Path of Gold traces the significance and use of gold as an art historical phenomenon, from early cultures to the present day. In periods of fundamental shifts in value and spiritual reorientation, gold appears consistently as a meaningful element: the ultimate precious metal always symbolised temporal as well as spiritual values. In painting, gold always indicates a change, liberation, and transmutation.
Gold as a colour and means of artistic expression of utmost importance also links Swiss artists Heinrich Eichmann (1915-1970) and Barbara Diethelm, born in 1962. Eichmann created numerous plates and murals in different architectural contexts, of which the best-known are his “Gold Paintings.” In her work, Diethelm, who also works as a colour researcher, pursues the creative forces of nature and developed a new gold-coloured substance. Her paintings refer to concrete places where layers of human cultural development overlap and come to the fore.
In this book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at Helmhaus Zurich in spring 2022, full colour reproductions of Eichmann’s and Diethelm’s works are supplemented with texts by artist Barbara Diethelm, art historian Guido Magnaguagno, curator Daniel Morgenthaler, and the South African author and conservationist Linda Tucker.
Text in English and German.
Today, known for its black and white portraits covering entire buildings, Hendrik Beikirch today presents the Siberia project, a project in the continuity of Tracing Morocco started in 2014. The intensity of these powerful foreign faces recalls a familiarity that can be experienced anywhere in the world. Beikirch takes these studies of humanity with him on his travels and permeates them as traces of personified life in new contexts. The project is the result of Beikirch’s meeting with this distant immensity that is Siberia. From this project was born the book Siberia, which gives an overview of all the works created, paintings, and 10 murals carried out all over the world.
Text in English, French and Russian.
The catalogue Max Neumann – Journey comprises around 80 paintings and works on paper from all creative phases of the painter and graphic artist Max Neumann (b. 1949), who is an important representative of contemporary German figuration. His enigmatic human figures seated in enraptured pictorial settings are not geared toward capturing a subjective, distinct portrayal, but toward the crystallisation of an unmistakable humanlike allegory. His characters, in their at once disconcerting and graceful silhouettes, fall out of time and history as symbolic markers of a human state of mind. Neumann does not intend to narrate any incidents; he rather traces emotional human qualities, confronting the viewer with his own desires, fears, obsessions, and phantasms.
Text in English and German.
Larry Poons (b. 1937) shot to fame while still in his twenties, on the strength of his “dot paintings,” in which dots or ellipses were meticulously arranged on brightly coloured fields, creating a rhythmic, pulsating effect. But within a few years, Poons first loosened the hard-edged precision of the dot paintings and then abandoned them entirely for an organic mode of abstraction based on vertical drips of flung paint. This marked the beginning of an uncompromising five-decade evolution that has finally led the artist back to a more intimate mode of painting with brushes — and his own hands. At every stage, Poons’s career has compelled the attention of critics and, in particular, other artists.
This handsome volume, the first full-length biocritical monograph on Poons, reproduces more than 140 of his most important works in full colour, some as spectacular gatefolds. The incisive text — a collaboration between four leading critics and historians — traces the development of the artist’s extraordinary career. Larry Poons is a necessary addition to the library of anyone with an interest in American art.
The tale of the shepherd girl Radha and the Hindu god Krishna is probably the most famous love story in India. Written by Jayadeva at the end of the twelfth century, the Gitagovinda narrates the highs and lows of Radha and Krishna’s relationship. As a vivid metaphor for the human yearning for god, the work is today closely associated in India with the religiosity of Krishna. In the eighteenth century, in the former princely residence of Guler, the artist family of Nainsuhk and Manaku created the outstanding picture series of the second Guler Gitagovinda of 1775/80, which recounts the love story with an unparalleled elegance. This book retells the story using selected pieces from this series (printed in original size) and whisks the reader off into the atmospheric world of Indian miniature painting and poetry. This book accompanies an exhibition at Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 24 October 2019 – 16 February 2020.
