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“It is a rare species, but it exists,” as ’60s art critic Pascal Renous pointed out on the subject of artistic couples. The designer-decorator duo of Janine Abraham and Dirk-Jan Rol met at Jacques Dumond’s studio in 1955. The couple shared the same love of precision, line and plain colors. Their earliest joint creations were first exhibited at the Salon des artistes décorateurs, in Paris. Their furniture, made of wicker, wood and aluminum, twice won prizes at the Salon des artistes décorateurs (a sideboard in 1956 and an armchair in 1958), garnering notice from the public and professionals alike. Jean Royère did not hesitate to use their emblematic Soleil armchair (gold medal at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair) in the decoration of the palace of the shah of Iran, in Teheran. Their light and functional designs are available today, re-edited by Yota Design. Abraham & Rol were also interior designers for both individual and large corporate clients, such as Yves Rocher and Saint-Gobain, with the same precision and sense of composition that define their furniture pieces. The couple also expressed their creativity through architecture, their mastery of this discipline enabling them to design some twenty houses from the 1960s through the 2000s in the Île-de-France region. Their homes are genuine inhabited sculptures, of which certain have become truly emblematic. Text in English and French.

“The truth is, decorative art is equipment, beautiful equipment,” Le Corbusier, L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui
This book traces the history of an encounter between a remarkable invention, half-industrial half-design object, and one of the most famous architects of the 20th century.
Created in 1921, the Gras lamp holds a unique place in the history of lighting. A revolutionary design of marvelous simplicity, its original purpose was to meet the needs of the booming manufacturing and retail sectors. The young Le Corbusier, passionate about the challenges of interior lighting, adopted it as his own from the early 1920s on. Thanks to its remarkable functionality, this lamp also perfectly corresponded to his desire to break with decoration and ornament, and the architect went on to utilize it in his studio in the rue de Sèvres in Paris as well as his home. He also placed it in many of the interiors of the houses he designed: the Villa Le Lac (Switzerland), the Villa La Roche (Paris), the Guiette House (Antwerp), the Villa Savoye (Poissy), and the villa belonging to his friend Eileen Gray in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
Relying on rich photographic documentation from the period, the book goes through the history of the Gras lamp, its patents and various models, but it also enables the reader to rediscover Le Corbusier’s interior designs through the prism of this icon of design, as he was one of this lamp’s main promoters in modern times.
Text in English and French.

“An important document that should be included in any library of design and architecture.”Daniella Ohad
A masterful blend of émigré biography and architecture and design history, proving that the twentieth century fostered more than one modernism.”
– Donald Albrecht

Christopher Long, author of seminal monographs on Adolf Loos, Kem Weber, and Paul T. Frankel, turns his attention to the little-known architect and designer Jock Peters, a largely forgotten figure of early Los Angeles modernism.

This visually rich study is also an intimate portrait of an architect who, like too many, struggled to establish a career during the early decades of the 20th century, years ravished by World War I and the Great Depression. Among Peters’s early works in Germany are designs for the Levantehaus and Karstadt department stores, an innovative design dated 1916 for a magnificent glass pavilion, and his work for Peter Behrens after the war, but the architect’s most accomplished and compelling work came after 1922 when he settled in Southern California. Most notable are the strikingly lavish and elegant commercial interiors Peters designed for the iconic Bullock’s Wilshire store in Los Angeles and the tragically forgotten Hollander department store in New York City; both projects brought him international recognition.

The breathtaking scope of his short-lived career includes modern film sets for Famous Players-Lasky, later Paramount Pictures, while working under the legendary art director Hans Dreier; a dynamic sales office for the trendsetting Maddux Air Lines, which later became TWA; and modern residences, including the still extant homes he built for cinematographer Alfred Gilks, who would later win an Academy Award for An American in Paris, and art gallerist and developer William Lingenbrink for whom Peters also designed stores and a vibrantly colorful sidewalk for the Silver Strand beach development north of Los Angeles. Lingenbrink, a major supporter of the burgeoning modernism, also commissioned Jock Peters, alongside Schindler, to design houses for Park Moderne, the legendary avant-garde modernist retreat for artists in Calabasas. Peters also designed the retreat’s Streamline Moderne pump house, clubhouse, and zigzag fountain, which still stands.

