In 2017 the National Museum received a significant gift from the artist Ole Jørgen Ness. Like Ness’s oeuvre in general, the gift has great complexity. It sheds light on how we live today, the things that shape us, the tools we use to express ourselves and the significance of the artist’s role in society.
Ness conceives of art as a ‘living being’, and he explores the relationships between mind and matter, nature and culture, and between the existential responsibility of the individual and the collective. In his art there are many layers of deeper meaning. A key metaphorical figure is the extinct Tasmanian devil – a ‘different’ and untameable animal that was demonised and almost exterminated during the colonial era.
The publication also presents the monumental drawing Sketch for a Century (2005), which has not been shown since it was exhibited in the National Gallery in 2005. It fills an entire wall from floor to ceiling, extending 26 meters lengthwise, and it contains a cosmos of mythical beings, fables and Roman gods. The drawing is a reaction to a one-sided, postmodern intellectualism. As a counterbalance, Ness wanted to create an overwhelming and dynamic work that combined historical references with personal experiences.
Text in English and Norwegian.
This book addresses a phenomenon that pervades the field of art history: the fact that English has become a widely adopted language. Art history employs language in a very particular way, one of its most basic aims being the verbal reconstruction of the visual past. The book seeks to shed light on the particular issues that English’s rise to prominence poses for art history by investigating the history of the discipline itself: specifically, the extent to which the European tradition of art historical writing has always been shaped by the presence of dominant languages on the continent.
What artistic, intellectual, and historical dynamics drove the pattern of linguistic ascendance and diffusion in the art historical writing of past centuries? How have the immediate, practical ends of writing in a common language had unintended, long-term consequences for the discipline? Were art historical concepts transformed or left behind with the onset of a new lingua franca, or did they often remain intact beneath a shifting veneer of new words?
Includes 10 essays in English, four in Italian, and one in German.
Text in English, German and Italian.
One sole truth about Edvard Munch’s art does not exist. The answers depend on the questions we pose. Twenty-two Munch experts have written 150 texts about well-known and lesser-known works from Munchmuseet’s collection. Through these multiple ways of seeing, Munch’s lifework emerges as infinite. And this book, as an exercise in the art of seeing. The book invites the reader to explore the world of Edvard Munch — his ideas, processes, and the profoundly human topics that occupied him and that still affect us today. Through a wide selection from the museum’s collection, you can experience the richness of Munch’s artistic career and his unrelenting drive to experiment and innovate.
Published to coincide with the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, Christopher Wood: In Love offers an intimate and revelatory encounter with one of Britain’s most compelling modern artists. Drawing on new research and previously unpublished works from private collections, the book traces Wood’s brief yet incandescent career through the relationships, places and creative exchanges that shaped his art. Structured in a series of thematic ‘acts’, it moves from London and Paris to the Mediterranean and Brittany, weaving together painting, drawing, stage design and archival material to illuminate Wood’s passionate devotion to both art and life. Six newly commissioned essays explore questions of love, performance and sexuality in the early twentieth century, situating Wood within an international avant‑garde network that included Jean Cocteau, Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Beautifully designed and richly illustrated, this publication is an essential contribution to Christopher Wood scholarship and a vital companion to a vibrant moment in British modernism.
Maps that Made History is like a 1000-year-long journey around the world; every one of the carefully selected maps featured here has influenced the course of history in some way. This beautifully illustrated book gathers 100 marvelous old maps, each with a fascinating story to tell, from a 12th century Persian world atlas to a Soviet spy map. These maps were used to resolve conflicts, situate battles, construct a road or a canal, establish important shipping routes, even as propaganda tools. All the maps are reproduced in an oversized format, while accompanying text from an experienced team of historians explains the importance of each one.
31 October 1737 Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the Electress Palatine and last descendant of the grand ducal branch of the Medici, refused to stand by and watch the end of the dynasty that had marked the destiny of Florence for more than four centuries.
She responded to the approaching Austrian rule by the House of Lorraine with a legal act under which all the assets that formed part of the Medici collections were bound to the city of Florence, establishing it definitively as a city of art.
The protagonist of this book is the history of Florence, from its origins to that fateful day, narrated in the first person by the Electress Palatine herself, accompanied by her inquisitive and loyal servant Maria.
