British realist art of the 1920s and 1930s is visually stunning – strong, seductive and demonstrating extraordinary technical skill. Despite this, it is often overshadowed by abstract art. This book presents the very first overview of British realist painting of the period, showcasing outstanding works from private and public collections across the UK. Of the forty artists featured in the show, many were major figures in the 1920s and 1930s but later passed out of fashion as abstraction and Pop Art became the dominant trends in the post-war years. In the last decade their work has re-emerged and interest in them has grown. Interwar realist art embraces a number of different styles, but is characterized by fine drawing, meticulous craftsmanship, a tendency towards classicism and an aversion to impressionism and visible brushwork. Artists such as Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, Meredith Frampton, James Cowie and Winifred Knights combine fastidious Old Master detail with 1920s modernity. Stanley Spencer spans various camps while Lucian Freud’s early work can be seen as a realist coda which continued into the 1940s and beyond. Featuring many Scottish and women artists, this book promises a fascinating insight into this captivating period of British art.

ECHTZEIT is made in collaboration with Dirk Braeckman (BE, °1958) and FOMU Antwerp in line with his impacting solo show with the Collections department of the photo museum. Echtzeit offers a unique glimpse into Dirk Braeckman’s most recent photographs, accompanied with the museum’s collection and texts written by Clément Chéroux, director of the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson and Tamara Berghmans, curator of the exhibition.

Braeckman has chosen from the FOMU collection functional photographs, made without artistic ambition. He recognized certain qualities and commonalities with his own work in these atypical images.

Rephotography and experimentation have always formed part of Braeckman’s artistic practice, though the trajectory to the final image is always different. For the FOMU exhibition, he worked for the first time with an existing collection of photos. Braeckman took photos of the chosen images and printed them. He then over-painted, smeared or cut holes in the prints. He photographed the results and processed them further in his analogue and digital darkroom.

The original meaning of the photographs has been altered through the removal of context, the change in format and the addition of titles. A functional document is transformed into a piece of art, a timeless visual poem that raises more questions than it answers.

‘Echtzeit’ refers to Braeckman’s bridging of the past and present.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

This absorbing introduction to the story of Rembrandt s rampant fame and influence in Britain is filled with beautiful images. The story of ‘Rembrandt mania’ began in 18th-century Britain with passionate, and often eccentric, collectors acquiring artworks by any and every means. As the craze for Rembrandt ebbed and flowed, each new wave of enthusiasm brought him ever-greater fame and influence, and collectors became increasingly ingenious. This master’s impact not only on collectors and the public but also on British artists over the last four centuries is explored, with lavish paintings, drawings and prints from artists such as Henry Raeburn, Joshua Reynolds and James Abbott McNeill Whistler shown alongside some of Rembrandt’s most famous masterpieces.

This is the first study of a fascinating, international phenomenon in the art of the past century. Naked portraiture is an original hybrid of the traditional genres of the nude and portrait, and has been created by an astonishing range of major artists, in many different media and in a variety of major artistic centres. Martin Hammer’s ground-breaking book compares work by painters such as Egon Schiele, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Pierre Bonnard, Stanley Spencer, Lucian Freud, Tracey Emin and Jenny Saville. The analysis encompasses a rich tradition of naked portraiture using photographic media, produced by figures such as Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Boris Mikhailov, Nan Goldin, Gary Schneider and Melanie Manchot. The subjects are men and woman, old and young, black and white, healthy and disabled. They might be lovers, close relatives or friends, with their nakedness suggesting the intimacy and tenderness existing between artist and subject. Conversely, the artist might not know them beyond the circumstance of making the pictures. Many of the images represent the artists themselves, with nudity carrying connotations of self-exploration, vulnerability, playfulness or fantasy. Martin Hammer’s innovative study seeks to explain naked portraiture as a symptom of wider currents in modern culture, a visual parallel to various other manifestations of an impulse to reveal what is hidden, profound, or authentic, beneath the surface facade. The book also opens up for consideration the wider issue of how and why the genre of portraiture has been radically extended and reinvented, in so many different ways, within the art of the last hundred years.

The Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) is one of the most celebrated paintings of the nineteenth century. It was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland in 2017. In this new book, the first to focus in detail on this iconic picture, Christopher Baker explores its complex and fascinating history. He places Landseer’s work in the context of the artist’s meteoric career, considers the circumstances of its high-profile commission and its extraordinary subsequent reputation. When so much Victorian art fell out of fashion, Landseer’s Monarch took on a new role as marketing image, bringing it global recognition. It also inspired the work of many other artists, ranging from Sir Bernard Partridge and Ronald Searle to Sir Peter Blake and Peter Saville. Today the picture has an intriguing status, being seen by some as a splendid celebration of Scotland’s natural wonders and by others as an archaic trophy. This publication will make a significant contribution to the debates that it continues to stimulate.

