This monograph offers a comprehensive exploration of the life and work of Jak İhmalyan (1922–1978), published on the occasion of his exhibition at Dirimart Pera. Tracing his journey from Istanbul to cities across the Eastern Bloc, the book sheds light on an artist who remained committed to painting despite exile, political pressure, and changing geographies. İhmalyan emerged as a promising young painter of Armenian origin before fleeing Turkey in 1949 due to his involvement with the Communist Party. The publication brings together an extensive selection of works from family, private, and institutional collections, presenting İhmalyan’s visual language within the context of his ideological beliefs and international life. His paintings, created across Beirut, Warsaw, Beijing, and Moscow, reflect both personal conviction and a strong social vision. This richly illustrated volume invites a new generation of viewers to rediscover an overlooked figure of modern art and reconsider his place in cultural history.

Text in English and Turkish.

This artist’s book features a selection of Çağla Ulusoy’s abstract paintings distinguished by her unique visual language and color palette, accompanied by collages that reflect the processes behind her practice. In her paintings, Ulusoy reshapes lived experiences from various cultures and traditions through an abstract visual language, infusing them with subconscious memories and imagery. Her collages, on the other hand, re-imagine her works within a hybrid narrative and fantastical universe, incorporating adorned figures and scenes. Comprising 83 selected paintings — which Ulusoy creates with materials such as acrylic, oil paint, sand, and wax and in which harmony and friction coexist on the same surface and the balance between color and form is constantly challenged — and the collages accompanying them, the book deciphers the artist’s multilayered and uncanny visual language.

Globally recognized photographer Russell James is known for a singular artistic vision that unites technical mastery, fashion, celebrity, cultural storytelling, and humanitarian purpose, driven by an uncompromising commitment to authenticity.

It’s About Time is James’s definitive legacy publication and the first book to present a complete, curated journey through his three-decade career. Spanning continents, cultures, and genres, this book features James’s early work with Indigenous communities, intimate portraits of some of the world’s most influential figures, and groundbreaking imagery that helped redefine modern fashion and supermodel culture. The book comprises a compelling mix of never-before-published images, newly created portraits of global figures, and James’s most iconic works. Candid behind-the-scenes moments reveal a rarely seen insider’s view of the industry.

Across its pages, It’s About Time traces James’s artistic evolution, technical innovation, and enduring focus on human connection. More than a retrospective, the book offers readers an extraordinary visual odyssey—following a young Australian photographer as his work carries him onto the global stage. This is an essential volume for collectors, photography enthusiasts, and anyone drawn to powerful visual storytelling.

In recent years, the media’s portrayal of “bigger men” has gradually evolved. However, many men, especially gay men, still experience insecurity and a lack of self-confidence because they rarely see themselves reflected in the media. The societal stigma surrounding body size and appearance can lead to depression and a destructive cycle of self-doubt. Photographer Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert’s Bigger project challenges societal norms and invites us to celebrate the beauty of all body types. By showcasing the diversity of larger individuals, the project emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and self-love.
The book features around 80 captivating portraits and offers a glimpse into the lives and experiences of men who have long been underrepresented in the media. With a natural and matter-of-fact approach, Ohlert skillfully captures the beauty and variety of bodies that deserve admiration and recognition.

Text in English and German.

“Glamour is what I sell,” Marlene Dietrich once said. “It’s my stock in trade.” 

Marlene Dietrich remains one of the most enigmatic figures of twentieth-century cinema. This collection brings together rare and iconic photographs spanning her extraordinary career, from glamorous studio portraits and film-set moments to intimate encounters away from the spotlight.

Featuring both world-famous and never-before-seen images, the book includes portraits by world-renowned photographers: Clarence Sinclair Bull, Cecil Beaton, George Hurrell, Lin Mayberry, Lee Miller, Cornel Lucas, Angus McBean and John Engstead as well as portfolios of eight renowned photographers – Eugene Robert Richee, Don English, William Walling Jr, Eve Arnold, Lawrence Fried, Norman Parkinson, Douglas Kirkland, and Terry O’Neill.  

An illustrated essay by former head of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, Terence Pepper OBE tells the stories behind the images, from childhood photographs of Dietrich through to her years in cabaret.  

The historical sweep and stylistic variety of the photographs throughout this book creates a rich visual tableau, shedding light on Dietrich’s famously mysterious character, which combined the sultry cabaret singer, the fierce patriot, the lover, the mother, and the independent thinker. 

