhen’s vibrant porcelain past. As an “Architecture of Nature,” that evokes both contemporaneity and ancient vibes, the museum subverts typical perceptions of modern-day museums. Coloured photos, drawings, essays, and interviews provide detailed insights on the conception of the museum — from design concept to environmental strategies, to construction techniques and construction materials — as well as the architect’s personal perspectives on the overall concept and intention of the museum. The pages also feature commentaries on the museum by well-known architects, including Fan Di’an, Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Thomas Krens, Mohsen Mostafavi, Wang Mingxian.
The art of HR Giger (1940–2014), Swiss-born creator of the legendary monster in Ridley Scott’s movie Alien, is currently experiencing a renaissance and is featured in exhibitions as well as in magazines around the globe. This lavish large-format volume offers never-before-seen insights into Giger’s private house and garden, both of which are populated by biomechanical sculptures, airbrush paintings, Alien furniture, objects, prints, and self-portraits. French photographer Camille Vivier—best known for her work for Stella McCartney and Cartier—enjoyed exclusive access to the artist’s Zurich home and studio for this book, where she worked on her own as well as with models in a series of photo sessions.
Vivier’s around 200 photographs form an atmospheric tribute to the arguably most distinguished representative of Fantastic Realism. In addition to images of Giger’s studio and his life-size sculptures, Vivier has also documented some hundred objects and artworks, as well as his famous Alien-style garden railroad. An essay by French publicist Farbrice Paineu places HR Giger’s art in the wider context of pop culture and the genre of horror movies.
Text in English and German.
Tom Munz established his St. Gallen office in 2013. Since then, he has produced a number of extremely high-quality buildings that are always developed with a special interest in structural and tectonic expression. For instance Wohnhaus Holzenstein in Romanshorn is a design inspired by Modernism, thriving on the interaction between reserved, beige-stained concrete wall surfaces and wooden window elements to achieve an extremely poetic radiance.
Text in English and German.
Simon Moretti is known for his enigmatic exhibition works, presenting displays that engage with questions of agency, temporality, automatism, desire and masculinity. Incorporating appropriated images and archives as well as curatorial and publishing projects, often made in collaboration with other artists, his work addresses the role of ‘curating as practice’.
Presented as a non-chronological visual essay, this publication surveys 10 years of collage works by Moretti. It includes text contributions from writer Craig Burnett, curator and art historian Yuval Etgar, novelists Deborah Levy and Chloe Aridjis, and a conversation with Andrew Durbin, editor-in-chief of frieze magazine.
Filled with photographs of unpopulated studios, Paul Winstanley’s exploration of British art schools highlights their importance at a time when the art school system’s existence is more fraught than ever.
For this series, Winstanley (b.1954) photographed undergraduate studio spaces in more than 50 art colleges across the United Kingdom over the summers of 2011 and 2012. These rough-and-ready, nearly neutral spaces are photographed as found; empty in the period between school years.
Collectively, the works highlight the abstraction of the interiors with their temporary white walls, paint stains, neutral floors and open spaces. Photographed in this manner, their sterile nature is juxtaposed with their intended purpose of fostering intense creativity for a future generation of artists.
Over 200 full-colour illustrations – which combine images from various schools to form their own abstract space – are accompanied by writings from two professors of fine art: a text by Jon Thompson and an interview with the artist by Maria Fusco.
To commemorate the publication, Winstanley created a limited-edition digital print from the Art School series. Each edition is hand-finished by the artist and contained within a custom-made slipcase containing a signed copy of the book.
“Skins by Gavin Watson has been argued as being ‘the single most important record’ of 1970s skinhead culture in Britain, who have possibly been one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of the nation’s youth subcultures.” — Daily Mail
“Gavin Watson documented his friends as they came of age at the heart of a misunderstood community.” — i-D
“Gavin Watson’s cult documentary photo book Skins chronicles the radical and inclusive spirit which originally animated the emerging skinhead culture of 70s Britain.” — Dazed
Skins by Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer.
The scores of black and white shots offer a fascinating glimpse into a skinhead community that was multi-cultural, tightly knit and, above all else, fiercely proud of its look. These are classic photographs of historical value.
