NEW from ACC Art Books – Limited Edition: Sukita: Eternity – Click here to order

This volume brings together leading scholars of Sikhism and of Sikh art to assess and interpret the remarkable art resource known as the Kapany Collection, using it to introduce to a broad public the culture, history, and ethos of the Sikhs. Fifteen renowned scholars contributed essays describing the passion and vision of Narinder and Satinder Kapany in assembling this unparalleled assemblage of great Sikh art, some of which has been displayed in exhibitions around the globe. The Kapanys’ legacy of philanthropic work includes establishing the Sikh Foundation (now celebrating its 50th year) and university endowments for Sikh studies. Through this profusely illustrated book’s chapters, scholars examine the full range of Sikh artistic expression and of Sikh history and cultural life, using artworks from the Kapany Collection.

“A standout among the drink books published this year, which ought to be on the Christmas list of every wine lover, even if they don’t think they have much interest in American wine.”  —Victoria Moore, The Telegraph
“This is a book for novices and geeks interested in the significance of California through America’s wine history, from the swashbuckling era of Agoston Haraszthy through modern Napa’s cult cabernets and today’s despair over wildfires and drought.” —David McIntyre, Washington Post

“New York Times picks On California for their “This Year’s Best Wine Books”: “. Its short selections from nearly three dozen writers offer impressionistic, thought-provoking views of the state and its winemaking history.”—New York Times

“There is something for everyone here.” —Sommelier India

On California explores the grapes and the people who have made California wine great. The pioneers, the boffins, the whizz-kids and scientists, many of whom tell their stories on its pages – some in precious archive material, others have set down their thoughts mid-pandemic in 2021: Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Steven Spurrier, Paul Draper and Warren Winiarski take a bow….

Includes:

“This book takes in his introduction to wine – at the age of three! – through his continued travels and championing of New World wines when they were less fashionable.” – Matthew Nugent, The Irish Sun

“You can feel Oz Clarke’s expansive, chatty presence in every sentence” – Telegraph

“Reading Clarke may be the closest we’ll come to sharing a glass of sack with the Bard himself.” —David McIntyre, Washington Post
“Frankly, it’s the best and most entertaining wine read I’ve had in years.” —Tom Doorley, The Irish Mail

“You can never have too much of his captivating enthusiasm and rich knowledge and this is him at his best.” — Waitrose magazine

“A rollicking good read.” — Sommelier India

There have never been so many delicious and original wines in the world, and to discover them, all you need is a glass in your hand and Oz Clarke – the ideal wine companion. With his inimitable sense of adventure and fun, Oz explains how his fascination with flavor led him to abandon a promising acting career and follow his heart from Chablis to ‘the lost Himalayan valleys of Yunnan’ in pursuit new taste experiences and wine thrills. He found them! Oz Clarke On Wine takes us on a fast-paced, witty romp around the grape varieties key to the world’s major wine styles, then explores the vineyards and regions where a vast trove of wine treasure lies waiting for discovery. Oz’s passion for sharing, his deep wine knowledge, and his ability to conjure up the wine world’s most beautiful landscapes, make this book the most unputdownable wine read this century.

Includes:

The Caravane Earth Foundation presents The Majlis book, a rich and colourful documentation of the creation of the “Majlis” exhibition, a multi-layered nomadic project at the 17th annual Biennale di Venezia. The book tracks the multifaceted nature of the exhibition itself, which comprised an architectural object, an exhibition, and a garden, all three hosted by the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy. Additionally, the book tells the broader story of Caravane Earth, chronicling research conducted by the foundation and the key ideas that form its philosophy and agenda. The Majlis highlights the main elements of the project in Venice while giving an introduction to key members of Caravane’s community of experts.  

With a narrative structure broken into four sections – Exhibition, Architecture, Craft, and Earth – The Majlis book features interviews with important figures and institutions from these fields, stunning visual documentation of the creation process and featured artefacts, and critical writings on permaculture, architecture, and craft. Featuring discussions with the Smithsonian Foundation, landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU), director and curators of the Sheikh Faisal Museum, and many more, the collection provides a deep look and education into the many causes championed by Caravane Earth.