Text in English and German.
The myth of a wild, untouched landscape is persistent in American history. Imaginary wilds helped define an American identity in the early nineteenth century when Thomas Cole produced a series of masterwork paintings of American landscapes. And today the myth of imaginary wilds continues to have a major influence on attitudes toward landscape, nature, and the use of resources extracted from the earth. This book presents a series of student-designed architectural projects for a new gallery building sited within the landscape of Cedar Grove, Thomas Cole’s historic home and studio in Catskill, New York. Cole’s artistic legacy can be interpreted in different ways because he was concerned with landscapes and nature as both material and ideal conditions. Complexities arising from considering landscapes and nature as both real and ideal create a productive frame for exploring how architects might design buildings in relation to landscapes and nature. Throughout the book, these relationships are seen to play out in five different directions under the guidance of five different design studio instructors. The architectural projects presented here are contextualised in relation to landscape, nature, and Thomas Cole’s artistic legacy in a series of essays by a distinguished group of designers and thinkers.
The Norwegian painter Bjørn Ransve (b. 1944) is one of the best-known contemporary Scandinavian artists. Very few painters indeed express themselves so brilliantly in two dimensions, thematically, technically and formally. The third volume of the catalogue raisonné is devoted to Ransve ‘s graphic oeuvre: in over 1,300 illustrations it documents prints and multiples, created from the 1960s to 2013. This book is not only an indispensable standard reference for all scholars, art dealers and collectors, it also provides insights in the complex interrelations between prints, paintings and drawings in Ransve ‘s artistic work. The accompanying text by Lars Eisenlöffel investigates the changing and recurrent groups of motifs and places the works in their art historical context.
Since each page of the book has been designed individually in close collaboration between Ransve and the graphic artist and book designer Silke Nalbach, Bjørn Ransve ‘s development as an artist can be traced in a way that is particularly illuminating.
Text in Norwegian.
The Norwegian painter Bjørn Ransve (b. 1944) is one of the best-known contemporary Scandinavian artists. Very few painters indeed express themselves so brilliantly in two dimensions, thematically, technically and formally.
The third volume of the catalogue raisonné is devoted to Ransve’s graphic oeuvre: in over 1,300 illustrations it documents prints and multiples, created from the 1960s to 2013. This book is not only an indispensable standard reference for all scholars, art dealers and collectors, it also provides insights in the complex interrelations between prints, paintings and drawings in Ransve’s artistic work. The accompanying text by Lars Eisenlöffel investigates the changing and recurrent groups of motifs and places the works in their art historical context. Since each page of the book has been designed individually in close collaboration between Ransve and the graphic artist and book designer Silke Nalbach, Bjørn Ransve’s development as an artist can be traced in a way that is particularly illuminating.
“The book is compact, beautifully designed, and includes excellent essays by Linsey Young and Kathleen Soriano, with introductions on each section by the artist, reproductions of each work in the show, as well as others on Cooper and Soriano’s wish list which could not be accommodated.” — Printmaking Today
Eileen Cooper OBE RA has been consistently successful across her 50-year career, the influence of her art seen in the range and depth of her work as well as in her contribution to art education. Cooper’s artistic experiences – which, in the words of Linsey Young, disrupt the neat patriarchal understandings of women – are brought together in this thoughtfully designed and elegant hardback. Early works are illustrated alongside previously unseen drawings, paintings, prints, ceramics and portraits, many of which will surprise readers. The authors also consider Cooper’s work in relation to the collections of Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, including works by Peter Doig, Paula Rego, Pablo Picasso, Dame Laura Knight and Lotte Laserstein.
Francis Bacon is considered one of the most important painters of the twentieth century. A major exhibition of his paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts, planned for 2020 but postponed because of the pandemic, explores the role of animals in his work – not least the human animal.
