“I recommend to every Architect, designer and those who have a passion for New York to own this magnificent book…there is no better on the extraordinary Beaux Arts of New York.” —Lemeau, Decorator’s Insider
“This great, beautiful, glossy, polychromatic slab of a book more than does justice to an epic period in architecture when some of the world’s most luscious buildings were designed for some of the most unpleasant people in American history.” — Timothy Brittain-Catlin, World of Interiors
“New York would be little more than another faceless glass-and-steel city were it not for its Gilded Age buildings and institutions… An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, written by Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen, is a gilded embrace of this legacy.” — The Critic
The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1870s to the 1930s, it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant workers and millionaires alike. It was not enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand châteaux and palazzos along Fifth Avenue—collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris, and Rome. To flaunt their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts.
This book, which has been painstakingly researched and beautifully photographed over many years, takes a close look at 20 of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, its focus is on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age—often providing a glimpse inside buildings not otherwise viewable to the public. While some of the buildings and monuments featured are world-renowned landmarks recognizable and accessible to all, others are obscure buildings that history has forgotten.
Set amid the magnificent achievements of an American Renaissance, this book recounts not only the fascinating stories of some of New York’s most famous and significant Beaux-Arts landmarks, it also recalls the lives of those who commissioned, designed, and built them. These are some of the most acclaimed architects, artists, and artisans of the day—Daniel Chester French, Cass Gilbert, Charles McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Stanford White—and some of the most prominent millionaires in American history—Henry Clay Frick, Jay Gould, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the ubiquitous Astor and Vanderbilt families. Names that—as Julian Fellowes (the acclaimed director of Downton Abbey) notes in the Foreword—“still reek of money.” Excerpt from the Introduction
“This is the travel photography book for our digital age. Tom’s incredible eye for capturing historical detail creates captivating imagery for the ultimate in escapist pleasure.” Kelly Wearstler, Interior Designer
“A true Renaissance man, Tom shares his vast architectural knowledge, artistic talent, and sense of humor in photographs and watercolors.” Amy Astley, editor-in-chief, Architectural Digest
This book is a celebration of the power of the smartphone camera combined with Tom Kligerman’s unique eye. Tom is a New York architect who adores travel and the different cultures of the world, recording vibrant details and evocative scenes on his iPhone as he journeys from India to New Mexico, from Beaux-Arts monuments to rustic barns, from ocean to mountaintop. The images have been curated into dynamic pairs that spark a conversation about the world and the different ways of seeing it. They are accompanied by Tom’s reflections, and those of his Instagram followers, in a series of captions, comments and mini essays. This book is a child of the pandemic, a time when people could only dream of traveling or relive past experiences, as Tom has done, from the image banks on their mobile devices. It rejoices in both the potential of new media and the physical pleasure given by a beautifully made and structured book. It allows readers a moment of pause and reflection, so necessary if we are not to be lost in the digital feed.
George Saumarez Smith, a director of ADAM Architecture, is celebrated for the elegance of his work as one of Britain’s foremost Classical architects. As a student at Edinburgh University, he belonged to the last year group to be taught the skill of measured drawing as part of the core syllabus and it would become a passion for him.
Sketchbooks: Collected Measured Drawings and Architectural Sketches, presents a selection of the drawings that he has made in the last 25 years, in a series of sketchbooks each of which is named after one of the Roman Emperors. The drawings display a supreme mastery that goes beyond technique and assumes the status of art. They constitute a series of concentrated observations on buildings from different parts of the world, which unlock the secrets of their design and give insight into the minds of their creators. Simply by applying pencil to paper, aided only by a tape measure amd ruler to measure the building in front of him, George pursues an adventure in the world of built form, whose aesthetic beauty will both amaze and delight.
This book offers a review of Matteo Pugliese’s art over the past 20 years. The figures the Milanese sculptor creates are distinguished by their great power, revealing an inner torment that can no longer be disguised. The men depicted in his sculptures are all trying to break free of the wall that holds them, to throw off their limitations and assert their value as individuals in the hopes of escaping from dull uniformity and social and family expectations. These are people who are attempting to achieve a painful rebirth by struggling against materialized restraint — a wall — that seeks to prevent them expressing themselves, growing and therefore existing. The artist chooses to portray the moment of greatest effort, of supreme tension, the instant when a man regains control of his life and struggles against what is holding him trapped so as to restore a sense of purpose in his life. The carefully studied poses of his figures recall ancient models, in the same way as the material from which they are fashioned is also ancient. Luigi Spina’s lens knowingly lingers on these figures’ troubled birth and enables the reader, admirer, and art historian to acquire an intimate understanding of the sculpture and even to feel a part of the travails and manifest vulnerability that grip all of humanity.
