Danish artist Michael Kvium, born 1955, works in painting, prints, drawing and watercolour, and sculpture, as well as performance and stage design. His paintings and graphic works often resemble comic strip art or extensions of 17th-century Baroque paintings, depicting the more negative aspects of Western culture. Motifs include grotesque monsters, half man half woman, sometimes approaching self-portraits. He is expressing himself in a personal world of images. His works seem familiar, making the viewer smile at one time and causing disgust at another, yet in their strange way all sharing this familiarity. Kvium defines and expresses his wholly personal and unflinching understanding of powerful human presence in an area unexplored by others.

This first comprehensive monograph takes the reader through Kvium’s entire career since his beginnings in the 1980s. It reveals the various lines in his work from early experiments as a young artist in the world of bikers to an outspoken critic of our current Western society.

Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634–1705) was one of Italy’s most celebrated Baroque painters when he travelled to Florence, where his art was already appreciated and collected. He received many commissions, but certainly the most prestigious was that for the decoration of the vault of the new wing of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the ancient house of Lorenzo the Magnificent which was then owned by the Marquis Francesco Riccardi. The Riccardi family was strictly connected to the Medicis and the decorative program of the great hall, known as Gallery of Mirrors, was centred upon the Apotheosis of the Medicis and several mythological scenes which illustrate the progress of humanity. The exhibition and its catalogue document this masterpiece through the ten painted sketches by Giordano (exhibited under the very frescoes) and circa 30 other paintings from his Florentine period (1682–1685) by the aptly named Luca “fa presto” (fare presto = to be fast).

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.

Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) remains a fascinating artist to this day. His paintings and prints, as well as his work as an illustrator and press cartoonist, are characterised by detached and critical observation, satirical sharpness, and a strong desire for independence. A century after his death, film director and screenwriter Lionel Baier, art historians Dario Gamboni and Choghakate Kazarian, literary scholar and writer Daniel Maggetti, and curators Catherine Lepdor and Katia Poletti share their views on Vallotton’s work and their passion for him and his art.

The French-language Vallotton Forever is published to coincide with a major retrospective at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA) in Vallotton’s native city of Lausanne, which is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of his works. The volume celebrates an extraordinary artist who is considered one of the greats of art history in both his native Switzerland and his adopted home of France. It brings together key works from all periods of Vallotton’s career, from the early years and the icons of the Nabis period in the 1890s to his sophisticated dialogue with tradition in the modern era that marks his later years.

Text in French.

Pioneers of Art in Oman: Rasheed Abdulrahman celebrates one of Oman’s most influential visual artists through a stunning bilingual presentation in English and Arabic. This definitive volume features over 60 meticulously curated paintings and sculptures that chronicle Rasheed’s remarkable artistic evolution and his pivotal role in shaping Oman’s cultural landscape.

Beyond showcasing his visionary work, this book offers intimate biographical insights into the artist who transformed raw materials into vibrant masterpieces and mentored countless emerging talents. Detailed analyses of selected artworks reveal the profound symbolism and philosophical depth that characterise his unique artistic vision.

As the inaugural edition in a prestigious series documenting Oman’s artistic heritage, this publication represents a collaboration between the National Museum of Oman and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth. For art enthusiasts, collectors, and cultural historians alike, this book provides unprecedented access to Rasheed Abdulrahman’s legacy – a testament to his enduring influence on contemporary Omani art and his ability to illuminate tradition while pioneering new artistic frontiers.

Text in English and Arabic.

The essays in this lavishly illustrated volume offer a multi-faceted portrait of American financier J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) as a collector of art. A riveting exploration of Morgan’s acquisitions from antiquities to medieval manuscripts to Old Master paintings and European decorative arts, Morgan—The Collector introduces the reader to how and why he amassed his vast collection. The lively essays also serve as a tribute to Linda Roth, curator at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, who dedicated much of her forty-year career to researching Morgan and the over 1,500 works from his collection now in the museum. This much-needed publication focuses on Morgan as a collector and is directed at both a scholarly and more general audience that is interested in the history of collecting, America in the Gilded Age, Pierpont Morgan, and European art.

Francis Bacon is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th 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.

Malak Mattar grew up in occupied territory and has been creating art since her teenage years. She left Gaza just before the war broke out on 7 October 2023. She was the first artist from Gaza to have a solo exhibition at Central Saint Martins in London, where she studied a masters of fine art, and her work has since been exhibited in over 80 countries. Mattar’s paintings bear witness to resilience, femininity and hope, and stand as a defiant stance against war, injustice and inequality. No words … (for Gaza) is Mattar’s first monograph. Experts Louisa MacMillan, Dr Winnie Wong, Dr Vijay Prashad and Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, shed light on the significance of her work, and her paintings enter into dialogue with poems by the Palestinian authors of the collective We Are Not Numbers.

Günther Wizemann, born 1953 in Graz (Austria), came to Switzerland as a child in 1960. He graduated from Zurich’s School of Design and has since been working as a painter and concept artist. Studying the Russian modernists raised the question of what he could possibly paint in the aftermath of Kazimir Malevich and Aleksander Rodchenko. Equally, Mario Merz’s installation Che fare? or, as Barnett Newman put it, What to paint? were statements that became programmatic for Wizemann’s work. The 43 paintings of The Black Garden Wizemann has created between 2003 and 2013 are a possible response to his queries. Done in oil and resin on canvas, they are the result of lengthy artistic processes and a multitude of layers of paint, forming an inner and outer image space. Featured in its entirety for the first time in this new book, the paintings are published alongside essays placing Wizemann’s largest series to date in art history. The accompanying texts reveal formal and conceptual relations, ranging from the Renaissance to his contemporaries. Starting from the title The Black Garden they also look at literary and philosophical connotations. Text in English and German.

Sculptures of Stones by Ronny Delrue depict female statues that are either made of bricks or covered with masonry-like patterns. They form a critical riposte to the heroic male statues of former leaders that are scattered around our cities. Furthermore, the forms also broaden our prior knowledge of the depiction of figures in the public sphere. Sculptures of Stones shows drawing to be a form of spontaneous expression. It offers an alternative to the all-pervasive means of instant communication that govern the world today, namely digital tools and social media systems. Delrue’s drawings are both action and representation. Unlike the electronic devices, a drawing redeems the option of an unmediated, direct action and reflection in and on the world. It re-positions the function of the artist as a free, sovereign subject, who touches the world and is ready to participate and influence history.

English, Dutch and French.

This volume represents an important tool for getting to know every aspect of Leonardo da Vinci’s work: his pictorial technique, his scientific and technological investigation, his study on anatomy, his Codices, and every suggestion produced by his genius. All works and paintings are accompanied by descriptive and technical sheets, and ample space has been given to images and details, to the updated report on his most controversial works, to those of recent critical acceptance, and to the masterpieces that have animated the international debate such as The Encarnate Angel, the Salvator Mundi, and La Bella Principessa (Portrait of Bianca Sforza). The narrative captions reveal the most curious aspects of the history of each painting. Thanks to the direct contribution of collectors and museums the photographic reproductions of paintings and works reflect the last restorations.

Text in English and French.