Delhi Then and Now comprises two masterful essays that trace the story of Delhi from the days when it was known by other names Indraprastha, Firozabad, Dinpanah to its reincarnation as New Delhi. Historian Narayani Gupta takes us through the city of Sultans, Mughal emperors and viceroys, while journalist Dilip Bobb shows us the face of New Delhi as it is now. A rich portfolio of archival photographs and illustrations, together with vibrant new pictures, edited by Pramod Kapoor, capture Delhi in all its glory past and present.

Delhi Then – A city of empires and dynasties, Delhi through the ages has evoked nostalgia of its history written on the red sandstone walls. From Quila Rai Pithora to the palace on Raisina Hill, the changing face of Delhi is remarkably discernible in these photographs – a special collection that give words to the spoken and unspoken history of this city. Delhi Now – A city of dreams and desires, Delhi’s urban landscape is incomplete without the stones of seven ancient cities which give it a distinct meaning, a distinct outlook. A modern city on the move, the colors and digital vibrancy of the photographs capturing Delhi in all moods and moments, is as imposing as the grand old structures of yesteryears. A twin city of old-world charm and new extravagance, Delhi has evolved through the ages and is looking forward to an era that will be remembered down the ages.

In the fall of 2020, Christo will wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in silvery fabric for 16 days, returning to his signature style – after realizing The Floating Piers in Italy, the London Mastaba, and a quarter of a century after he and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag building in Berlin. As a prelude, a major exhibition at PalaisPopulaire in the German capital will celebrate this 25-year anniversary in the spring of 2020. At the same time, the Pompidou Center will pay tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude by staging The Pont Neuf Wrapped Documentary exhibition as well as a comprehensive show highlighting their early years in Paris.

To accompany these events, Matthias Koddenberg, art historian and long-time friend of both Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, who was the other half of the artistic duo until her death in 2009, has edited an elaborate collection of interviews. The book is composed of many conversations held between Koddenberg and Christo in the artist’s New York studio over the last few years.

With rare frankness, Christo describes how he fled from Bulgaria and made his way into the Western world. He talks about his time in Vienna and Geneva, his vibrant life in Paris that was full of hardship, and the fateful moment when he met Jeanne-Claude.

This publication provides an exceptional inside view, uniting texts and numerous archival images and photographs, many of which have never been published before, or depict early works by Christo that have only recently been rediscovered.

Collage is one of the most popular and pervasive of all art-forms, yet this is the first historical survey book ever published on the subject. Featuring over 200 works, ranging from the 1500s to the present day, it offers an entirely new approach. Hitherto, collage has been presented as a twentieth-century phenomenon, linked in particular to Pablo Picasso and Cubism in the years just before the First World War. In Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage, we trace its origins back to books and prints of the 1500s, through to the boom in popularity of scrapbooks and do-it-yourself collage during the Victorian period, and then through Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. Collage became the technique of choice in the 1960s and 1970s for anti-establishment protest, and in the present day is used by millions of us through digital devices. The definition of collage employed here is a broad one, encompassing cut-and-pasted paper, photography, patchwork, film and digital technology and ranging from work by professionals to unknown makers, amateurs and children.

Contents:

Collage Over the Centuries, an introductory essay by Patrick Elliott; Collage Before Modernism by Freya Gowrley; On Edge: Exploring Collage Tactics and Terminology by Yuval Etgar; catalogue of exhibition works; a Chronology of Collage.

Bombay is a city always on the move. Driven by multiple impulses, it has been the site for a Buddhist ethos, a safe haven for refugees from Persia, a hub of maritime trade and a melting pot of European and Eastern influences. Enriched with in-depth historical research and exclusive photographs, Bombay: Then documents the transformation of the once ‘insignificant cluster of islets’ into one of the most exciting spots for cultural exchange in South Asia. Among other views, the book illustrates the Mankeshwar temple and the Rajabai Clock Tower wrapped in scaffolding; the construction of Victoria Dock and the opening of its massive underwater gates; a lush and sparsely populated Malabar Hill; a rare view of the interior of a Parsi fire temple; factory scenes inside the Royal Mint and the Times of India units; what the stock exchange looked like nearly a century ago; and many breathtaking aerial shots of this beautiful island-city. A sheer visual treat through extraordinary historical photographs, Bombay: Then is for keeps. Mumbai has always been a city of dreams – shiny, colorful, nebulous dreams that melt away the moment you try to grasp them. Yet it beckons and the charm of the mirage is too seductive to let pass. Mumbai has moved from being Bombay to Bambai to Mumbai in four centuries and yet it is all three: encompassing all manner of paradoxical realities within its moist borders. Mumbai is restless, transient but the pulse of its past still runs through its streets. The fifteen million souls that inhabit this great island-city belong to all walks of life, numerous ethnic and religious backgrounds, and manage to communicate through the Babel-like confusion of different tongues and diverse histories. Mumbai: Now brings this shape-shifting, elusive city to you – from the stories of the first Goan migrants to the lives of native Koli fishermen; from the tradition of dabbawalas to that of ‘cutting’ chai; and from the potters in Dharavi to the pink flamingos in Sewri – in a series of beautiful, moving pictures that capture the many moods and faces of Mumbai.

