The work of photographer Gérard Uféras (b. 1954, Paris) covers a compelling and charming array of subjects, from glimpses of life behind the scenes at the opera and ballet, to marrying couples and their families on their wedding day, to the spontaneous energy and interaction of crowds at carnivals and sporting events. With the discreet but unerring eye of the seasoned photojournalist (he began a long association with Libération newspaper in the 1980s), Gérard Uféras captures people from all walks of life in moments of contemplation, creation and camaraderie, resulting in a body of work that offers a rich and nuanced picture of humanity.

Published to coincide with a retrospective of his work in 2025, this book presents the photographer’s own choice of some of his finest work from a long and distinguished career. What emerges most strongly from this collection is Gérard Uféras’s great passion for favourite themes such as music, theatre and dance, but, perhaps more resoundingly still, his profound empathy and respect for his human subjects.

Text in French.

This book of over 200 photographs by Bernis and Peter von zur Muehlen covers the sweep of Prague’s history from World War II to the “Velvet Revolution.” The first chapter, illustrated by his mother’s black and white snapshots of the city, is an account of Peter’s life in Prague as a young boy during the months leading up to the end of World War II and of his family’s narrow escape days before the Red Army entered the city. The following chapters describe four visits by Bernis and Peter between 1985 and 1992, an epoch that saw Czechoslovakia’s transformation from Communist dictatorship to the restoration of democracy. The images reveal not only a glorious city, but also the many less prominent sites that give Prague its unique charm. Haunting images of the Old Jewish Cemetery remind the reader of the turbulent history of the Jews, nearly exterminated by the Nazis. One chapter traces the evolution of the Lennon Wall, a famous symbol of Prague’s long struggle for freedom. Lively accounts of the photographers’ travel experiences document a city slowly coming to terms with its own history. An afterword by Ori Z. Soltes, noted lecturer and author of twenty books, illuminates the city’s Judaeo-Christian history.

Lieven Lefere (°1978, Roeselare) is an artist who plays with the complex relationship between the photographic image and reality. Lefere works extremely meticulously, in a particularly slow process. He carefully manipulates all the parameters that make a photo what it is. The process often starts months before the photo is taken. He starts from an extensive research, with a multitude of reference points. Sometimes he builds sets and scenes himself from that research or from his memories. He constructs his images with scale and framing, models the space, makes models, chooses the incidence of light. The sets disappear or become a spatial part of the work.

“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.

If Richmond VA represented the historic heart of the Confederacy, then Monument Avenue was meant to memorialise its soul. The avenue was conceived in the 1870s, when the city elected to build a memorial to General Robert E Lee. It was not until 1890, however, that the massive monument was unveiled. Over the succeeding decades, Lee was joined by statues commemorating other leading Confederate military and political figures – JEB Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Almost from the moment they were erected, the Confederate monuments, as symbols of white supremacy, were the focus of controversy and protest. The climax came in the summer of 2020 when Black Lives Matter protesters, outraged by the death of George Floyd, converged on the avenue to vent their fury. On July 10th, Jefferson Davis was dragged from his pedestal. Two days later, Brian Rose packed up his cameras in New York and drove back to his home state to document the last days of the grand boulevard of the Lost Cause. En route, he reflected on his own history and the roles played by his forebears in the Antebellum South.This new edition of a classic book captures a pivotal moment in modern American history.

Tan Ping came to Berlin in 1989 to study at the University of the Arts (UDK) and shortly afterwards witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. China‘s opening to the Western World since 1985 has created new opportunities for a variety of bilateral relationships.

Tan Ping consistently developed an abstract formal language that was significantly influenced by the Western art of Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel, Minimal and Conceptual Art. He uniquely combines these influences with his Chinese cultural roots, which stem from calligraphy and ink painting.

As early as 1993, he created a conceptual approach with his ‘Time’ installation, in which he intertwined space, movement and time. Since then, he has continuously explored these factors and at the same time questioned his own self. Thirty years after completing his studies in Germany, this book offers a compendium of his research and artistic processes.

Text in English and German.

In 2024, the University of Liechtenstein in Vaduz opened its Ebaholz campus extension. Design and realisation of the building’s interior was entrusted to students from the Craft & Structure Studio at Liechtenstein School of Architecture. Their key task was to create new working environments and to offer space for social interaction. The building’s structural conditions were the only limits to the design process. Students had to deal with materials and tectonic aspects of designing wall systems, furniture, and lighting, as well as all the issues of space and atmosphere for creative teamwork. Supported by experts of scenography, acoustics, and colour design, they experimented with spatial concepts, atmospheres, materials, and colours. The entire planning was done on a 1:1 scale and eventually realised in collaboration with craftspeople from local construction firms.