Text in English and Italian.
This exhibition, being held at the musée du Louvre in Paris, and its catalog follow those dedicated to Florentine sculpture in the early Renaissance, 1400-1460, that took place in 2013-14 (Le Printemps de la Renaissance). The period scrutinized is 1460-1520 but the geographical coordinates are widened to include Northern Italy (Venice, Milan, Pavia, Padua, Bologna) and Rome as the artistic landscape of Italy becomes more complex. Some of the great sculptors, in fact, travelled and their style and their ideas influenced pre-existing local tradition.
These new artistic languages share a common characteristic: the relationship to Greco-Roman Antiquity, especially in the representation of grace and passion: the expression of pathos and the theatrical quality of religious works, the symbolic richness of profane works and finally the development of a new and refined style which will find its highest expression in Roman classicism and in the work of Michelangelo.
The catalog includes the works of, among others, Donatello, Antonio Pollaiolo, Bertoldo di Giovanni, Giovanfrancesco Rustici, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Guido Mazzoni, Bartolomeo Bellano, Cristoforo Solari, Tullio Lombardo, Andrea Riccio, and Bambaia, Sansovino, and Michelangelo.
Text in Italian.
Maria Lai (1919-2003), the influential Sardinian artist whose work draws on the rich history and traditions of her native land, created multimedia works that explore community, religion, and folklore. This book, the catalog for a show in Sardinia, presents nearly 70 works, most previously unseen, related to the extraordinary Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) series that Maria Lai created in 1981 and which she donated to the parish of Ulassai, her birthplace. Maria Lai’s artistic endeavor is strongly defined by a mix of secular and religious spirituality: the work presented in this volume reveal her idea of “making art” as something that must respond to the essential questions of mankind and the meaning of existence.
This stunning 2-volume set introduces the Geneva-based Fondation Gandur’s collection of classical antiquities gathered over the past 40 years by founder Jean Claude Gandur. These two volumes are complementary: The first volume investigates the subject of ancient religion by observing images of idols, goddesses, gods, and devotees, and through them related rituals and religious practices; while the second focuses on especially exquisite objects, luxurious trifles known since ancient times as deliciæ. These two volumes interact with each other, forming a whole that offers a sparkling view of Greek-Roman antiquity, from Italy to the Roman Orient of the Later Empire, through archaic Cyprus, classical Greece, and Hellenistic Egypt.
From the 2nd century CE to the 19th century, the people of the fertile estuary of the great Mekong River created treasures of sacred art, architecture and accomplished feats of water engineering that are coming to light in Vietnam’s vigorous new archaeological research programmes. The large stilted wooden houses of Oc Eo, the early Venice of the maritime routes of the East in the earliest centuries of the first millennium, drew in ships with precious cargoes from Rome, India and China to trade while waiting for the change of the monsoon wind to continue their voyages.
Chinese annals record that the early polity they called ‘Funan’ ruled 1,000 km of coastline along the shipping route. Among the earliest Mekong Delta Buddhist icons are a breathtakingly elegant 2.7m tall Buddha carved in hardwood that has survived more than 1000 years in the delta mud and a 29cm bronze Buddha that arrived on a trading ship from the 6th century Chinese Northern Qi dynasty. Very early Vishnu statues wear high, floral mitres and clasp war conch-trumpets on their left hip, and Shiva’s face stares out from stone lingas.
The Ho Chi Minh Museum collection conserves diverse masterpieces of the art from Vietnam, from the prehistoric Dong Son drums of the Red River Delta in the north to the vibrant Hindu and Buddhist statuary of the former kingdoms of Champa in Central Vietnam. In addition, there is an immense array of art and imperial furnishings of the last Vietnamese dynasty, the Nguyen, which was founded in the Mekong Delta at the beginning of the 19th century. There are refined inlaid wooden cabinets, sets of the finest blue and white ceramics and embroidered silken court costumes worn by the royal family, as well as huge wooden and ceramic Buddha statues which played crucial social and political roles in establishing the dynasty and quelling its foes.
