For over 142,000 years, beads have played an important role around the world as the oldest form of personal adornment. Joyce J. Scott has revolutionized and transformed the potential of the ubiquitous bead as a relevant, contemporary art form. For over 51 years, wielding beads as a vision, she has devoted her aesthetic practice to waking up the world, expanding beadwork’s boundaries, with powerful in-your-face social commentary. While addressing society’s ills, her visual and performance conversations on cultural stereotypes and racial injustices, elucidate her vibrant brilliant works of art.
The publication Messages features Joyce J. Scott’s dynamic images with scholarly essays from experts in their field, as well as museum curator’s comments. Each individual provides deeper insights into the influences and extraordinary work of Joyce J. Scott, astutely capturing the essence and spirit of this icon of contemporary art.
With contributions by Jacqueline Copeland, Henry John Drewal, Valerie Hector, and Joyce J. Scott, and a foreword by Libby Cooper & Joanne Cooper.
Over the course of a long and very successful career spanning the first half of the 20th century, Lucy Kemp-Welch established herself as one of the leading equestrian painters at work in the UK and one of the country’s best-known women artists. David Boyd Haycock’s new, extensively illustrated biography of Kemp-Welch brings this remarkable artist and her work back into sharp focus.
Born in 1869, Kemp-Welch first came to the art establishment’s attention in 1897 when her immense painting, Colt Hunting in the New Forest, caused a sensation at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition; the work was bought for the Nation by the Chantry Bequest in the year of exhibition. In 1915, she illustrated Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, and was commissioned to paint images for the Government during the First World War. Later, the mural Women’s Work in the Great War, was placed in the Royal Exchange in London, where it remains to this day.
Respected art writer and curator Boyd-Haycock shines new light on Kemp-Welch’s life, writing from a 21st-century perspective and reflecting on her as a female painter in a male-dominated environment. Alongside Kemp-Welch’s paintings, the book will feature exclusive period photographs of the artist herself, shown at work and in her studio.
‘To critics who said that the full-lipped so-called ‘Beardsley mouth’, which adorned many of his women, was ‘inexpressive and ugly’, the artist countered, ‘Well, let them criticise. It’s my mouth and not theirs. I like big mouths. People like the little mouth – the “Dolly Varden” mouth, if that describes it better. A big mouth is the sign of character and strength. Look at Ellen Terry with her great, strong mouth. In fact, I haven’t any patience with small-mouthed people.’ ‘The popular idea of a picture is something told in oil or writ in water to be hung on a room’s wall or in a picture gallery to perplex an artless public.’ ‘To my mind, there is nothing so depressing as a Gothic cathedral. I hate to have the sun shut out by the saints.’ ‘What a nice ample creature George Sand is: like a wonderful old cow with all her calves.’ And other witty, urbane insights on life, art, and culture, illustrated with selected drawings from his Grotesques series.
The Ashmolean Museum catalog Italian Maiolica and Europe (2017) included a range of works from Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Mexico, as well as Italy, to illustrate the rich history of European tin-glazed pottery. Since then, the Ashmolean has expanded its holdings of tin-glazed and related earthenwares to consolidate its position as one of the world’s most important and wide-ranging collections. Among the acquisitions described here is the only known piece of Italian maiolica made for a Tudor Englishman, a plate made for Humphrey Dethick, who caused a nationwide stir in 1602 by an apparent attempt to assassinate King James VI of Scotland. The bequest from Sidney Knafel of New York has transformed the Museum’s holdings of French faience; while important 16th-century maiolica comes from the collection of the late Airlie Holden-Hindley. Among the lustrewares included are fin-de-siècle pieces by Clément Massier and work by some of the world’s supreme contemporary masters of the technique.
This paperback presents a compelling new body of work by London-based artist Susie Hamilton, created on the London Underground between 2023 and 2025. Comprising 89 drawings, the book captures the shifting, solitary figures of Tube passengers. The artwork ranges from monochrome pen-and-pencil sketches in sketchbooks to colorful mixed-media works on paper, cardboard, and torn canvas scraps.
