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.

The jarring emptiness following the loss of a loved one, the expansive out-of-body sensation of sensual touch, the lassitude of melancholy and the ecstatic receptivity to sunshine. His ability to capture and convey sensation and feelings through the materials of art, places the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) at the forefront of European art at the turn of the last century.

Interestingly, Munch’s artistic exploration of perception, and his persistent questioning of the objectivity of vision, intersect with ideas that matured within the fields of psychology and experimental optics at the time.

Edvard Munch: Inner Fire examines these connections, demonstrating his continuing exploration of the conditions of sight. The essays in this catalogue examine this phenomenon while also probing a lesser-known aspect of the artist’s work: Munch’s relationship to Italy.

The first essay, Lasse Jacobsen’s ‘Edvard Munch. Italian Impressions’, explores this connection explicitly, as part of a general overview of Munch’s life and work.

The second text, ‘Reflections in Munch’s Inner Eye’ by Patricia G. Berman, charts the art historical context of Munch’s exploration of experience’s subjective dimension. Emil Leth Meilvang’s ‘Seeing without Sight. Munch’s Vision’, on its part, explores the relationship between Munch’s artistic development and simultaneous developments within the perceptual sciences. Edvard Munch. Inner Fire includes essayistic pieces by authors Melania G. Mazzucco and Hanne Ørstavik: ‘I am a Romantic’ and ‘Who Am I’. Each demonstrates Munch’s continuing ability to light the inner fires of other artists.

Supported by a wealth of photographs of archaeological objects, this book delves into a fascinating world of ancestral spirits, revealed by the surprising richness and variety of these pre-Columbian pieces fashioned out of various materials. These works, on exhibition in the Museo Casa del Alabado, in Quito (Ecuador), outline the pre-Columbian view of the world centred on a flow of energy aimed at preserving life. These pieces evoke this primordial energy emerging from mother earth, the source of the good deeds performed by spirits and the ancestral guardian of the permanent renewal of the world of daily life, where spirits constantly draw on the balance of the forces ensuring their survival. Pre-Columbian art has the extraordinary capacity to express the power of reciprocal opposites which together provide a meaning to the existence of animate and inanimate beings.

Hard materials, such as stones and shells, served to embody powerful spirits, such as carts, macaws, or primordial ancestors. Ceramics were suitable for the depiction of ordinary plants and animals. The extraordinary growth of metalworking skills led to the creation of ornamental pieces designed for the elite (chest decorations, nose jewellery, earrings, and crowns) whose purpose was to reflect the power of the sun.

Each picture in the book is accompanied by notes explaining the function the article would have served, while acknowledging that these pieces have lost none of their expressiveness in the modern world.

Text in English and Spanish.

Princess – Fifty Feisty Noblewomen is not a gallery of tiaras and fairytales. It is a book about power – and the price of wearing a crown.

In fifty sharp, vividly researched portraits Dr Katharina Van Cauteren and Dr Leen Kelchtermans bring to life women who were far more than decorative consorts. Some ruled outright. Others governed through letters, lovers, wardrobes, or wombs. All of them maneuvered within systems that were never designed for them – and bent those systems to their will.

From Habsburg archduchesses to Bourbon rebels, from queens who carried empires in their dowries to widows who turned mourning into political theater, these women lived where blood, faith and strategy collided. Their bodies were battlegrounds. Their marriages were treaties. Their jewels were propaganda. Yet within the strict choreography of court ritual, they found room for audacity, wit and sheer survival instinct.

This is a book about dynasties, desire, and diplomacy – but also about loneliness, ambition, and resilience. It explores how a princess could be at once a pawn and a player, a mother and a monarch, an ornament and an architect of history.

Written with scholarly precision and narrative flair, Princess dismantles the myth of passive royalty and replaces it with something far more compelling: women of flesh and blood, who refused to dissolve into courtly foam.

Because a title was never just a title. It was a destiny.

