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For this new edition of the monograph that Gerald M. Ackerman devoted to the life and work of Jean-Léon Gérôme – now a reference book that includes two parts, a critical biography and a catalogue of paintings, prints and sculptures – the author has revised and, if necessary, modified the text whilst updating the catalogue. The study of the artist’s life is based on three ancient monographs, memories of students and friends, a large number of public and private archives, as well as reading the press of his time. The catalogue is the result of more than twenty-five years of research. Some ninety works unknown at the time of the first edition were thus added to those which had already been recorded thanks to ancient sources, contracts with the State, sales catalogues, catalogues of museums and a correspondence with the collectors, as well as ninety others then held for lost. As for the previously known works, the numerous changes of ownership and localization since then have been indicated. The number of illustrations in the catalogue has been considerably increased; many dates have been corrected. The colored plates included in the text illustrate in abundance the works hitherto unknown and, much more numerous than in the first edition, show the great diversity of the master’s work, thus offering us a new image of Gérôme, a new light on his talent, his interests and his masterful inventiveness.

Text in French.

Supported by a wealth of photographs of archaeological objects, this book delves into a fascinating world of ancestral spirits, revealed by the surprising richness and variety of these pre-Columbian pieces fashioned out of various materials. These works, on exhibition in the Museo Casa del Alabado, in Quito (Ecuador), outline the pre-Columbian view of the world centred on a flow of energy aimed at preserving life. These pieces evoke this primordial energy emerging from mother earth, the source of the good deeds performed by spirits and the ancestral guardian of the permanent renewal of the world of daily life, where spirits constantly draw on the balance of the forces ensuring their survival. Pre-Columbian art has the extraordinary capacity to express the power of reciprocal opposites which together provide a meaning to the existence of animate and inanimate beings.

Hard materials, such as stones and shells, served to embody powerful spirits, such as carts, macaws, or primordial ancestors. Ceramics were suitable for the depiction of ordinary plants and animals. The extraordinary growth of metalworking skills led to the creation of ornamental pieces designed for the elite (chest decorations, nose jewellery, earrings, and crowns) whose purpose was to reflect the power of the sun.

Each picture in the book is accompanied by notes explaining the function the article would have served, while acknowledging that these pieces have lost none of their expressiveness in the modern world.

Text in English and Spanish.

A visitor to the municipal archives of Bebra as the booster detonation for the project Bebra Curiosa: In a glass case, Axel Beyer saw a model of the town hall bathed in soft light. He was fascinated by the atmosphere of an interior and miniature wonderland. Back at home, he explored the model potential of the Bebra pictures he took over the years. He began by combining interior and exterior views into new compositions. A series of quaint panoramas and claustrophobic rooms grew from there, emphasizing the place in a special way. The bizarre atmosphere of these illusions stands opposed to the particular climate of the place. The small town of Bebra is located in central Germany and is known to most people as a railroad hub. Gigantic track systems serve as reminders of the great times. At the end of the 1980s, partly due to the impact of the reunification, Bebra lost most of its significance. Around this time, the satirist Matthias Horx coined the term ‘Bebraism’ in his essay Bebra The End of the Line, and described in it the symbols of provincialism.

Text in English and German.

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.

Filmmaker Lee Shulman, founder of The Anonymous Project, has spent years collecting almost 800,000 color slides from members of the public. His new book, When We Were Young, records memories of growing up in Britain between the ’50s and ’80s: picnics beside cars, ice creams at the seaside, paddling pool dips, even a baby’s first sip of stout… These richly emotive images are at once unknown and deeply familiar, and looking at them is akin to discovering an old relative’s long-lost photo album. What happened to these people after the shots were taken? These intimate moments provide an escape into the lives of others and also let us reflect on our own past and perhaps, in this time of deep flux for Britain, on our collective future.

Florentine photographer Lapo Baraldi eloquently captures a silent and surreal Florence, empty of people, during the first phase of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Shooting with black and white film, these urban spaces are revealed as their planners imagined them, and the viewer becomes lost in their timelessness. As with archival images, we are aware of the life that is simmering below the surface.
Florence As It Is is accompanied by a previously unpublished short story by Elena Ronchi.

