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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.

Titled After Morandi, the book presents a real encounter, a dialogue, from which sprang this grouping of photographs that interpret rather than describe Morandi’s artistic legacy. In notes at the end of the book, Green tells us the project was intended as a conversation with the work of Morandi and that, while some of the photographs present a direct response to that, Green hopes that most of them connect more tangentially through materials, objects, and geography.

Gary Green’s pensive photographs of a stream near his home in Waterville, Maine were taken between 2017 and 2019. They are imbued with a formal beauty that is revealed in the act of gazing at reflections of the natural world in water. Each frame in this contemplative body of work explores texture, compositional balance, and the contrast between light and shadow. “These photographs… began as meditations on nature: quiet observations of the water and what was reflected, refracted, and shadowed upon its surface. The title is a stanza from Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. The poem invokes, among other themes, the idea that as nature we are all connected: the flora and fauna, the air above and the ground below. ‘A man and a woman are one’, he wrote, ‘A man and a woman and a blackbird are one’.” – Gary Green.

Lightstream represents Nigel Grierson’s most recent foray into photographic abstraction as he makes long exposures of figures beside the light of the ocean. Taking the maxim from Dieter Appelt “A snapshot steals life that it cannot return. A long exposure (creates) a form that never existed”, Grierson makes beautiful images, which on the surface might appear to owe as much to the medium of painting as they do to photography. However, it is important to him that these are un-manipulated images straight from the camera: “From the outset, my work has been largely about ‘photographic seeing’ as I’m fascinated by what Garry Winogrand so simply described as ‘how something looks when photographed’. Hence, a sense of discovery within the work itself is very important to me; finding something new that I didn’t already know. There’s a huge element of ‘chance, and the embrace of the happy accident within this approach, which is a sort of photographic equivalent of action painting. I’m often more interested in what something suggests rather than what it actually is, each image becoming a starting point for our imagination as it edges towards abstraction”.

Yet what is unique about photography is that it always keeps something of the original subject. So there’s a dynamic duality, a dramatic to and fro in the viewer’s mind, between what it is and what it suggests. The marks and traces created by the moving light, at times have a simplicity like a child’s drawings. On occasion, the residue of a human figure might be reduced to little more than their posture or demeanor, which then seems more significant than ever, a sort of essence, whether that be elusive or illusive.

Passing Through is a book concerned with nature, and our transient connection to it. Consequently, the human figure is seen only occasionally and rather vague, like something from the imagination or a memory. Nigel Grierson’s visual journey through the seasons, treads a fine line between reality and fiction, in his search for abstraction and spirituality:

“As adults, in search of sophistication, and jaded by the rigours of work, it’s easy to lose the natural sense of wonder, and to take for granted the things that fascinated us so much as children. For Rudolph Steiner, the most direct route to spirituality for the adult, involves finding the inner child via the occupation of playing. For me, spirituality lies in nature, in its myriad of forms and colors, and in the elements; earth’s chaotic beauty. On a personal level this book represents a journey; a return to childhood, exploring woodlands, playing in the dirt, finding little treasures and taking something home as a souvenir; the photograph.

I once heard it said that spirits are in fact traces or energies left behind when beings repeat the same actions over and over on the same pathways. Perhaps that is why we can sometimes hear voices in the woods, even after the people have long gone.”

“Moonwatch Only is certainly one of the best books ever written about a single watch model.” – William Massena – Timezone.com “It is an indescribable reference work and a true must-have for every Speedmaster collector.” – Forbes “This book sets a new standard. Not only for books on the Omega Speedmaster, but for watch books in general. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me when I tell you that I could fill an impressive sized wall with books on watches. Authors of other books or publishers should take a look at Moonwatch Only as well to see how it should be done.” – Robert Jan Broer – FratelloWatches “The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional – the Moonwatch – has done things that no other timepiece has done and it’s been worn in places that only a few human beings have been.” – Captain Eugene Cernan, ‘Last man on the moon’ There are very few timepieces in the world that deserve a definitive and comprehensive book such as this one. The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is one of them. Initially designed for automobile racing teams and engineers, the Omega Speedmaster embarked on a very different trajectory when NASA chose it to accompany astronauts heading for the Moon in 1965. Its involvement in the space adventure has propelled the Moonwatch to the top of the list of celebrated timepieces. After years of research and observation, the authors present a complete panorama of the Moonwatch in a systematic work that is both technical and attractive, making it the inescapable reference book for this legendary watch. This third edition has been enriched with numerous new features including a 16-page gallery of astronauts and their Speedmaster, QR codes to extend your exploration and a detailed story of a vintage Speedmaster.