The Formula 1 World Championship celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2025. The sport’s rich history is full of great drivers, spectacular cars and exciting races. But there is also a myriad of weird and wonderful behind-the-scenes stories never or rarely told. This book is a look at the alternative Formula 1 history. Read about: The driver who knocked down his team principal; A suicide attempt during practice; The jazz band which produced two F1 drivers; A team sponsored by pop superstars Abba; How the World Champion was kidnapped… and how a F1 car killed a cyclist and a motorcycle rider on a public road. These and many more crazy and fascinating stories are covered in The Alternative History of F1.
Author Peter Nygaard has attended more than 700 F1 races since 1974 and written many books about motor racing.
Photographing Civil Disobedience: Bombay 1930–31 brings together an interdisciplinary conversation around a rare collection of documentary photographs compiled in a historical album held in the Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi. The album features 245 black-and-white images that capture the extraordinary history of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay (now Mumbai), when the city’s cosmopolitan streets came alive with anti-colonial protests, processions, and propaganda—from the leading role played by the desh sevikas (members of a nationalist women’s organization) to the violent crackdown of police lathis (bamboo or wooden sticks) on non-violent demonstrators.
Focusing on the sea of ordinary people participating in public events, the essays in the volume engage with this remarkable visual archive that captures on camera the streets of Bombay turning into sites of anti-colonial and nationalist assertion. This book will be of interest to scholars of gender and women’s studies, urban studies, screen and visual studies, consumer history, as well as the material history of colonial India.
“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.
Nineteenth-Century European Painting: From Barbizon to Belle Époque represents a comprehensive guide to the range of stylistically diverse genres of nineteenth-century European painting. Accessible and insightful, this exquisitely illustrated volume presents the historical context behind the century’s essential artistic movements including Romantic Painting, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Realist Painting, Academic Painting, and Impressionist Painting. Influenced by an overwhelming wave of political, military and social change, nineteenth-century Europe represented an era more diverse in painterly subjects and styles than any before it. Indeed, it was a period that saw many European painters moving away from the strictures of the academy system, choosing instead to use their training to develop new techniques and traditions. A collection of independent stories, this book also outlines the unique progression between the different movements, exciting and enlightening the reader about the most magnificent period of art the world has ever known. Contents: Foreword; Dr. Vern G. Swanson; Introduction; Author’s Note; STYLES: The Barbizon School; Romantic Painting; Orientalist Painting; The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; Realist Painting; Academic Painting; Impressionist Painting; The Newlyn School; Post-Impressionist Painting; SUBJECTS: Landscape Painting; Venetian View Painting; Maritime Painting; Sporting Painting; Animal Painting; Genre Painting; Cardinal Painting; Costume Painting; British Neoclassical Revival Painting; Belle Époque Painting; Conclusion; Endnotes; Bibliography. Featured works from museums and collections including: Louvre, Paris, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Wallace Collection, London, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, The Tate Gallery, London, The Schaeffer Collection, New South Wales, The Royal Collection, The Royal Academy of Arts, England, The Musée D Orsay Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Collection), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, England, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Stanhope Forbes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA, Paisnel Gallery, London, National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy, Museo de Arte, Ponte, Puerto Rico, Musée Marmottan, Paris, Musée D Orsay, Paris, Auguste Renoir, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among many others.
Dr. Balkrishna Doshi (1927–2023) was foremost among the modern Indian architects. An urban planner and educator for over 70 years, Doshi has to his credit outstanding projects ranging from dozens of townships and several educational campuses. Apart from his international fame as an architect, Doshi was equally known as an educator and institution builder. He received several international and national awards and honors, and in 2018 Doshi was selected as the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, internationally known as architecture’s highest honor.
This autobiography captures Doshi’s career from his childhood to his studies in Bombay and London, his work at Atelier Le Corbusier in Paris and collaboration with Louis I Kahn for IIM Ahmedabad. It recounts his meetings with the most remarkable persons in his own and allied fields, and his equally remarkable patrons, and the story of his own family.
Put together, for the first time, from the lifelong diaries and notes maintained by him, Paths Uncharted is a personal recounting of this remarkable journey unfolding over more than 80 years and across all the continents.