Ancient adventurers have often spoken of a mystical land of perfect harmony and eternal bliss nestled in the forbidding remoteness of the Tibetan Plateau – the legendary Shangri La. No one has managed to pinpoint its exact location on a map. In the local belief system, Shangri La may well not be a place at all but rather the mental state of a pure and exalted body, speech and mind. Fascinated by this concept, the photographer and author Mahendra Singh set out on his quest. Most of it currently occupied by China, the Tibetan Plateau has been significantly distorted over time under state pressure. Therefore, the author traveled through some of the last surviving remnants of authentic Tibetan life found in the valleys of Ladakh and Spiti; often and justifiably referred to as ‘Little Tibet’. He traveled through remote valleys, ventured across stark landscapes and visited the improbable green oases of human habitation, culture and religion, to bring together this comprehensive portrait of the region through his vivid photographs and meticulously researched text. This book aims to take the readers on a journey of discovery and reflection, and hopefully, a little further along the path to finding their own Shangri La.

This book brings together striking botanical art of Indian origin spanning a period of 300 years, focussing on the 18th and 19th centuries. Drawn mostly from original works held in the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, some of the paintings have never been published before. They showcase the richness and variety of art commissioned from talented, mostly unknown, Indian artists who made a substantial contribution to the documentation of the flora of the Indian subcontinent. A foreword written by Sita Reddy places the collections in contemporary context. The book concludes with works from a new generation of botanical artists in India, who excite interest today.

“Veteran wine books are by modern standards short on facts.” — Decanter Magazine

“This is an inspirational book well worth your time.” — Eric Asimov on Instagram

“If you want to learn about wine, switch off your phone, buy these two books and enjoy them with a nice glass of something.” — The Critic

“This is a don’t-miss book for people who plan their travels around vineyards.”—Washington Post

“This is one of the best books on wine ever written.”— Sommelier India

In this unique approach to understanding wine, Hugh Johnson, the world’s best-loved wine author, weaves the story of his own epic wine journey with an embracing view of everything he has discovered along the way. Almost without realizing it, the reader is drawn into a fascinating world; with each page turned, knowledge is gained and wine wisdom absorbed. Hugh takes us from the teetering ledges of the Mosel and majestic châteaux of the Médoc to the sylvan slopes of Windsor Great Park with a spring in his step and a tasting glass at the ready.

No one writes so infectiously on every aspect of wine, whether human or cultural, technical or historical. This book is peppered with anecdotes and personal recollections, infused with the sheer delight Hugh finds in his subject. It is a book with a story to tell and a mastery of wine to impart.

Previously published as Wine, A Life Uncorked 2005, now updated with new chapters.

Sheila Fruman, fascinated by the textiles and handmade carpets she saw when she traveled overland in 1969 from Turkey to India, tells the stories of nine intrepid adventurers who have combed the streets and bazaars of Central and South Asia finding, researching, collecting and selling antique Kashmir shawls, embroidered Uzbek textiles and robes, Anatolian kilims, Turkmen carpets and many other textile treasures to interested Westerners.  

These stories capture the post-World War II era’s free spirit that briefly coincided with economic prosperity and open borders. With over 200 color illustrations, the book shows how the indigenous designs and motifs popularized in the US and Europe by these textile travelers can now be found in anything from haute couture to high-end interior design to mass-marketed bedding, tableware and clothing. 

The dealers and collectors who have spent their lives seeking these complex pieces of the past have intriguing stories to tell and collections of some of the finest textiles of their kind in the world. Taken together, their stories are an enlightening guide to understanding how we connect to the past, and how textiles connect the world.