“Moonwatch Only is certainly one of the best books ever written about a single watch model.” – William Massena – Timezone.com

“It is an indescribable reference work and a true must-have for every Speedmaster collector.” – Forbes

“This book sets a new standard. Not only for books on the Omega Speedmaster, but for watch books in general. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me when I tell you that I could fill an impressive sized wall with books on watches. Authors of other books or publishers should take a look at Moonwatch Only as well to see how it should be done.” – Robert Jan Broer – FratelloWatches

“The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional – the Moonwatch – has done things that no other timepiece has done and it’s been worn in places that only a few human beings have been.” – Captain Eugene Cernan, ‘Last man on the moon’

There are very few timepieces in the world that deserve a definitive and comprehensive book such as this one. The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is one of them. Initially designed for automobile racing teams and engineers, the Omega Speedmaster embarked on a very different trajectory when NASA chose it to accompany astronauts heading for the Moon in 1965. Its involvement in the space adventure has propelled the Moonwatch to the top of the list of celebrated timepieces.

After years of research and observation, the authors present a complete panorama of the Moonwatch in a systematic work that is both technical and attractive, making it the inescapable reference book for this legendary watch.

This third edition has been enriched with numerous new features including a 16-page gallery of astronauts and their Speedmaster, QR codes to extend your exploration and a detailed story of a vintage Speedmaster.

Dalek, one of the most exciting artists from the burgeoning Brooklyn art scene, has published a collection of his most ambitious works to date. This book arrives as a celebration of his exhibit with Mike Giant, Coup d’Etat, at the Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris. Together the exhibition and the book explore the evolution of this extraordinary artist throughout his years of immersion in the American art scene, from the street to the gallery. His new body of work reveals, in a profusion and hyper-abundance of color alongside planes of space, that the familiar lines and iconic Space Monkey references that defined his earlier work are only a starting point for this new series. Each of Dalek’s paintings is an innovation that has led him to the vibrant iconography that we see today, as he seamlessly fuses street art, cartoons, Japanese pop, and the energy of and the urban punk scene. Having been Takashi Murakami’s assistant in 2001, Dalek has turned to the subcultures of graffiti, skateboarding and punk rock to help form his identity.

Ganesh Haloi, one of the best-known abstract Indian artists of his generation, was born in Jamalpur, in present-day Bangladesh, in 1936, and moved to Kolkata in 1950. This book accompanies an exhibition of lyrical works which meditate on the fluid world of nature and water, creating an elegy to living and lost aquatic landscapes in translucent color, shapes, and lines. He expresses a visible joy in composition, and a deep sense of pathos. Ganesh Haloi represented India at the Berlin Biennale in 2014, and exhibited at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel in 2017.  Published in association with Akar Prakar Gallery, Kolkata.

Oxford has a special place in the history of Pre-Raphaelitism. Thomas Combe (superintendent of the Clarendon Press) encouraged John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt at a crucial early stage of their careers, and his collection became the nucleus of the Ashmolean collection of works by the Brotherhood and their associates. Two young undergraduates, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, saw the Combe collection and became enthusiastic converts to the movement. With Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1857 they undertook the decoration of the debating chamber (now the Old Library) of the Oxford Union. The group’s champion John Ruskin also studied in Oxford, where he oversaw the design of the University Museum of Natural History and established the Ruskin School of Drawing. Jane Burden, future wife of Morris and muse (probably also lover) of Rossetti, was a local girl, first spotted at the theatre in Oxford.   
Oxford’s key role in the movement has made it a magnet for important bequests and acquisitions, most recently of Burne-Jones’s illustrated letters and paintbrushes. The collection of watercolors and drawings includes a wide variety of appealing works, from Hunt’s first drawing on the back of a tiny envelope for The Light of the World (Keble College), to large, elaborate chalk drawings of Jane Morris by Rossetti. It is especially rich in portraits, which throw an intimate light on the friendships and love affairs of the artists, and in landscapes which reflect Ruskin’s advice to ‘go to nature’.
More than just an exhibition catalog, this book is a showcase of the Ashmolean’s incredible collection, and demonstrates the enormous range of Pre-Raphaelite drawing techniques and media, including pencil, pen and ink, chalk, watercolor, bodycolor and metallic paints. It will include designs for stained glass and furniture, as well as preparatory drawings for some of the well-known paintings in the collection.