“Wide-ranging and extremely well illustrated, this authoritative yet accessible book is a must for anyone interested in the Antarctic.” – Sir Ranulph Fiennes. “Richly illustrated and expertly written, this book reveals our least known continent in all its power and glory.” – Michael Palin. The Antarctic is the last continent: the last to be discovered, the last great wilderness and the last to be mapped – making it arguably the least known place on Earth. The continent’s contemporary significance lies in its importance as a sensitive part of the global environmental system, influencing sea levels and ocean-current circulation in a warming world – but the history of the continent, be that geologic, or in relation to human ecology, is just as vast and fascinating. The Continent of Antarctica is a richly illustrated account of the Antarctic continent, covering the physical environment, biology and history, as well as examining the future and environmental implications for the rest of the planet. The book draws on the authors’ own experiences during many seasons of fieldwork on the continent and surrounding oceans. They use photographs and images from their own extensive and continent-wide collections and from the world-renowned archives of the Scott Polar Research Institute. Almost entirely wild and unspoiled this cold and remote land is clearly an inspiration to these authors and all who have visited it. The Antarctic continent is crucial for understanding and monitoring climate change and in this comprehensive tome one can see a considered and learned argument for preserving the world’s last true wilderness.

Traditional country parks, which originated in the United Kingdom, are very different to the country parks we know today. With the development of urbanization and the improvement of living standards, city dwellers were no longer satisfied with small urban green spaces, and a new style of country park was born. Conveniently located in the outer city suburbs, with tranquil, natural environments, this new type of park met society’s desire to return to nature, and theses spaces have since become hotspots for tourism and leisure. Country Parks includes detailed theory and case studies showcasing outstanding international country park design; analyzes and promotes the current status and development of the country park and its role in urban development; and provides valuable guidance for professional designers working in the field today.

This study of the wooden Serpent figures/headdresses of the Baga people of Guinea is a collaboration by the author, as an art historian, with many contributions from diverse perspectives, including scientists preeminent in their fields, Robert J. Koestler, Roy Sieber, Dennis William Stevenson, Mark T. Wypyski, and Peter J. Zanzucchi.

The text begins with a thorough exploration of the ethnological and art historical evidence for the Serpent masquerade among the Baga of Guinea, bearing an immense wooden serpent figure on top of the head representing a python. Never witnessed or photographed by an outsider, it disappeared in the 1950s along with most ritual performance after an Islamic jihad instated strict prohibitions against indigenous religions. The ritual context is followed by an in-depth analysis of the Serpent masquerade figures now extant in collections in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, as well as other representations of the python in the ritual art of the region. The final sections present the arguments, as a debate, between interested persons in the arts, including art historians, dealers, appraisers, collectors, and curators, and the scientific examinations by specialists in botany, chemistry, physics, entomology, and conservation concerning one particular Serpent figure in question.

2019 marks 50 years of innovation for CP Kukreja Architects (CPKA), one of India’s most prestigious architectural practices. CPKA has helmed some of India’s most iconic structures, including Jawaharlal Nehru University and the National Archives of India. This book is a celebration of these projects and more, exploring CPKA’s personalized architectural philosophies for each. What emerges is a commitment to modernity, community and sustainability. It is with this driving spirit that the firm has built an impeachable legacy for themselves.

CPKA was selected by World Architecture, U.K., as one of the top 100 architecture firms in the world. Its illustrious list of clients has included the governments of India, Canada, and the United States, as well as the Honda Group, Japan.

“Colour orgies […] slung up on the walls.” This was just one of many caustic remarks aimed at Thorvald Hellesen’s first – and last – exhibition in Norway, held in 1919. He would never again exhibit in his native country, where he was gradually forgotten.  

In Paris, Hellesen became part of the Cubist circle in Montparnasse. Here he got to know Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Albert Gleizes and Fernand Léger. In around 1920, he finally achieved critical acclaim. He became a member of Section d’Or, was a frequent Salon exhibitor, and had his work reproduced in Der Sturm and De Stijl. “Among the Cubists, Hellesen is one of the most interesting,” declared Amédée Ozenfant.  