“What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” – Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England).
The book, described by The Times as “a modern classic”, forms an important visual record of its time and has attained cult status in the genre, alongside works by other eminent photographers such as Derek Ridgers and Nick Knight.
“Arguably one of the best and most important books about youth fashion and culture ever published.” – Vice Magazine
“…the panorama of a self-forgotten milieu.” — Monopol
“Toffs behaving badly: 1980s high society in photos.” — The Times
“The pictorial equivalents of Evelyn Waugh’s sentences.” — The New Yorker
“Modest though he is, Dafydd’s photographs will endure for having perfectly captured a society on the brink of decline. Unmissable listening.” — Country & Townhouse podcast
“Wonderfully ironic, every point in the picture ignites and knows how to entertain very well.” — Lovely Books
“Dafydd catches those moments of genuine exhilaration, wealth and youth.” — The Hollywood Reporter
“I wondered if the party guests I’d photographed were just re-enacting a nostalgic fantasy, an imaginary version of England that already no longer existed.” – Dafydd Jones
Throughout the 1980s, award-winning photographer Dafydd Jones was granted access to some of England’s most exclusive upper-class events. Now, the author of Oxford: The Last Hurrah presents this irreverent and intimate portrait of birthday parties and charity balls, Eton picnics and private school celebrations.
With the crack of a hunting rifle and a spray of champagne, these photos give an almost cinematic account of high-society England at its most riotous and its most vulnerable. Against the backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain, globalisation, the Falklands War, rising stocks and dwindling inherited fortunes, Jones reveals the inner lives of the established elite as they party long into the night-time of their fading world.
Praise for Oxford: The Last Hurrah
‘Sublime vintage photographs…’ – Hermione Eyre, The Telegraph
‘In The Last Hurrah…we see familiar faces from British high society poised on the brink of adulthood.’ – Eve Watling, Independent
“In Los Angeles, everyone is a star.” – Denzel Washington
For more than a century, seekers of sun and celebrity from around the world have flocked to this sprawling metropolis on the Pacific, which Dorothy Parker once described as “72 suburbs in search of a city.” But beyond the red-carpet reputation and Tinseltown trappings is a west coast wonderland teeming with unexpected cultural experiences, iconic architecture, gorgeous open spaces, quirky museums, hidden vistas, unconventional art, and obscure stories about the starlets, moguls, personalities, and players who have made Los Angeles their playground. This unusual guidebook explores 111 of the city’s most interesting and unknown places and experiences: wander a serpentine path in a spiritual quest of your own making; channel your inner cowboy at a tried and true honky tonk bar; pay homage to the Dude at the bungalow where the big Lebowski lived; turn your car tires into musical instruments on the country’s only ‘musical’ road; sleep with the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin; view a constellation of stars more vivid than anything Hollywood has to offer. From the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, Angelenos and visitors will fall in love with the real Los Angeles. Adventures beckon. Surprises await. Just imagine how much more scintillating your dinner-party storytelling will be.
Skins by Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer.
The scores of black and white shots offer a fascinating glimpse into a skinhead community that was multi-cultural, tightly knit and, above all else, fiercely proud of its look. These are classic photographs of historical value.
“What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” – Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England).
The book, described by The Times as “a modern classic”, forms an important visual record of its time and has attained cult status in the genre, alongside works by other eminent photographers such as Derek Ridgers and Nick Knight.
“Arguably one of the best and most important books about youth fashion and culture ever published.” – Vice Magazine
This book aims to help readers rediscover the sacredness of the everyday landscapes around them in order to shed light on the ecological imperatives of our time. Drawn from the union of art, nature, and metaphysics, it presents some of the myths and legends of antiquity as they might be recognised by our modern society of earth-shapers. Through word and image the authors reference the ecological and environmental concepts found at the core of traditional environmental knowledge and provide a new context for environmental engagement that merges the spiritual and phenomenological with the scientific and empirical. Wisdom of Place can be used by anyone — from creatives to spiritual seekers, landscape architects to coders — to call forth the voice of the genius loci — the spirit of place — and reveal the creative forces and hidden currents of nature.