The identical reproduction of the Meuricoffre album, acquired by the Louvre in 2018, is a good opportunity to leaf through one of the only two portrait books attributed to the French painter Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835). It is a testimony to Gros’ activity as a portrait painter during his stay in Italy (1793-1800) and illustrates the privileged relationship that the painter had in Genoa with the family of the Franco-Swiss banker Jean-Georges Meuricoffre. The beautiful gallery of portraits, drawn in the intimacy of this family, restores the physiognomies of representatives of Franco-Swiss high society who were in contact with the Meuricoffre family at the time and, through them, with Gros.
The study that accompanies the publication of the notebook reveals the hitherto unknown identity of these characters. A material description of the album, an essential scientific support for its understanding, completes the subject.
Text in French.
“On Champagne is the wine book that every lover of the world’s most famous bubbles has been waiting for – whether they realised it or not.” — Club O Enologique
“…if you love champagne, this is another must-buy. And apologies for the terrible pun, but it is genuinely true – this book fizzes with wonderful stuff.” — Jancis Robinson
“Presenting the story of the iconic French fizz from its accidental beginnings to the present day and looking to the future, there is plenty for Champagne-lovers to enjoy.” — Decanter
Champagne is never a simple glass of fizz… As soon as the cork flies, the first sip reveals a wine of fascinating complexity. For even the most modest non-vintage cuvée, a bevy of blending decisions, multi layers of history and the incalculable climate of this northern corner of France all come into play. In On Champagne the thoughts, opinions and conclusions of the world’s finest champagne writers gather to reveal this wine’s action-packed trajectory from the myth of its accidental discovery – not in France, we find, but in the cider cellars of England – to the development of a high-tech champagne fit for space travel. It’s a journey that starts and ends with capturing that sparkle in a bottle and along the way beguiles us with the nuances of its chalky terrain, the determination of rebels from Ambonnay to Avize, and the mystery of a champagne cellar under the sea. We meet the pioneers who created the great champagnes of the past and the personalities who are ‘greening’ this landscape, nurturing it through climate change to shape the exquisite champagnes of the future.
Gathering twenty essays written over twenty years, Figments of the Architectural Imagination explores the frontiers of speculative architectural design, theory, and pedagogy to offer clear-eyed and incisive treatments of some of the most important projects, practices, and polemics at work making contemporary architecture contemporary.
These sharp and insightful texts, whether addressing the impact of digital technology, the design of an effective hotel, the emergence of the Los Angeles vanguard, or the proper execution of a thesis project, combine frontline reportage, archival scholarship, trenchant prose, and impressive critical acumen to cut through the cacophony of recent architectural discourse with uncommon clarity, intelligence, rigor, and wit.
Taken together, these essays provide essential orientation for practitioners, academics, students, and aficionados hoping to understand how contemporary architecture came to be where it is and to speculate on where it might go next.
This book celebrates over 20 years of Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ community-focused practice. It documents the growth and success attributable to the firm’s philosophy and methodological approach. Many beautiful images and descriptive text show that Bill’s and David’s design aspirations and cooperative work styles, shared by their talented, associate partners John Edwards and Jack Devilbiss and the studio teams, have produced not only award-winning architecture, but also architecture benefitting each project’s surroundings.
Bonstra|Haresign Architects serves a variety of populations and communities: urban and suburban, commercial and residential, civic and cultural. Projects range from affordable and market-rate housing to historic restoration, renovation and adaptive reuse. Typologically diverse projects are the essence of Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ architectural work and community-building efforts. And desirable community enhancement resulting from their projects is visible in Washington, DC, urban neighbourhoods as well as in eastern region.
Bonstra|Haresign Architects’ does not exist to implement the aesthetic tastes and wishes of a soloist ‘starchitect’ or prima donna designer with a signature style, yet design artistry is an essential goal of the firm. This complements Bill’s and David’s fundamental commitment to create contextually modernist architecture as an agent of positive change beyond each project’s site boundaries.