The book includes a foreword by Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, situating Hamilton’s work within the Tube’s long history of working with – and inspiring – artists. An in-depth interview with writer Amah-Rose Abrams explores Hamilton’s making process, from site-responsive sketchbook works, to pieces later developed in her studio, while an extended essay by Dr Matthew Holman delves into the literary, poetic, and theological influences on her practice. A new text by the artist presents the Underground as a metaphor and place of metamorphosis in psychology, myth, poetry, and religion.
The book will coincide with the first Ashmolean NOW exhibition in Gallery 8, opening in July 2023. The Ashmolean NOW Program features exciting works by prominent early to mid-career artists based in the UK, seeking to attract new audiences interested in contemporary art. Artists who have established international reputations and emerging artists whose international status is anticipated with a strong degree of confidence are approached pro-actively. In addition to exhibiting their existing works, all artists are invited to create at least one new work as a response to the museum and/or its collections. This first exhibition presents two linked solo shows: paintings/drawings by Flora Yukhnovich, and paintings/drawings by Daniel Crews-Chubb. The double-sided style of the book will mirror the exhibition concept, while presenting itself as a unique, well designed object that has a life beyond the exhibition.
“This one of a kind book is a must have for anyone who is a dedicated fan of Marilyn Monroe, you will want to have this beautiful book in your collection!” — The Age of Vintage
“As the embodiment of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Monroe continues to captivate the world, and her aura manages to shine through these pages — disarming you with that megawatt smile.” — WWD
Marilyn Monroe 100 is the only official publication celebrating and commemorating the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth. Published in association with the Marilyn Monroe Estate, this stunning book brings together specially curated sections of work by the best photographers who collaborated with Monroe during her lifetime, including some of the greatest names in the art of photography.
André de Dienes, Joseph Jasgur and Bernard of Hollywood unveil early images of a young Norma Jeane; John Florea and Philippe Halsman showcase stunning publicity shots of an aspiring actress; Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwitt, Bruce Davidson and Henri Cartier-Bresson capture Marilyn on the sets of some of her most famous films; Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon portray the actress’s alluring beauty; and the candid photography of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Sam Shaw, George Barris and Milton Greene reveal another side to the Hollywood icon. The book ends with Bert Stern’s ‘Last Sitting’ along with recently rediscovered images of a radiant and smiling Monroe taken from a photo shoot for Life magazine by Allan Grant, originally published two days before the star’s death.
Alongside this sumptuous exhibit of Marilyn’s life, a selection of fascinating quotes by Monroe herself, as well as texts by scholars and admirers, chronicles the life of a woman with a unique persona who was a trailblazer ahead of her time. Looking back over the past 100 years, it becomes apparent just how avant-garde Marilyn Monroe truly was.
This exceptional book is a fitting celebration of the life of this most extraordinary woman.
Kettle’s Yard is widely recognized as a highly influential master class in curating; a flawless arrangement of art and objects that is still radical in its philosophy of seeking to fuse art with life. For many it is a place that has that rare power of changing how we see the world and our place within it. With a foreword by Jim Ede and an interesting floor plan guide, this book is a notable keepsake for all who love Kettle’s Yard, and a fantastic introduction for those yet to discover it.
Kettle’s Yard is the University of Cambridge’s modern and contemporary art gallery. The permanent collection displayed in the Kettle’s Yard House boasts works from 20th Century artists such as Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, Constantin Brancusi, Joan Miro, Barbara Hepworth and many more. Contemporary exhibitions are shown in the purpose-built galleries adjacent to the House.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet, painter, aesthete, founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was one of the most influential British artists to have lived. His extraordinary and obsessive vision was fuelled by the tortured love he felt for three muses: the tragic Lizzy Siddal, into whose coffin Rossetti cast the only manuscript of his poems (only to have her exhumed and the volume retrieved years later); the earthy former sex worker Fanny Cornforth; and Jane Burden, the statuesque wife of his friend William Morris. During the whole of his life Rossetti returned to the three faces, sometimes combining them, in his bid to encapsulate the nature of woman. The portraits he made range from rapid, vivid sketches to careful drawings and fully worked out allegorical paintings. Few artists have so relentlessly followed a particular vision; it is not surprising that Rossetti’s haunting and sensual paintings were admired by the Symbolists and Picasso alike.
