‘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.

The book deals with Norwegian artist Anna-Eva Bergman (1909–1987) and her paintings from the period 1950–1975. She left behind an exceptional collection of works and had a career that stands out in Norwegian art history.

This book brings together several of her best-known monumental paintings. The simplified depictions of mountains, seas, moons and horizons speak to us today. “The way to art goes through nature and our attitude towards it”, Bergman wrote in 1950. Today, the statement has renewed relevance in view of a vulnerable nature and humankind’s footprint on the planet. Through her pictures, she continues to engage and create space for reflection on this subject. Furthermore, the book examines, among other things, Bergman’s techniques, her relationship with architecture, as well as her abstract artistic expression.

Text in English and Norwegian.

Our Butterflies QuickNotes collection of full colour notecards are a selection of beautifully reprinted watercolour paintings from the very talented Becca Stadtlander. Our QuickNotes boxed notecards are full colour, collectable greeting / notecards that are blank inside and can be used to convey personal greetings, thank-yous and invitations.

20 5×4 notecards and envelopes

‌5 cards each of 4 images

‌Packaged in a keepsake box with magnetic lid

‌Measures 140 x 114 x 38mm.

We choose the best images from well-known classic and contemporary fine artists, plus talented emerging illustrators and designers from around the globe.

Anthony Green’s idiosyncratic art is anchored in one central theme: family. It forms the core of his immediately recognisable work, revealing an intrinsic connection between his personal and artistic lives. The pictures in Green’s mind have no edges, so his paintings are not contained within a traditional shape. They have irregularly shaped supports, reflecting the unpredictable range of situations and emotions that characterise family life. Green has exhibited across the globe, and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1996. A distinguished and long-serving Royal Academician, Green has exhibited at every Summer Exhibition for the last five decades. He was elected ARA in 1971 and RA in 1977, after winning that year’s Summer Exhibit of the Year. He served for some years as Chairman of the RA’s Exhibitions Committee. He lives and works in Cambridgeshire. Contents: Preface and essay by Martin Bailey; plate section; endmatter including a family tree, chronology, a section on Green’s exhibitions, public collections of his work, works included in RA Summer Exhibitions, Further Reading and a Catalogue Raisonné of paintings.

Holly Addi is a U.S.-based artist who creates abstract paintings focused on the philosophy of beauty in imperfection. With a background in psychology, Addi examines energy, colour, space, and landscape through tempered abstraction. Addi considers her practice as a “composition of imperfectionism.” By utilising abstraction, she creates moments by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, providing a space for contemplation. Her works do not reference any particular form, and interpretation becomes multifaceted. She has exhibited nationwide, and has been featured in Architectural Digest, My Domain, and Electrify Magazine. Holly’s work can be found in public and private collections worldwide.

Embark on another cosmic adventure and discover the striking artistry of NASA’s mission patches and logos. This beautifully illustrated book offers a visual tour of NASA’s heritage symbolism from the early Mercury missions of the 1960s to the rovers, orbital telescopes and brand-new lunar capsules of the 2020s.

The countdown is underway! NASA’s first Moon landing since 1972 is now on the near horizon and this follow-up to the popular Space: Posters & Paintings is the perfect way to prepare for take-off. Celebrating the achievements of the men and women who dared to venture into the beyond, Space Mission Patches uncovers the story of the space administration through the indelible artwork of their historic insignias. Perfect for space aficionados, design enthusiasts and kids old and young, this meeting of art and exploration is the definitive testament to the enduring legacy of NASA’s trailblazing journeys to the unknown. 

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has been collecting Surrealist art since 1965. In something over half a century, what began with a single purchase has now grown into a world-class core collection with works by Dalí, Magritte, Man Ray, De Chirico, Ernst and many others. Surrealism, which started as a literary movement, is not a school, but rather a collective attitude or lifestyle in which automatism, chance and the subconscious are key. The museum’s collection includes paintings, sculptures, objects, drawings, prints and photographs – as well as a large number of Surrealist publications, magazines, manifestos and pamphlets. This dream collection has now been brought together in a catalogue raisonné for the first time.

The catalogue raisonné contains three introductory essays. Sandra Kisters, the current Head of the Collection and Research Department, provides an outline of the Surrealist movement. Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Saskia van Kampen-Prein, explains the acquisition history and establishment of the museum’s Surrealist art collection. Surrealism expert Laurens Vancrevel examines the museum’s unique, often neglected collection of Surrealist publications. The essays are followed by the catalogue, consisting of 108 short texts about the artworks. Most of the texts were written by Marijke Peyser, who was awarded her doctorate in 2008 with her dissertation on the Zodiaque, a circle of patrons around Salvador Dalí. The Duchamp texts are by Bert Jansen, who obtained his doctorate with his thesis on Marcel Duchamp in 2015.

Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres are quietly extraordinary spaces, inspired by a belief in the healing powers of architecture. It was while suffering from advanced cancer that Maggie Keswick Jencks conceived the idea of a beautifully designed space offering support to those affected by the disease and, following her death in 1995, the first centre opened in Edinburgh in 1996. There are now 17 centres around the UK. In September 2011 Timothy Hyman was asked to be artist in residence at the Maggie’s Centre at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, and this book records his drawings, paintings and reflections.

“Forget ordinary stationery! teNeues, the luxury German publisher, transforms notecards, journals, puzzles and even clipboards into works of art, with its latest lineup highlighting paintings by celebrated names such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Claude Monet.” – Life & Style Magazine

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His paintings, characterised by luxurious, radiant colour, mosaic-like patterns, abstract floral motifs, and expressive lines, are among the most popular and celebrated works of the Art Nouveau style.

This soft-covered paperback notebook has full-colour artwork on the front and back cover by the best illustrators and artists from around the world. 140 pages of 5mm dot-grid paper is an excellent canvas for bullet journaling, list-making, all forms of writing and doodling. Bring it everywhere you go. Handsome exposed, section-sewn binding means the notebook lies flat when open on any page.

Until the early seventeenth century, the distribution of paintings and other art works was in the hands of the artists, but after that to an increasing extent it was taken on by specialists.The most important art dealers were active in Amsterdam, the art centre par excellence. Hendrick Uylenburgh and his son Gerrit Uylenburgh were leading figures among these dealers. The Uylenburghs, father and son, ran an art business and at the same time headed a painters’ workshop where renowned artists worked. Rembrandt worked for this business from 1631 to 1635. He painted countless commissioned portraits and as well as historical paintings and ‘tronies’ also did grisailles and etchings. While working for this business he met Saskia Uylenburgh, a cousin of the art dealer, whom he married in 1634. Uylenburgh & Son provides insight into the nature and significance of the Uylenburghs’ enterprise and also discusses their investors and customers. A great deal of new material has been found about the Uylenburgh family and is presented here for the first time.

Michaelina Wautier (1604–1689) is a name unfamiliar even to connoisseurs of Old Master painting. This handsome book seeks to correct that, by exploring the surviving portraits, history paintings, genre scenes and still-lifes that can be identified as hers. Born at Mons, Wautier pursued a successful career in Brussels, which was then ruled by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, whose collection ended up at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. This handsome book, produced by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in collaboration with the Royal Academy, brings together all the latest scholarship on the artist, alongside several exciting new attributions.

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.

Over her forty-plus-year career, Gunderson has tackled subjects from clouds to royalty to the cosmos. 

Widely collected in Hollywood and New York, artist Karen Gunderson is perhaps best known for her work since the 1980s, when she transitioned from painting in colour to working only in black. Over her forty-plus-year career, Gunderson has tackled subjects from clouds to royalty to the cosmos. Her long-developed, labour intensive technique, including rigorous brushwork and paint layering, employs a range of black shades that create a unique three-dimensional effect: The multiple textures from the paint catch light and make the paintings shimmer and appear to move, alternating with shadows and highlights that illuminate her subjects—historic royal figures, bodies of water, mountains, and constellations—depending on how the viewer moves in front of each artwork.

“Forget ordinary stationery! teNeues, the luxury German publisher, transforms notecards, journals, puzzles and even clipboards into works of art, with its latest lineup highlighting paintings by celebrated names such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Claude Monet.” – Life & Style Magazine

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His paintings, characterised by luxurious, radiant colour, mosaic-like patterns, abstract floral motifs, and expressive lines, are among the most popular and celebrated works of the Art Nouveau style.

Our QuickNotes boxed notecards are full colour, collectable greeting / notecards that are blank inside and can be used to convey personal greetings, thank-yous and invitations. This QuickNotes notecard box holds 20 full colour cards with and 20 classic white envelopes. 4 notecard styles are included, all wrapped up in a keepsake box with magnetised lid.

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.

Thorvald Hellesen (1888-1937) was a Norwegian avant-garde artist who lived and worked in Paris in the 1910s and 1920s. He and his wife, the French artist Hélène Perdriat, were part of a circle of artists that included Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Constantin Brâncuși, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and many others. In his short yet intense life, Thorvald Hellesen created an impressive unique oeuvre, oriented on Modernism, consisting of oil paintings, watercolours, gouaches, drawings, design projects, and textiles. Nevertheless, even in Norway he is only known to a few. With this publication the authors Dag Blakkisrud, Matthew Drutt, and Hilde Mørch have created a written portrait of Hellesen. In addition to classifying him within the history of art, they try to find explanations as to why his artistic practice is only now being considered important and interesting for Norwegian and international art history.

Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) is revered as one of the most eminent exponents of symbolism and an inventive painter of alpine motifs of the fin de siècle. More recently, he has also been acknowledged as a leading early modernist. Exhibitions of his work regularly attract vast audiences. Yet a number of Segantini’s key works have not been on public display for many years and none of the recent books on him really covers the entirety of his oeuvre. This new monograph fills this gap.

An introductory essay on Segantini’s life and work also investigates the reception of his work over more than a century and looks at his role as paragon, for example for the Futurists or for Joseph Beuys. The core of the book form sixty paintings from all stages of Segantini’s career in full-page plates, with descriptive texts and comments illustrated with details and additional images. The easy-to-read texts offer latest findings on aspects such as topography, iconography, the importance of light, on the modern style of divisionism in Segantini’s later work and, on his biography.

Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) is revered as one of the most eminent exponents of symbolism and an inventive painter of alpine motifs of the fin de siècle. More recently, he has also been acknowledged as a leading early modernist. Exhibitions of his work regularly attract vast audiences. Yet a number of Segantini’s key works have not been on public display for many years and none of the recent books on him really covers the entirety of his oeuvre. This new monograph fills this gap.

An introductory essay on Segantini’s life and work also investigates the reception of his work over more than a century and looks at his role as paragon, for example for the Futurists or for Joseph Beuys. The core of the book form sixty paintings from all stages of Segantini’s career in full-page plates, with descriptive texts and comments illustrated with details and additional images. The easy-to-read texts offer latest findings on aspects such as topography, iconography, the importance of light, on the modern style of divisionism in Segantini’s later work and, on his biography.

Text in Italian.

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.

A great American novelist, illustrated by a great American artist – now available in a collectable two-volume set.

In 1936, the Heritage Press, a publisher of fine editions, commissioned Norman Rockwell to illustrate Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer; four years later, they asked him to illustrate The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as well. For each book, Rockwell created eight full-colour paintings and numerous pen-and-ink drawings, the product of extensive on-the-ground research in Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Famously, Rockwell even tried to buy some Hannibal residents’ old clothes, to dress his models in.

For years, the Rockwell editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been unavailable in stores. Now, Abbeville Press is proud to reissue them as a handsome new clothbound set. The colour plates are reproduced from new photography of Rockwell’s original paintings, the typesetting has been done anew to a high standard, and new introductions – illustrated with Rockwell’s rarely seen preliminary sketches – examine this unique encounter between two legendary chroniclers of America.

Also available: Treasure Island and Kidnapped boxed set ISBN 9780789214089

Sonja Sekula (1918-63) was born and educated in Lucerne, but emigrated to the United States in 1936 together with her family. In 1941, she began studying art at the Arts Students League in New York and made the acquaintance of André Breton and his friends among the surrealists. Her automatic paintings and texts soon captured the interest of Peggy Guggenheim and Marcel Duchamp, and in 1943 she was invited to show her work at Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery. In the late 1940s Betty Parsons Gallery featured Sekula’s paintings in a number of group and solo exhibitions. Mental health problems dogged her throughout her life and forced her to return to Switzerland, where she committed suicide in 1963.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Sekula’s art in context of the work of her friends and fellow artists from the period. Richly illustrated, it offers a chance to rediscover an immensely talented artist who has been unjustly neglected.

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.

Send your best wishes with the beautifully reproduced artwork on these full-colour full size Notecard Boxes, packaged in a large format 2 piece glossy reusable box.

The work of Vincent van Gogh is reproduced in full colour as notecards, including reproductions of 5 joyous, bright expressive paintings.

Our museum quality Notecard Boxes are perfect to keep on hand for any occasion notes and greetings to friends and family. 

• 20 notecards and envelopes
• 5 each of 4 images
• Packaged in a large format, glossy 2-piece box
• Cards printed on coated paper stock to bring out their full colour
• Cards and envelopes bundled together with a paper belly band inside each box
• Box measures 190 x 139 x 38 mm.

We choose the best images from well-known classic and contemporary fine artists, plus talented emerging illustrators and designers from around the globe.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) had an artistic career lasting only ten years. However, in those years he left behind an astounding legacy of painting that has endured to this day. He was a mad genius and he poured that passion into the trembling energy of his paintings. His canvases are celebrations of humanity & earth, colour & texture.