Lund Humphries, today, is known for publishing books on contemporary art and artists; few know that its roots are in a jobbing printers in Bradford. But Bradford, at the turn of the century, was no provincial backwater, but a city at the centre of the world’s wool industry and Percy Lund Humphries was not merely a jobbing printer serving the local industry, but a progressive firm with ambitions well beyond the boundaries of Yorkshire.
In its time it was to publish The Penrose Annual, an essential read for those interested in printing and the graphic arts and Typographica, the most avant garde journal on typography; it mounted extraordinary exhibitions in its grand London office in Bedford Square it carried type for languages across the world, crucial for the governments need for language textbooks for those serving overseas in WWII; and much more.
A Pioneering Printer, Lund Humphries of Bradford tells its remarkable story.
A critical and amused observer of the social imagination of our time, the duo of French artists Gaillard & Claude have cultivated, since their formation in the early 2000s, an art of absurd intrusion and poetic incident which would have transposed the burlesque and sound cinema from Jacques Tati to postmodern society, to reveal, behind our symptoms of “hangover”, the contradictory injunctions. From plaster sculpture to polyurethane bas‐relief, from marbled paper to textile printing, passing through electronic music or the staging of their own pieces, their polymorphous approach owes its coherence to the fact that its cultural referents are steeped in all in the same and unique “cultural magma” where the confusion of spaces reigns like the discordance of times. Extending the mathematical theory of sets to the field of aesthetics, Gaillard & Claude has thus become a master in the subtle art of double meaning and innuendo, of paradoxical affinities and incredible intersections, of scientific formulas and vernacular expressions. Envisaged as a first retrospective journey in Belgium since the installation of the duo in Brussels in 2008, the exhibition at MACS brings together the essential of their production through three bodies of work: Le Groupe et La Famille (2010), Orchestra (2015) and Baloney! (2020).
Presented here is a bilingual French/English catalogue dedicated to the work produced by the French artist duo between 2010 and today, largely documented by a photographic report of all the pieces presented.
Text in English and French.
The volume is dedicated to the work of New York-based Croatian artists TARWUK, presented, for the first time in Italy, at the Maramotti Collection in Reggio Emilia. A constant depiction of the human form – exploring the multiple ways it can exist and the flowing, expressive quality of the body – represents the formal result of TARWUK’s deep, probing research into identity and the marks that memories and subconscious tensions leave on our bodies, shaping them physically.
The artists, who were born in socialist Yugoslavia and grew up in the Balkans during the Croatian War of independence (1991-5), see their anatomically dissected sculptures as symbolising loss and conflict. However, they are also organisms with the potential for regeneration and rebirth: traces of beauty and the opportunity for transcendence can be glimpsed amidst the waste technological materials and signs of devastation. Drawing is another essential part of TARWUK’s practice: TARWUK’s drawings, which are fully fledged forms of expression, not preparatory works, have a dreamy and immediate quality, with echoes of late 19th-century and early 19th-century symbolism and the Vienna Secession, a period the artists see as a sort of equilibrium, a moment of balance between opposing tensions – death and beauty, decadence and decoration – that competed for dominance.
The volume includes a text by Mario Diacono and a conversation between Bob Nickas and TARWUK.
Text in English and Italian.
End of 2020. Brussels. A city without people. The scenery of everyday life is deserted. Escape from everyone. The tracks are still visible. People walk shyly through the streets and want to get to their final destination as quickly as possible. A few wander through the city. Aimless, because the doors remain closed. The architecture is completely in the spotlight, but without everyday life, the city also loses much of its meaning.
“As a photographer I was a privileged witness in special times. It felt like wartime without weapons, a battlefield without opponents. The buzz had given way to an uneasy, restless, deafening silence. Late 2020 ‐ early 2021 I spent a lot of time in Brussels at the request of Jean‐Michel Jaspers (CEO Jaspers‐Eyers Architects). He had already asked me during the first lockdown if I wanted to photograph the empty city. Unfortunately, it was not allowed and not possible at the time, since the government had decided that my profession was not essential. Fortunately, when the curfew went into effect in Brussels, I was allowed to.” – Steven Massart
Text in French and Dutch.