Ganesh Pyne (1937–2013), one of the foremost artists of post-Independence India, is no stranger to connoisseurs of art in India. His haunting images of intimations of mortality, the crepuscular light in his canvases, and his brilliant use of his own version of tempera are widely admired. But he was a shy, reclusive man, who has left little trace of himself in public memory. Memorialising Ganesh Pyne fills this gap by bringing to life the sensitive artist through a remarkable series of photographs shot by artist Veena Bhargava across two decades.

The portfolio of portrait and group photographs that capture glimpses of the artist at work and leisure also provide poignant insights into a very private person. This visual record is anchored by two essays: the first, by Bhargava, recounts her experience of taking these perceptive images; the second, by Ella Datta, analyzes the aesthetic value of these rarely seen portraits as well as Bharagava’s artistic experiment on a suite of photo collages featuring Pyne with elements from his works. A detailed timeline of politics and culture during Pyne’s life adds archival value to the book. The volume will be invaluable for Pyne enthusiasts and research scholars alike.

Published in association with Akar Prakar Gallery, Kolkata.

Covering four decades of photography the book serves as a stunning snapshot of Beckman’s significance in the world of art, photojournalism, music, fashion, and popular culture – but most prevalently, it’s a testament of her unique ability to extract beauty from the outliers of society. With written contributions from Beckman’s peers including academia’s Jason King, Chair of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music & Vivien Goldman author & professor at NYU; journalists Vikki Tobak, and co-founder of PAPER, Kim Hastreiter; visual artist Cey Adams; music legends Sting, Run DMC, Paul Weller, Salt-n-Pepa, Belinda Carlisle, and Slick Rick; and fashion’s Dapper Dan, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, Levi’s Chad Hinson – From Punk to Dior showcases Janette Beckman’s influence in her realm. In addition to publishing five books, Janette Beckman’s work has been exhibited in galleries worldwide and is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York, and the British National Portrait Gallery. She is represented by the Fahey Klein Gallery.

Nicolas Eekman (1889-1973) is the heir of the great creators of his native Flanders, from Jérôme Bosh to James Ensor, as well as one of the representatives of the School of Paris.

Born in Brussels where he studied architecture, he turned to painting and exhibited for a few years in Holland before settling in Paris in 1921. Close to his compatriot Mondrian with whom he exhibited at the Jeanne Bucher gallery (1928), he is also closely linked to the artists Jean Lurçat, Marcoussis, Max Jacob, Lipchitz, and later with Moïse Kisling and Frans Masereel.

Influenced by Cubism to which he devoted a few outstanding years, he gradually returned, in the 1930s, to realism and then from the 1950s turned to the fantastic, reviving the Flemish painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Author of an abundant painted work, he is also a renowned draftsman, illustrator and engraver whose works have been collected by numerous print studios (Brussels, Hanover, Berlin, Hamburg, Basel, Budapest).

Text in English and French.

“A history of cool.” — Airmail

“Without a doubt she is the great reference of photography in the Hip Hop Culture, with photos that are already the history of contemporary culture of the 20th century.” — Staf Magazine

“In over 240 pages, the book encapsulates the spirit of history-making generations and their influence on fashion and wider visual culture.” — The Luupe

Covering four decades of photography, this book serves as a stunning snapshot of Beckman’s significance in the world of art, photojournalism, music, fashion, and popular culture – but most prevalently, it’s a testament to her unique ability to extract beauty from the outliers of society. With written contributions from Beckman’s peers including academia’s Jason King, Chair of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music & Vivien Goldman Author & Professor at NYU; journalists Vikki Tobak, and co-founder of PAPER, Kim Hastreiter; visual artist Cey Adams; music legends Sting, Run DMC, Paul Weller, Salt-n-Pepa, Belinda Carlisle, and Slick Rick; and fashion’s Dapper Dan, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, Levi’s Chad Hinson – Rebels: From Punk to Dior showcases Janette Beckman’s influence in her realm.

In addition to publishing five books, Janette Beckman’s work has been exhibited in galleries worldwide and is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York, and the British National Portrait Gallery. She is represented by the Fahey Klein Gallery.