Joan Eardley (1921-1963) is one of Scotland’s most admired artists. During a career that lasted barely fifteen years, she concentrated on two very distinct themes: children in the Townhead area of central Glasgow, and the fishing village of Catterline, just south of Aberdeen, with its leaden skies and wild sea. The contrast between this urban and rural subject matter is self-evident, but the two are not, at heart, so very different. Townhead and Catterline were home to tight-knit communities, living under extreme pressure: Townhead suffered from overcrowding and poverty, and Catterline from depopulation brought about by the declining fishing industry. Eardley was inspired by the humanity she found in both places. These two intertwining strands are the focus of this book, which looks in detail at Eardley’s working processes. Her method can be traced from rough sketches and photographs through to pastel drawings and large oil paintings. Identifying many of Eardley’s subjects and drawing on unpublished letters, archival records and interviews, the authors provide a new and remarkably detailed account of Eardley’s life and art.

The British architect Tony Fretton has long been renowned as a pioneer of London’s architectural scene, winning many commendations and prizes for his buildings. Highlights include the Lisson Gallery in London, for which he attracted initial attention in 1990, as well as the Red House in London (2001) and the Danish Fuglsang Art Museum (2008).

The three parts of this comprehensive and conclusive monograph address all aspects of his creative oeuvre: including his buildings, sketches, project ideas and his non-architectural photographic work. The reserved design of this overall presentation reflects his own rational, unembellished work, which is inspired by each respective location.

Caroline Broadhead (b. 1950) is a highly versatile artist who started in jewelry in the late 1970s. Since then she has extended her practice from “wearable objects” and textile works to dance collaborations and installations in historic buildings. Broadhead’s work is concerned with the boundaries of an individual and the interface of inside and outside, public and private, including a sense of territory and personal space, presence and absence and a balance between substance and image. It has explored outer extents of the body as seen through light, shadows, reflections and movement. This comprehensive overview also comprises larger scale and collaborative works that aim to elicit a particular experience or to start a train of thought.

Published to accompany the Exhibition at CODA Museum Apeldoorn (NL), 4 February – 15 April 2018 and the Exhibition at Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, London, 11 January – 2 February 2019.

Since taking the helm of the National Galleries of Scotland in 1984, Sir Timothy Clifford has overseen the acquisition of some of the finest, and best-loved works in the national collection. This book chronicles the development of the collection under his directorship and casts light upon the wide range of acquisitions, including the fascinating stories behind their purchase. Lavishly illustrated, highlights of the book include The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child by Botticelli, The Three Graces by Canova (purchased jointly with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London), and the most recent major acquisition, Venus Anadyomene by Titian. Works from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s internationally renowned Surrealist collection are also featured, as well as paintings from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

This richly illustrated book explores the intriguing world of Léon Spilliaert’s interiors and still lifes. In nine thematic chapters, Anne Adriaens-Pannier unravels the “secret alchemy” of his silent spaces, where interiors function as self-portraits in absentia. His austere rooms, tables, and everyday objects reveal an intense inner life. Featuring numerous full-page reproductions, this publication offers a layered perspective on one of the most introspective figures of Belgian modernism. Published to accompany the exhibition La porte entrouverte at Gallery Patrick Derom, held from 3 June to 29 August 2026.

Everyday Indian Aesthetic is a unique documentation of India, depicted through aesthetics as seen in architecture, adornments, objects, colors, textures, patterns, and typography. It celebrates the diversity of the country while highlighting the identities and functionality associated with everyday design. With more than 400 photographs taken during Sayali Goyal’s travels around rural and small-town India, she invites you to take a personal journey and interpret the richness of Indian design that is based on form and functionality with an element of the unusual. This photo book will let you wander through the pages without restricting the way you see and discover how design has the capacity to document cultural exchange whilst holding the past in the present.