El-Gazzar, born in 1925 in Alexandria, is a leading figure in modern Egyptian art of the 20th century. He enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1944 and then joined the Contemporary Art Group founded by Hussein Youssef Amin, his master. With an innovative and unique expressionist style, it portrays the people of Cairo in a folkloric way. Later, he tried his hand at abstraction by representing industrial machines and their effects on humans.
Recognized during his lifetime, the production of El-Gazzar was exhibited in France from 1949, at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and at the São Paulo Museum in 1953. Today, his works are in private collections in Cairo, Alexandria, Rome, Paris and Brussels, but also in major institutions around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
This catalogue raisonné, published in English, comprises two volumes. The first is dedicated to the artist’s paintings and the second to graphic works, archives and photographs. It brings an understanding of the enigmatic work of the artist, but also of modern Egyptian art in general.
Palazzo Vecchio, which towers over piazza della Signoria, at the center of Florence, is an iconic building and from the Middle Ages to the Medici family to present day it has been the seat of civic power.
Among its most admired features are the marvelous grotesque decorations which animate the walls and vaults of the courtyard and several rooms. Grotesques are a type of wall decoration, in stucco or fresco, often with the addition of gold, that developed in the Renaissance when the vaults of the Domus Aurea in Rome, which were underground (considered grottos hence the name), were rediscovered by artists who drew inspiration from those designs.
Palazzo Vecchio’s grotesques are lively, extravagant ornaments, generated by the creativity of artists – among whom Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483-1561) and Marco Marchetti da Faenza (ca. 1526-1588) stand out – and they include, birds, flowers, vegetation and many strange creatures that have a mixture of human and animal traits.
Lorenzo Castore (b. 1973, Florence) is an Italian photographer whose documentary style captures the arbitrary passing of time in the street, in bars, on trains, with strangers, with friends. This book of luminous black and white photographs is the second in the Time-Maze series. This work was exhibited during Les Rencontres de la Photographie D’Arles 2022.
Alfred Auguste Janniot (1889-1969), a renowned French sculptor of the inter-war period, left his mark on his contemporaries through his monumental work, which embraced and magnified architecture, both in France and other countries. His two main works, the spectacular bas-reliefs for the Musée permanent des colonies (1931) and the Palais de Tokyo (1937), still resonate in people’s minds today. He also took part in the great adventure of the transatlantic liners, working on Île-de-France (1926) and Normandie (1935).
Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1919, Janniot worked alongside some of the greatest architects, collaborating with Roger Séassal, Michel Roux-Spitz, Albert Laprade, Jacques d’Welles, Wallace Harrison, Jean Niermans and Pierre Patout. Whether round-bosses or monumental “stone tapestries”, his many works reveal the artist’s classical training acquired at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, as well as an abundant creativity that can be seen at the town hall in Puteaux (1932-1934), the Chamber of Commerce in Châteauroux (1934), the Maison Française at Rockefeller Center in New York (1934), the Bourse du Travail in Bordeaux (1935-1938) and the Villa Greystones in Dinard (1938-1950).
Text in French.
The architect Paul Tissier (1886-1926) turned his short life into a multi-faceted artistic adventure. A student at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he founded the Association symphonique, he became president of the famous Quat’z’Arts ball. His talent as a watercolorist and draughtsman made him a witness to the ruins of the 1914-1918 war. Whether in the devastated regions or on the Côte d’Azur, he developed a unique catalogue of modular houses inspired by the region, combining traditional architecture with modern design. In 1923, Tissier was entrusted by the Société des grands hôtels de Nice with the organization of exceptional festivities based on themes such as Russia, the Far East, Ancient Rome and Latin America, as well as underwater kingdoms and many other fantasies revolving around childhood, fashion and cubism. With his wife Gisèle, he was responsible for both the scenography and the staging: splendidly colored painted canvases, extravagant costumes, spectacular dances, processions, naval jousts, fireworks and illuminations… A shooting star, Paul Tissier created almost 100 festivities across Europe in three years, before suddenly passing away. This first monograph draws on the 400 set elements and 2,000 graphic documents that survive in his archive, taking us to the heart of the excesses of the Roaring Twenties.
Text in French.
This book reveals the collection presented at Ajuda Royal Palace in Lisbon (Royal Treasure Museum), that has been recently renovated, and where is displayed this unique collection with particular significance for a country with a nine-century history. Over the time, from the 17th century until the 20th century, the Braganza Royal Family has collected precious jewels and works of art intensively, often through relations with other important European families, but also through royal gifts. Finally displayed in a monumental permanent exhibition, each object in this collection witnesses the history of a leading country, as well as the story of the people who have worn or conserved these highlights of decorative art.