This beautifully illustrated book, with over 300 color reproductions, showcases many of the greatest masterpieces of 19th century Orientalist art. During this period, colonization, and a revolution in means of transportation allowed artists to visit countries from North Africa to the Middle East that had previously been relatively inaccessible. The patterns, colors, and light of this region influenced artists such as Delacroix, Decamps, Berchère, Bridgman, Ziem, Gérôme, Corrodi, Dinet, Matisse, Majorelle and many others. Upon returning to Europe, these artists captured the atmosphere of these distant and exotic lands in painted scenes of daily life and wrote memoirs of their travels. Some returned to settle there, including painters like Dinet, who spent a large part of his life in Algeria, and Majorelle, known as the “painter of Marrakech.” This book offers insight into the Orientalist aesthetic that inspired the movement, and lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of these vibrant works of art.

Text in English and French.

One of today’s leading conceptual artists, Los Angeles-based Walead Beshty (b. 1976, London) works across photography, sculpture and words. Self-referential, playful and imaginative, Addenda to a Sequence of Appearances documents his exhibitions with Thomas Dane Gallery across Europe and is a guide to the artist’s key bodies of work.
Uncovering processes is central to Beshty’s art. He deliberately incorporated marks made by oxidation and human touch into his FedEx copper works and Copper Surrogate works, as well as photographing the many individuals involved in his exhibitions in Industrial Portraits. The work that has gone into this substantial monograph, which features contributions from publisher Francis Atterbury, book designer Billie Temple and Thomas Dane partner Francois Chantala, is laid bare. Also presented is an insightful essay by leading professor of Juridical Sociology Carlo De Rita.
Adopting a semiotic approach to books as ‘not just a thing you hold, but something held in common’, Addenda to a Sequence of Appearances embraces the archetypal format, tropes and conventions of a traditional – if unorthodox – book, employing printing and publishing practices seldom seen in contemporary bookmaking.

“Photography should not reproduce the visible; it should make the invisible visible.” – Franco Fontana

Italian photographer Franco Fontana (b.1933), a pioneer of color photography, is best known for his boldly colored abstract landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes.

This book features previously unpublished and experimental images from his archive alongside some of his best-known works. Over the 60 years of his career, Franco Fontana photographed that which cannot be seen, and was able to capture images abstracted from reality, independent of the subject portrayed. This meticulously compiled volume is dedicated to those who are approaching this artist’s practice for the first time, as well as to those who wish to go deeper into his work by exploring these previously invisible spaces which the sensitive eye of the photographer has glimpsed and translated into a unique and unprecedented image.

Text in French.

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

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

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

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

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

These previously unpublished images of New York’s waterfront are presented here as part of a unique editorial project: the iconographic perspective is analysed and discussed in Pauline Vermare’s interview with Sophie Fenwick, and finds further literary development in the photographer’s poetry, on which she started working during the pandemic and is used here to accompany the visual narrative.     

The language of photography is used here — in a series of black and white and color shots — to retrace the memory of a transformation and to express the urgency of documentation that in these pages evolves from personal to universal. The invitation to travel voiced by Fenwick is visual poetry articulated in a series of pictures, each of which possesses the potential to become a true icon.

Text in English and French.

“Tom’s committed career has captured images that will serve as pieces of history for generations to come.” – Steve McCurry

“… The fascinating images are not only beautiful, they are also a reminder about how important it is to protect our planet’s natural diversity.” — Hoom Magazine

Tom D. Jones is a wildlife photographer: he makes a point of never photographing animals in captivity and portrays them very closely. The results are almost human portraits of impressive animals such as elephants, rhinos, lions, etc. They also carry a clear message: let’s take care of these often endangered species and the world they inhabit before it’s too late. This is precisely what his friend and colleague Steve McCurry emphasizes in the foreword to this great book.

Small Paintings presents the gestural, intimate and hauntingly beautiful paintings by Indian-born British artist Jai Chuhan. The book showcases the art created for her solo exhibition of the same name at Qrystal Partners in London in the summer of 2023.

Chuhan often paints lonely figures in indistinct, nebulous rooms in works that explore love and alienation. They evoke psychological tensions between genders, agency and subjection, the familiar and the unreal. Her practice engages deeply with histories of painting as she navigates transculturalism and the female gaze. Chuhan emigrated to London with her family in the late 1960s, where she later studied at the Slade School of Fine Art.