India lives in many centuries. Discover the majesty and sweep of India’s rich cultural and historical heritage, replete with the people, events and places that have contributed to the chequered mosaic of India’s past. Featured in this exquisite book are rare and never-seen-before vintage photographs from some of the finest collections across the world – in the section India Then. The vibrant and ever-changing cultural landscape of India is featured in a series of photographs, showcasing the multifaceted, kaleidoscopic present. The timeless past lives amidst fast-paced, cutting-edge change. Modernity and tradition co-exist in the most endearing and surprising of places. India Now is a visual feast of contemporary India.

In Dark & Dystopian Post-Mortem Fairy Tales, Mothmeister pays homage to the muses who have sparked their alienating dream world. From artists worldwide, legendary figures, their collection of taxidermy to lurid places where their figures were born, such as the catacombs of Palermo, Pyramiden or the disaster area around Chernobyl. A special fairy tale world that flirts with the morbid, religious and grotesque and in which stuffed animals are brought back to life in an extraordinary way.

The talent and the gaze of established artists such as Pelegrín Clavé, José María Velasco, Joaquín Clausell, Gerardo Murillo «Dr. Atl », Ángel Zárraga, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Raúl Anguiano, are among the most prominent firms in the collection of the Kaluz Museum.

This catalogue for an exhibition at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht features paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Younger and his contemporaries that depict the popular religious subject “Christ Carrying the Cross,” and examines these works for covert critiques of power and politics in Flanders during the 16th and 17th centuries. The show explores how artists incorporated both direct and indirect social and political criticisms into paintings on this theme, and brings together a selection of works from Bruegel the Younger, his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers.

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.

A unique insight into the ways in which one of today’s leading artists is inspired by great works of the past. In 16 emphatically modern new paintings, renowned artist, Alison Watt, responds to the remarkable delicacy of the female portraits by eighteenth-century Scottish portraitist, Allan Ramsay. Watt’s new works are particularly inspired by Ramsay’s much-loved portrait of his wife, along with less familiar portraits and drawings. Watt shines a light on enigmatic details in Ramsay’s work and has created paintings which hover between the genres of still life and portraiture. In conversation with curator Julie Lawson, Watt discusses how painters look at paintings, explains why Ramsay inspired her, and provides unique insight into her own creative process. Andrew O’Hagan responds to Watt’s paintings with a new work of short fiction and art historian Tom Normand’s commentary explores further layers of depth to our understanding of both artists.

This volume marks the publishing debut of the Spanish-Argentinian photographer based in Milan, Patricio Reig, and introduces one of the artist’s preferred subjects: the female portrait.

Patricio Reig prints and sets his images on special oriental paper, folded over and over, and finally dipped in a bath of coffee and sodium thiosulfate. He has found the result intriguing ever since his very first experiments: fortuitous coffee stains become scars that denote each photograph, and consequently every story they tell.
As he himself says: “A portrait is not the recording of a single identity, but rather the layering of many elements. For this reason, the image may be fragmented, pieced back together, or even folded over, and yet it never loses its essence.” 

Text in English, French and Spanish.

The fascinating and truly exceptional Portrait of a Lady in White Satin, which forms part of The Klesch Collection, offers Marco Tanzi the leading expert on 16th- and 17th-century Cremonese painting an opportunity to delve into some hitherto unknown aspects of the painter’s artistic production. Breaking away from the repetitive monotony of a celebration firmly rooted in an audacious biography that is more or less fictional, but above all anchored to some erroneous attributions that are traced back to Bernardino Campi, her first master.

The Konyaks – a once fearsome headhunting tribe in Nagaland on the border of Myanmar in northeast India – are well known for their iconic body and facial tattoos, originally earned for taking an enemy’s head. This book – over four years in the making – is the personal journey of a Konyak woman who retraces the steps of her grandfather and great-grandfather by documenting her tribe’s tattooing practices. She explores the Konyak’s concept of beautification of the body using it as a canvas for art, with inscriptions marked on the skin as a form of rite of passage and cycle of life. With elegant and powerful portraits of elders, both men and women, this book preserves the unique but vanishing practices of the culture, together with tattoo patterns, their meanings, and the oral traditions attached to them in folktales, songs, poems and sayings. It includes descriptions and information on headhunting and tattooing practices; reasons behind them; techniques used; tattoo artists; different tattoo groups; types of tattoos; and personal stories. Contents: The Konyaks; Headhunting; Traditional Tattooing Art; Tattoo Artist; Face Tattoo Group SHEN-TU; Body Tattoo Group TANGTA-TU; Nose Tattoo Group KONG-TU; The Last of the Tattooed Headhunters; Glossary.