In a series of color-saturated, dream-like, hallucinatory images taken at night, this second book in a trilogy by Kolkata-based photographer Arko Datto explores the shifting world of nature, society, and politics in Malaysia and Indonesia. Over the course of 4 years, he has captured both people and animals in confrontation with the changing urban environments they live in, with the subtext of the politics that made this change possible. In a place that used to be considered a tropical paradise, over- development and property speculation have forced residents out and have created deserts of empty real estate where neither locals nor animal life can thrive. SNAKEFIRE is dedicated to this paradise that has been lost to unmediated human greed and ponders the costs of untrammeled consumption. 

Iridescent Skin is the first of its kind multispecies ethnography on humans and white sharks, entangled through the practice of cage diving at the very end of New Zealand. It is based on an immersive field work of marine anthropologist Prof. Raj Sekhar Aich, and his friend, research assistant, and anthropologist — Soosan Lucas, as they go in search of the elusive and mystified Great White Sharks of Foveaux Strait.

This is not a ‘shark book’, although it revolves around sharks in the classical sense of the manner. It is also not merely an academic book, although it is based on detailed academic investigation. Neither is it an exploration of shark behavior or ecology, although they are certainly part of it, and no, it is not even a book about shark attacks, although shark bites are featured here. It is, on the surface, a sensory narrative of human and white shark encounters, but beneath the ripples, it is a story of love: among humans, rivers, oceans, bricks, stones, and sharks.

As Prof. Agustín Fuentes puts it, the book ‘invites the reader along…at the intersection of two sentient species, humans and white sharks.… The book you hold in your hands, is an enticement into the experiential journey of a scholar, artist and narrator who starts out with the goal of appreciating or assessing a multispecies entanglement, but ends up traversing a tangle of personal, social, historical, ecological and perceptual water/land/species-scapes.… This is an immersive multispecies anthropology.’

Hailing from the cultural realm of India, the mandala signifies in its original sense a sacred circle. It serves as a meditation aid and at the same time reflects an ancient symbolism of strictly geometric basic forms accompanied by an interpretation of its sacred content. As an expression of the awareness of higher affinities, the symmetrically arranged geometry can be found in a variety of pictorial works and the architecture of various epochs and cultural realms, for example in medieval book illumination, the floor plan of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, in Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, or in various objects of the indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Based on these and other masterpieces from renowned museums and private collections and illustrated in fascinating photographs of unique buildings and rituals, this publication offers an impressive first analysis of the phenomenon of sacred geometry in art and architecture and their underlying ideologies.

Text in German.

Hailing from the cultural realm of India, the mandala signifies in its original sense a sacred circle. It serves as a meditation aid and at the same time reflects an ancient symbolism of strictly geometric basic forms accompanied by an interpretation of its sacred content. As an expression of the awareness of higher affinities, the symmetrically arranged geometry can be found in a variety of pictorial works and the architecture of various epochs and cultural realms, for example in medieval book illumination, the floor plan of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, in Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, or in various objects of the indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Based on these and other masterpieces from renowned museums and private collections and illustrated in fascinating photographs of unique buildings and rituals, this publication offers an impressive first analysis of the phenomenon of sacred geometry in art and architecture and their underlying ideologies.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.

This issue discusses the topic of globalization and locality through four essays and eleven projects. The essays attempt to observe the tension between the different forces of globalization, which is being widely debated as a distinguishing trend, and also highlight globalization’s impact on local architecture, as well as the various efforts being taken to ensure local identity and distinctive locality in architecture design. The projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, demonstrate the many successful attempts in developing design concepts and methods to cope with the globalization trend while maintaining locality. These essays and projects are carefully selected to represent diversity in project locations, and includes locations such as Thailand, India, Japan, and China.

The international fashion world is creative, expressive and impressive. And it is always fast moving. This book is devoted to the best fashion series and photos of the international fashion world of 2022.
A jury of international experts selects from a worldwide selection of the best editorials, covers and campaigns and makes the awards. Additionally, the creative people behind the scenes, such as photographers, stylists, models and make-up artists, are presented in detail.
The Fashion Yearbook 2023 comprehensively includes the fashion highlights and their actors in an impressive illustrated book and is thus a unique standard work in the fashion industry.