Having often painted dogs and horses, in 1969 Bacon first depicted bullfights. In this powerful series of works, the interaction between man and beast is dangerous and cruel, but also disturbingly intimate. Both are contorted in their anguished struggle, and the erotic lurks not far away: ‘Bullfighting is like boxing,’ Bacon once said. ‘A marvellous aperitif to sex.’ Twenty-two years later, a lone bull was to be the subject of his final painting.
In this fascinating publication – a significant addition to the literature on Bacon – expert authors discuss Bacon’s approach to animals and identify his varied sources of inspiration, which included wildlife photography and the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge. They contend that, by considering animals in states of vulnerability, anger and unease, Bacon was able to lay bare the role of instinctual behaviour in the human condition.
Images below, left to right:
Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Fragment of a Crucifixion, 1950. Oil and cotton wool on canvas, 140 x 108.5 cm. Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Photo Hugo Maertens
Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Study for Portrait (with Two Owls), 1963. Oil on canvas, 198.1 x 144.8 cm. Private collection. Photo Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Man with Dog, 1953. Oil on canvas, 152 x 117 cm. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Gift of Seymour H. Knox Jr, 1955, inv. K1955:3. Photo Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
All images © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2020.
Titian (c. 1488-1576) was recognised very early on as the leading painter of his generation in Venice. Starting in the studio of the aged Giovanni Bellini, Titian, with his contemporary Giorgione, almost immediately started to expand the range of what was possible in painting, converting Bellini’s statuesque style into something far more impressionistic and romantic. This restless spirit of innovation and improvisation never left him, and during his long life he experimented with a number of different styles, the brushwork of his last great paintings showing a mysterious poetry that has never been equalled. This volume in the series Lives of the Artists collects the major writings about Titian by his contemporaries and near contemporaries. The centrepiece is the biography by Vasari, who as a Florentine found Titian’s very Venetian sense of colour and transient forms a challenge to his concept of art as design. The poet Ariosto and sparkling letter writer Aretino had a more nuanced view of their friend’s work, and Priscianese’s account of a dinner party with Titian, and the contributions by Speroni and Dolce, and the slightly later Tuscan critic Borghini, round out the picture of this hugely thoughtful, intellectual artist, whose paintings remain some of the most sensual and affecting in all of Western art. Mostly unavailable in any form for many years, these writings have been newly edited for this edition. They are introduced by the scholar Carlo Corsato, who places each in its artistic and literary context. Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations cover the full range of Titian’s great oeuvre.
Father Andrew, an artist and priest of the Archdiocese of New York, recounts his impressions during a peripatetic retreat in Tuscany some years ago, under the guidance of Timothy Verdon an art historian and Catholic priest. Timothy Verdon’s hope was to help the listeners open to the spiritual as well as aesthetic beauty of the buildings, sculptures and paintings seen and Father Andrew’s book tells that something of this sort happened, at least in his case. A Tuscan Résumé is an ‘inspired’ work, in response to the same Spirit that touched the architects and artists whose masterpieces Father Andrew describes.
Young Rembrandt concentrates on the first ten years of the career of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Born in Leiden, he trained there with Isaac van Swanenburg and in Amsterdam with Pieter Lastman. After a short stay in Amsterdam he returned to Leiden and set up a studio where he began his extraordinary career, painting scenes from the Bible and classical mythology and history, as well as a handful of genre scenes and portraits. His progress is remarkable: from the earliest hesitant paintings of the Five Senses in about 1624 to the wonderfully assured Jeremiah of 1630 it is almost possible to trace his development and his increasing fluency and self-confidence from month to month and certainly from year to year. Published to accompany exhibitions at the Lakenhal, Leiden from November 2019 to February 2020, then at the Ashmolean Museum from February to June 2020.
With the help of 100 artworks, this book guides you through the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Learn more about Kazimir Malevich’s groundbreaking abstract paintings, the ingeniously knotted chair by Marcel Wanders, nearly kitschy art by Jeff Koons, and Rineke Dijkstra’s intense portraits.