“This is the travel photography book for our digital age. Tom’s incredible eye for capturing historical detail creates captivating imagery for the ultimate in escapist pleasure.Kelly Wearstler, Interior Designer

“A true Renaissance man, Tom shares his vast architectural knowledge, artistic talent, and sense of humor in photographs and watercolors.” Amy Astley, editor-in-chief, Architectural Digest

This book is a celebration of the power of the smartphone camera combined with Tom Kligerman’s unique eye. Tom is a New York architect who adores travel and the different cultures of the world, recording vibrant details and evocative scenes on his iPhone as he journeys from India to New Mexico, from Beaux-Arts monuments to rustic barns, from ocean to mountaintop. The images have been curated into dynamic pairs that spark a conversation about the world and the different ways of seeing it. They are accompanied by Tom’s reflections, and those of his Instagram followers, in a series of captions, comments and mini essays. This book is a child of the pandemic, a time when people could only dream of traveling or relive past experiences, as Tom has done, from the image banks on their mobile devices. It rejoices in both the potential of new media and the physical pleasure given by a beautifully made and structured book. It allows readers a moment of pause and reflection, so necessary if we are not to be lost in the digital feed.

This beautiful book in the “500” series celebrates the extraordinary talent of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, arguably the most renowned artist of the Italian Renaissance. 500 years ago, he was 46 years old. He had already completed the Statue of David, the Doni Tondo, the Vatican Pietà, and the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He would later paint the Last Judgement, the frescoes of the Pauline Chapel, and complete the Tomb of Julius II.

This book celebrates his magisterial accomplishments throughout his lifetime, and includes his less celebrated works, architectural projects, lost works, and attributions.

Text in English and Italian.

“This book takes in his introduction to wine – at the age of three! – through his continued travels and championing of New World wines when they were less fashionable.”Matthew Nugent, The Irish Sun

“You can feel Oz Clarke’s expansive, chatty presence in every sentence” Telegraph

“Reading Clarke may be the closest we’ll come to sharing a glass of sack with the Bard himself.” —David McIntyre, Washington Post
“Frankly, it’s the best and most entertaining wine read I’ve had in years.” —Tom Doorley, The Irish Mail

“You can never have too much of his captivating enthusiasm and rich knowledge and this is him at his best.” — Waitrose magazine

“A rollicking good read.” Sommelier India

There have never been so many delicious and original wines in the world, and to discover them, all you need is a glass in your hand and Oz Clarke – the ideal wine companion. With his inimitable sense of adventure and fun, Oz explains how his fascination with flavor led him to abandon a promising acting career and follow his heart from Chablis to ‘the lost Himalayan valleys of Yunnan’ in pursuit new taste experiences and wine thrills. He found them! Oz Clarke On Wine takes us on a fast-paced, witty romp around the grape varieties key to the world’s major wine styles, then explores the vineyards and regions where a vast trove of wine treasure lies waiting for discovery. Oz’s passion for sharing, his deep wine knowledge, and his ability to conjure up the wine world’s most beautiful landscapes, make this book the most unputdownable wine read this century.

Includes:

From long lost paintings to ephemeral sculptures; from whimsical performances to iconic public murals; and from independent films to landmark design objects, the surprising and provocative contents of Moving Focus, India have been provided by a varied group of experts. A first of its kind, this book invited 54 artists, curators, historians and writers to each create a list of five works of art, made at any time since 1900, by artists living in India or identifying as part of its diaspora.  

With over 250 individual nominations, including artists whose works have been exhibited at venues as various as Houghton Hall (Anish Kapoor, 2020), the Asia Society Museum, New York (MF Husain, 2019) and the Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai (SH Raza, 2018), the exercise produced thrilling and unexpected choices across many mediums. Drawing from a wide range of private and public collections, the selections reveal the diversity and inclusiveness of today’s art scene: an art scene that has embraced the progressive changes evident in society at large. In addition to these lists, the book includes reflections on collecting, curating and canon-formation from a range of important voices, by way of a roundtable discussion and a series of essays.  

Spread over two volumes and marked by an innovative and fresh design sensibility, whether you are familiar with modern and contemporary art from the subcontinent or looking for an introduction, Moving Focus, India contains a wealth of information. Lavishly illustrated with over 1,000 archival and freshly commissioned photographs, this book is an important and timely addition to the global art discourse and a key source of reference. 