In this series of ink paintings, we get a significant peek at the working methods of the celebrated contemporary abstract artist, Ganesh Haloi. Like the Taoist and Zen masters of East Asia, Haloi’s reduction of color reveals the pure asceticism of his structural method. The sensory presence of the riparian landscapes of Bengal are referents of memory manifest entirely in monochrome. At the same time, these referents are analyses, reduction to elementary forms, or rhythmic punctuations evoking music. These patterns and elements, dashed strokes, squiggles, crosses and triangles — large and small — occupy a plane of symbolic memory, where the unconscious is structured like a visual language.

Published in association with Akar Prakar, Kolkata.

Deceptively simple or fantastically intricate, ikat technique has been used for many centuries to create extravagant costumes and cloths of deep cultural meaning. The distinctively blurred, feathered or jagged patterns of ikat-dyed textiles are found across much of the world – from Japan in the east to Central and South America in the west, with vast areas of South-east Asia, India, Central Asia and the Middle East in between. The traditional patterns still hold cultural relevance today in significant parts of the long-established ikat-weaving areas. Textile artists and fashion designers in many and varied countries have taken ikat in new directions, respecting traditional forms and palettes while creatively diverging from them.
This is the first time all the different iterations of this textile have been comprehensively brought together in one volume, drawing from the wide-ranging collection of David Paly. It is a journey across the world through the lens of ikat. 

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.

Humayun, the son of Babur and the second Mughal ruler, reigned in Agra from 1530 to 1540 and then in Delhi from 1555 to 1556. Until now, his numerous achievements, including winning back the throne of Hindustan, have not been well recorded. The Planetary King follows Humayun’s travels and campaigns during the political and social disturbances of the early 16th century. It delves into Humayun’s extraordinary social and intellectual life; demystifies his magico-scientific world view, draws attention to his deep involvement with literature, poetry, painting, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, occultism and extraordinary inventions, and offers a new analysis of Humayun’s mausoleum as the posthumous sum of his visions and dreams.

The book accompanies the new site museum at Humayun’s tomb created by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture upon the culmination of two decades of conservation work on the World Heritage Site.

Co-published with Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi. 

Aidan Dodson’s British Royal Tombs covers all the burials of the kings, queens (and lords protector) of England, Scotland and the United Kingdom, from the occupant of the great Sutton Hoo ship burial, to George VI, last Emperor of India, including of course the long-lost Richard III. This fully revised edition of a book that became an immediate classic of its kind will be equally interesting to the interested visitor and the student. The career of each ruler is briefly described, followed by what is known about his or her burial arrangements and the subsequent history of the tomb and its contents. Each tomb is illustrated as far as possible by at least one photograph or drawing. The posthumous fate of royal spouses is also included, together with information on each of the cathedrals, churches, chapels and other structures that house or once housed royal tombs; there are detailed diagrams for the major sites. A list of monarchs, family trees and an extensive bibliography complete the book.

Indian art is deeply inspired by philosophical and religious thought. In this original and extensively researched work, the author explores the history of the Pushti Marg community. She explains the spiritual beliefs as laid down by the saint and founder Shri Vallabhacharya, which inspired the art that was created for use in the religious practices of the Vallabha Sampradaya.

This book first delves into the core of Pushti Marg — Vallabhacharya’s philosophy and theology of Shrinathji (a form of Krishna); secondly, it explores how his system of beliefs was expressed in an organized religion and rituals that resulted in the production of sacred objects, mainly paintings, pichvais and shrine textiles. Finally it discusses the influence of Pushti Marg on the social and cultural aspects that carried these traditions forward. While doing so, the book showcases many rare paintings and textiles created for the personal and public shrines of the faith. The book reveals the provenance of the most important pre-Mughal manuscript, Palam Dispersed Bhagavad Puran, and that of Golden and Kalamkari pichvais. The fact that many of the beautiful artefacts, depicting aspects of the worship of Shrinathji, were created by Muslim artisans is a remarkable example of the syncretic culture of India.