Collectors played an essential yet misunderstood role in the success of Impressionism. Even though they were not immune to economic and social woes, they were often engaged in defending this artistic movement that they had helped come to life, establish itself or make known, each according to their times. It is this group of committed collectors that the present work seeks to examine. From assembling a collection to donating it to a museum, from supporting artists within the borders of France to publicising the movement internationally, from the first intimate private showings to the questions raised by the presentation of these works in museums, collectors were present at every stage of the development of Impressionism, from the dawn of the movement to the middle of the 20th century. This volume aims to re-examine and reassess the importance of these collectors in the political, social and economic contexts of their times through the contributions of 16 international specialists. Depeaux, De Nittis, the Palmers, O’Hara, Bührle, Caillebotte, Fayet: whether they are the subjects of dedicated case studies or part of a broader discourse, the multiplicity of profiles of these collectors and the paths they followed will allow readers to gain a better understanding of their importance in the history of the Impressionist movement.
This elegant exhibition catalogue is presented by The San Diego Museum of Art to accompany the 2023 major exhibition O’Keeffe and Moore, which explores the evolution of Modernism through the work of Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore. Featuring essays from prominent scholars, including representatives of both the Henry Moore Foundation and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the catalogue’s richly illustrated text delves into each artist’s motivation and methodology, and the parallels between them, in particular, the inspiration both took from nature and organic forms, such as bones and seashells. The publication serves as an essential companion to the exhibition. In addition to explorations of the artists’ studios that provide further insight into their working methods, the catalogue presents drawings, paintings, and sculpture that illustrate the organic roots of Modernism developed independently, yet concurrently, by O’Keeffe and Moore. Thematic sections of the catalogue include the Real and the Surreal; The Artists’ Studios; Bones; Stones; Seashells, Flowers, and Internal/External Forms; and Landscapes of Forms. Essay topics include Henry Moore: Modernism, Nature, and National Identity; “A Revelation of the Perfect Relation”: The Influence of D.H. Lawrence on the work of Henry Moore and Georgia O’Keeffe; and Finding the Form, and the publication will also include a comparative chronology of the lives and careers of the two artists.
“Okun has extended her gaze to encompass horticulture and the drama of the natural world, while exploiting the potential of digital photography to create subtler impressions of mountains and ocean, clouds and gardens, foliage and cacti.” — Michael Webb
Layered Landscapes is a collection of essays and photographs of our beautiful world from just outside our homes all the way to the heavens. The book has introductions by Michael Webb (architecture writer) and Craig Krull (gallerist). Craig Krull aptly points out that Okun’s photographs are a “reconstructed harmony into what we believed to be a ‘real’ landscape.” He writes that “her work has always defined the point that landscapes do not exist in nature, but only in our minds.” Okun’s artwork is a mixture of multiple layers that present a memory of the places she has visited on her many travels. The photographs are as poetic as the essays. Griff Rhys Jones (writer, actor, presenter) explores the colour blue. Kathy Lette (author) becomes a cloud on an Australian beach. Thea Musgrave (composer) explains a tempest in musical notes. Tania Compton (garden designer) talks about meadows balancing wild and formal gardens. Caleb Leech (landscape Gardener) writes about medieval gardens. Annie Gatti (garden writer) and Steve Reich (writer and producer) both talk about happiness in gardening. James Forrest (writer) climbs mountains to become calmer. Richard Sparks (writer, director) and Lee Holdridge (Composer) discuss Okun’s projected design for opera. Layered Landscapes is a meditation on our earthly desires.
Home Inspirations by teNeues goes into the next round – and has never been more relevant. After all, when the world around us is in shambles, a home with a feel-good vibe is essential. For some, a pared-down aesthetic that exudes a pleasant homeliness may be the right path to well-deserved ease; for others, a cheerful riot of colour is a fitting counterpart to the monochromatic daily grind. Two very different approaches that nevertheless pursue the same goal: to conjure up a real retreat from a simple living space.