The Mauritshuis has ten paintings by Rembrandt. The most famous is undoubtedly The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, but just as popular are Simeon’s Song of Praise, Portrait of an Old Man and Self-Portrait, one of the last which the Master painted. In this playfully designed book, the paintings and their distinctive features are conveyed in an accessible manner. A large number of detailed images capture Rembrandt’s extraordinary painting technique from close by: the quick brushstrokes, the crisscrossing in wet paint and the carefully placed dabs and jabs. The recent restoration of three Rembrandts at the Mauritshuis also receives special attention.

David Bailly’s Vanitas Still Life with Portrait of a Young Painter earned him a prominent place in art history. Almost 400 years after it was made, the painting – a masterpiece that raises all kinds of questions – continues to fascinate art historians. Is this a self-portrait? What do all the objects in the painting refer to? And who is the mysterious woman whose image appears against the wall? This book subjects the painting and the artist to a thorough examination. Bailly lived in Leiden, at the same time as Rembrandt. He painted and drew portraits and still lifes. This book considers his life and work together for the first time and presents the results of a technical investigation that has revealed the hidden layers in his most important masterpiece.

Gertrude Vernon, or Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, was an English woman who married a Scot. The American artist John Singer Sargent excelled as a painter in Europe. His portrait of Lady Agnew was painted in London but has found its definitive home in Edinburgh. All these contexts converge in a supremely beautiful painting which is one the icons of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Created in the 1890s, it proved to be a seminal work in the lives of the artist and his subject and has enjoyed a rich afterlife, inspiring artistic and written responses. This book offers a fascinating biography of this most accomplished, evocative and admired of portraits, placing it in the context of Sargent’s career and how he worked, discussing the life of the sitter and unveiling the picture’s rich critical history.

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. 

Between 1978 and 1987, renowned British photographer Derek Ridgers captured London youth culture in all its glory. With skinheads, punks and new romantics, in clubs and on the street, his images have come to define a seminal decade of British subculture.

This completely reimagined edition of 78/87 London Youth showcases a fresh selection of those images from the depths of Ridgers’ exceptional archive – including several previously unseen – beautifully printed and bound in an oversized volume.

Each picture is a tribute to the trials and triumphs of youth, and a precious document of style and culture in 1980s England, from the height of punk to the birth of acid house. Several have been exhibited internationally in cities as far-ranging as Moscow, Adelaide and Beverly Hills, in the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain and Somerset House. Ridgers has also collaborated with a number of major fashion houses, including Saint Laurent and Gucci, and his images continue to inspire photographers, artists and fashion designers around the world.

‘As time passes, this kind of observational photography attains a new importance’ – Sean O’Hagan, The Observer

‘Ridgers’ portraits of young boys and girls are weighted with a raw poetry and beauty’ – Cory Reynolds, artbook.com

The exhibition An Ancient and Honorable Citizen of Florence – The Bargello and Dante, sponsored by the Comitato Nazionale per le Celebrazioni del 700° Anniversario della morte di Dante Alighieri, is the result of the inter-institutional partnership between the Musei del Bargello and the Università di Firenze, and sees the collaboration between the Departments of Literature and Philosophy (DILEF) and of History, Archeology, Geography, Art and Entertainment (SAGAS) of the University of Florence. The Bargello is Dante’s place par excellence in Florence: here you can find the oldest portrait of Dante, painted by Giotto and his work in 1337, a period during which the Divina Commedia was being spread throughout the city. The catalog – rich with essays and extracts by numerous specialists – illustrates the complex link between Dante, his work and Florence, analyzing the dense network of relationships between painters, illuminators, copyists and commentators, engaged in an unprecedented editorial and artistic enterprise. The volume is enriched with illustrations of the works on display and illuminated manuscripts, as well as a precious final photographic atlas of the murals in the Podestà chapel, which houses the poet’s portrait. Dante was very often a frequenter of the different rooms as a prior of the Bargello and in these same rooms he received both his sentence of exile, and his sentence to death (March 10, 1302). The reconstruction of the delicate relationship between the Poet and Florence assumes an importance that goes far beyond city borders, indelibly investing the history of Dante’s fortune and the way in which we still look at him and his work today.