A fascinating exploration into the landscape painting career of one of Scotland’s best-loved designers and architects: Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Known worldwide for his architecture and interior designs, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was also an extremely gifted painter. Towards the end of his life, he gave up his principal career as an architect and moved to the south of France where he devoted himself to painting in watercolor. Meticulously executed and brilliantly colored, these landscape watercolors are conceived with a sense of design and an eye for pattern in nature, which owes much to his brilliance as an architect and designer. This book charts Mackintosh’s time in France and explores his career as a landscape painter, placing his work in the context of the modern movement. The 44 paintings Mackintosh is known to have completed while in France are illustrated, and are supported by documentary photographs of the places he painted as well as extracts from his letters written to his wife and friends.
Known today for his atmospheric views of the river Oise, Charles François Daubigny was a pioneer of modern landscape painting and an important precursor of French Impressionism. Although commercially highly successful he was often criticized for his broad, sketch-like handling and unembellished view of nature, and was dubbed the leader of ‘the school of the impression’. As a result he drew the attention of the next generation of artists, among them Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, who were inspired by Daubigny’s frank naturalism, bold compositions and technical innovations. Theirs was an artistic dialogue which spanned thirty years, from the early 1860s to the end of Van Gogh’s short life.
This book will accompany the first major solo exhibition of Douglas Gordon’s work in Scotland since he presented his now celebrated work, 24 Hour Psycho at Tramway in Glasgow in 1993. Gordon is one of a number of Glasgow-trained artists who came to prominence in the 1990s. He has gone on to achieve huge international recognition, marked by major awards, including the Turner Prize in 1996, and by exhibitions in museums in Europe and America. Gordon works with film, video, photographs, objects and texts, examining issues such as memory and identity, good and evil, life and death. He makes great play with the doubling of images often in positive and negative or in mirrored form. This book will show all the important aspects of Gordon’s work, both past and present. In addition, it will be specially tailored to bring out the particularly Scottish nature of Gordon’s ideas and practice. The exhibition book will contain essays by the exhibition curator, Keith Hartley, senior curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Dr Holger Broeker, Kunstmuseum; Dr Jaroslav Andel of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Prague and an essay by the renowned Scottish author, Ian Rankin.
It is Cadell’s zest for life and the diversity of his subjects that makes him unique in the group of artists popularly known as the Scottish Colourists. Influenced by direct contact with the European avant-garde movements taking place at the turn of the century and with early knowledge of the work of Matisse and the Fauves, Cadell’s paintings are confident and rich with colour. Celebrated for his stylish portraits of Edinburgh New Town interiors and his vibrantly colored, daringly simple still life’s of the 1920s, exceptional in British art of this period, he also captured the beauty of nature, especially in the evocative works portraying his beloved Iona.
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.
Revealing an alternative story of modern Scottish art, A New Era examines the most experimental work of Scottish artists during the first half of the 20th century. It challenges the accepted view of the dominance of the Scottish Colourists and uncovers the hitherto little-known progressive Scottish art world. Through these works, we can see the commitment of Scottish artists to the progress of art through their engagement and interpretation of the great movements of European modern art, from Fauvism and Expressionism, to Cubism, Art Deco, abstraction and Surrealism, among others. Looking at the most advanced work of high-profile artists such as William Gillies and Stanley Cursiter, and lesser-known talents, like Tom Pow and Edwin G. Lucas, A New Era takes its name from the group established in Edinburgh in 1939 to show surreal and abstract work by its members.
Established following the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the Chair of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and named after the painter Sir John Watson Gordon, the Watson Gordon Lectures typify the longstanding and positive collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and the National Galleries of Scotland: two partners in the Visual Arts Research Institute in Edinburgh. This lecture was given by Neil Cox of the University of Essex, one of Britain’s leading scholars of Cubism and Surrealism, and a particular authority on Picasso, approaching the Spaniard’s work from intriguing angles. He concentrates on a single work, Picasso’s Head of 1913, and in doing so demonstrates how scrupulous focus can open out challenging perspectives in the work of a great master.