This important study on early modernism includes never before published material from the architect’s personal archive, still in family hands. These remarkable and inspiring images-more than 250 historic photographs, etchings, watercolors, and drawings-alongside Long’s insightful narrative, demonstrate how Peters, despite his early death, managed to leave his mark on the modernist landscape in Southern California at a time when the new style was just emerging.

Tea was introduced to Britain in the 1650s. Its popularity burgeoned over the following two-and-a-half centuries, until it became a defining feature of British culture.

Drawing inspiration from China, British craftsmen worked to display their skills on numerous tea-related objects, which ritualised the process of drinking tea and imbued it with luxury status. Calling on an array of different materials and techniques, they developed a huge variety of canisters and lockable containers for storing and preserving this precious commodity.

Tea chests and caddies were not merely functional items that might lurk at the back of the kitchen – they were intended for display and were an essential accoutrement for fashionable women. As the habit of tea drinking filtered down the social scale, caddies were made in larger numbers and in more affordable forms.

This book brings together a great range of decorative antique tea containers, presenting them alongside detailed historical research conducted into their making and their place in British society across the centuries. It also explores the materials and techniques employed. With historical art showing tea’s integration into British society, examples of old trade cards and original designs, and a wealth of illustrations of the objects themselves, this is a must-buy book for historians, collectors and those interested in the decorative arts.

This stunning book takes a rare glimpse into the intriguing and unique homes of some of the world’s best-known architects. How do these architects design their own private domains? How do their furnishing styles impact on the structural integrity of the space? How do these individuals express their interior design flair in their own haven? The title starts by introducing the relationship between the architect and their professional work, by telling how that marries with their own private tastes, and how they interpret current trends and enable their own philosophies to transfer to their personal, private environments. Combining rich photography and spectacular imagery with the personal stories of these industry professionals, this book provides a rich source for those keen to delve into the design aesthetics, concepts and innovations of leaders in their very own field.

This portfolio contains 50 watercolor prints and an accompanying hardback book. These architectural drawings come from the San Francisco office of Skurman Architects, founded by Andrew Skurman in 1992, which is known for the elegance of its work in the different classical styles. Accompanied by a text explaining the context of the projects and photographs showing the richness of the finished buildings, the drawings have been printed as separate sheets which can be taken out and unfolded, for close study or so that they can be framed and displayed. 

Showing some of the most luxurious private houses in the United States and beyond, these watercolor elevations are a tribute to the clients who commissioned such beautiful dwellings, whether in the city, the suburbs or on large plots in the country.

Drawing is the essence of architecture, expressing the architect’s ideas in as clear a manner as possible. Skurman Architects’ drawings are as clear as they are beautiful. Shape and proportion are expressed in their purest form.

The included prints: 21 prints. 270mm x 270mm.; 18 prints. 270mm x 540mm.; 8 prints. 270mm x 810mm.; 3 prints. 270mm x 1080mm. Overall portfolio size is 287mm (h) x 287mm (w) x 50mm (d) .

“An ever-rising star in the world of photography, Pieter Henket is noted for his accomplished portrait pieces and for his work with celebrities from Anjelica Huston to Sir Ben Kingsley. Having gained worldwide renown for shooting the artwork for Lady Gaga s debut album The Fame, he has continued to break ground with a varied oeuvre that includes landscapes, fashion photography and narrative work documenting Carnaval de Rio. . .In his first book, Stars to the Sun, we chart his diverse disciplines over 172 pages of visionary imagery. As the party comes to town in San Luis, Argentina, Henket takes us on a pictorial journey of the carnival, from the mountainous landscapes of the region to the characters that flood this traditional locale wrapped in feathers and glitter. Both documentary-in his unique cinematic style and artistic endeavour, it evidences Henkets ability to find inspiration in everything from the curve of the rock to the sways of a dancer.” MOJEH Magazine
Every year, there is a huge party in San Luis, Argentina. Thousands of Brazilians are invited to the city to organize a show for the ‘Carnaval de Rio’. To photograph it, Pieter Henket was contacted, one of the ‘hottest’ photographers of the moment. The beautiful photography from Pieter Henket allows the reader to join the party and shows the people behind the show. Combined with the impressive Argentinean landscapes, this book will be a unique document. Text in English, Spanish and Dutch.