The author has analyzed the influence of the Vallabha Sampradaya on Indian paintings in minute detail. As a member of a family that has devotedly followed the tenets of Pushti Marg across many generations, she is uniquely placed to offer an insider’s view of its philosophy, an in-depth understanding of its practices, and a museologist’s perspective on the exquisite artefacts inspired by this faith, which are now displayed in collections worldwide.

This book about miniature painting at the Bundelkhand royal courts of Orchha, Datia, and Panna is the first to admit an understanding of the works that two fatal misconceptions regarding their time and place of origin have hitherto thwarted. The miniature school of Bundelkhand that first developed at Orchha was the earliest and most Indian of all the Rajput schools and at the time of its founding the only one to practice a purely indigenous style of painting, “untainted” by the naturalism of imperial Mughal painting. The author’s interpretations and stylistic analyses of over 240 paintings from his collection, many of them published here for the first time, shed light on the school’s development from the late 16th century to the early days of British rule.
The book also introduces readers to the conceptual world of Rajput miniature painting and the rasa aesthetic that anticipates the modern reception aesthetic. Origins of Orchha Painting, the first volume of the series Orchha, Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850), deals with the founding period of Orchha painting, the years 1590–1605, and how it derived from pre-Mughal Early Rajput painting, which flourished at the Tomar court of Gwalior from around 1460 until the downfall of the Hindu kingdom in 1518. The subsequent volumes, Stylistic Trends in Bundelkhand Painting, analyze how this Rajput school developed during the period 1605–1635 and spread to Datia after the disintegration of Orchha in 1635 and later to Panna, the Bundela state of Chattrasal, in the 1680s. Bundelkhand painting ended with Chattrasal’s death in 1731, and it was only after a long interruption, in the beginning of the 19th century, that the school experienced an Indian summer at the court of Datia during the period of British suzerainty.

To many the words Hill Station are evocative of an exotic and exciting vision when the subjects of the British Colonial Government gloried in the Hill Stations of India and Burma. Beautifully constructed holiday towns built at 3,000 feet or more where people flocked to escape the heats of the plains. High up the Shan hills of east Burma stood Maymyo. This book tells the stories of the people for whom Maymyo really was a heaven ‘lost on the clouds’.

“In an era dominated by traditionalism on one hand and the emergence of modernity on the other, Lutyens’ work serves as a compelling testament to the brilliance of harmonizing these contrasting approaches.” — ArchEyes

Edwin Lutyens was one of the most famous architects of the 20th century. After he died in 1944, three large volumes of his drawings and photographs were commissioned and published by Country Life as a tribute.

All three volumes are in the process of being reissued. Having earned his reputation designing domestic buildings, he was soon given scope to expand his practice to the outdoors and to public projects. This second volume contains his extensive contributions to garden design and town planning, as well as the finest examples of his bridges and a selection of monumental civic constructions. These include various university buildings, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the Washington Embassy and the Viceroy’s Palace in New Delhi.

The genius of Lutyens is now universally recognized. In the work featured in this book, we can now see not just the professionalism of a great architect, but also the loving care with which he set down the most minute detail, with the result that this is one of the few books in existence that can be used to provide working drawings.

Also available: The Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens: Volume 1, Country Houses ISBN 9781788842181.

Patek Philippe: Investing in Wristwatches offers detailed insights into the world of authenticating and pricing high-value wristwatches, for all collectors from amateur to connoisseur.
This publication includes the vast majority of key Patek models, along with their relevant auction results. Each timepiece has been carefully selected by legendary horological expert Osvaldo Patrizzi. These wristwatches excel for a diverse range of reasons, including technical excellence, auction records, design and anecdotal history. A description of each watch is accompanied by its picture, reference and sales values (rights included).
The follow-up to Investing in Wristwatches: Rolex, this vital and comprehensive work of reference also includes a system to calculate the currency exchange rate at the time of auction sales. And a comparative analysis of auction results, compiled through close collaboration with the Sotheby’s auction house, shows the evolution of prices from the ’80s up to the present day.