Helfried Kodré is a pioneering Austrian exponent of contemporary art jewelry. He learnt goldsmithing in the 1960s while studying art history and worked at first with Elisabeth Defner, to whom he was married at the time. From the mid-1970s Kodré abandoned goldsmithing for a while but after a rather lengthy break, in which he taught at university, he re-emerged in the early 1990s as a jewelry artist. At the outset of his career, his formal bent was towards natural symbolism and organic allusions. Since the early 1990s an entirely different aesthetic informs his work: articulation that is anything but ambivalent, precision of design and formal language. In the work Kodré has produced in the past fifteen years, on which this publication focuses, the play of volumes and their exciting relationships predominates in a rhythm of expansion, opening and overlapping.
A new publication in our art jewelry series, the book centers on the second phase of Kodré’s career from 1990. It also traces his development as an artist from the 1960s. Featuring numerous color illustrations and essays written by experts in the field.
Text in English and German.
Happenstance and gesture play a central role in the creative work of the ceramicist Johannes Nagel (b. 1979). His objects, which are orientated towards traditional ideas of vessels but are also freely composed, examine the associations between form and idea. Using work techniques such as burrowing into sand to form negative figurations for casting, he successfully performs his work directly and manually, lending the process of searching a tangible presence.
The publication focuses on Nagel’s oeuvre from the last four years. Earlier work groups are also presented as highlights. The collector Jörg Johnen and the philosopher Marcel René Marburger set Nagel’s work in relation to artistic tendencies of the twentieth century and shine a light on the intellectual-historical background of the gestural as an intermediary between the power of imagination and its manifestation in an object.
Text in English and German.
“Absolutely essential for all the connoisseurs and Rolex lovers.” — Laura Astrologo Porché, celebremagazine world
Why do we collect? For some, it is a pursuit of pure passion – those who appreciate the wristwatch as an artform: the intricacy of its mechanics, the finesse of its form. Yet for others, collecting is an investment, and a watch’s value is of as much importance as its appearance. All collectors ought to have a guide to models and market value. Rolex: Investing in Wristwatches offers detailed insights into the world of authenticating and pricing high-value wristwatches, which will be of use to collectors from amateur to connoisseur.
This publication includes the vast majority of key Rolex models, along with their relevant auction results. The timepieces featured have been carefully selected by Senior 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).
A comparative analysis of auction results, compiled through close collaboration with the Sotheby’s auction house, shows, by brand and timepiece, the evolution of prices over time, leading from the Eighties up to the present day. A system to calculate the currency exchange rate at the time of auction sales will also be included in this vital work of reference.
In 1955 seventy-four original plasters recording sculptures by Edgar Degas (1834–1917) were moved to the old Valsuani foundry in Paris only to reappear in France in 2004. These plasters are now being published for the first time, presenting new documentary and physical evidence regarding their dating following an in-depth analysis into the condition of Degas’s waxes at the time of his death. Technical and documentary evidence now proves that as many as half of the serialized “Hébrard” Degas bronzes now held in museum and private collections around the world were in fact cast at the Valsuani foundry in the 1950s and 1960s – long after the Hébrard foundry closed in 1935/36. All of the now cleaned 74 Degas plasters are recorded in full color illustrations. in this scholarly catalogue raisonné. The detailed appendix, which can be accessed via a QR code, provides additional information on the objects and is designed as a scholarly catalogue raisonné.
Creator and architect of the emblematic Maison de verre in Paris, Pierre Chareau left behind a rich and coherent body of work, a “Chareau style” that places him as much in the modernist movement as in avant-garde thinking that embraces a world of new forms and materials.
This first volume looks back at his biography, his decisive encounters with artistic movements such as cubism and primitive arts, and with leading figures such as Nicolas de Staël, Jeanne Bucher, Jacques Lipchitz, Pablo Picasso, Rose Adler, Max Jacob, Jean Lurçat and Rob Mallet-Stevens, who remained loyal to him throughout his short life.