Between the second half of the 15th century and the 20th century, many painters added a fly to both their sacred and profane compositions. It was painted so convincingly that it seemed real. André Chastel, art historian, reconstructed in this book the history of the fly in painting, here reviewed and updated by Sylvia Ferino-Pagden. At least at the beginning, the fly was introduced as an odd masterpiece, an affirmation of the artist’s skill and convictions. A joke for illusionists, which however contains more complex meanings. The fly in painting then evolved. The insect, as we know it, is not well-loved and goes from simply being a nuisance to being the sign of death itself. And over time, la burla di Giotto, Giotto’s joke, generated a series of symbols where the artist wanted to represent the transience and precariousness of life, of earthly joys. The book chases the flies in picture after picture and recounts how the pictures are strewn with even minuscule signals, plots, and traps which, from time to time, take the form of a flower, an insect, a gem. It is a question of knowing how to interpret them to delve into a story that is also an adventure of the human spirit.
Text in English and Italian.
The twenty-first century began with an ecological shutdown, a climatic breakdown, a financial meltdown, and a virological lockdown. Without systemic change, twenty years from now we will be haunted more by the things we didn’t do than by the things we did. That change is possible, if we can cure ourselves from our addiction to short-term investments, and turn them into long-term, planet-saving investments in nature. Saved by the Tree Frog puts forward how agriculture, politics and economy can reinforce each other. It explores the ways in which we can bring about real change, and transform into a sustainable and thriving society. Saved by the Tree Frog tells us what we can do to turn the tide, and offers an innovative insight into our fundamental dependence on nature. It is the way to a sustainable future – if only we are brave enough to take the plunge.
The twenty-first century began with an ecological shutdown, a climatic breakdown, a financial meltdown, and a virological lockdown. Without systemic change, twenty years from now we will be haunted more by the things we didn’t do than by the things we did. That change is possible, if we can cure ourselves from our addiction to short-term investments, and turn them into long-term, planet-saving investments in nature. Saved by the Tree Frog puts forward how agriculture, politics and economy can reinforce each other. It explores the ways in which we can bring about real change, and transform into a sustainable and thriving society. Saved by the Tree Frog tells us what we can do to turn the tide, and offers an innovative insight into our fundamental dependence on nature. It is the way to a sustainable future – if only we are brave enough to take the plunge.
A stairway to Heaven: this is the perfect description for this publication on one of the most significant places to stay in the world: Hotel Hassler Roma. Never before has a hotel so full of historical and cultural significance been able to create indelible memories for those who stay there (even if only for a few days!). Owned and managed by Roberto Jr. and Veruschka Wirth, the sixth generation of a famous Swiss dynasty of hoteliers, the hotel as it stands today is one of the finest 5-star hotels in Rome. As well as a panoramic Michelin-starred restaurant and luxurious beauty and wellness facilities, the imcomparable and breathtaking views are a feast for the eyes thanks to the hotel’s location at the top of the famous Spanish Steps; a monumental stairway of 135 steps built in 1723–1725, linking the Bourbon Spanish Embassy and the Trinità dei Monti church.
Images of royalty and VIPs (really everyone has stayed at the Hassler!) together with family snaps, and interviews with the protagonists of hospitality intertwine this unique publication, making this is an ideal gift for those with a passion for history and appreciation of refined hospitality.
Text in English and Italian.
Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was one of the great architects of the twentieth century. His Edwardian country houses, surrounded by rhapsodic gardens, beguiled clients with their romance and wit. After 1918, the war memorials that he created symbolized a grieving nation’s sense of loss. In the new capital of the British Raj, New Delhi, the Viceroy’s House or Rashtrapati Bhavan had a footprint bigger than Versailles. His unfinished Liverpool Cathedral would have rivalled St Peter’s in Rome.
Intensely shy, Lutyens hid his personality behind puns and jokes – and yet he could be called ‘part mystic’, a reference to an inner profundity. Rich in stories, this entertaining and stylish short biography is a major new study incorporating fresh research which shows this most charismatic of architects in a new light.
The sound of Maria Callas, artist and woman.
Maria Callas was one of the most influential and renowned opera singers of the 20th century. Callas 100 recounts the diva’s unparalleled career and epoch-making moments through exclusive images and previously unpublished documents, such as her debut at La Scala in 1950, her 1958 Norma at the Rome Opera, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956, and her Lucia di Lammermoor at the Dallas Civic Opera in 1959.