Nominated artists include Ramkinkar Baij, Chittaprosad, VS Gaitonde, Amrita Sher Gil, Rummana Hussain, Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Meera Mukherjee, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Gieve Patel, Sudhir Patwardhan, Nilima Sheikh, Jangarh Singh Shyam, KG Subramanyan, Vivan Sundaram, Zarina and many more. 

In a unique visual dialog, Déjà View brings together the work of beloved photographer Martin Parr, master of capturing the art in everyday existence, with The Anonymous Project’s archive of unidentified vintage slides, collected from across Europe and America. Surprising and delighting in their similarity, these affectionately matched images celebrate photography’s power to capture the small moments of humor, warmth, ennui and absurdity that are in fact our most important of all.

The Anonymous Project is dedicated to collecting and preserving mid-century color slides from around the world. Started in 2017 by filmmaker Lee Shulman, the project brings to light Kodachrome memories that might otherwise be lost forever.

Alongside Erasmus of Rotterdam, Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) is one of the most important European humanists whose works marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The year 2022 marks the 500th anniversary of the Pforzheim-born jurist, Hebraist, and religious philosopher’s death, cause indeed for an exhibition and publication to bring jewelry, writings, and language into a stimulating dialog and to offer new meanings to the titular mystery of signs. At the fore stands the human quest for understanding and tolerance, which has lost none of its relevance today. One particular focal point comprises selected manuscripts and works by Reuchlin, highlighted from new perspectives. An additional emphasis is placed on objects that reflect Reuchlin’s cognitive world through script and symbols from the resplendent collection of the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim [Pforzheim jewelry museum].

With contributions by Jonathan Boyd, Beatriz Chadour-Sampson, Matthias Dall’Asta, Cornelie Holzach, Wolfgang Mayer, Susanne Nagel, Katja Poljanac, Stefan Rhein, Nathan Ron, Isabel Schmidt-Mappes, Pierre Vesperin, and Anja Wolkenhauer.

Text in German.

With Vladimir Kagan’s death in 2016, the world of design lost one of its most celebrated practitioners. Pointed Leaf Press is honored to be reissuing, in its third edition: Vladimir Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant-Garde Design. In addition to showcasing Kagan’s unique impact on post-war American design, this book recounts the amazing story of his life, and retains a moving preface by Tom Ford and poignant foreword by the late architect Zaha Hadid. It also features a new afterword by Chris Eitel, who began as an intern at Kagan’s design studio in 2013 and quickly became his protégé, offering an intimate look at the designer and the man. With this first-hand account, Kagan’s life and work is more fully contextualized and his legacy more clearly illuminated.

Aidan Dodson’s British Royal Tombs covers all the burials of the kings, queens (and lords protector) of England, Scotland and the United Kingdom, from the occupant of the great Sutton Hoo ship burial, to George VI, last Emperor of India, including of course the long-lost Richard III. This fully revised edition of a book that became an immediate classic of its kind will be equally interesting to the interested visitor and the student. The career of each ruler is briefly described, followed by what is known about his or her burial arrangements and the subsequent history of the tomb and its contents. Each tomb is illustrated as far as possible by at least one photograph or drawing. The posthumous fate of royal spouses is also included, together with information on each of the cathedrals, churches, chapels and other structures that house or once housed royal tombs; there are detailed diagrams for the major sites. A list of monarchs, family trees and an extensive bibliography complete the book.

California Locos brings together over 40 years of LA culture, presented through the eyes and hands of the artists who shaped it. Featuring three generations of legendary LA artists, this book chronicles the life and work of the five original locos, Chaz Bojórquez, Dave Tourjé, John Van Hamersveld, Norton Wisdom and Gary Wong, and expands this core membership to include works by Mister Cartoon, Shepard Fairey, Estevan Oriol, Retna, OG Slick and many others. Surf and skate culture, street art, tattoo, street photography, graphic design and music come together on over 432 pages to celebrate Los Angeles in all its exuberant diversity and raw grittiness. Being a LOCO means being crazy about life, being creative, rebellious and open-minded to the ethnic and cultural diversities of our city and the world. LOCOS is a movement and embodies the innovation, multiculturalism and rebellious.