This book highlights these didactics of design-build used at the Craft & Structure Studio under the direction of Urs Meister and Carmen Rist-Stadelmann and places it in the international framework of architectural education. Illustrated with plans, photos, and visualisations, it offers an insight into the close exchange between the students and the professionals from construction firms.

Text in English and German.

For the first time, the world-renowned photographer Stephan Vanfleteren will share the enchantment that has drawn him to the sea – or more accurately, into the sea – in recent years. Vanfleteren’s fascinating images of the natural world take the viewer on a journey through time. They are inspiring invitations to consider developments in maritime painting in a new light, and to discover how his perspectives intersect with those of painters from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

Fedele Maura Friede (b. 1997) is the 8th winner of the prestigious Horst-Janssen Graphic Art Prize awarded by the Claus Hüppe Foundation, which supports outstanding work in the field of graphic art. In the accompanying exhibition at Hamburger Kunsthalle entitled ‘der saum löst sich’ (the hem comes undone) Friede explores, through map-like lines and folds in paper, the relationship between space and landscape from microcosmos to sweeping panoramas. Her works hint at a hidden narrative without being too literal or following a set story. To achieve this, she makes use of various forms of expression that combine drawing in a broader sense with writing, allowing them to enter into a dialogue. The quality of her images lies in their inherent disorientation: Her drawings are constructed and legible from all angles of the sheet of paper. With their map-like lines and folds, Friede’s works elude a rigid structure so that the perspective constantly shifts. The lines create a social space in which varied types of perception can unfold.

The accompanying artist book Standortbestimmung combines texts and artworks by Friede, which are poetically examined in a contribution by the writer Tatjana von der Beek. In her words: “The thin wallpaper is cracked and sharp beneath my palms. If I were to suddenly drag my hands across the wall, it would lacerate my skin.”

Text in English and German.

Rose Wylie RA is the third artist to participate in an exhibition collaboration between the Royal Academy and The Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach, Florida. This book accompanies her show and features an interview with the artist by Tim Marlow, Artistic Director at the Royal Academy, and an essay by the actor and art collector Russell Tovey.

The exhibition comprises new paintings and drawings – wittily observed and subtly sophisticated meditations on the nature of visual representation itself. Using images as a prompt, Wylie often works from memory, and the associated works on a single subject offer an insight into her complex creative process.

Wylie’s work has been the subject of renewed critical attention in recent years, with major shows in Europe at venues including Turner Contemporary, Margate (2016), the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London (2017), Tate Modern, London (2018), and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga (2018).

Walter Swennen is a painter, born in Brussels in 1946. Like others of his generation, he approaches and explores the medium in new ways by applying principles from other disciplines. Swennen’s work constantly challenges the viewer. His paintings demand slow and careful inspection. The layers of paint often hide a veritable battlefield of attempts, corrections, words and messages. His Dutch-speaking family suddenly began speaking French when he was five years old, and language games accordingly form an integral part of his art. A painting by Walter Swennen is not just a result, but also a process, which allows us to trace the path taken by the artist to achieve the ultimate ‘visible’ image. A key constant is the pleasure he derives from the battle with the paint. Non-conformist that he is, Swennen paints on anything: from canvas to wood to discarded camping tables, stoves and even washing machines.

Walter Swennen’s long and varied career deserves to be recognised by a wide public for its radical nonconformism and the influence that the artist still exerts on young artists today. Swennen is represented by the Brussels Xavier Hufkens Gallery and the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and won the prestigious Ultima award for lifetime services to the visual arts in 2019. His work can be found in numerous museum and gallery collections.

This book offers a wonderful overview of his oeuvre and is the catalogue to an international solo exhibition which launches in Kunstmuseum Bonn (June-August 2021) before travelling to Kunstmuseum Den Haag (autumn 2021) and Kunstmuseum Winterthur (spring 2022).

Text contributions written by Stephan Berg, Konrad Bitterli and Daniel Koep.

Text in English and German.

This is the story of the Reeves Collection of botanical paintings, the result of one man’s single-minded dedication to commissioning pictures and gathering plants for the Horticultural Society of London. Reeves went to China in 1812 and immediately on arrival started sending back snippets of information about manufactures, plants and poetry, goods, gods and tea to Sir Joseph Banks. Slightly later, he also started collecting for the Society but despite years of work collecting, labelling and packing plants and organising a team of Chinese artists until he left China in 1831, Reeves never enjoyed the same degree of recognition as other naturalists in China. This was possibly because he had a demanding job as a tea inspector. Reeves himself never claimed to be a professional naturalist and the plant collecting and painting supervision were undertaken in his own time. Furthermore, fan qui (foreign devils) were restricted to the port area of Canton and to Macau, so that plant-hunting expeditions further afield were impossible. Furthermore, Reeves never published an account of his life in the country, unlike Clarke Abel and Robert Fortune, but he left us some letters, notebooks, drawings and maps. The Collection is held at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Library in Vincent Square, London. It is a magnificent achievement. Not only are the pictures accurate and richly coloured plant portraits of plants then unknown in the West, but they stand as a record of plants being cultivated in nineteenth-century Canton and Macau. In John Reeves: Pioneering Collector of Chinese Plants and Botanical Art, Kate Bailey reveals John Reeves’ life as an East India Company tea inspector in nineteenth-century China and shows how he managed to collect and document thousands of Chinese natural history drawings, far more than anyone else at the time.