The power of colours and their influence on our psychological well-being has long been no secret. What fashion is currently demonstrating with the dopamine dressing trend is now being continued in interior design. True to the motto Good-Vibes-Only, colourful good-mood boosters are being used as eye-catchers, individual accents or even in an all-over look. As proven mood lifters, the polarizing color elements represent optimism and a joie de vivre.
In the usual teNeues quality with a high-quality layout, large-format images and exciting content, the new illustrated books in the freshly launched series now skilfully set the scene for two further interior trends, elegantly acting as decorative eye-catching pieces themselves. A practical index, which offers support in the search for brands and manufacturers, as well as fascinating rooms for re-styling make the books true inspirational treasures for every interior enthusiast.
Other titles in the series include:
Boho Style: Bohemian ISBN 9783961715008
Eco Materials: Decorating with Ecological Materials ISBN 9783961715015
Modern Glam: Glamorous ISBN 9783961714308
Patterns: Patterned ISBN 9783961714292
Scandi Style: Scandinavian ISBN 9783961714490
Text in English and German.
Home Inspiration by teNeues goes into the next round – and has never been more relevant. After all, when the world around us is in shambles, a home with a feel-good vibe is essential. For some, a pared-down aesthetic that exudes a pleasant homeliness may be the right path to well-deserved ease; for others, a cheerful riot of colour is a fitting counterpart to the monochromatic daily grind. Two very different approaches that nevertheless pursue the same goal: to conjure up a real retreat from a simple living space.
Whether Hygge or Lagom, the Scandinavians manage the balancing act between inviting cosiness and inspiring modernity without precedent. Almost puristic in appearance, a combination of natural materials such as wood, pampas grass or ceramics and clean lines create an unobtrusive understatement. This turns a world of furnishings into an attitude to life that promises more balance in all situations – and this is what people outside Scandinavia are striving for.
In the usual teNeues quality with a high-quality layout, large-format images and exciting content, the new illustrated books in the freshly launched series now skilfully set the scene for two further interior trends, elegantly acting as decorative eye-catching pieces themselves. A practical index, which offers support in the search for brands and manufacturers, as well as fascinating rooms for re-styling make the books true inspirational treasures for every interior enthusiast.
Other titles in the series include:
Boho Style: Bohemian ISBN 9783961715008
Colors: Colorful ISBN 9783961714506
Eco Materials: Decorating with Ecological Materials ISBN 9783961715015
Modern Glam: Glamorous ISBN 9783961714308
Patterns: Patterned ISBN 9783961714292
Text in English and German.
Tony Sarg (1880–1942), an American artist born in Guatemala to a diplomatic family, first achieved professional success as an illustrator in London and New York. But in the 1920s, he gained even greater renown for his touring puppet shows based on classic tales like Alice in Wonderland and Robinson Crusoe. Fusing the time-honoured craft of traditional marionette shows with a playful modern sensibility, Sarg’s productions were foundational to American puppetry: Jim Henson can be considered a direct artistic descendant. Yet this was only one facet of Sarg’s varied accomplishments: he was also a pioneer in animated films and children’s books, and, as a longtime designer for Macy’s, he invented the gigantic balloons used in the firm’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (He also employed one of his parade balloons in the famous Nantucket Sea Serpent hoax of 1937.)
This abundantly illustrated volume, published to coincide with a major exhibition organised by the Norman Rockwell Museum, is the first to survey Tony Sarg’s protean career. It brings together imagery and artifacts from numerous public and private collections, and includes special sections on Sarg’s long association with the island of Nantucket and his influence on American puppetry. Tony Sarg: Genius at Play will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of popular culture.
Five continents, three decades: with Walking Distance, Olaf Unverzart presents his interpretation of a travel diary. Beyond tourist attractions, well-known places with supposedly typical folklore, his volume of photography opens our eyes to the things and creatures ‘in between’ – this ‘in between’ mainly takes place on the street.