It traces his career, from his beginnings as a draughtsman at Waring & Gillow to his emergence as an independent designer; it details his participation in the Salons d’automne, the Salons des artistes décorateurs, the Groupe des 5 and the UAM, which set the tone for the modernity that thrilled the rest of the world; his work on Marcel L’Herbier’s film sets; and his departure for the United States in 1940. It also introduces us to the collector and gallery owner, surrounded by artists such as Braque, Ernst, Gris, Léger, Lurçat, Masson, Modigliani, Motherwell and de Staël. The boutique he set up with his wife Dollie, on rue du Cherche-Midi, exhibits not only his own works but also the creations they produced: fabrics by Hélène Henry, rugs by Jean Burkhalter and Charchoune…
Richly illustrated with almost 500 visuals, this first volume offers a complete overview of Dollie’s furniture and lighting production, drawing on several iconographic collections (Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, Moma, New York).
Text in French.
Daniel Kruger’s (b. 1951) new monograph Jewellery – The unexpected meaning of curious things presents his jewelry art of the last ten years. Kruger, who grew up in South Africa, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and taught at the University of Art and Design at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle. He gives things an unexpected meaning. Inspired by movement and his fascination with the visual quality of materials and objects, shapes, and colors, he creates a synthesis of supposed opposites, and it is this new context that elevates these connections into something precious. Through his freedom of thought, he creates a world of objects to be contemplated, but above all to adorn the body and the human being.
Text in English and German.
Portia Zvavahera is one of the outstanding artists of her generation. Born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1985, she has developed a unique combination of print/painting techniques to register a private world of dreams, fantasies and figural constructions. She received her art education in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, and has become recognized in the past decade as one of the foremost representatives of African figuration, showcased at the Venice Biennale in 2022, and in a number of commercial gallery exhibitions in South Africa, the US and the UK. She has not yet had a solo show in a public museum in Europe.
This new publication accompanies a major exhibition, curated by Tamar Garb, which will include reproductions of brand new works created on the occasion of this exhibition alongside a selection of recent and older paintings which reveal the depth and richness of Zvavahera’s practice. The focus will be on the theme of dreams, fantasy and figuration, and large details will highlight Zvavahera’s innovative amalgamation of printmaking and painting techniques that build rich surfaces to create her private cosmology of creatures and contexts.
The book will feature a significant new essay from curator Tamar Garb and will center around an extensive conversation between Garb, Sinazo Chiya, Tandazani Dhlakama and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela discussing Zvavahera’s engagement with eros, intimacy and female-centered experience.
The book will open up how Zvavahera’s works emerge from dreams; being figurative without being illustrative, registering a world of feminine experience and fantasy.
If we understand “transcendence” as a multidimensional experience, can light as a medium grant us access to invisible realms? The artist Fabian Gatermann uses light as the key material for his installations, objects, and multiples in order to investigate new dimensions. Over the course of his work, Gatermann disengages himself from the classic scientific engineering system of testing; instead his works can be seen as open-ended unconventional experiments. During this creative process, light oscillates between amorphous and crystalline states, taking the viewer on a transcendental voyage of discovery. The central reference throughout remains the human being: the works provoke active participation and invite the viewer to become part of a multi-perspective game of light and space.
Text in English and German.
Helen Williams Drutt English is an American gallerist, collector, mediator, and promoter of contemporary art jewelry. In homage to this grand dame of international studio jewelry and her 60 years of collecting, the publication presents selected works by American and German artists in a combination never before seen. Representing the diversity of American art jewelry are 140 examples from the last 70 years, from modernist minimalist or narrative works to objects with a strong sociopolitical message. The display of almost 100 works by German jewelry artists impressively documents the various developments in contemporary jewelry in both countries, as well as mutual influences and commonalities. The works testify to Helen Williams Drutt English’s great devotion to and engagement with art jewelry. Moreover, they represent her friendship with artists from both the USA and Germany and, not least, the close cultural and artistic connection between these two countries.
Text in English and German.
Dana Meyer’s South Pacific Expedition provides a fascinating insight into the world of entomological collecting, driven by the human urge for discovery and adventure. Featuring numerous illustrations and 12 letters, this book tells not only of the passion of an insect collector but also of a perilous journey to the South Seas at the turn of the century.
Published in this form for the first time, this collection is a fascinating and at the same time unsettling art project that blurs the boundaries between authenticity and fiction. The finely crafted sculptures are cold-formed from thin sheet steel and presented in preserving jars. The creatures appear deceptively real and at the same time their strange appearance is astonishing.