The mountains have always fascinated people. When you think of a mountain vacation you immediately think of hiking, skiing, cross-country skiing, climbing, etc., but there are plenty of other disciplines to discover that you can practice while overlooking magnificent mountain scenery! Jurgen Groenwals, editor-in-chief of 100%Snow and 100%Trails, guides you through the rich array of mountain sports, and in the meantime lets you discover the twenty most beautiful – known and less known – mountain villages and valleys in Europe.

“The magnificent photos invite you to enjoy the luxurious ambience, the views and the very special flair and to let the constant rattling of the train wheels carry you to distant lands.” — Lovely Books

“Hopefully history’s extravagant chariots serve as inspiration for the trains of the future. Newly published book Luxury Trains is full of elegant examples of how to travel in real style.” — Hoom Magazine
“Transports you back ot the golden age of travel, with pictures of 25 of the most elegant trains in the world.” Good Housekeeping UK

Luxury trains have always fascinated and excited our imaginations. A great source of style, romance and exoticism, they have long held starring roles in literature and in Hollywood movies. This wonderful book evokes long-lost days of travel, where trains marked international railway history, from the Orient Express to the Train Bleu. Today, train companies around the world are creating new palaces on rails and these pages offer a journey into that extravagant and luxurious world.

Whether comfortably seated in the restaurant car of the Venice Simplon – Orient-Express as you glide past the Venetian Lagoon, traveling through the Highlands of Scotland on the famed Royal Scotsman, or admiring the ancient splendors of Machu Picchu at the Hiram Bingham bar aboard the Andean Explorer, this book traverses the globe in celebration of these wonderful locomotives. A superb gift for the travel enthusiast and anyone interested in the decadent features of these trains.

Love is one of the most difficult things to photograph, yet this anthology of moving, unexpected images captures the heart of what it means to know and love another. From first love to lost love, these intimate portraits express the tenderness and vulnerability, passion and patience of this powerful emotion. Challenging our perceptions of relationships in the 21st century, this joyful celebration of love beautifully depicts the deep connections between partners of all genders, between friends, siblings, parents and children, and communities. 

October 21, 1982. Three singers stand on the steps of the High Court with large cheques and broken dreams. The women are Annie (Annabel Leventon, the book’s author), GB (Gaye Brown), and Di-Di (Diane Langton). Their dream was of a British three-woman rock band, unique and different from anything that had gone before. They called themselves Rock Bottom. They were raunchy, rude and hilarious – the contemporary media described them as ‘a cross between the female Rolling Stones and the female Marx Brothers’ – and they nearly made it.

Until Thames Television stole everything and made a major award-winning series called Rock Follies, about them, based on them, but without them. It made stars of the three lookalikes playing them. And they lost everything.

A common enough tale of showbiz betrayal. Except that they fought back. At the offset of the Court trial, the Head of Drama at Thames TV sarcastically quipped, ‘three little actresses against the might of EMI?’ Forget it, the three ladies were told. Move on. They didn’t. They took the case to the High Court and won. Breach of Confidence is now on the Statute Books and it has become one of the defining cases in Intellectual Property.

The Real Rock Follies is a real-life story of youthful trust betrayed, dreams of stardom dashed and cruel lessons learnt. The three girls, then in their late twenties, learned too late that in the harsh showbiz world you can hardly trust anyone, not even your friends. However, despite everything, they got the last laugh. Their promising career couldn’t be returned to them but they enjoyed the huge satisfaction (both emotional and financial) that the ruling confirmed that the creative concept behind Rock Follies was fully theirs.

“Dachshunds, debutantes and Donald Trump: capturing the glitzy, bizarre world of 80s high society.” The Guardian on Saturday Magazine
“Through these varying shades of grey, Jones was able to capture the pomp and grandeur of 1990s New York.” Air Magazine
“British photographer Dafydd Jones documented New York’s upper class in the 1990s. His photo book “High Life, Low Life” is a testimony to a time lost in dreams.” Die Welt Germany
“The renowned photographer, known for his images of debauchery at Oxford University, has released a new book of his time among East Coast socialites.” The Times UK

“Dark, glamorous and hedonistic…captures New York in the 1990s.” — Wallpaper*
‘In England, I’d become too well-known as a Tatler photographer. It was wonderful to be invisible again.’