Donald Ryan, co-founder of Qrystal Partners, contributes a foreward contextualising the exhibition and delineating Chuhan’s key artistic concerns. In her essay, Hannah Marsh, assistant curator of Contemporary British Art at the Tate, ruminates on the idea of being seen, holding space and how Chuhan’s art speaks on its own terms.

“Common (不二)” is a Buddhist term that comes from the Dictionary of Buddhist Studies. “All matters in the world are originally one and equal, without distinction.” This means that nothing is different from each other.

Born with a congenital disability, Liu Yi underwent more than 20 operations to slowly stretch his body from the “sphere.” He always smiles innocently in life, with paintings, art, and innocence to heal himself while infecting others. Since April 14, 2015, Liu Yi started drawing on his smartphone with his fingers every day. This “assignment” soon became a part of his life.

Common Innocence of Liu Yi is a simple yet satisfying read, with hundreds of little drawings created by the artist, accompanied by his thoughts, the names of paintings given by Jian Guoer during their conversations, as well as comments from professionals.

Text in English and Chinese.

Who is Samantha McEwen?
Who is this Anglo-American artist born in 1960 in London, about whom Keith Haring declares in one of his interviews: “When I arrived in New York, I spent my time at school (School of Visual Arts). Everything was new and exciting. I was 20 years old. In my drawing class, I was immediately drawn to a girl named Samantha McEwen.” Samantha remembers: “He sat in front of me and said: ‘Can I draw you?’”
Who is this artist, still relatively unknown to this day, who also models for Francesco Clemente and Alex Katz? In the 1980s, Samantha McEwen was one of the few women to exhibit twice in the famous Tony Shafrazi Gallery. She also participates in numerous group exhibitions alongside the leading artists of that flamboyant decade.
However, very few texts exist about her work; art critics are mainly men who write about men. In the numerous articles of the art press on these exhibitions, her name is merely mentioned and rarely accompanied by a few lines. A revealing paradox of that era, Samantha McEwen is found in full-page spreads in the fashion sections of major magazines, such as Interview (Andy Warhol’s magazine) and The New York Times Magazine.
By the late 1980s in New York, most of Samantha’s friends disappear, taken by AIDS or drugs. Samantha McEwen returns to live in London and begins (or simply continues) a long period of obscurity, like most female artists of those generations. It takes until the 2010s for her work to reappear. This happens in 2015 in London, in the famous group exhibition organised by Pace Gallery in homage to the great London art dealer Robert Fraser. 48 artists are presented, 45 men and 3 women.

Text in English and French.

This, the first monograph on acclaimed London- and South Wales-based artist Jacqueline Poncelet (b. 1947, Liège, Belgium), surveys 50 years of the artist’s practice. Working across diverse media, Poncelet transforms patterns from urban and rural contexts, exploring how fashions play out in the ways humans dress, decorate living spaces, and shape architecture.
Having trained in ceramics, Poncelet moved into sculpture, painting, and textiles before turning to public commissions. The publication presents works from different eras, including small-scale ceramics from the 1970s, large, brightly colored paintings and textiles from the 1990s, as well as woven textiles, watercolors, and wallpapers made in the 2020s.
The publication, which includes documentation of In the Making, an exhibition by Poncelet at MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, in 2024, features a foreword by Laura Sillars; an essay by Elinor Morgan; texts by Salena Barry, Claire Doherty, and Penelope Curtis; and an interview by Hettie Judah. 

Indian Summer presents a group of skillful and expressive figurative paintings in oil on canvas and linen by artist Raghav Babbar (b. 1997) that include intimate portraits as well as large-scale group compositions. Babbar’s sitters span friends from his childhood in Rohtak, a city north-west of Delhi, pan-sellers, dancers from the south of India, family members, as well as himself.
Indian Summer is the first publication on Babbar, which features reproductions of over forty works created from 2020–23 and views of his 2023 exhibitions at Nahmad Projects, London, and Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice. Lock Kresler, Senior Director at Helly Nahmad Gallery, London, introduces the book, explaining his first encounters with Babbar and his practice. An essay by art historian, broadcaster, and commentator Dr Cleo Roberts-Komireddi examines how Babbar uses his materials, treats his subjects, and delves into his sources of inspiration, classic Hindi and Tamil cinema and the School of London artists.
Babbar celebrates the individual as he showcases the diversity of his country in his textural, rich, and joyful portraits that teem with life.