Ten introductory texts impart everything you need to know in 1,000 words about modern art, photography, and design. For instance, why waste and junk can also be art. Or why skillfully appropriated art is better than badly conceived. Or why an unsuspecting visitor may suddenly find themselves part of a work of art. Included with the guide is a sheet of stickers featuring 100 works from the collection. With this guide, every curious visitor can be well prepared for their next encounter with modern art.
This book reveals that James Ensor did not develop his fantastic and grotesque universe of masks and skeletons out of his melancholic soul, but that he re-used and transformed an old image tradition that was collected and published by the French author and art critic Jules Champfleury in his History of Caricature. A second essay analyses how these weird creatures infiltrate the image borders and the frames of Ensor’s paintings in order to disturb the ‘normal’ world.
In her paintings, the Swiss artist Regula Syz (b. 1946) opens up a space for contradiction. They depict blossoming life, but also foreboding and destruction. To this end, the artist works with elementary manifestations of the life cycle, which she links to humankind’s internal and external struggles. Regula Syz’s oeuvre, which spans more than fifty years, is characterised by a turning point in 1999: a studio residency in Genoa marked her transition from precise watercolour techniques to large-format acrylic paintings; beauty and harmony were followed by expressiveness and movement. Red Raven – Black Poppy focuses on this second phase of her work, though it also features earlier works and excerpts from her sketchbooks, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of Syz’s artistic practice.
Text in English and German.
Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628-1688) is the most highly regarded master of Spanish Baroque sculpture, on a par with his contemporaries, the great seventeenth-century painters Velázquez, Zurbarán and Murillo. Mena’s contributions to Spanish Baroque sculpture are unsurpassed in both technical skill and expressiveness of his religious subjects. His ability to sculpt the human body was remarkable, and he excelled in creating figures and scenes for contemplation. This first monograph of Pedro de Mena shows incredible details and remarkable images of his hyper-realistic sculptures, full of passion. In addition to text by curator Xavier Bray, Pedro de Mena also features important contributions by José Luis Romeo Torres, curator of the exhibition Pedro de Mena, to be held in Málaga in 2019.
In October 2024 The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, in collaboration with the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, in Madrid, presented the exhibition Splendour in Venice. From Canaletto to Guardi, devoted to 18th century Venetian painting.
Painters such as Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Bernardo Bellotto, and Giambattista Tiepolo, authors of some of the most brilliant compositions of their time and undeniable highlights in the collections of both Iberian museums, are among the artists selected for this exhibition.
This publication, released on the occasion of the exhibition, is divided into two parts: the first dedicated to three essays, and the second comprising catalogue entries related to the works of art on display.
Mar Borobia, Chief Curator of Old Master Painting at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, opens the first part with an essay on the history of the collection of 18th century Venetian painting belonging to the Madrid museum. Next, Vera Mariz, curator at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, reflects on Gulbenkian’s admiration for the work of Francesco Guardi, which led him to purchase 19 paintings by the Italian master for his collection. Finally, Alberto Craievich, director of Ca’ Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, explores the artistic context of the city of Venice during the 18th century.
The second part consists of 34 catalogue entries written by Luísa Sampaio, the curator of the exhibition.
Alongside the written content, the publication is illustrated by a large number of images of the artworks on display, allowing readers to observe the exquisite details for which they are notable.
The close relationship between Edvard Munch and the National Gallery of Oslo, today part of the National Museum, is a subject well worthy of a detailed publication.
The first Munch painting acquired by the museum was Night in Nice, purchased in 1891. Today the collection encompasses 57 paintings and 186 works on paper. The paintings include masterpieces such as The Sick Child, The Scream, Madonna, The Girls on the Bridge, and Man in the Cabbage Field. How did the museum come by all these works? And what is the story behind the famous ‘Munch Room’? Answers to these and many other questions can be found in this book, which contains reproductions of all the works in the collection.