Meyer’s South Pacific Expedition offers the viewer the opportunity to imagine an exploration expedition 100 years ago and at the same time this series of works defies exact classification; the boundaries between nature, literature and art, reality and fantasy become blurred.
Text in English and German.
This impressive book offers a comprehensive overview of designer and sculptor Eric Schmitt’s work, focusing on the years 2015–2025 while tracing the notable shifts of his practice since the 1980s. Working primarily with noble materials such as patinated bronze, alabaster, marble, natural stone, and glass, Schmitt blends traditional French craftsmanship with a modern aesthetic to create functional works of art that balance geometry, fluidity, and subtle strength. Written in English and French, the book opens with an introduction by Patrick Mauriès, who charts the development of Schmitt’s artistic influences—from his early fascination with the Creative Salvage movement in the 1980s to his enduring commitment to hands-on fabrication. Organized thematically, the book’s central section explores Schmitt’s creations through chapters such as Cornerstones, Metal & Company, Levitation, and Material Illusions, with opening ommentaries by Axelle Corty.
Through stunning photography by Adrien Dirand, readers are invited onto the grounds of Le Chapitre, while Alexandra Babeanu’s text shares the story behind the restored 12th-century farm that serves as Schmitt’s home, studio, and collaborative workshop.
The volume concludes with an extensive catalogue raisonné of more than 700 pieces, establishing the book as both a visual archive and an essential reference for collectors, curators, and design professionals. Eric Schmitt portrays the distinguished designer’s multi-faceted practice, one that continues to blur the boundaries between design,
sculpture, and architecture.
Eric Schmitt (born in 1955) is a renowned French designer and sculptor internationally recognized for his sculptural, timeless furniture and objects. Self-taught, he began his career creating expressive wrought-iron pieces before evolving toward refined, minimal-ist forms inspired by nature, architecture, and his upbringing in Poitou, France.
Text in English and French
Unlocking Paintings is a new guide, highlighting masterpieces from the collection of Dulwich Picture Gallery while also offering universal tools to help ‘unlock’ the secrets behind any work of art.
This book provides an in-depth look into the mind of the artist and the unique context in which they created their art, finding new perspectives that show exactly why these works are still so powerful today.
A sumptuous celebration of one of the world’s most striking photograph collections from 1967 to 2017. This publication celebrates fifty years of collecting photographs at the National Gallery of Canada. In 1967, when the collection was established, the photography market was in its infancy and the collection reflects the availability of in-depth collections of work by some of the forefathers of the medium such as Charles Nègre, William Henry Fox Talbot, Gustave Le Gray and Roger Fenton, among others. Within a few short years of starting to build the collection the science of photographic preservation and conservation was making remarkable strides and influencing the acquisition and exhibition of photographs in museums. This publication celebrates the collecting of photographs, the historical and art historical context of their making and the deepening of our understanding of their physical nature. The work of 164 artists, such as: Benoit Aquin; Diane Arbus; Eugène Atget; Nicolas Baier; Edouard Baldus; Brassaï; Julia Margaret Cameron; Henri Cartier-Bresson; Lynne Cohen; Benjamin John Dancer; Walker Evans; Robert Frank; Lee Friedlander; Isabelle Hayeur; Arnaud Maggs; Robert Mapplethorpe; John Max; Lisette Model; Eadweard Muybridge; Charles Nègre; William McFarlane Notman; Marc Ruwedel; Jospeph Sudek; William Henry Fox Talbot and vernacular and news photographs by unknown photographers will also be included.
In 1925 Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh bought Kenwood, the magnificent 18th-century mansion of the 6th Earl of Mansfield on Hampstead Heath. The empty house was just what Iveagh needed to provide a gallery for the best of the art collection he had formed between 1887 and 1891 for his palatial home in Mayfair. Through the Iveagh Bequest Act of 1929 he left his collection to the nation, where it remains on display at Kenwood. This catalog reproduces in glorious full color Lord Iveagh’s bequest of paintings, discusses each work, and in addition discusses the wider collection on display at Kenwood, the spectacular white villa of Hampstead Heath.
“I was impressed by The Stones. They were dressed casually, had mischief in them and were different to other bands.” Terry O Neill
In July 1962, a group of young men played a gig at The Marquee Club on Oxford Street, London. They called themselves ‘The Rollin’ Stones’ and little did they know they would soon be making music history.