At the end of the 1980s, society photographer Dafydd Jones began a new life in New York. He had been hired by Vanity Fair to attend the most talked-about parties in the city and soon found himself descending into a world of human tableaux, ladies who lunch, princesses in powder rooms and dachshunds scrapping over canapés. Camera at the ready, Jones quickly filled the society pages of the illustrious magazine, snapping the likes of Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Imelda Marcos as they celebrated, mourned and unravelled in the bright lights. During the day, he captured the city streets and the ordinary citizens grounded in the real world. In these pages, the author of England: The Last Hurrah reveals the story of New York, the highs and the lows, as the ’90s unfolded in front of his expert lens. 

‘Mr. Jones goes about his business with cheery zest and a wicked eye.’ – New York Times, 1993

“The RSN has worked on regalia for every Coronation since 1902, when Edward VII was crowned, and most recently designed and embroidered the robes of state for their Coronation last year. Its patron, Queen Camilla, has written a charming foreword to this beautifully illustrated book.”  The Lady
“Bees, butterflies, beetles and 24 different plants – the astonishing sewing secrets behind the gorgeous Coronation robes of the King and Queen.” — The Mail Online

Many initiatives to support women were begun in the late 1800s, but the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) is one of the few that remain. This initiative was born from the desire of three women – Princess Helena, Lady Victoria Welby and Lady Marian Alford – to popularize the lost art of ornamental needlework and place it on a par with other decorative arts, such as painting and sculpture. Their other, yet no less important goal was to provide employment for women compelled to earn their own livelihood. Though women are no longer so limited in occupational options, the RSN has been keeping traditional embroidery techniques alive for a century and a half.

An Unbroken Thread tells the story from the RSN’s founding in 1872 to the current day. It highlights key people, royal and other special commissions, the changing fortunes of the school as fashions changed and the approach to teaching hand embroidery, as well as bringing attention to the role and position of the RSN historically and today, associating with everyone from society ladies and theater impresarios in the late 19th century to working with fashion designers Patrick Grant, Nicholas Oakwell and Alexander McQueen, and architects in the 21st century.

First published to coincide with the RSN’s 150th anniversary, this revised edition details the most recent projects worked by the RSN, showcasing their skilful work on regalia for the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla – The King’s Robe of State, The Queen’s Robe of Estate, The Anointing Screen, The Stole Royal and Girdle, The Chairs of Estate and The Chairs of State.

Antoine Leperlier (b. 1953) is a trained visual artist and painter. He has been working as a freelance glass artist since the 1980s, developing his own glass technique based on casting and the lost-wax technique to create large-format translucent and painterly blocks.

In this survey of work spanning more than 40 years, skulls float, snakes are frozen alive, and what looks like abstract watercolors are preserved forever. Time stands still, the universe speaks. His works explore transience and memory, past and future; he stops time, makes moments eternal. Enamel and ceramic inclusions, bubbles, colors, and engravings create colorful, expressive worlds reminiscent of organic forms floating in outer space. This endeavor to capture dynamic images in material form is an approach unique in contemporary glass art.

Text in English and French.

When a city is pursuing high-speed development and putting massive infrastructure into construction and operation to enable rapid economic growth and efficient urban operation, it will see, quite possibly, increasingly scarce land and resources. And much of its space for people and life lost to economic development, and worse still, the degradation of the environment and the loss of nature… This disequilibrium has set us thinking: what is exactly the purpose of development? Or is it a choice that’s simply not worth making?

This book includes the research and design project “Shenzhen 2030: Balance is More” by Doreen Heng Liu with NODE Architecture & Urbanism at an invitation to Audi Urban Future Award 2012, as well as interviews and articles by experts and scholars in the field of architecture and urbanism. This project, which takes transportation infrastructures as the object of research and design, attempts to reinterpret, deconstruct and reconstruct Shenzhen’s highly efficient urban roads through an interdisciplinary approach. By establishing new supporting systems and reorganizing urban mobility, it tries to leave more possibilities of “leisure” for people and life within limited space and redefine a new balance between economy, society, and environment – a balance that sustains and brings more.

Text in English and Chinese.