Bas Meeuws’ photographs are of an old-fashioned beauty and at the same time radically contemporary. Flower by flower he composes his still lifes, but digitally: the basis for Meeuws’ monumental works are digital photographs of individual flowers. They nod to the Dutch masters of the 17th-century with their love of luxury, but also their eye for the ephemeral. Meeuws struck a chord in the art world with his floral still lifes. He is represented by Dutch and Taiwanese galleries and exhibits from Amsterdam to New Delhi. 

Dutch landscape painter of the late 18th century, Barend Hendrik Thier has been almost completely forgotten. A recent discovery, the attribution of twelve still intact sketchbooks, has brought him back into the limelight, making him – by far – the 18th century Dutch artist for whom we have the greatest number of sketchbook. This fortunate discovery reveals a completely new side to his work, a more intimate and spontaneous approach to nature than his finished drawings for the market, and this sketchbook formerly in the Rothschild collection is perhaps the finest testimony to his art as a landscape painter, distinguished by his ability to capture and render the variations of light in the Dutch countryside. The 70 pages of the carnet in portrait format are also used horizontally, in double pages, to depict mainly the surroundings of Leiden, but there are also sketches of birds and natural landscapes.

Text in French.

Manhattan Masters shows the most beautiful Dutch Masters from the Golden Age in The Frick Collection, New York. The book elaborates the creation of The Frick Collection, brought together during America’s Gilded Age in the last quarter of the 19th century. This book, published to accompany the exhibition, focuses exclusively on Dutch paintings of the 17th century and features outstanding works by renowned artist of that period, including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Ruisdael.

Japan was isolated almost completely from the West for more than two hundred years, from 1641 to 1854. One of the first Westerners to penetrate that barrier and reveal fundamental information about the country – and the Far East in general – was Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), a doctor from Würzburg in Germany. He spent the period 1823 to 1829 on the small island of Dejima, a Dutch trading post in Nagasaki that was then the only point of contact between Japan and the West. Full of ambition, Siebold was sent from the Dutch East Indies to Japan with the task of gathering as much information as possible about the country, its geography, its people, religion, customs and traditional costumes. The ultimate aim was to use this information to boost Dutch trade. Working with Japanese artists including Kawahara Keiga and Hokusai, Siebold embarked on an unprecedented visual and scientific project, culminating in the book Nippon. In this publication of Nippon, we give Siebold’s work a new lease of life that lets us understand the Japan he saw. This edition includes all the original prints, with a commentary on the most compelling images. The introduction discusses the unique relationship between Japan and the Netherlands, Siebold’s life, his work on Dejima and the historical significance of Nippon. The thematic essays and image keys point out striking details and interesting stories, all with a view to achieving once again what Siebold sought to do all those years ago: let readers marvel at the incredible beauty of Japan.

We recognize Mario Botta’s buildings for their strong presence. His architecture is not ephemeral. It shapes the mass firmly and precisely. It touches the ground with self-reliance. A building by Mario Botta is an autonomous object. It comprises an ordered world of its own make. It is standing in dialogue with the urban tissue, but it establishes its own order as if it aims at differentiation instead of integration. Architectural order represents the core of his personal idiom. It is a well structured, compositional order which organises everything into a whole, as an underlying thread that connects and brings together houses on the mountains to museums and churches, banks and commercial buildings to buildings on the ground and buildings underground, different buildings at different places in time. The themes that underlie Mario Botta’s architecture are ties that connect and spines that support, common threads that bind one building to the next. His architecture is one of mass. It is then of no surprise that mass is the first thing to be defined and ordered, in his creative process. The volume of his buildings is mostly composed by one or more primary solids. Volume is thus an a-priori for Botta. It is conceived beforehand, the starting point to the adventure of architectural design.