The book contains texts by Karin Hindsbo, Nils Messel, Sidsel Helliesen, Gerd Woll, Thierry Ford, Mai Britt Guleng, Øystein Ustvedt, Wenche Volle and Vibeke Waallann Hansen.
Text in English and Norwegian.
Marylène Madou was established in Belgium early 2017, launching the brand with a successful collection of printed scarves and today print still is the ultimate starting point in each collection. Every textile print is created in-house by the designer herself, exclusively using her own original paintings and digital illustrations.
Marylène Madou: Prints & Patterns provides an overview of Marylène’s most distinguishing print designs and patterns, a treat for print admirers and textile enthusiasts worldwide with Italy, the UK, and the Benelux being the largest sourcing countries for the materials. For the manufacturing of her ready-to-wear, she is in a unique position, working with a local atelier in Belgium. A collection of both highly detailed and more stylized prints, highlighting Marylène’s multidisciplinary design process, covering more than 190 pages, divided into 5 chapters. Marylène Madou: Prints & Patterns is printed on high-end paper, with a recognisable print all over the cover. The holographic pink foil makes the title stand out among the crowd.
Text in English and French.
Aldo Mozzini. Casematte is the first major book on the work of Swiss artist Aldo Mozzini. It features his energetic art through more than 200 illustrations along with texts by distinguished Swiss curators. A conversation with the artist rounds off the volume, which highlights Mozzini’s contribution to the contemporary art scene in Switzerland.
Born in Locarno in 1956, Aldo Mozzini has lived and worked in Zurich since the 1980s. Galleries and museums in Switzerland, Italy, and France have shown his works in solo and group exhibitions, and he has won the Swiss Art Award twice, in 2012 and 2019. His oeuvre comprises drawing, painting, objects, photography, sculpture, and installation, moving restlessly from one form of expression to another.
The book reviews 40 years of Mozzini’s career and explores various aspects of his humorous and poetic art. The impressive body of his paintings and graphic works is closely linked to the sculptures and installations that remain Aldo Mozzini’s preferred media.
Text in English, German and Italian.
“Inès van den Kieboom paints in a remarkably anticyclical manner. Through the calm, unassuming conviction with which she pursues her artistic goals, as well as through her archaic, supratemporal pictorial inventions, she shows the present what art really is – and what it has the potential to be.” — Markus Stegmann
Inès van den Kieboom (b. 1930 in Ostend; lives and works in Antwerp) has been painting since the 1960s, yet she only decided to exhibit her paintings in the last two years. Van den Kieboom mainly finds inspiration for her works in her everyday surroundings, but also in art history, popular culture and current affairs. She paints or draws her subjects through the filter of her memories or impressions, which she depicts figuratively, abstracted to their essence. Van den Kieboom’s self-assured, lively and energetic paintings offer new perspectives on the way we observe the world.
In collaboration with Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp, where the artist’s retrospective runs from 23 March to 20 May 2023.
With text contributions by Petra Maclot and Markus Stegmann.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
“Fascinating details of the original pictures and a social history of footwear fashion” VOGUE
In acclaimed photographer Lois Lammerhuber’s pictures, shod feet in the Louvre paintings reveal undreamt-of information about people. The details are not only separate works of art, but also studies on centuries of shoe fashion and an excursion into social history. Almost intimate, the photographs raise the world of feet and footwear to eye level, showing delicate shoes and stout limbs; feet without shoes and shoes without feet. The viewing angle is a special one, not only for art enthusiasts but also for shoe lovers. Raphael, Goya, or Ingres did not produce or design footwear, but they all ‘recorded’ shoes, contributing to a history of footwear and at the same time creating fashion archives of shoes that people stepped out in between 1280 and 1863. In a brilliant discourse, Margo Glantz, an icon of Mexican literary studies, introduces the viewer to original thoughts on painting and footwear design, the history and sociology of shoes. Text in English, German, French & Spanish.