With two essays by the leading scholar of Rossetti, Christopher Newall, and Holburne curator Sylvie Broussine, richly illustrated with 75 images including ravishing details in full page and spreads, this is a magnificent but approachable introduction to the riches and strangeness of Rossetti’s art.
This beautifully illustrated book of avant-garde art furniture design highlights a generation of creators whose energy and vision made a break with the past. Profiled here are Mark Brazier-Jones, Franck Evennou, Elizabeth Garouste, Marco de Gueltzl, Hubert Le Gall, Thierry Peltrault, Laurence Picot, Andrea Salvetti, and Claude de Wulf. All have been represented since the 1980s by Elisabeth Delacarte, whose Galerie Avant-Scène in Paris continues its mission of promoting these and other extraordinary furniture and jewelry designers to this day.
Text in English and French.
“The Turner Prize winner leads a visual tour through his life in six artworks – from college days to knighthood.” — Telegraph
Grayson Perry is one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists and cultural figures. This book, which includes first sight of new and previously unpublished works, is published to accompany the largest-ever retrospective of Perry’s art. It offers a vibrant insight into his life and work, from his youth in rural Essex to sell-out stage shows at the Royal Albert Hall.
Grayson Perry vividly reflects on his art, life and career, remembering the sources of inspiration and influences along the way. Victoria Coren Mitchell’s thought-provoking contribution considers the role of humour in Perry’s art, highlighting the often-underestimated effort involved in being at once a serious artist and a lovable character. Patrick Elliott provides an illuminating biographical essay of the artist. The reader is also given a fascinating glimpse into the technique and process behind Perry’s prints, pots and tapestries.
Showcasing 75 exhibited works, the book covers the full range and breadth of his astonishing career.
How does an artist work? How do ideas, emotions, and transcendental daydreams make their way from the mind to a physical format?
This book includes previously – published and newly – written texts about A K Dolven’s oeuvre. The texts vary greatly in form and content. Some examine the artist’s notebooks and the way they have influenced Dolven’s treatment of nature and geographical locations such as London, Berlin, and the Lofoten archipelago, while others explore Dolven’s relationship with other artistic eras and symbols, such as the baroque period or the figure of the Virgin Mary, as well as her ongoing dialogue with artists such as Edvard Munch and Helene Schjerfbeck. Other important themes addressed are concepts such as time and space, and how they have influenced Dolven’s art. In addition to presenting all of the retrospective’s featured works from the exhibition amazone at the National Museum of Oslo, the book is also richly illustrated with photographs and other materials culled from Dolven’s archive, providing unique insight into her artistic processes and documenting her decades-long career.
The debut monograph of Stacey Gillian Abe’s work is created to accompany her first London solo show at Unit London. Featuring works spanning her career to date, the book explores the key themes from Abe’s work and delves deep into her expressive and symbolic indigo portraits. Abe’s book includes insightful written contributions from Flavia Frigeri, art historian, lecturer and the Chanel Curator at the National Portrait Gallery and Serubiri Moses, renowned writer and curator, alongside a conversation between the artist and Catherine McKinley, curator and author of the critically acclaimed Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World and The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts. Abe’s work reflects her past and her memories, highlighting her personal experiences and her relationships to her community. The autobiographical dimension of her work confronts traditional depictions of the Black body, challenging the colonial lens. Abe creates imaginary spaces that induce a surreal mystical feel while probing unsettling past and present narratives of identity, gender, spirituality and cultural mysticism. Renowned for her indigo skin-tone paintings, the color has become crucial in reshaping narratives surrounding the black body. Through the color, she dives into the past to envision an alternative future for the Black race. To Abe, indigo represents a tribe of people that are not limited to social, economic, cultural, political or historic constraints: ‘it is about being unapologetic’.
Elizabeth Siddal is remembered as a Pre-Raphaelite supermodel and the muse and wife of Gabriel Rossetti. She is cast as a tragic heroine much like the Ophelia she modelled in the renowned Millais painting. But Elizabeth Siddal: Her Story overturns this myth. ‘Lizzie’ is presented as an aspirational and independent woman who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to let it be known.
With extraordinary stories, including previously undiscovered details of Siddal’s journeys across the UK and to the south of France, Jan Marsh reclaims Siddal’s narrative from the historical record. She brings new perspective to the post-natal, mental trauma Elizabeth suffered after a stillbirth. Furthermore, she casts new light on the renowned story of Siddal’s grave being exhumed for Rossetti’s poems.