This richly illustrated and well researched catalog illuminates the whole span of Hellesen’s Cubism. His interactions with Orphism, Crystal Cubism and Mechanical Cubism are explored, together with his attempts to exploit Cubism in interior design and fashion. The book also examines Hellesen’s status as an outsider in Norway and partial insider in Paris – and subsequently as an overlooked pioneer of the Norwegian and Nordic avant-garde.

Text in English and Norwegian.

Everythingflows is a book of photographs by Laura Veschi in which the image forms the narrative and emotional core of the work.

Guided by the author’s black-and-white photographs, we explore the world of marble in Carrara, beginning in the mountains – the Apuan Alps – which, for Fosco Maraini – orientalist, writer, mountaineer, and anthropologist – evoke ‘the creation of the world’.

In these places, in these mountains, if you say marble, you immediately think of water: marble was in fact formed from water millions of years ago, from deposits of shells and coral; it is water that smooths and shapes it, and water remains the key element in the working of this stone.

Water, a symbol of perpetual movement, runs through Laura Veschi’s photographs as a subtle, underlying presence, accompanying the creative process and the transformation of matter. This reference to the element is an integral part of Veschi’s poetics. For the Carrara-based photographer, the ‘sound’ of water becomes the very voice of photography, an echo that follows the processes of creation and transformation of marble.

Structured like a symphony in four movements, the book guides the reader along a path that moves from the mountain to the studio, from the raw block to the finished form, restoring the sacred, physical, and temporal dimension of marble. Along this journey, Laura introduces us to the sculptor Filippo Tincolini, following the continuous flow of his thought and gesture from the original idea to the completed sculpture.

Laura, a deep connoisseur of the world of marble, captures the tension between what has settled over time and what is still being shaped, between the memory of the stone and the creative impulse that transforms it. Her images do not fix marble in a static idea, but reveal it in its flow, as though sculpture itself were part of an uninterrupted process in which the past is never entirely past and the future is already in the making.

Art, like the river of Heraclitus, passes and at the same time remains; it changes form but does not lose its essence. And so, in marble, in its working, and in the photography that tells its story – everything flows.

Text in English, French and Italian.

Washington, DC-area architect Robert M. Gurney, FAIA, designs ecologically aware modern homes using natural materials and varied construction methods. This latest volume in IMAGES’ Master Architect Series features photography and drawings of more than a dozen of Gurney’s most recent projects. Gurney is dedicated to design of modern, meticulously detailed, thoughtfully ordered residential and commercial projects sensitive to site, program and budget. Materials are employed with honesty, integrity and ecological awareness. Whether working in complex historical districts or on a vacant site, the design process involves an understanding of site-specific issues of location, landscape, history, availability of materials and construction methods.

The world changed after the First World War. Its aftermath saw the collapse of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires, and the world map never seemed the same again. Though the Great War is widely considered to be a European war, it had enormous effects halfway across the world in India. At the advent of the war, the number of Indian soldiers fighting exceeded the number of British soldiers. Because of funds reallocated to Britain’s advantage, India’s economy took a toll as well.

The Indian National Congress believed that supporting Britain’s war efforts would benefit India’s move towards independence. As a result, over a million Indian men were deployed to fight for the British. Post the war, Britain’s refusal to grant India home rule created hostility among the Indians towards them. This dissent eventually paved way for the Indian independence movement, which was to emerge later.

For the first time India’s contribution to the First World War is carefully documented with details of the different theaters in which Indian soldiers took part. In addition, the authors also examine the unsettling encounters the Indian soldiers had with Europe and European culture. What did the war mean for the political climate in India? What was it like for the Indian soldiers to fight a war they were unprepared for? Using first hand accounts such as letters home, documents from the various army archives and incredible photographs, the authors reconstruct the story of a war which was as much India’s as it was Britain’s.

This book is put together like a jewel and contains a carefully chosen selection of around 100 West African combs from one of the world’s largest and finest private collections of sub-Saharan African art. Featuring a hitherto unseen assortment of pieces assembled over a period of more than 60 years, the book also includes an authoritative analysis by Alain-Michel Boyer, who approached this rarely addressed theme in what was his final work, begun almost ten years ago.