This brilliant new book captures the youth, the times and the spirit of The Stones’ formative early years. And documenting 1963-1965 were two young photographers just starting out in their careers. Terry O’Neill, aged just 25, had a few years’ experience photographing musicians and knew that this group had the same magic as another British phenomenon that just recently started to chart, The Beatles. As the band was starting to record and tour, Gered Mankowitz came along. His first shoot, the now famous Mason’s Yard session, was so fruitful, Gered was asked to tag along on tour to America. Gered was a mere 19 when he picked-up his camera and joined the band on stage in 1965. Between these two legendary photographers, they document the band’s beginnings and these indelible images are forever placed in music’s consciousness. The photography throughout this book is embellished with various memoires and interviews, celebrating the early days and giving an insight into what it must have felt like to go from a small club in Soho with no record deal to touring the world a few years later with a number one record. Terry O’Neill and Gered Mankowitz, two of the most respected, collected and exhibited photographers in the world were sitting in the front-row.
In 2016, London’s Saatchi Gallery hosted the first ever major exhibition dedicated to the band: Exhibitionism, a career-spanning, museum-style display of Stones artifacts and memorabilia. The publication of this book coincided with the opening of this ground-breaking exhibition.
Over five decades, the painter Humphrey Ocean RA’s work has filtered into our national culture. This includes his series of portraits entitled A handbook of modern life displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2013; his portrait of Christopher Le Brun, President of the Royal Academy of Arts; and the cover of Sir Paul McCartney’s 2007 album Memory Almost Full, which featured one of the Chair series. Ocean’s practice encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, book-making and drawing. Of the last, he has said: ‘Paper is lovely, immediate and personal. I draw as an end in itself.’ In 2019 his exhibition ‘Birds, Cars and Chairs’ was on display at the Royal Academy of Arts. Of these subjects, he says: ‘Birds, cars and chairs are, in that order, ancient, modern and intimate. Without them life would be a lot less bearable.’ These works are reproduced alongside others in the book to provide a fascinating overview of Ocean’s career, with an essay by Ben Thomas, which sets out to discover exactly what it is that makes Ocean’s art so appealing and universal.
Mohandas K. Gandhi has been described as ‘an artist of non-violence,’ crafting as he did a set of practices of the self and politics that earned him the mantle of Mahatma, ‘the great soul.’ His philosophy and praxis of satyagraha, non-violent civil disobedience, has been analyzed extensively. But is satyagraha also an aesthetic regime, with practices akin to a work of art? Is Gandhi, then, an artist of disobedience? Sumathi Ramaswamy explores these questions with the help of India’s modern and contemporary artists who have over the past century sought out the Mahatma as their muse and invested in him across a wide range of media from painting and sculpture to video installation and digital production. At a time when Gandhi is a hallowed but hollow presence, why have they lavished so much attention on him? A hundred and fifty years after his birth, Gandhi is hyper visible across the Indian landscape from tea stalls and government offices to museums and galleries. This is ironical given that the Mahatma appeared to have had little time for the visual arts or for artists for that matter. Yet fascinatingly, the visual artist has emerged as Gandhi’s conscience-keeper, reminding others of the meaning of the Mahatma in his own time and today. In so doing, these artists also reveal why this most disobedient of ‘modern’ icons has grabbed their attention, resulting in a veritable art of disobedience as an homage to one of the twentieth century’s great prophets of disobedience.
For ten years, New York’s Alleged Gallery provided a breeding ground and played the role of willing accomplice to some of the most vibrant American art to come along in decades. By exhibiting the then emerging talents of Mark Gonzales, Chris Johanson, Rita Ackermann, Susan Cianciolo, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Mike Mills, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell and Terry Richardson, much of Alleged’s impact was due to a complete and utter disregard for the status quo. Using a potent blend of photographs, artworks and interviews with artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, collectors and other denizens of the era, Aaron Rose’s Young, Sleek and Full of Hell documents the glorious trials and tribulations of running an independent gallery in the final hours of the 20th century.