Jan Marsh explores the finer, little known details of Siddal’s life, including her four months at art school in Sheffield, which Rossetti’s brother always denied. In addition to this, few will know how Siddal was often regarded as difficult and ungrateful.
Historical record tends to forget or misremember women, but with Elizabeth Siddal: Her Story, Jan Marsh forces us to take a closer look and see a very different picture. Siddal was not passive and lacking in agency, she was a woman with a strong mind, flourishing career and an admirable talent.
“Wow! Just wow! … It’s a really stunning thing. A love letter that is itself a work of art about a work of art that is Grayson. Both playful and deadly serious … these photos are not simply about ‘serving looks’ but about restlessness and identity and transience…. Ansett’s work is mind-blowing … not cosy at all. Just brilliant photography.” – Suzanne Moore
“Great to see Grayson in his various guises. He must have more women’s clothes than the average woman!” — Martin Parr
“Some are artists, some are muses — Sir Grayson Perry is both, according to a new coffee table book.” — The Standard
“Muse documents Perry’s Bowie-like range of personae, from his alter-ego Claire, to Madonna and child, to a Dolly Parton-style American country girl.” — Yahoo News UK
Grayson Perry is an award-winning artist best known in the art world for his ceramic works. To the wider public, he is perhaps equally famous for his cross-dressing alter ego. This book reveals a unique relationship between Perry and renowned portrait photographer Richard Ansett through a previously unseen archive from photoshoots spanning over 10 years.
Ansett astutely captures the wit, style and irreverence of Perry’s many complex personas. Beyond the snazzy outfits and cheeky poses, these thematic portrait collections offer wry social commentaries on current and popular phenomena, including the EU referendum, American pop culture and the existential questions of life and death.
At once glossy, fabulous and cutting-edge, Muse: A Portrait of Grayson Perry offers a complex, fascinating and ultimately affectionate insight into our recently knighted national treasure with anecdotes and narration from Ansett himself, this is a masterpiece of rhetorical observations and quick-thinking camerawork. Perfect for art geeks, style freaks and Perry’s long-devoted following.
Knokke Le Zoute has been a real household name in the Low Countries for decades when it comes to stunning architecture, art, design and luxury. From sleek, modern houses to the famous white villas and renovated apartments chock-full of art. In this book, the art and design fanatics from Knokke offer us an exclusive look into their dream homes. Their interiors tell a unique story from years of searching for the perfect piece to accidental discoveries that bring an interior together. The diverse owners of the houses in the book (from gallery owners to photographers) each experience Knokke in their own way.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
In this new book, Frank Ames concludes a trilogy of works, in which his sharp and revealing studies of the origins of the Sikh Kashmir shawl patterns under Maharaja Ranjit Singh not only remind us of their uniqueness and originality, but also, through their striking visuals, transport us through previously unknown ethereal and mystical dimensions of time and space.
From the tumultuous history of Punjab, the Sikhs rose to great power, commanding enough influence to draw the attention of the mighty British Raj. Ames guides us through the political, cultural, religious, and artistic events of the Punjab that gave rise to these transformative Sikh designs.
Pashmina Jewels emerges from the shared dedication of collector, Dr. Parvinderjit Singh Khanuja, and the author, both driven by a single purpose: to bring to light an art form long neglected by Indian historians.
Jinya Zhao: Holding Air, Holding Light explores the sculptural and perceptual practice of artist and researcher Jinya Zhao. Combining blown glass with drawing, installation, and spatial choreography, Zhao’s work occupies a liminal space between fragility and presence, memory and light. Rather than present objects as finished forms, she creates conditions for perception – inviting viewers to pause and inhabit moments of perceptual suspension. “Glass is not what I make, but how I listen to time,” she writes. Integrating theory and practice, Zhao transforms glass into an artistic language that connects memory, perception, and experience. This book features an essay by arts writer Emma Crichton-Miller and a conversation with Dr Xiaoxin Li of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It also includes 50 full-colour images. It is part of the Hurtwood Contemporary Artist Series and is published in collaboration with Taste Contemporary in Geneva.