The power of the images lies in the stillness and intimacy of the scenes. Unverzart’s photographs do not have a voyeuristic feel; they do not pretend to uncover essential insights and truths about places or their people, but appear as fleeting impressions. The individual photographs with their black-and-white composition and grainy texture have a strange quality that seems removed from time and place, lending them an almost universal character.
Unverzart explores the most diverse types of transition: we see cars, rails and streets as well as passers-by and pedestrians. Scenes of the old-fashioned and the obsolete point to the photographer’s search for a lost era and repeatedly allude to the extreme cultural, social and technological changes of the last three decades.
Text in English and German.
Italian Wines is the English-language version of Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia, the world’s best-selling guide to Italian wine. It is the result of a year’s work by over 60 tasters, coordinated by three curators. They travel around the entire country to taste 45,000 wines, only half of which make it into the guide. More than 2,500 producers have been selected. Each entry brings together useful information about the winery, including a description of its most important labels and price levels in Italian wine shops. Each wine is evaluated according to the Gambero Rosso bicchieri rating, with Tre Bicchieri awarded to the top labels.
The guide is an essential tool for both wine professionals and passionate amateurs around the globe: it provides the instruments for finding one’s way in the complex panorama of Italy’s wine world.
Since the first festival in 1989, the message has been one of quality – quality visual news reports conveying information, as seen through the eyes of photojournalists, offering their essential contribution. Everyone who appreciates photography and reporting comes to the festival, a major event in the photography calendar. Every year in Perpignan the festival attracts large crowds with more than 220,000 visitors to the exhibitions. For 33 years, Visa pour l’Image-Perpignan has been following developments and changes in both the politics and the economy of photojournalism and the press industry, and has supported professional photojournalists by providing them with the opportunity to show their work to a wide range of people.
Now, more than ever before, we can see just how important the festival is, acting as an advocate for photojournalists whose job is to provide news and information, to offer insights and issue warnings, while working in conditions with no real security, whether for physical safety or for employment/income.
The catalogue presents the program of the 2022 festival, with an eight-page feature on each exhibition and photographer.
Text in English and French.
Discover half-hidden chateaux and artists’ country houses; walk, boat or dance by the river; explore old towns and country footpaths; and eat in family-run restaurants with 1950s decor – and prices to match. Based on over 20 years’ experience of exploring the Paris countryside by train, each visit includes the essential historical context and practical information to help you discover places unknown to many Parisians. Written with humour and a flair for the unusual and authentic, the text is illustrated with original photos and local maps. It includes a unique guide to using the excellent local train network.
The only contemporary account of the life and work of George Stubbs, unavailable since it was privately printed over 125 years ago. George Stubbs (1724-1806) was one of the most original artists Britain has produced. Far from being merely a horse painter, Stubbs’ perfectionism and passion transformed the possibilities of nature painting. His extraordinary dedication to accuracy caused him to spend 18 solitary months dissecting and drawing horses to make his book, The Anatomy of the Horse, a landmark in the study of anatomy and used by artists and scientists alike long after Stubbs’ death. His portraits of horses as well as people combine an unflinchingly accurate gaze with profound psychological truth; yet he also created some of the most lyrical paintings of the age. Ozias Humphry was a colleague and friend of Stubbs and brought together recollections of many conversations with the painter in an as yet unpublished manuscript now in Liverpool. This manuscript was the basis for the present book, which was edited by the famous Liverpudlian patron and historian Joseph Mayer for private circulation in the 1870’s. Although it is almost the only biographical source for Stubbs, it has never been reprinted. This edition is the first publication since 1876 of Ozias Humphry’s Memoir. It is introduced by one of the leading experts on the painter, Anthony Mould, who discusses Stubbs’ career, his posthumous reputation, and the context and value of Humphrys’ and Mayer’s work. Forty-two pages of colour illustrations cover the span of Stubbs’ output.