Emmy Award-winning designer Kerry Joyce is known for the refined elegance and quiet classicism that unite his varied houses and interiors, as well as his collections of textiles, furniture, and rugs. His debut book spans a fascinating career, celebrating a unique, warm design sense that seeks always to turn houses into homes – to achieve the Intangible through the creation of tranquility and balance. The book covers eight homes in a surprising range of styles, from modern to traditional, urban to rustic, period restorations to entirely newly imagined houses that feel as though they are just as authentic. In addition, a charming introduction describes Joyce’s unusual path to becoming a designer, with thoughtful essays on each part of his work, from houses to interiors to his products. A special view into the creative process of an influential and multi-talented designer.

Contents: Foreword by Whitney Robinson; Beginnings; Interiors; Houses; A Classic Los Angeles Home; New York Panoramic; Manhattan Townhouse; Aspen-Curated Family Home; Legoretta House in Bel-Air; Old World Revisited in Santa Monica; Art Moderne Redux in Los Angeles; Modern Retreat in Aspen; Index; Dedication and Acknowledgments; Biographies and Credits.

Photographer Mirjam Bleeker and stylist and designer Frank Visser have known each other for more than 20 years. During this time, they have traveled around the world together, often without a fixed plan, seeking adventure and beautiful houses. On their travels, they love to visit the homes and holiday retreats of some of the fascinating people they know, who live on or at the beaches of various oceans and seas. There, Mirjam and Frank make honest, sensitive photo reports of the houses or cabanas, and still lifes of details of the interiors, as well as wonderful images of the people and surroundings. In 2014, this led to the publication of At the ocean – Inspiring coastal houses and refuges. In 2023, by popular demand, Mirjam and Frank decided to team up again and explore brand new magical seaside locations to create a sequel: By The Sea. A unique book with an adventurous and dreamy look and feel, for lovers of interior design, but also for travelers and for everyone who likes to dream of a life elsewhere.

Four years after the publication of the first A Home Away from Home, our fascination with exceptional private houses has only grown stronger.

The 30 distinctive guesthouses presented in this second edition share that spirit. They are places where architecture, landscape and hospitality come together naturally; places conceived not merely to accommodate travelers, but to make them feel that, for a few precious days or weeks, they genuinely belong there.

Some are deeply personal homes whose owners have opened their doors to guests. Others are remarkable architectural projects created around a particular landscape or way of life. There are houses shaped by the sea and others surrounded by forests, olive groves, vineyards or mountains; intimate retreats for two and generous residences made for families and groups of friends. What connects them is not a particular style or destination, but a certain attitude toward living. From a restored centuries-old house among the rolling hills of Tuscany to a secluded sanctuary surrounded by tropical vegetation in Sri Lanka; from the elemental beauty of a Cycladic island house overlooking the Aegean to a contemporary loft immersed in the energy of Athens, these homes show how wonderfully diverse the idea of a home away from home can be.

Architecture naturally plays an important role, yet these houses are not included simply because they photograph beautifully. The most memorable homes are those in which design becomes almost invisible once you begin to live in them. Natural light, tactile materials, open kitchens, shaded terraces, gardens and swimming pools become part of the rhythm of the day. Indoors and outdoors merge, the surrounding landscape enters the house, and carefully designed spaces encourage a wonderfully unstructured way of living.

This second volume of A Home Away from Home is not simply a collection of 30 beautiful guesthouses. It is an invitation to discover 30 different ways of living well. Each has its own identity, atmosphere and story. 

