Pierre-Émile Legrain (1888-1929) was a French bookbinder, framer, landscape designer, furniture designer, and interior architect. This is the first full-length monograph about him, exploring his life and his creations in every genre, and highlighting the formal links between his work as an ensemblier, bookbinder, and draftsman. Pierre Legrain is credited with revolutionizing bookbinding in the early 20th century. In 1916 he was commissioned by the French bibliophile, couturier, and collector Jacques Doucet to design bindings for his extensive library. He created nearly 400 unique bindings for him, and numerous frames for Doucet’s exceptional modern art collection – including a steel frame for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon – as well as a series of African-inspired furniture. He was a member of the UAM, whose logo he designed, and he associated with André Breton, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, the sculptors Gustave Miklos and Henri Laurens, the painter Francis Picabia, and the milliner Jeanne Tachard for whom he designed a garden. His rare body of work – a hundred or so pieces of furniture and a few interiors – is dispersed today in museums and private collections throughout the world.
Text in French.
Collecting objects gives enormous pleasure to approximately one third of the population, providing such benefits as intellectual stimulation, the thrill of the chase, and leaving a legacy. On the other hand, the same pursuit can engender pain; for example, paying too much for an object, unknowingly buying a fake, or dealing with the frustrations of collection dispersal. Until recently, there was no objective way to enhance the positive (pleasure) aspects of collecting and minimize the negative (pain). Now, for the first time, scientific research in neuro- and behavioral economics gives us a way to turn this around.
Neuroeconomics is the study of the biological foundation of economic thought, while behavioral economics incorporates insights from psychology and other social sciences into the examination of monetary behavior. By using examples from these disciplines, Shirley M. Mueller, MD, relates her own experiences as a serious collector and as a neuroscientist to examine different behavioral traits which characterize collectors.
The contents of this book are cutting edge, unique and sure to get attention. Mueller breaks new ground in an area not previously explored. Her information is relevant not only for collectors, but also for colleges, and universities which teach collection management, plus museum staff who interact with collectors and dealers of objects desired by collectors. Heavily illustrated with ceramics from Mueller’s collection and packed with useful information, this book will become a required vital resource.
How Many Is One encapsulates one of the fundamental questions at the core of art and design. This issue is highly pertinent to jewelry design as a language that seeks form through which to articulate ideas. The oeuvre of Deganit Stern Schocken (b. 1947) has delved into the socio-political question of place, creating works in which text is incorporated as an integral part of the object; in the process the artist has adhered to the classical language of jewelry while employing state-of-the-art technologies. The book explores the architectural-planning aspect in Stern Schocken’s jewellery. While each object stands in its own right (like a building), it is also part of a system (the city). The trial-and-error process of casting and the notion of ‘value’ also play an important role in the artist’s work, which alludes to local society and Israeli reality.
This monograph presents the Norwegian artist Bente Sætrang (b. 1946) and her forty years of commitment to the medium of textile. Sætrang is known for her intensive investigation of trompe l’oeil drapery, bold textile printing, monumental abstract color studies, and juicy charcoal drawings. She was Norway’s first professor of textile art, and her political engagement and unique knowledge of color and textile qualities permeate her work. Through essays, poems, interviews, montages, and rich imagery, this monograph sheds light on the different phases of Sætrang’s artistic practice and provides an excellent overview of this exciting artistic work.
Text in English and Norwegian.
Published to accompany an exhibition at Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (NO), between 22 October and 22 November 2020.
This catalogue for an exhibition at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht features paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Younger and his contemporaries that depict the popular religious subject “Christ Carrying the Cross,” and examines these works for covert critiques of power and politics in Flanders during the 16th and 17th centuries. The show explores how artists incorporated both direct and indirect social and political criticisms into paintings on this theme, and brings together a selection of works from Bruegel the Younger, his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers.
The works in porcelain and colorful shades of stoneware by Doris Banks might be modest and reduced in form, color, and decoration yet they still possess a remarkable impact and presence. All the objects are one-offs – modeled, formed, pressed, folded, glazed, and decorated by hand. As a result, the natural character of the material remains vivid. With a minimalist aesthetic beholden to Asia, the ceramic artist’s works are characterized by a virtuoso play of form and surface that allows a tactile experience of textures on the exterior surface. This monograph is an in-depth appraisal not only of these works but also of an artist who despite her early death achieved remarkable things in studio ceramics.