As well as offering us valuable insights into the cultures that produced these miniature sculptures (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), he explores the way the form itself is approached. These creations transform what is in principle a plain accessory and in the effort to attain pure beauty, they display an aesthetic awareness that raises the adornment of the body to the level of fine art.

Refusing to be content with a single form of expression or confined by a single artistic movement, the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) explored a variety of styles and techniques that few artists can rival.

Works from her entire career are presented in this publication, from her paintings and prints from the 1940s to the Cells she created in her final decades. These works enter into dialog with artworks by Pablo Picasso, Carol Rama, Arshile Gorky, Louise Nevelson, Senga Nengudi, Alina Szapocznikow, Seni Awa Camara, Nan Goldin, Robert Gober and Anna Maria Maiolino, among others.

Text in English and Norwegian.

The rose is generally seen as the most romantic flower. No other plant blooms for so long and profusely, and comes in so many different shapes, scents and colors. Roses deserve a place in everyone’s home, outside – in the garden or on the balcony – but certainly also indoors on the table. The Joy of Roses answers every question you may have about roses: from the history of the rose to applications in the home. The different types of roses are discussed in detail with descriptions of the flower, the scent, the thorns, the inflorescence and information about the best place for this specific species. The book also provides information about cultivators, which flowers go well with roses and their care. Anneke Beemer’s beautiful photos complete the book.

Of all the world’s great cities, Paris is perhaps the one that marks its visitors and inhabitants the most, both in their discovery of the city, and their memories. With its many monuments, it is also a fabulous theatre where adventure, chance meetings, and the unexpected have fascinated the painters, poets and photographers that we meet in the pages of this book. While its history is ancient, and very long, its present is lively and attractive. This is a history of Paris that invites readers to wander in the city, to discover it. It presents the major events of the city, together with the most charming examples of daily life in its streets, which is always vibrant. It shows its crowds, who are delighted to find all the odours of the world, all the colours of life, and the marvels of everyday that are seen in this city. We also meet those writers who have praised Paris, such as Victor Hugo, Jacques Prevert, Gerard de Nerval and Léon Paul Fargue, and all those who have immortalised the city in their paintings, from the anonymous painters of the Renaissance up to the Impressionists. This is an intelligent history of Paris, but also friendly, entertaining, accessible, to whet your appetite for the city, and to arouse your curiosity. Also Available:
Lebanon: The Phoenician Pearl ISBN:9782867701443 $66.00
Le Sud Marocain ISBN:9782867700569 $66.00

It had been a desert, its dunes languorously meeting the lapping sea which has played its part in world trade since the beginning of time. There had been the gold and spices from nearby India, and the petroleum of today, extracted from its sands or brought from elsewhere, from off the shores of its coasts. It is difficult to imagine that these seven Emirates have a history, as understood in Western canons. Here, the past seems to have been dug away with excavators, drowned in concrete, built over with metropolitan motorways. This does not prevent it from seeming to surge forth at the slightest provocation, at the smallest of solicitations. Proud of what the world acknowledges as his country’s achievements, the most insolent of Emiratis grows less arrogant when recalling his father’s fathers. Fathers who, hardly more than four decades ago, were Bedouins, traders, camel drivers, almost all pearl fishers. It is in this way that this modern history was written. Twenty centuries of hard seasonal migration of their livestock, intensive trade, fierce competition, destructive setbacks and creative imagination forged mentalities that have made this desert into one of the richest and most envied places in the world. What seems a modern miracle is no more than the culmination of an ancient culture having survived mishap and change to forge a modern economy.