Living Where Land Meets Sea features 35 homes that showcase 10 years of work inspired by the coast and designed and built by Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders (PSD). This stunning volume also contains the firm’s resort work; selected work in process; an introduction by John Wriedt; text by John R. DaSilva, the firm’s Design Principal; and interpretive poetry written specifically for the book by GennaRose Nethercott. The work of PSD synthesizes ideas from Modernism, the Shingle Style and New England vernacular architecture into unique, playful homes that are carefully crafted for each different site and client. Living Where Land Meets Sea continues the lavishly illustrated and thoughtfully written coverage of PSD’s work that occurs in previous IMAGES titles on the firm, Architecture of the Cape Cod Summer and Shingled Houses in the Summer Sun, and is a wonderful addition to IMAGES’ expanding New Classicists series. PSD’s poetic architecture reflects on the beauty of living by the sea, and this major new monograph beautifully presents that work and the ideas embodied within it.

Living Tradition: The Architecture and Urbanism of Hugh Petter celebrates the exceptional professional achievement of one of the world’s leading traditional architects. It showcases recent highlights from Hugh’s award-winning portfolio, including handsome new country houses; major alterations and refurbishment of historic buildings; a significant new building for Trinity College in Oxford; and commercial development at all scales with landed estates across the UK and beyond. His pioneering work as master-planner for the Duchy of Cornwall is regularly cited as an exemplar of a community that reflects local identity.

Written by Clive Aslet, with a foreword by The Former Prince of Wales, this book reveals how a series of iconic buildings came to be. Richly illustrated with newly commissioned photography by Dylan Thomas, one of Britain’s foremost photographers of architecture and interiors, this book reveals the working process of the architect.

Common to all the buildings in this book – whether a new or historic private house, a public building, or a masterwork of urban design – is a loving attention to detail and materials, and an architect who cares deeply for his craft.

The Bargue-Gérôme Drawing Course is a complete reprint of a famous, late nineteenth-century drawing course. It contains a set of almost two hundred masterful lithographs of subjects for copying by drawing students before they attempt drawing from life or nature. Consequently it is a book that will interest artists, art students, art historians, and lovers and collectors of drawings. It also introduces us to the work and life of a hitherto neglected master: Charles Bargue.

The Drawing Course consists of three sections. The first comprises of plates drawn after casts, usually of antique examples. Different parts of the body are studied in order of difficulty, until full figures are presented. The second section pays homage to the western school of painting, with lithographs after exemplary drawings by Renaissance and modern masters. The third part contains almost 60 académies, or drawings after nude male models, all original inventions by Bargue, the lithographer. With great care, the student is introduced to continually more difficult problems in the close observing and recording of nature.

Charles Bargue started his career as a lithographer of drawings by hack artists for a popular market in comic, sentimental and soft-porn subjects. By working with Gérôme, and in preparing the plates for the course, Bargue was transformed into a spectacular painter of single figures and intimate scenes; a master of precious details that always remain observation and never became self-conscious virtuosity, and color schemes that unified his composition in exquisite tonal harmonies. The last part of the book is a biography of Bargue, along with a preliminary catalogue of his paintings, accompanied by reproductions of all that have been found and of many of those lost.

“This exhaustive study will be an invaluable tool in identifying not only where a piece was made and when, but in understanding the processes of its manufacture” The Regional Furniture Society
“Cataloguers now have an impressive volume of new information to draw on when describing anything from a simple tea tray to those suites of papier mâché furniture which remain as impressive today as when they dazzled visitors at the great international exhibitions of the 19th century” Antiques Trade Gazette
As one of the few decorative arts about which little has been written, japanning is today fraught with misunderstandings. And yet, in its heyday, the japanning industry attracted important commissions from prestigious designers such as Robert Adam, and orders from fashionable society across Europe and beyond. This book is a long overdue history of the industry which centered on three towns in the English midlands: Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Bilston. It is as much about the workers, their skills, and the factories and workshops in which they labored, as it is about the goods they made. It tells of matters of taste and criticism, and of how an industry which continued to rely so heavily upon hand labor in the machine age reached its natural end in the 1880s with a few factories lingering into the late 1930s. Richly illustrated, it includes photographs of mostly marked, or well-documented, examples of japanned tin and papier mâché against which readers may compare – and perhaps identify – unmarked specimens. Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware draws predominantly upon contemporary sources: printed, manuscript and typescript documents, and, for the period leading up to the closure of the last factories in the 1930s, the author was able to draw on verbal accounts of eyewitnesses. With a chapter on japanners in London, other European centers, and in the United States, together with a directory of japan artists and decorators, this closely researched and comprehensive book is the reference work for collectors, dealers and enthusiasts alike. Contents: From Imitation to Innovation; Enter the Dragon!; The Lion of the District; Japanning & Decorating; Not a Bed of Roses!; Clever Accidents?; Decline of the Midlands Japanning Industry; The Birmingham Japanners; The Wolverhampton Japanners; The Bilston Japanners; Japanners in London and Oxford; Products; Other Western Japanning Centres; Appendices.