Intimate conversations with friends and collaborators, anecdotes and photographs from personal archives introduce the unprecedented journey into the life of the artist beyond the curtain, from her stay in Ischia with her friend Giovanna Lomazzi to her trip to Africa with the writer Dacia Maraini, from her lessons at the Julliard School in New York to the private lessons she gave to the Soprano Sylvia Sass in Paris.
Text in English and Italian.
The book presents a selection of the photographic work made in Naples by Anders Petersen, Swedish master of photography, during Spot home gallery’s first artist residency in the year 2022.
Throughout his long career, Petersen has photographed in cities across almost every continent, from Tokyo to London, from Valparaiso to Stockholm, driven by an inexhaustible curiosity and a profound interest for the other. For him, photography serves as a means to explore the complexity of the human experience, to capture with sensitivity and honesty the emotions that define and unite us as living beings, part of the one, big, same family.
Naples, a “city-world” of many thousand facets, with its chaos and its diverse humanity, was the ideal place for a photographer like him: it is precisely in chaos that life unfolds with all its unpredictability, vibrancy, and beauty.
They had never met before, but when it happened, it was love at first sight. Anders was struck by the city’s energy and enthusiastically accepted the not-so-easy challenge of photographing it. Naples revealed herself without filters, without fear of showing its wounds and vulnerabilities, open to the empathetic approach of a photographer who can look beyond the surface of things, who can find beauty in the ordinary, and embrace its imperfections.
This book aims to tell the story of social history through Money. Money and Art have shared a long history. Both words are metaphors derived from Latin terms used over 2,000 years ago. The word Money derives its modern meaning as the general term for all means of payment from its use as the word for coins in the pre-modern period. Particularly since the introduction of paper money, the word was applied to coins because of the name of the place where coins were made in ancient Rome, the temple of Juno Moneta (Juno the Warner), from this name the word moneta came to mean mint in Latin, and later the product of a mint, i.e. coins. The word Art acquired its modern usage, meaning works of art, both singularly and collectively, from the Latin ars meaning a skill, and it has so been used in English to describe any form of skill, but gradually from the nineteenth century, the word came to signify the product rather than the skill, particularly in relation to painting, graphic works and sculpture. This eclectic collection of stories brings together a multitude of perspectives through collections from the Ashmolean and around the world — from Art Nouveau bank notes and global portrayals of prosperity to activist Money Art. Deep dives into compelling stories reveal humor, hidden surprises and a tension between the power of money and the playfulness of art.
Martha Bibescu (Bucharest, 1886 – Paris, 1973) was one of the greatest and most representative protagonists of the extraordinary world of the Belle Époque, of which Paris, which became her adopted city, was the capital. Linked to the most important political and intellectual personalities of the time, from the kings of Romania to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, from Charles de Gaulle to Winston Churchill and Marcel Proust, Martha intertwined her life with that of the sculptor and architect Domenico Rupolo (Caneva, 1861-1945), the creator of the radical modernization, lasting almost twenty-five years, of the Bibescu palace in Mogoșoaia. To crown the profound association that bound him to Martha, Rupolo executed the hitherto unpublished marble portrait of her in 1933, on which this volume focuses. This face emerging enigmatically from the marble, a paradigm of the art and culture of an entire era, is a remarkable and unexpected addition to the portraiture of one of the most popular women of the 20th century.
Text in English and Italian.
Volker Hermes: Hidden Portraits gathers the essential works by one of the most beguiling artists of the present era, in a very modern reinterpretation of historical privilege.
Using only elements of the original paintings, Volker Hermes masterfully alters photos of historical portraits to mask the faces of their subjects. With each figure concealed under their own ceremonial attire, these one-time elites quickly lose their individuality in a plume of decorations and accessories.
In this official collection, Hermes delivers his wry commentary on wealth, fame and social status with taut imagery, intense focus and a suitably shrewd sense of humor. His immaculately reproduced artworks are accompanied by the thoughts of German art historian Till-Holger Borchert and Professor Francesca Raimondi of Berlin’s Institute for Philosophy, as well as the artist himself.
A must-have revision of classical portraiture from a celebrated digital creator.
“Hermes’s meticulously described collages pay homage to their sources while gently ribbing the social pretensions and ambitions of the courtly classes.” – Christopher Alessandrini, metmuseum.org