Surrealist before she knew of the movement Lee Miller was ‘caustically brilliant, yet totally loyal, unpretentious, human and intolerant of sham. She was a consummate artist and a consummate clown; at once an upstate New York hick and cosmopolitan grande dame; a cold, soignée fashion model and a hoyden… She was a mechanical ‘tinker’, in the sense that her friend [the artist] Alexander Calder once called himself ‘just a tinker’. She was the nearest thing I knew to a mid-20th century renaissance woman’ described David E. Scherman, LIFE photographer and her very close friend.
Lee Miller was one of the most original photographic artists of the 20th century, her Surrealist eye informed everything she did. Her work presents the world in a way that encourages us to view it in a different manner.
The Story So Far is the first comprehensive overview of Helen Britton’s work published to celebrate the Australian Design Centre’s Living Treasure: Masters of Australian Craft award. The book covers over 40 years of Britton’s multidisciplinary practice and presents her extraordinary, often colorful and playful works. They evoke childhood memories while also addressing darker aspects of life, leaving the viewer to ultimately find their own meaning within them.
Alongside large-format images of her works and the photographic essay “My Godmother’s House” are contributions by Lisa Cahill, Julie Ewington, Barbara Paris Gifford, Katie Scott, and Toni Greenbaum, the artist’s own texts, and excerpts from the collected writings of Ted Snell and Robert Cook.
Painter Roland Penrose and photographer Lee Miller’s move to Farleys in Sussex, UK, was not to settle down but to create, entertain, and inspire. In this publication, their son Antony Penrose, recalls the 1950’s with a fascinating insight into his parents’ lives, as they transformed Farleys from a traditional farmhouse into a hub of art. Farleys with unexpected decoration and surreal living had a wealth of 20th century artists visiting the home. The book is designed to reflect the colors and designs from the color on the walls to the textiles of the furnishings.
“Inès van den Kieboom paints in a remarkably anticyclical manner. Through the calm, unassuming conviction with which she pursues her artistic goals, as well as through her archaic, supratemporal pictorial inventions, she shows the present what art really is – and what it has the potential to be.” — Markus Stegmann
Inès van den Kieboom (b. 1930 in Ostend; lives and works in Antwerp) has been painting since the 1960s, yet she only decided to exhibit her paintings in the last two years. Van den Kieboom mainly finds inspiration for her works in her everyday surroundings, but also in art history, popular culture and current affairs. She paints or draws her subjects through the filter of her memories or impressions, which she depicts figuratively, abstracted to their essence. Van den Kieboom’s self-assured, lively and energetic paintings offer new perspectives on the way we observe the world.
In collaboration with Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp, where the artist’s retrospective runs from 23 March to 20 May 2023.
With text contributions by Petra Maclot and Markus Stegmann.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
“Dennis Tyfus appears like a punk-blasted sprite bursting from his pantaloons, a charmed creature’s tongue lolloping the golden inspirations both fresh and world-weary amid the gallery of noise freaks and intellectual elites.” – Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth
The practice of Antwerp-based artist Dennis Tyfus (b. 1979) encompasses a wide range of artistic media, including drawings, sculptures, installations, videos, magazines, books, music, vinyl records, tattoos, his own radio show, concerts and performances. In his oeuvre, everything flows into everything else, without a fixed definition, beginning or end. In doing so, he draws heavily on the work of artists such as Dieter Roth, Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and Wim T. Schippers. By combining elements from his personal psyche with various aspects of high and low culture and approaching them on an equal footing, Tyfus creates a universe in which the personal, the everyday and the uncanny come together. This book brings together a wide selection from his oeuvre.
This publication accompanies the exhibition Don’t Tell Me Not to Tell You What to Do at de Warande, Turnhout, Belgium from 30 April to 13 August 2023.
With text contributions by Helena Kritis, curator at WIELS contemporary art centre in Brussels, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and artist Steven Warwick.
Text in English and Dutch.
1937 could be named ‘the summer of love‘ for Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, who had recently met for the first time & their friends, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Picasso, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Ady Fidelin and more. This facsimile of Lee and Roland’s photograph albums shows their summer holiday together as portrayed in the 2024 feature film LEE and demonstrates the freedom and friendship of these artists as World War Two looms on the horizon.