Text in English and German.
Dante (the seventh centenary of whose death is being marked in 2021), the author of one of the greatest works of European literature, has also inspired a wealth of images which, themselves, continue to shape our perceptions of the poet as visionary; of romantic love and political corruption; and of hell and salvation, whether understood in the context of this world or another. At the core of the Comedy and of its related visual images is the emblematic significance of the lives of individual persons.
Dante may be considered the inventor of our modern ideas of fame and celebrity. He was the first person who, though of no particular distinction in the world – a mere poet – became a celebrity in his own lifetime. And in the Comedy, Dante made famous individuals about whom we should otherwise know nothing. For the first time, poetry turned obscurities into household names – the doomed adulterous lovers, Paolo and Francesca; Ciacco the glutton; the gentle personality of La Pia. The radical democracy of Dante’s perspective had no precedent.
Dante also questioned the significance and value of worldly fame. His reflection on the human desire for notoriety is paradigmatic for our own society of spectacle, in which (as Andy Warhol predicted) ‘everyone will be world-famous for five minutes’. Dante himself was keenly aware of religious warnings about the futility of worldly vanity; yet he arrived at a personal conviction that the earthly fame of the poet could none the less be a force for good.
In their remarkable art project Eyes as Big as Plates, ongoing since 2011, the two artists Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen explore the relationship between humans and nature. To this end, they have traveled the world and created portraits of 52 people in diverging landscapes. The resulting series of photographs presents people whose age is typically over 50, wrapped in artistic, almost living sculptures made of the most diverse natural materials that Hjorth and Ikonen collected from the subjects’ surroundings: their floral, faunal, and fungal cohorts. The sensitively shot photographs open up new aesthetic worlds full of playful effortlessness that convey a strong message: We are nature!
For the Norwegian-Finnish duo, it is not just about a successful photographic image. This second volume of the series consolidates these atmospheric portraits with concise descriptions of those portrayed, who, rather than remain solely as props in the picture, present themselves and their life stories. The Field Notes section compiles further photographic material composed around the portraits. The artists offer insights into the portraits’ process of creation and provide us with the opportunity to accompany the artists on their journeys.
In his unique works Franz Josef Altenburg realized in clay the process of reduction and simplification that he had been pursuing systematically throughout his career. Combining the texture of the material with the order of his creations, the result is major series ranging from his Houses, Stairs, Pedestals, and Backdrops to his Blocks, Towers, Scaffolds, Containers, and Frames. With his expert mastery of handling and design techniques evident throughout the six decades of his oeuvre, Altenburg elevated ceramics into the realm of fine art.
This book documents and analyzes the artist, his work, and the site of his creativity in texts by art experts and a writer and offers for the very first time a comprehensive overview of his works, as well as an extensive illustrated biography with a list of exhibitions.
Text in English and German.
The story of Ladurée started in 1862 when Louis Ernest Ladurée opened a bakery in the heart of Paris at 16 rue Royale. In 1872, following a fire, the little bakery became a pastry shop and the decoration was then done by Jules Cheret, a famous painter and poster-designer of the time. Jeanne Souchard, Ernest Ladurée’s wife, then had the idea of combining the Parisian café with a pastry-shop, thereby creating one of Paris’ first tea-rooms.
In 1993 Ladurée was bought by Francis and David Holder and becomes one of the best-known gourmet addresses in Paris, a veritable institution with its famous “macaron” as its emblem. In 1997 Ladurée opened a tea-room/restaurant on the prestigious Champs-Elysées, followed by another in the Printemps department store and on the Left Bank as well as the beginning of their international adventure with branches in London, Geneva, Monaco and Tokyo.
In this book Philippe Andrieu, the Pastry Chef at Ladurée, reveals 100 of the most famous Ladurée recipes, adapted for the general public. From the Strawberry Cake with Rose Choux Pastry to Pistachio Financiers and the world-famous macarons in all their variety, this icon of French “art de vivre” is brought to life in a palette of pastries the color of powder pink, light green, bright purple, and lemon yellow.