In his first monograph; Libasse Ka brings together a selection of his recent work. In it he continues his exploration of the essence of painting and examines the boundaries of his own creative process.

Ka approaches painting as an ongoing process of layered transformation. His works emerge through the reworking of forms; the introduction of pauses; and the continuous reformulation of ideas. He frequently returns to older or unfinished canvases; which he reactivates to address unresolved questions or to give new direction to incomplete passages.

His compositions are driven by a lively rhythm; in which colour plays a prominent and propelling role.

This publication appears on the occasion of his solo exhibition at Carlos Ishikawa Gallery in London. His first institutional exhibition at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in the Autumn of 2025 received international attention and acclaim.

John Russell Pope is one of America’s most famous architects, responsible for many major works, including the Jefferson Memorial, the House of the Temple and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. This book, The Architecture of John Russell Pope, Selected Works: Houses is the first volume of a two-part monograph, to be followed by a volume on public buildings.

Made in association with the ICAA (the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art), this is a lavishly illustrated study of Pope’s extraordinary house designs, often inspired by classical European architecture, standing proudly among his achievements as the crown jewels in many of the USA’s most vaunted ZIP codes. Originally published during the 1920s, Pope’s exquisite floorplans and sketches accompany period photographs and the original commentary by art historian and traditionalist Royal Cortissoz to create a comprehensive and visually stunning account of a true titan of American design.

Houses include: the residence of Ogden Mills, Woodbury, Long Island; Moses and Edith Taylor’s Glen Manor House, Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Charlcote House, built for James Swan Frick in the suburbs of Baltimore; the now lost Oak Hill mansion, Jericho, Long Island; and Brodhead-Bell-Morton Mansion (aka Morton House) in the exclusive Logan Circle area of Washington DC.

From its headquarters at Špilberk Castle, Brno City Museum documents the history of Brno, from its earliest origins to the present day. Its famously diverse collections encompass more than 400,000 items, including more than 25,000 works of fine art, alongside archaeological and historical artifacts, and materials relating to architecture.

This curated selection of 50 works, each strikingly illustrated, represents the breadth of the institution’s collections in a clear, accessible guide. Four thematic, color-coded chapters celebrate intriguing objects from the Museum’s various collections, from Gallery (blue) to Architecture (green), History (red) to Archaeology (brown). In addition to Špilberk Castle, where its main exhibition rooms are located, the Brno City Museum oversees Villa Tugendhat, Villa Arnold, Villa Wittal and the Měnín Gate, all of which hold further exhibitions.

Brno City Museum: 50 is the inaugural volume in Kulturalis’s vibrant new series – Numbers – which showcases highlights from a collection based on a number chosen to reflect an anniversary or other special significance.

Van Hemessen & Father brings a forgotten family of artistic pioneers back into the spotlight, thereby rewriting the story of the Antwerp Renaissance from a surprising perspective: that of a painter’s studio where father and children worked together, experimented, and left their mark on art history. The book serves as the catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Snijders&Rockoxhuis in Antwerp, which, in a modified form, will have a second venue at the National Gallery in London. The focus is on daughter Catharina van Hemessen, the earliest Southern Netherlandish Renaissance painter of whom signed works have survived. She painted as a woman in a man’s world, signed her work with self-assurance and garnered international admiration from art connoisseurs even in her own time. Her work bears witness to artistic finesse and intellectual independence. Her father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, is regarded as a key figure in the artistic transition from Quinten Massijs to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with an artistic output that hovered somewhere between medieval mysticism and humanist realism. In the bustling Antwerp of the 16th century, he developed into an influential master with a thriving studio.

John Russell Pope is one of America’s most famous architects, responsible for many major works, including the Jefferson Memorial, the House of the Temple and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. Made in association with the ICAA (the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art), The Architecture of John Russell Pope, Selected Works: Public Buildings is the second volume of a two-part monograph. Following the first volume, which featured Pope’s highly much-admired houses, this second volume covers his public buildings, which include some of the most important civic structures in America, such as the memorial enclosing Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin in Kentucky, Constitution Hall in Washington DC, and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium at Yale University. Originally published during the 1920s, Pope’s exquisite floorplans and sketches accompany period photographs and the original commentary by art historian and traditionalist Royal Cortissoz to create a comprehensive and visually stunning account of a true titan of American design. 