In Venice, on the Grand Tour in 1731, the future fourth Duke of Bedford met with the great art agent, Consul Joseph Smith. The commission he placed resulted in 24 of the greatest and most typical works of Canaletto. First installed in Bedford House London, they were moved to their splendid position in the Dining Room at Woburn in 1800, where they have remained ever since. Fully illustrated with many details, this publication marks the first time these paintings have been reproduced in colour. An extensive introduction by the leading Canaletto scholar Charles Beddington puts these works into perspective.

Although Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) painted on an almost miniature scale and died very young from, it was said, the overwork that resulted from the intensity of his methods, his paintings remain some of the most strangely poetical in the history of Western art. They were also extremely influential: Elsheimer’s often recondite subject matter, his astonishing ability to render night scenes, his uniquely lyrical use of landscape deeply affected generations of artists; one of the first to fall under his spell was Rubens. Most of what we know about Elsheimer’s life and sadly curtailed career comes from the biographies reprinted in this volume, which also includes personal reminiscences by friends and other painters. Unavailable for many years, these writings bring Elsheimer’s extraordinary art to life. A new introduction by Claire Pace sets the paintings and these writings into the context of their times.

‘Beauty is the beacon of God,’ said Botticelli. ‘No, it’s not. Love is,’ snapped his sister.

Beauty: Botticelli in Florence imagines what Botticelli was feeling and thinking as he painted. The people he loved and despised, his private struggle between spirituality and sensuality, the tempestuous times he lived through – all come to life in his images…

The novel is a speculation based on the few facts known about Botticelli, informed by his paintings. There are many surprises. The Birth of Venus was a tapestry design. And his famed self-portrait didn’t depict him (as widely believed) but Pierfrancesco de Medici, who sued his powerful cousin Lorenzo for robbing him, abolished Florence’s homophobic witch-hunts, funded Vespucci’s journey to the New World and commissioned Botticelli’s most famous works. There was boiling tension between him and Botticelli.

This is the first in a sequence of illustrated ‘painting novels’ that make sights as telling as words.

Somewhere in Europe—we don’t know where—around 1700. An artist is staring at something on the floor next to her worktable. It’s just a log from the woodpile, stood on end. The soft, damp bark; the gently raised growth rings; the dark radial cracks—nothing could be more ordinary. But as the artist looks, and looks, colours begin to appear—shapes—even figures. She turns to a sheet of paper and begins to paint. Today this anonymous artist’s masterpiece is preserved in the University of Glasgow Library. It is a manuscript in a plain brown binding, whose entire contents, beyond a cryptic title page, are 52 small, round watercolour paintings based on the visions she saw in the ends of firewood logs. This book reproduces the entire sequence of paintings in full colour, together with a meditative commentary by the art historian James Elkins. Sometimes, he writes, we can glimpse the artist’s sources—Baroque religious art, genre painting, mythology, alchemical manuscripts, emblem books, optical effects. But always she distorts her images, mixes them together, leaves them incomplete—always she rejects familiar stories and clear-cut meanings. In this daring refusal to make sense, Elkins sees an uncannily modern attitude of doubt and scepticism; he draws a portrait of the artist as an irremediably lonely, amazingly independent soul, inhabiting a distinct historical moment between the faded Renaissance and the overconfident Enlightenment. What Heaven Looks Like is a rare event: an encounter between a truly perceptive historian of images, and a master conjurer of them.

The National Galleries Barberini and Corsini contain paintings and sculptures of exceptional historical and artistic value. Page after page, through the masterpieces of many of the greatest Italian artists from the Middle Ages to the 18th century (Angelico, Raphael, Piero di Cosimo, Bronzino, Lotto, Tintoretto, Cortona, Caravaggio, Bernini, Reni, Guercino, Batoni, Canaletto) the reader can follow the development of art history. The collections also include artwork by Holbein, Murille and Van Dyck, besides a few antique pieces. In addition to the 100 entries, there are descriptions of particularly important elements that are part of the palaces’ architecture, such as Borromini’s spiral staircase, Bernini’s main staircase and the huge ceiling frescoed by Pietro da Cortona.

In 2015, the Vendôme column regained its initial splendour thanks to a long restoration campaign supported by the Vendôme committee and particularly the Ritz.