Tibetan Buddhist art is not only rich in figural icons but also extremely diverse in its symbols and ritual objects. This first systematic review is an abundantly illustrated reference book on Tibetan ritual art that aids our understanding of its different types and forms, its sacred meanings and ceremonial functions. Eighteen chapters, several hundred different implements are documented in detail, in many cases for the first time and often in their various styles and iconographic forms: altar utensils and amulets, masks and mirrors, magic daggers and mandalas, torma sculptures and prayer objects, vajras and votive tablets, sacrificial vessels and oracle crowns, stupas and spirit traps, ritual vases, textiles, furniture, and symbolic emblems. These are accompanied by many historical and modern text sources, as well as rare recorded oral material from high-ranking Tibetan masters. This long-awaited handbook is a must-have for all those with an interest in Buddhist art and religion.

Embossing, punching and guilloché engraving are techniques that have almost faded into oblivion. Today they are experiencing a new lease of life in contemporary jewelry. The Manufactory-Style Jewelry Design project fosters the passing down of experiential knowledge through the collaboration of artisans and designers from three generations. The book presents an excerpt of this success story by means of archive material and interviews with former masters, explains how the machines work, and illustrates contemporary examples.

Text in English and German.

The Jewish Journey tells the history of the Jewish people from antiquity to modern times through 22 objects from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, brought together here for the first time. Many of the objects are little-known treasures and all 22 have remarkable stories. Spanning 4000 years of history and covering 14 different countries, the objects trace the evolution of Jewish life and culture from its earliest beginnings in Ancient Mesopotamia through time and space to the modern day.

This book is dedicated to Godai, an installation by Japanese artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, who represents the fourth generation of a prestigious line of kagoshi (master wickerwork weavers) in Japan. Godai is a homage to nature and to a tradition of handcraftsmanship. This monumental work, six meters high and nearly as broad at its base, was installed in 2016 in the Rotunda of the Musée des Arts Asiatiques Guimet in Paris and presented to the public from April 12th through September 19th, when the artist still presented himself under the name of Tanabe Shouchiku III. The structure, composed of 8,000 small pieces of bamboo prepared in Japan, was extremely well received. It represents a world in which the five elements, godoi, that make up our world (wind, water, earth, void and fire, according to Japanese tradition) intertwine. Tanabe couldn’t find a more suitable material. Tough yet flexible, bamboo has been part of the lives of people in Asia since ancient times and used for numerous purposes. Because of its great significance (it represents ‘principles, integrity and constancy’), it has also been represented in many historic paintings and used as a design motif in stationery and furniture. Tanabe’s works are both historic and modern and invite a response from the viewer. His bamboo installations, presented in a form adapted to the space in which they are displayed, induce viewers to be aware of and appreciate that space. Each work is dismantled at the end of the exhibition to leave just its memory. And the same bamboo is used for new installations, giving a tangible sense to the concepts of ‘continuity’ and ‘rebirth’ and providing a sense of connection with space that transcends time. Godai is no exception: a monumental and ephemeral work, like a piece of organic architecture, it transmits positive energy. Text in English and French.

More than 130 works from the collection assembled by Drs Nicole and John Dintenfass over fifty years. The Dintenfass Collection serves as a model and a source of inspiration for new and seasoned collectors alike. A different slant on collecting which is not actually just buying from dealers. A lavishly illustrated book that traces the origin of a collector’s interest in African art and analyzes the psychological aspects driving the passions for collecting. The Nicole and John Dintenfass Collection is well known and based on aesthetics, and the works have been reproduced in many publications. They have collected with passion, diligence, depth and rigor monumental sculptures and wooden miniatures, from most regions of Africa. Focusing on pieces of the highest artistic quality, this book shares the collectors’ personal point of view about collecting and offers to readers anecdotes that provide an additional insight into this world to future and present collectors in their search for African art. Collecting is a passion that often leads to intimate inner conversations or to emotional experiences with the objects themselves. Moreover many collectors share their unique experience of joy and appreciation with twentieth-century artists who also collected African art and who generously imparted advice, suggestions and support in responding to the collectors’ enthusiasm. Thanks to the multiple beautiful and sensitive photographs of each object, the viewer has a chance to form an intimate conversation that creates a connection with those African master carvers that have strongly influenced modern realism, cubism and expressionism.