Also Available:Roger Fry’s Journey ISBN: 9781906270117 Sound, Silence, and Modernity in Dutch Pictures of Manners ISBN: 9781906270254
This book reveals the wealth of British and European miniatures preserved in Scottish private collections, most of which are not normally on show to the public. Some of these intimate and private works are new discoveries, published here for the first time. These works are drawn from some of the notable private collections in Scotland, led by the most famous of all, that of the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry. The protagonists of the Stuart cause are well represented in portraits of Prince James and his sons Prince Charles Edward and Prince Henry Benedict, taken from the collection of one of the most significant Jacobite families, that of the Dukes of Perth. The book illustrates some of the most personal portraits of the leading figures among the great families of Scotland from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Twenty of the key works are illustrated in colour, with extended captions, and a complete catalogue of the collection is also included.
This book brings together over 160 of the finest surrealist artworks by legendary artists including Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró and Man Ray. The works hail from the four renowned and extraordinary private collections of Edward James, Roland Penrose, Gabrielle Keiller and Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch, and together offer a superb overview of surrealist art.
Ten essays explore the different origins, historical contexts and creative urges behind these collections. Artworks, perhaps more than anything else that one can acquire, are objects of desire and surrealist artworks even more so. The sheer quality of the works acquired (and, in the case of the Pietzsches, still being acquired) is astonishing and, while passionate about their private visions, all the collectors have been mindful of contributing something to the public good.
The collections complement each other to an extraordinary degree and allow us to follow some of the artists’ careers from beginning to end. By uniting them, exciting new juxtapositions emerge along with a fuller and richer picture of the surrealist movement as a whole.
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.
“The most important portraits to me are the ones of people who have enriched my own thinking or awareness. Areas of philosophy, religion, psychological perspectives, poetry, music, art history, women’s roles and the inner life are important issues for me – and all have been nurtured by these people whom I have met through portraiture.” – Victoria Crowe. Victoria Crowe is one of Britain’s most vital and original figurative painters. Here, Duncan Macmillan explores the exceptional skill of this remarkable artist’s portraits and Victoria Crowe, herself, contributes many insightful accounts of her own thoughts and perceptions as each work developed. This book also tells Crowe’s own story – both professional and personal – through her art. She has developed an approach to portraiture that seeks to do more than record the outward appearance of a person: she aims to represent something of the inner life. With 80 illustrations, the portraits include the artist’s family, composer Ronald Stevenson, pioneer medical scientist Dame Janet Vaughan, poet Kathleen Raine, actor Graham Crowden, psychiatrist Professor Sir Peter Higgs and many others.
This highly anticipated monograph focuses on the architectural output of Enrique Browne, a talented and prolific Chilean architect and co-founder of Browne & Swett Arquitectos, based in Santiago. Over the last 40 years, this South American architect has been trying to reconcile natural and artificial worlds through architecture. They are one indissoluble unity. This book showcases in rich photographic detail how his innovative projects incorporate multiple environmental aspects that result in a complex, layered response to the challenges of place, form and identity in Chile.
Browne’s practice has developed architectural designs in a diverse range of scales, with emphasis on sustainability and energy efficiency. This volume delves into Browne’s processes, such as developing variations of the “grapevinestructure typology” to create a “double green skin” as a green wall (or roof), to protect dwellings from the region’s strong westerly sun; or combining vegetation and its oxygenation benefits with building to counter pollution; or using both artificial and natural light as a material for illuminating spaces or volume. This book also includes commentary on the new zeitgeist surrounding modernity and the impacts of the digital and globalized world on architecture today. Highly regarded, and a prolific writer and designer, Enrique Browne has a unique way of looking at the world. Showcasing the wide range of his design, this title is sure to impress.
“The richness of the illustrations in this larger format enables us to better appreciate the intricacy of her illuminated manuscripts, the tonal subtleties of Traquair’s tooled leather book bindings and the processional scale of her muraled interiors.” — Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History
A fully updated and expanded edition of the definitive study of Phoebe Anna Traquair.
This is a compelling account of the life and career of Phoebe Anna Traquair, a leading figure in Britain’s Arts and Crafts movement. The new edition features new research about her artistic practice, materials and technique as well as her intellectual life, including her correspondence with John Ruskin. Her total commitment to the place of art in her daily life is revealed alongside new details on her family and social life.
Traquair was remarkable for her openness to all types of art, and worked in a range of media including embroidery, enamels, illuminated manuscripts and murals. This new edition features 120 illustrations including new discoveries, as well as some of her most famous and best-loved works.
Beautifully illustrated and featuring the artist’s own words, this book is at once a fascinating biography and an artistic study of one of Scotland’s first professional women artists.