This book reveals the wild, intimate beauty of Yunnan through striking photographs, drawings, and archival images, tracing how vernacular architecture and settlement patterns emerge from local ecology, materials, and ethnic traditions. Combining visual richness with scholarly insight, it re-examines overlooked cultural potentials and the sustainable, place-based wisdom embedded in Yunnan’s homes and villages. Perfect for architects, cultural researchers, travelers, and anyone drawn to living landscapes and regional identity.

Text in English and Mandarin.

Shafik Gabr started his collection of Orientalist art in 1993 by acquiring a painting by Ludwig Deutsch entitled Egyptian Priest Entering a Temple. His collection is today amongst the very few in the world to count such a large number of works by the famed Austrian artist as well as some of the finest examples of the greatest masters of Orientalism such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Gustav Bauernfeind and many others. Important for both scholars and art lovers, the Shafik Gabr Collection impresses us with its richness and variety. It includes masterpieces by some of the major nineteenth and twentieth century Orientalists found in private hands today and demonstrates the owner’s appreciation of differences as well as similarities in European visions of the versatile and diverse Orient. The selection of paintings in this collection illustrates the owner’s evolving taste, his relationship with the world of Orientalism and his interest in its European expression. This Orientalist collection is a harmonious “kaleidoscope” of genres, presenting the Orient through a variety of forms, styles and techniques, and revealing to the European viewer the mysterious East with its bright colors, its exotic and leisurely lifestyle. Over the years, it has become one of the most complete and magnificent tributes dedicated to the world of Orientalism and as such some of the most renowned experts in this field have contributed to this book in order to mark its importance in the art world. Lavishly illustrated, Masterpieces of Orientalist Art: The Shafik Gabr Collection also includes essays by distinguished Orientalist scholars.

The career of Y.G. Srimati – classical singer, musician, dancer and painter – represents a continuum in which each of these skills and experiences merged, influencing and pollinating each other.

Born in Mysore in 1926, Srimati was part of the generation much influenced by the rediscovery of a classical Sanskrit legacy devoted to the visual arts. Soon swept up in the nationalist movement for an independent India, she was deeply moved by the time she spent with Mahatma Gandhi. For the young Srimati, the explicit referencing of the past and of religious subjects came together in an unparalleled way, driven by the conscious striving for an indigenous agenda. This experience gave form and meaning to her art, and largely defined her style.

As John Guy demonstrates in this sumptuous volume, as a painter of the mid and late twentieth century, Y.G. Srimati embodied a traditionalist position, steadfast in her vision of an Indian style, one which resonated with those who knew India best.

In the last twenty-five years contemporary art in Scotland has grown from a tiny and tightly knit community to a globally recognized center of artistic innovation and experiment. This book provides the first comprehensive and fully illustrated guide to the art of the period. Featuring the work of more than eighty contemporary artists who first made their careers in Scotland including Turner Prize winners Douglas Gordon, Simon Starling and Martin Boyce. An accessible introduction for new audiences and a handy reference guide to the art of this period.

This major work, first published in 1950, is still considered the classic book on the subject. It provides a comprehensive, critical and well-illustrated survey of the portrayal of plants across over three thousand years, at a more compact size.

Of the first edition, the poet and gardening writer, Vita Sackville-West said: “Let no one think this is a book only for the specialist. It is essential for the specialist, certainly, but it is also for all the flower-lovers and all those who enjoy the by-ways of biography and the added attraction of good writing”.

This edition contains 123 color plates (more than twice as many as the first edition), alongside 148 black-and-white illustrations. It invites the reader to appreciate the works of the greatest botanical illustrators both past and present.

This issue of Metaphysical Art – The de Chirico Journals no. 21/22 (2022), centers around Giorgio de Chirico’s correspondence with his friend Fritz Gartz (1909–1911), which has been transcribed and translated into English. A related essay by Simonetta Antellini discusses de Chirico’s writing style and use of the German language. Other essays include Fabio Benzi’s examination of Florence’s cultural milieu in the years 1910–1911, which analyzes the musical, artistic, literary, and philosophical context in which Metaphysics was born. Elena Pontiggia presents a large and previously unpublished collection of letters written by de Chirico to his mother Gemma Cervetto, which has recently been acquired by the Foundation. Riccardo Dottori’s article offers a new interpretation of the painting Serenata (1910), based on a fresh literary source: On the Cave of the Nymphs by the ancient Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry. Completing this volume is a narrative essay by Italo Calvino entitled Cities of Thought (1983), translated into English and introduced by Anne Greeley, which was published alongside a major Paris retrospective of de Chirico’s metaphysical works.