During the dismantling of the scaffolding, David Bordes took exceptional shots of all the column plates. Published here for the first time, these 450 photographs form a fascinating and totally new corpus: the details of the battle scenes, the military costumes, the landscapes which constitute the setting of the battle of Austerlitz allow one to discover the column as it had never been revealed.

Based on the shots of David Bordes, but also on paintings, old photographs, period documents, this widely illustrated art book in exceptional format and workmanship brings the history of the column to life, its sources, its destruction, its restoration, and also describes the moving history of the daily life of the Grande Armée during the Austerlitz campaign.

In 2015, the Vendôme column regained its initial splendor thanks to a long restoration campaign supported by the Vendôme committee and particularly the Ritz.

During the dismantling of the scaffolding, David Bordes took exceptional shots of all the column plates. Published here for the first time, these 450 photographs form a fascinating and totally new corpus: the details of the battle scenes, the military costumes, the landscapes which constitute the setting of the battle of Austerlitz allow one to discover the column as it had never been revealed.

Based on the shots of David Bordes, but also on paintings, old photographs, period documents, this widely illustrated art book in exceptional format and workmanship brings the history of the column to life, its sources, its destruction, its restoration, and also describes the moving history of the daily life of the Grande Armée during the Austerlitz campaign.

The Story of the America’s Cup 1851-2021 tells the chronological history of 150 years of the most exciting and exhilarating yacht race, open the pages and you can almost feel the wind in the sails and the salt spray.

Full page colour illustrations bring the yachts alive, set as they are in their natural element, at sea, on the waves; detailed descriptions give an amazing insider’s view of the construction of individual boats, the routes sailed, the crews, the highs and lows of what was undoubtedly, extremely tough and competitive sailing, the victories and the defeats.

Paintings by Tim Thompson, a leading marine artist are an integral part of the book’s appeal; he has captured the pure essence, the spirit of the race and its place in history.

Seventeeth-century Dutch art is famed throughout the world. Yet how ‘Dutch’ are those paintings in actual fact? Did the countless history pieces, landscapes, portraits, still lifes and scenes from everyday life truly originate in cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft and Leiden? Or might the cradle of these genres actually be located somewhere else?
This book presents over 90 masterpieces by Flemish and Dutch artists to show how 17th century Dutch painting could never have flourished the way it did without the foundations laid in 16th century Antwerp. Thoroughly researched, it tells the story of the talented and accomplished artists and merchants who migrated north in search of religious liberty and new commercial opportunities after Antwerp fell to Spanish Catholic troops in 1585.
With text contributions by Koenraad Jonckheere, professor of art history at Ghent University and author of the bestseller A New History of Western Art, Micha Leeflang, curator at the Museum Catharijneconvent, and Sven Van Dorst, head of the restoration studio at The Phoebus Foundation, and others.

In this lavishly produced volume, authors Virginia and Lee McAlester explore outstanding landmark houses that exemplify America’s major architectural and interior design styles from Colonial times to the mid-20th century. These 25 houses are illustrated with more than 350 specially commissioned full-colour photographs of interior and exterior views, 125 black-and-white line drawings and floor plans, historical paintings, and vintage photographs.

The text not only discusses the houses architectural innovations and design elements but also profiles the architects and their clients. The featured houses were built by many of the country’s leading architects – from Alexander Jackson Davis, Richard Morris Hunt, Henry Hobson Richardson, and McKim, Mead and White to Frank Lloyd Wright, the Greene brothers, and Walter Gropius – and owned by some of its most celebrated citizens, including Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Jay Gould, the Guggenheim’s, the Phippses’, and the Vanderbilt’s. As a result, the book is as much a cultural history as it is an architectural study. The authors also include an informative discussion of each style as it can be seen in vernacular versions around the country.

Located all over the United States, most of the featured houses are open to the public, and the book provides their addresses and other helpful information for visitors. Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles will be irresistible to all house lovers, architects, and designers, and will give readers a deeper understanding and appreciation of our rich architectural heritage

This beautifully illustrated book, with over 300 colour reproductions, showcases many of the greatest masterpieces of 19th century Orientalist art. During this period, colonization, and a revolution in means of transportation allowed artists to visit countries from North Africa to the Middle East that had previously been relatively inaccessible. The patterns, colours, and light of this region influenced artists such as Delacroix, Decamps, Berchère, Bridgman, Ziem, Gérôme, Corrodi, Dinet, Matisse, Majorelle and many others. Upon returning to Europe, these artists captured the atmosphere of these distant and exotic lands in painted scenes of daily life and wrote memoirs of their travels. Some returned to settle there, including painters like Dinet, who spent a large part of his life in Algeria, and Majorelle, known as the “painter of Marrakech.” This book offers insight into the Orientalist aesthetic that inspired the movement, and lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of these vibrant works of art.

Text in English and French.