James Tower (1919-1988) is best known for his elegant forms in glazed earthenware. During a career spanning four decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s, he worked unceasingly in a wide variety of media to achieve an elusive harmony of shape and surface, form and decoration, inert material and active design. His personal understanding of the purpose and meaning of abstraction embodies a perpetual dialogue between the visible world and the unseen dynamics which shape it. This centenary volume of essays considers Tower’s entire output from a wide variety of perspectives, embracing paintings and drawings, as well as sculpture in bronze, terracotta and fibreglass. The contributions of leading critics and historians approach his work, situated at the junction of art, craft and design, in a broad historical and cultural context, illuminating key episodes in postwar British art, and Tower’s unique place within it. This book accompanies an exhibition at Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK, 21 September – 24 November 2019

Manchester is far more than a grey provincial city preoccupied with the business of making money. The bales of cotton goods awaiting export have gone from the grand warehouses styled like palaces, and the cotton mills no longer hum with the sound of machinery. Yet the buildings remain in all their glory of tiles, terracotta and stained glass – converted to hotels, offices, chic apartments, hipster bars, fine eateries or gritty drinking dens. The textile trade may have disappeared, but you can find sustainable fashion in the old rag-trade district, and top quality coats and jackets are still being hand-sewn in the last remaining family-owned clothing factory. This book will also take you to alternative Manchester – Radical Manchester from Peterloo to the Pankhursts, Literary Manchester from Elizabeth Gaskell to Anthony Burgess, and of course to Madchester, the crazy music scene of Morrissey, Tony Wilson, the Hacienda and Factory Records.

The first to describe in detail a community of potters working for the Jagannatha Temple in Puri, eastern India, Temple Potters of Puri explores the role of the temple servant and how it affects the potters’ understanding of their work and of themselves. As a pilgrimage center of national importance, supported by the patronage of successive regional dynasties and by fervent popular belief, the Jagannatha Temple requires earthenware in great quantities for the creation and distribution of the sacred food that is an integral feature of daily ritual and pilgrimage. Several hundred potters participate as temple servants in maintaining the temple’s ritual cycle by performing their divinely assigned task. This study observes the potters’ technical prowess, sustained by devotion, but also examines the tensions within their relationships to more powerful temple servants and authorities. The role of the potter as temple servant is at once glorious, as demonstrated by texts and personal interpretations of the potters’ divinely-appointed service, and pathetic, as shown in the brutality of caste-based hierarchy and cash-based exchange penetrating the modern temple’s daily operations. The accompanying DVD shows the potters at work and records their skills and products as well as the annual festival that celebrates their role as temple servants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open Space – Mind Maps pursues the current development in art jewelry that is positioned far from the merely decorative in the aesthetic and artistic discourse of our era. Thirty international artists present their works in this publication, which is arranged thematically by the buzzwords inhabiting current trends, such as the nomadic aspect and the tendency towards narrative imagery to provocation that infringes on boundaries and to the poetic imagination in jewelry. All these facets as open-ended chapters illustrate the iconographic focus of each of these protagonists from across the world. Contents: Berndt Arell: Foreword; Ellen Maurer Zilioli: Open Space – Mind Maps. Positions in contemporary jewellery; Inger Wästberg: The Swedish Perspective; Philip Warkander: Art Jewellery. A reflection on terminology; Catalogue; Appendix; Artists’ biographies; Authors’ biographies

Lightning was created in 1975, during a very controversial period in India’s history, to be the backdrop of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Emergency speech. Given the short time frame that M.F. Husain had to complete the work, it was titled Lightning, because it came about in a flash. The masterpiece was made up of twelve massive panels with ten wild, white horses charging through an open space. The significance of the painting is heightened not only by its sheer size or the brilliant rendering of its subject by the artist but also the time it was executed and the ideologies it stands for. The painting included depictions of family planning, farmers and their families, and a builder with an axe in hand. The work portrayed the political climate of the time in India post-separation. This book was conceived in honor of Husain, and various anecdotal stories and interviews on the painting form a part of this book. The selected authors invited to write on Lightning address the painting as well as its creator from various angles. It is an attempt to create a whole story around this masterpiece; every brush stroke and every inch of the canvas has a story, secretly tucked away in the midst of the powerfully rendered horses, that is left for the beholder to decipher. Published in association with TamarindArt, New York, and Asia Society Museum, New York. Contents: Foreword; Journey of Lightning, its Creator and the Progressive Movement; A Personal Commentary; Biography; The Advent of a Masterpiece; The Roar of Crores; East Meets East in Husain’s Horses; Like Thunder and Lightning; A Narrative of the Nation; Husain’s Journey; Troublesome Entanglements: Art and the Asian Nation; In Conversation with M.F. Husain; The Unveiling of Lightning in New York; M.F. Husain; Selected Exhibitions.

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

Text in English and German.

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

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

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

500 Piece Puzzle featuring the artwork of Rachel Hayden.

Rachel Hayden’s paintings seek order in chaos by puzzle-piecing together a handful of objects into balanced and symmetrical compositions. The artist creates full yet uncluttered canvases where figures float harmoniously in midair without touching. Hayden’s work repeatedly depicts different iterations of a small number of natural subjects, such as rainbows and shooting stars—often anthropomorphized with human faces.