As a metaphor for the living, Gerti Machacek’s jewelry is very much centered on the body, geared toward movement and changing perspectives. Despite the different materials, its pervasive clarity fascinates and delights the wearer. This monograph offers comprehensive insights into the work of an Austrian art jewelry pioneer. Her ideas comprise thrilling combinations of figurative evolution, architectural development, and a richly layered sense of humor. Essays by the art historian Anne-Katrin Rossberg, the artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow, and the writers Beatrix Kramlovsky and Lydia Mischkulnig reveal a personal approach to Machacek’s work, while the visual artist Sophie Pölzl contributed exceptional images with her photograms of selected pieces of jewelry.
Text in English and German.
“I have an old camera with which I have taken countless photographs of myself. It often produces astonishing effects”, Edvard Munch states in a 1930 interview. “Someday when I am old and have nothing better to do than work on an autobiography, all my photographic self-portraits will see the light of day again.” The autobiography was never realized, but the self-portraits have found their way to the pages of The Experimental Self. The Photography of Edvard Munch, which demonstrates the fundamentally experimental nature of the artist’s photographic practice. As a photographer, Munch embraced the freedom provided by the amateur position, and the unpredictable aspects of analogue photographic technology. By playfully approaching his own image in picture after picture, Munch extends his explorations of selfhood in other media through photography. The resulting photographs provide unique access to Munch’s radical artistic vision, which this book studies through eminent essays by Patricia G. Berman, Tom Gunning and MaryClaire Pappas.
Designer Andy Altmann has been pursuing an obsession with typographic oddities for more than 30 years; and he’s not necessarily interested in the kind of thing you might expect. He delights in the weird and wonderful and finds inspiration in the ordinary. At last, he has organized his typographic hits and misses in a 400-page, whopper of a scrapbook. Conceived and edited by Andy, typo* is a cornucopia of curiosities. Between its covers you’ll find everything from Swiss minimalism to Victorian street signs, from soap packets to magazine covers, from high art to the handmade. Essential is too small a word for this book: every graphic designer and typographer should have a copy. Keep it by the keyboard or refer to it secretly when stuck for an idea, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.
*typo (noun): an error (as of spelling) in typed or typeset material; (abbr.) typography or typographer
The Dialogues by Portuguese painter and writer Francisco de Holanda give unprecedented insight into the opinions, preoccupations and character of Michelangelo, already in his lifetime the most celebrated and influential artist in Europe. These Dialogues record his participation in the discussions about art hosted by Vittoria Colonna, his closest friend. Michelangelo’s opinions and ambitions during the period when he was painting The Last Judgement come vividly to life, as does the world in which he moved. No other text brings us so close to Michelangelo the artist, poet and thinker. The Dialogues are presented here in the classic translation by Charles Holroyd, painter, engraver, art historian and director of the National Gallery. The introduction by David Hemsoll situates the Dialogues in the context of Michelangelo’s career and the artistic world in Rome. Sixteen pages of illustrations include some of Michelangelo’s finest drawings, and views of the Rome he knew.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) remains arguably the most powerful artist in the Western canon. Painter, sculptor, architect, poet, he redefined both the possibilities of the imagination and the image of the artist. In 1550, he became the first artist to be the subject of a biography within their own lifetime, presented by Giorgio Vasari as the divinely inspired culmination of the history of art. Dissatisfied with Vasari’s treatment, Michelangelo encouraged his close friend and fellow-painter Ascanio Condivi to publish a rival biography. Condivi’s Life is an impassioned, intimate portrait, giving an unparalleled picture of the master’s life, work and personality. This compelling narrative of genius and its struggles in the treacherous world of Papal politics and Italian wars remains one of the most fascinating and influential texts in art history. This edition reproduces the long unavailable translation by Charles Holroyd and has 49 pages of illustrations covering the span of Michelangelo’s achievement.
One of the leading social documentary photographers of the 1960s, Steve Schapiro’s images stand among the most important of the 20th century, covering Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin and many others. These largely unknown jazz photos – shot just before his career breakthrough – showcase his early mastery and his empathy for his subjects, making Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions an essential archive.