As soon as Bill Wyman was given a camera as a young boy, he quickly developed a passion for photography. After joining what would become the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, Wyman continued his hobby. When he didn’t have his bass, he had his camera. The result is an arresting, insightful and often poignant collection of photographs, showing his exclusive inside view of the band.
From traveling to relaxing, backstage and on, Stones From the Inside is a unique view captured by a man who was there, every step of the way. Along with the images of the band at work and play, Wyman includes remarkable images of those along for the ride, from John Lennon, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Iggy Pop to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. To accompany his photographs, Wyman offers up wonderful insights, anecdotes and behind-the-photo stories, giving all us a front-row seat and backstage pass to what it was like to be there, as music history was made as a member of The Rolling Stones.
This delightful book presents the history and development of the Auricula to both the casual reader and enthusiast. It sets out both traditional and more recent methods of cultivation, how to exhibit the plants, how they are judged, breeding new varieties and how to deal with pests and diseases. More than 200 varieties both old and new are discussed in some detail and numerous colored illustrations are included.
In writing the book, Allan Guest has drawn on over thirty years experience of growing, showing, breeding and judging the plants. Having known and exchanged views with many of the leading personalities of the time, he is able to provide insights into both plants and breeders. He currently sits on the committees of both the Midlands and West and the Northern Sections of the National Auricula and Primula Society.

“If you want to grow, show or know the great range of auriculas now available you have to have Guest’s fine book.” Robin Lane Fox, Financial Times

The extraordinary life of Barbara Cartlidge (b. 1922 in Berlin) – influential gallerist, curator, jewelry artist and author – together with the history of her legendary Electrum Gallery, which she founded in 1971 with Ralph Turner in London, are documented for the first time in a single publication. Pioneers and colleagues as well as around seventy internationally renowned artists of the gallery all have their say and, in anecdotes and recollections, countless illustrations and hitherto unpublished images, tell of a strong and resolute woman and the significance of her gallery as a promoter and platform for the understanding of contemporary art jewelry. Particular attention is paid to the life of Barbara Cartlidge, who fled from Germany in 1938. For over fifty years she was a driving force in what she described as the ‘the brotherhood of jewelers who make modern and thought-provoking jewelry all over the world’.

Follow these Canadian artists as they travel abroad and return home again, over a series of journeys taking place during the last decades of the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth. 130 masterworks by some 35 artists situate Canadian art within the global phenomenon of Impressionism and present a fresh perspective on its reception in the arts of Canada. Adopting a thematic approach, comprehensive essays demonstrate the commitment of these pioneering artists to an innovative interpretation of foreign and familiar surroundings, imbued with an Impressionist vocabulary.

Chunghi Choo (b. 1938 in South Korea) is a world-renowned metalsmith and jewelry artist who is best known for her works that incorporate such techniques as electroforming and electro-applique. Choo’s artwork is represented in major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (US), the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK) and the Musée des Arts décoratifs (FR). In addition, she is professor emeritus of the University of Iowa (US), where she established a metals program, which she brought to international prominence during her more than thirty years of service. Many of her students have since become critically acclaimed artists in the fields of fine arts, jewelry, textiles, metalsmithing and sculpture. This volume reviews Choo’s remarkable career, showing selected pieces from the last six decades of extraordinary craftsmanship that earned her status as Elected Fellow of the American Craft Council. Works by thirty former students reveal Choo’s influence on a subsequent generation.