After long and thoughtful handwork, the jeweller Walid Akkad has created a world of 21 animal rings. The artist has sculpted from gold their essential shapes, mastering the alternate use of brush and polish, in the wake of some works by Pompon, Moore, Arp, or Brancusi… This singular group of rings, who all stand on their own, animate a unique bestiary, that can also form a stunning ‘cabinet of wonders’. They live in front of you, dynamic and attractive, for the show and for your hands. Bring the music and let them dance!
Accompanying catalogue for the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy from 23 September – 1 January 2024.
Over the past half century, Marina Abramović has earned worldwide acclaim as a pioneer of performance art. This handsome new book records the first UK exhibition to include works from her entire career. Re-performances of some of her best-known and most radical pieces appear alongside new and recent work. An augmented-reality app for iOS and Android enables readers to watch films of Abramović’s original performances while reading the book.
An essential purchase for all followers of Abramović’s extraordinary 55-year career, this important publication brings expert voices into the debate that her groundbreaking art engenders. How far should an artist push herself in pursuit of her work? What role does the audience play in creating a performance? How can performance art outlive the moment in which it takes place?
“Anyone reading this who aspires to chronicle a segment of 20th-century Western design must have Artmonsky‘s modest but essential library of books. And while you are ordering, thank her for this invaluable detour from the fields of psychology and statistics.” — Printmag
Commercial Art, with different titles over the years, claimed to be the only British monthly magazine covering design until the Council of Industrial Design began to publish Design in 1949. For most of its existence it was published by The Studio Ltd. whose founding family, the Holmes, were to be actively involved, from grandfather to grandsons. The Studio Ltd were already publishing art and design related magazines (The Studio from 1893 and The Studio Decorative Yearbook from 1906), when it decided to plunge into the vulgarity of ‘commercial’ art, buying up an existing magazine with that title in 1926. Most of the rest of the 1920s and into the ‘30s it concentrated on the graphic arts, but increasing in the late ‘30s its focus shifted to industrial design. The shift was acknowledged by title changes, first to Commercial Art & Industry and to Art & Industry.
In 1957, with death duty problems, the family were forced to sell to The Hulton Press. Although the Press made a brave effort to update the look and content of the magazine, with the arrival of Design and the turmoil of Fleet Street at the time, the magazine became unviable and was closed in 1959.
Commercial Art recounts its history of nearly 40 years and its mirroring of British design over that period.
Patek Philippe: Investing in Wristwatches offers detailed insights into the world of authenticating and pricing high-value wristwatches, for all collectors from amateur to connoisseur.
This publication includes the vast majority of key Patek models, along with their relevant auction results. Each timepiece has been carefully selected by legendary horological expert Osvaldo Patrizzi. These wristwatches excel for a diverse range of reasons, including technical excellence, auction records, design and anecdotal history. A description of each watch is accompanied by its picture, reference and sales values (rights included).
The follow-up to Rolex: Investing in Wristwatches, this vital and comprehensive work of reference also includes a system to calculate the currency exchange rate at the time of auction sales. And a comparative analysis of auction results, compiled through close collaboration with the Sotheby’s auction house, shows the evolution of prices from the ’80s up to the present day.
The most important project for a design studio is the design of the practice itself. A studio’s point of view is often first defined by feelings and hopes, but if cultivated, grows into values and tactics. How the studio environment is crafted and how it cultivates a kinship around this point of view with collaborators, clients, consultants, community members, and contractors is essential for it to be productive and have a healthy impact. With discipline, a studio evolves a practice that shapes the character, performance, and value of the work. The studio’s early critiques define the approach and territory of work and the propositions that are asked of every project. The studio environment and relationships create the space for the work to be possible.
Nine Propositions and fifty-three Foundations are shared herein and are presented as a work in progress. Each Foundation additionally includes a supporting commentary. These are lists that chronicle the firms thinking and doing over 25 years. For Duvall Decker, there is no separation between theory and practice. This collection of Foundations and Propositions captures an approach to the work and way of being an architect. This work is a privilege with public responsibilities. This is one studio’s search for public good.