In the early ’60s, when Schapiro arrived on the scene, New York jazz was enjoying a golden age. A young freelance photographer who had grown up in the Bronx and somehow snagged a gig with Riverside Records, he began voraciously documenting shows, players, venues, recording sessions and gatherings both in his native New York and later in Chicago. Whether it’s Sonny Rollins lifting weights backstage, or Bobby Timmons lost in an instant of discovery at the piano, Schapiro was on their wavelength.
Written by US jazz journalist Richard Scheinin Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions features dozens of never-before-seen photos of jazz legends like Cannonball Adderley, Melba Liston, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, Count Basie and more.
“This is a place where different voices and ideas meet, inspiring visitors through the unexpected plurality of meanings and interactions presented in the different themes and the way they are displayed. Instead of proclaiming one truth, the museum invites and embraces a multitude of perspectives, allowing a dynamic discourse in narratives dealing with very topical issues.” – Jury EMYA (European Museum of the Year), special commendation 2022
In a world longing for certainty and clear-cut answers, the Museum of Doubt makes a powerful case for doubt, vulnerability, and complexity as driving forces of both science and citizenship. Professor Marjan Doom, director of the Ghent University Museum (GUM) & its neighboring botanical garden, invites readers to reflect on the role of science museums today. Drawing on personal experience and curatorial case studies, she reveals how art and science enrich one another, how doubt is not a weakness but a necessity, and how museums can bridge the gap between science and society. A sharp and compelling ode to critical thinking.
Mixing Roman and medieval roots, Chichester sits at the heart of a storied landscape where South Down hills dotted with idyllic hamlets ripple back from a shoreline mixing wild dune-backed beaches with old-school seaside resorts. Reminders of smuggling and war add spice.
But a thrilling thread of modernity runs through this slice of West Sussex too. Chichester’s modernist Festival Theatre provided the foundation for London’s National Theatre, while masterpieces of contemporary architecture that draw admirers from around the world include Sea Lane House in East Preston and The White Tower in Bognor Regis.
Evocative ancient memorials abound. Chichester is blessed with the only English cathedral visible from the sea, while England’s largest castle rises above the ravishing – and cosmopolitan – riverside town of Arundel. Ancient yew trees mark the burial spots of Viking warriors in an idyllic Downland spot. And it’s a land vibrant with creative imprints: poets, painters, composers, from Blake and Keats to Joyce and Chagall.
This guidebook takes you exploring through Chichester and its surroundings to find incomparable natural beauty, hidden secrets, astonishing history, art of all kinds, and much more.
Neil Kirk in Vogue: The Supermodel Years is a unique retrospective of 1980s and ’90s fashion, as captured by one of the most exceptional photographers of the era.
A prominent and prolific fashion photographer for over four decades, Neil Kirk’s sensational body of work has left a lasting impression on designers, editors and catwalk models across the fashion industry. A frequent contributor to Vogue US, British, Italia and Deutsch throughout the ’80s and ’90s, his photographs helped propel some of the biggest fashion names into the public sphere during an era when supermodels were becoming A-list celebrities and fashion designers were pioneering an innovative take on modern luxury.
With a foreword by Bryan Ferry and contributions from Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Manolo Blahnik, Sam McKnight, Stephen Jones, Yasmin Le Bon, Christian Lacroix and Jasper Conran among others, this is every fashion lover’s dream in one beautifully illustrated, must-have volume.
Featuring Salma Hayek, Carla Bruni, Cindy Crawford, Yasmeen Ghauri, Valentino Garavani, Vivienne Westwood, Malcom McClaren, Ewan McGregor, Kate Winslet, Jerry Hall, Linda Evangelista, Rachel Williams, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Robin Wright and many, many more.
A must-have for every art enthusiast: the artistic journey of Honoré d’O
In Quarantine, Belgian artist Honoré d’O takes you into the stillness of the Chihuahuan Desert in Marfa, Texas, where he spent the summer of 2024 in isolation, visualizing what a lasting context for an artistic state of mind could be. Amid the minimalist legacy of Donald Judd, a new perspective unfolded on space, time and meaning.
This book collects forty key works that strike a balance between observation and imagination, past and present, stillness and movement. It is a sensory journey through a landscape where emptiness speaks and the smallest details open up a whole new world.