The full list of the artists interviewed by Brendan Fowler in the book is as follows: Thomas Campbell, David Aron, Liz Goldwyn, Joey Garfield, Leo Fitzpatrick, Spike Jonze, Audrey ‘Rose’ Bernstein, Kid America, Amy Gunther, Mike Mills, Jason Lee, Arik ‘Moonhawk’ Roper, Carlo McCormick, Shelter Serra, Kim Hastreiter, Andre Razo, Chris Pastras, Lila Lee, Athena Razo, Joshua Wildman, Brian Degraw, Chris Habib, Julia Gandelsonas, Bill Powers, Sasha Hirschfeld, Susan Cianciolo, Shayla Hason, Ari Marcopoulos, Cynthia Connolly, Adam Glickman, Michele Lockwood, Terry Richardson, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Tobin Yelland, Craig R. Stacyk II, Jess Holzworth, Marcellus Hall, Ashley Macomber, Tatiana von Furstenberg, Stefano Giovannini, Adam Wallacavage, Rita Ackermann, Erin Krause, Chan Marshall, Stephen Powers, David Hershkovits; Thurstone Moore, Chris Johanson, Janice Gaffney, Ed Templeton, Hugh Gallagher, Harmony Korine, Andy Jenkins, Ryan McGinley, Cheryl Dunn, Simone Shubuck, Shepard Fairey, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Lee Ranaldo, Seth Hodes, Bruce Labruce, Brendan Fowler, Dakota Goldhor, Beata Hendricks, Ivory Serra, Susanna Howe, Mai-Thu Perret, Christian Strike, Chloe Sevigny, Oliver Zaham and Clare Crespo.
The Swiss artist David Bielander (b.1968) is one of the most significant proponents of contemporary art jewelry in the world. With him, nothing is what it seems: corrugated cardboard is actually silver or gold, Wiener sausages are a chair in a coffee house, shapely lips are made of rubber… This ambiguity distinguishes his work as much as his exceptional knowledge of materials and artisanal skill. Created with the support of Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung, David Bielander offers the first comprehensive review of this multi-award-winning artist, who with his conceptual reflection and power of imagination creates works full of wit and sensuality. With essays by: Gijs Bakker, Maria Cristina Bergesio, Rutger Emmelkamp, Karl Fritsch, Toni Greenbaum, Florian Hufnagl, Bernhard Schobinger, Marjan Unger, Jorunn Veiteberg et al. Exhibition: mudac – Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains, Lausanne (CH), 8. 2. – 30. 4. 2017 Text in English, French and German.
This book represents the first retrospective in print on the fascinating work of the English artist in jewelry David Watkins, who started out as a jazz pianist and sculptor but has been designing jewelry since the 1960s. At the outset of his career, he designed miniature works of sculpture. Later he began producing outsize wearable objects. Watkins is increasingly preoccupied with the interrelationship of the body and jewelry; his pieces of jewelry are becoming autonomous art objects in their own right. David Watkins’s versatility as a jewelry-designer is astonishing: the diverse materials he uses range from paper to acrylic, Neoprene and Colorcore to gold as well as a profusion of plastics. His aesthetic “idiom” encompasses stringent structuring as well as monochrome Minimalism and compositions improvised in stunning forms and vibrant colors. Watkins is equally comfortable working with traditional jewelry-making techniques and computer-aided design as used throughout the manufacturing sector. Drawing on a wealth of photographs, drawings and statements made by the artist himself, the book provides invaluable insights into the way David Watkins works.
Gisbert Stach’s (b. 1963) monograph Jewellery and Experiment presents a multifaceted opus from twenty-five years of gold- and silversmithing. In his oeuvre the primarily conceptual artist combines jewelry with video, photography and performance. One focus of his work deals with processes of transformation and experiment – pieces disappear through chemical dissolution, and form is determined by agencies of growth in nature. Stach works with means of alienation and irritation. Ground amber serves as pigment, which he works into jewelry pieces in the form of fish fingers, sliced bread or schnitzel. A further characteristic of his work is the performative act, for example when brooches are pelted with knives.
Gisbert Stach is represented in numerous museums and collections, including Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, Munich (DE); Fondazione Cominelli, Brescia (IT); Museo de Arte Moderno, Tarragona (ES); Museum of Arts & Crafts, Itami (JP); Gallery of Art, Legnica (PL); Museum of Bohemian Paradise, Turnov (CZ); Amber Museum, Gdansk (PL).
Published to accompany exhibitions at Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart (DE), 9-11 November 2018, and Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein (BKV), Munich (DE) 28 February-24 March 2019.
Text in English and German.