Gilbert & George created Dark Shadow in 1974 as a ‘living sculpture book,’ the ‘result of our past three years of earnest daily thoughts, shadows, deeds, cares, and pleasures.’ Hurtwood’s limited re-edition of 2,000 marks its fiftieth anniversary.

Featuring original text and artwork by Gilbert & George, the publication offers an unparalleled perspective on the early career of one of the twentieth century’s most significant artistic duos. Like their art, Gilbert & George’s writing is irreverent, rebellious, often funny, and deeply poetic. The book includes a letter to their readers and photographs by the artists of themselves, their home in East London, and their pictures.

Dark Shadow is structured into eight chapters, which elaborate on the inspirations behind Gilbert & George’s work, such as London life and British culture, including, of course, Gordon’s Gin. As is emblazoned on the cover, Dark Shadow is a continuation of their lifelong agenda ‘Art for All’, and each book is a piece of art in itself, uniquely bound in the UK with hand-marbled cloth.

According to medieval theologians, faith is a deadly serious business. Humor and virtue are irreconcilable, because laughter is uncontrollable and escapes the control of reason. A modest smile is permitted. But laughing loudly, grinning and grimacing: these are the playing field of the devil – just as pernicious as other uncontrollable urges, such as physical love or the addiction of the gambler. That is the domain of the peasant or fool.

In the late Middle Ages, every right-thinking town-dweller knew the difference between the peasant and the fool. Peasants are innocently gullible, primitive, throwing themselves into feasting, gorging, drinking and sex. The peasant is the antithesis of the cultivated urbanite, who fastidiously controls his urges – and who therefore above all must not laugh too loudly. Only during Innocents Day parties or Shrove Tuesday celebrations is it permitted for urban partygoers to play the fool and to show their ‘underbelly’.

In contrast to the peasant, the fool escapes the existing order. He holds up a mirror to the self-declared wise citizens, because ‘the fool reveals the truth through laughter’, even though it may be hidden between piss and shit, sex and snot. It is for precisely this reason that Erasmus, in his In Praise of Folly writes not as himself but through the persona of Folly, a broad back behind which the wise person can hide when he denounces social problems. Laughter thus alters the world.

In this context, the fool and irony became important motifs in medieval art, especially in the Low Countries. This original art book is illustrated with dozens of top-quality works by Flemish masters from worldwide collections.

From the end of the 19th century onwards, jewelry became an important vehicle for the formal experimentation and plastic innovation of its time, thanks to the development of knowledge about stone, the techniques used to produce it and the development of the art of jewelry. Books and exhibitions showcase this leading decorative art, which accompanied Romanticism in all its forms. It accompanied Romanticism in its final stages before adopting the emerging Art Nouveau repertoire.

Text in English and French.

Italian and American Art focuses on the period between 1930 and 1980 in particular. By comparing artworks and examining exhibition and gallery policies, political meddling, and figures linking Italy to the United States, a common thread emerges which held two worlds that were literally an ocean apart but in constant touch as they explored each other’s movements contributing to art, from Futurism, Concrete art, and Abstract Expressionism, to Nuclear art, Pop art and Spatialism.

“A must for art lovers who like their culture with a side of room service.” — Boss Hunting

For centuries, art, design, and architecture have been used to transform, illuminate, preserve, and make sense of the world in which we live. Art and design, much like travel, are acts of discovery, invitations where influence, healing and enchantment are all possible. And as we travel, these art forms connect us to the unknown, deepening our comprehension and appreciation of the places and people we visit. The 28 hotels featured in this book creatively embrace art in its many forms to provide authentic reflections and experiences for every guest. The World’s Best Art & Design Hotels is dedicated to the influence, discovery, and power of art and design, as we travel — bon voyage!

Bright sun, blue sea, churning waves, shifting sand: these and other elements of surf life are featured here in work by 30 contemporary surf artists from around the world. In addition to the text are interviews with the artists, which gives a deeper understanding and insight into the transformation of their surf experience into art. Curated and written by surfing journalist Veerle Helsen, author of the bestselling travel guide Surf & Stay, this unique collection of paintings, watercolors, graphics, and digital artworks capture the joy, beauty, and energy of this sport and lifestyle.