Interweaving mythical stories, philosophical reflections, adventurous irony and critical playfulness, Honoré d’O invites us to rethink the way we look at and give new meanings to what we see. To see how every moment, every form, every object and every impression can be a source of surprise with insight.
With contributions by Denis Gielen, Pierre-Jean Galdin, Bram Van Damme and Honoré d’O.
Text in English and French.
After 20 years working for Mario Botta, Davide Macullo founded his own office in Lugano in 2000. His architecture is the result of dialogue with the location and is characterized by intuition, openness and emotionality. His aim is to use architecture to improve the quality of life and charge locations sensorially. This monograph structures the work of the Ticino-based architect – comprising over 400 projects, including master plans, international hotels, furniture design and art consulting – into three main chapters. The focus lies on ten of his most definitive buildings, such as the WAP Art Space (2017) in Seoul, which combines art and housing in a single spatial structure that is bathed in light, while also oscillating between openness and withdrawal; as well as the SCI Club Frott in Rossa, Grisons, which was built in 2021. This polygonal wooden structure serves as a cultural meeting place, while providing a contemporary response to the Alpine building tradition and integrating itself harmoniously into the Val Calanca.
As one of Murano’s most prominent glassmaking dynasties, the Baroviers played a pivotal role in reviving traditional glassmaking techniques and can thus look back on a long tradition within Venetian glass production. With their distinct feel for glass as a material, their outstanding technical know-how, and their drive towards new developments, Giovanni Barovier and his nephews Benedetto, Benvenuto, and Giuseppe Barovier went on to set up their own business at the close of the 19th century. Their revival of mosaic glass (murrine) had a long-lasting influence on Murano’s glass production. Operating under various names—and then from the 1930s in association with the Toso brothers—yet always maintaining a distinctive artistic style, they continued to lead the field until artistic production ceased entirely in 1993. This extensive volume illuminates not only the history of Barovier & Toso but also its complete body of artistic work, spanning nearly a century.
Georges Jouve (1910–1964) was a major postwar decorative-arts figure who liberated ceramics from academic rules. Nicknamed “Apollo,” he tirelessly explored relationships between form, material, and light, combining utility and ornament, rigor and play. His wide stylistic range—from realism to abstraction—and his signature black glaze quickly set him apart.
This illustrated book traces his career from Nyons and Dieulefit to Aix-en-Provence, highlighting iconic pieces such as cylindrical vases and his collaborations with Janette Laverrière, Étienne Noël, and Mathieu Matégot, including La Saladière and the hotel La Résidence in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Present in the major Salons of his time, Jouve emerged as an agent of modernity and, encouraged by Charlotte Perriand, joined the Steph Simon gallery. Equally at ease with small or monumental formats, he produced vases, fountains, tables, and sculptures, using zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, and abstract forms to make ceramics a vibrant, experimental, and timeless modern art, with lasting appeal worldwide today.
Text in English and French.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism is the first major UK exhibition of the renowned Impressionist since 1950. In partnership with the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, it will bring together around 30 of Morisot’s most important works from international collections, many never seen before in the UK, to reveal the artist as a trailblazer of the movement as well as uncovering a previously untold connection between her work and 18th century culture, with around 20 works for comparison.
A founding member of the Impressionist group, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was known for her swiftly painted glimpses of contemporary life and intimate domestic scenes. She featured prominently in the Impressionist exhibitions and defied social norms to become one of the movement’s most influential figures. Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism will draw on new research and previously unpublished archival material from the Musée Marmottan Monet to trace the roots of her inspiration, revealing the ways in which Morisot engaged with 18th century art and culture, while also highlighting the originality of her artistic vision, which ultimately set her apart from her predecessors.
Highlights will include Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight (1875), painted while Morisot was on honeymoon in England, and her striking Self-Portrait (1885), which will appear alongside Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Young Woman (c.1769) from Dulwich Picture Gallery’s collection. Apollo revealing his divinity to the shepherdess Issé, after François Boucher (1892), In the Apple Tree (1890) and Julie Manet with her Greyhound Laerte (1893), are among nine paintings on loan from the Musée Marmottan Monet, many receiving their first ever showing in the UK.