Founded in 1921 and the first of its kind in the country, the National Gallery of Canada’s Department of Prints and Drawings boasts a world-class collection of historical drawings dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries. These works, rendered in a wide range of mediums – graphite, ink, pastel, watercolor – reflect the diversity of techniques used over the ages.
Incorporating the latest research and a displaying wealth of scholarship, this richly illustrated book celebrates the recent centenary of this outstanding collection. It brings together a spectacular array of drawings, including newly acquired additions and little-known but historically significant works. The wide selection of plates showcases preparatory studies for paintings, depictions of historical and mythological themes, portraits, landscapes, forays into abstraction, and poignant explorations of the human condition. Featured artists include Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Théodore Géricault, Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch and Wassily Kandinsky, among many others.
The Sick Child, painted in 1885-86, is one of the most well-known, frequently discussed and highly analyzed single works in Edvard Munch’s oeuvre. The painting was shown for the first time in 1886 at the third National Art Exhibition, also known as the Annual Autumn Exhibition, under the title Study. The exhibition took place at the National Gallery, and later the work acquired a central position within the museum’s collection. Øystein Ustvedt’s essay in the catalogue provides a thorough introduction to the picture and its history, highlighting its creation, the motif, its reception, its provenance and later versions. Trond E. Aslakby’s article is based on comprehensive technical examinations of the National Museum’s version of the painting, focusing on technique and treatment.
Text in English and Norwegian.
“… essential reading for anyone interested in conservation, African history, and the human spirit. It is a moving portrait of a park that continues to inspire global efforts in environmental stewardship, even under the most difficult circumstances.” — Ninu Ninu
Virunga National Park, the green lung in the eastern DR Congo, is Africa’s oldest nature reserve. The park is breathtakingly beautiful and offers an unparalleled diversity of ecosystems—from active volcanoes to tropical rain forests, from the glaciers of the Rwenzori peaks to the savannas of Rwindi. It is home to an exceptional array of wildlife, including the world’s last mountain gorillas. Thanks to these unique features, Virunga is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This publication, written by around 40 experts, explores the complex history of this Congolese gem. It sheds light on those who have dedicated themselves to its preservation since 1925, as well as the current teams fighting to address the countless environmental and social challenges in a region plagued by conflict, poverty, and humanitarian crises. Through their efforts, the park has become a catalyst for development and stabilisation of the entire region. The book invites us on a fascinating journey where resilience and innovation serve the park and surrounding communities, continuing to shape the legend of Virunga.
From October 14th 2025 to March 1st 2026, the Musée National Picasso-Paris will present an exhibition dedicated to the American painter Philip Guston, bringing together a group of figurative works and drawings made by the artist responding to to Philip Roth’s book Our Gang (1971). The exhibition will also show the satirical verve of Guston’s painting as well as a form of political commitment rooted in his discovery of Picasso’s Guernica, surrealism and Mexican muralism in the late 1930s.
Supported by the Philip Guston Foundation and the artist’s daughter Musa Meyer, who have entrusted the museum with the Nixon drawings series, as well as never-seen-before works, the exhibition will offer a precise look at Guston’s work from the 1940s to the end of his life. In total, the book will feature around 150 works by Guston as well as the 73 drawings, along with Philip Roth’s text.
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.
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.
“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 monograph is the first title in a new series titled Opera Maestra, specifically focused on the work and itinerary of the artists who made history, from an unprecedented perspective. The series begins with Leonardo da Vinci, captured by the expert Marco Versiero.
At the core the analysis is the specific soul, among the thousands of Leonardo’s, that Marco Versiero wants to underline: his mirror-soul; namely, Leonardo’s eye between Human and Nature. In other words, the eye that allowed the artist to mediate between his favourite dimensions (the human and the natural one), and allowed them to communicate with each other without cancelling themselves, but rather managing to reflect one in the other’s light, like in front of a mirror.
An essential biographical note introduces the reader to Marco Versiero’s pages, enriched with 61 detailed pictures. The pictures, proposing not only a selection of Leonardo’s paintings but also of his drawings, enhanced with comprehensive captions, tell the itinerary of the genius from the years of his apprenticeship in Verrocchio’s workshop till the days of his maturity.
Wine production in south-west France goes back a long way. The region includes some of the first districts in France (notably Gaillac) to be planted with vines, by the Romans more than two thousand years ago. It is also the earliest-known location of scores of grape varieties, some of them precursors of international varieties such as Malbec and Cabernet Franc.
Although today south-west France is the fourth region of France in terms of wine production very few wine consumers are familiar with more than two or three of its appellations. Cahors and Madiran are well-known appellations but we don’t hear (or read) much about less fashionable appellations such as Rosette and Béarn. As a result the wines generally command relatively low prices.
This book covers all the important aspects of south-west France in an accessible way. Although it includes the mass-produced wines of the region it focuses on quality wines made in more limited volumes. Although a number of the appellations of south-west France share similar climatic conditions (such as the influence of the Atlantic), the many small AOPs vary significantly in soils and topography, grape varieties, and the styles of wines they produce. They range from the botrytized sweet whites of Monbazillac to the teeth-staining reds of Cahors, from the distinctive dry whites of Jurançon to the tannic reds of Madiran.
Phillips begins with a brief history of the region and provides an overview of the region today before considering the wines of the various sub-regions in turn, including land and climate, grape varieties, wine styles, and wine law, together with entries on their most notable producers. All colors of wine are made in south-west France, as are dry and sweet wines and sparkling and still wines. The rich diversity of the world of wine is represented in south-west France, and it is this very diversity of grape varieties and wine styles that makes the region so compelling.
This interdisciplinary scholarly catalog examines Motherland, an important series of photo-performances by the acclaimed artist Pushpamala N. on the Indian nation personified as woman, mother, and goddess. The series shows Pushpamala taking on Mother India’s myriad personifications: nubile beauty and saintly renunciant; militant goddess wearing a garland of skulls or receiving the ultimate sacrifice of a warrior’s head; the mother-surgeon activating the birth of model citizens; and destitute widow, bent from years of abject labor. As she does so, she reveals that nations are invented, as are national embodiments. The artist’s burden is to reveal the ingredients of such inventions.
This luxurious photo book commemorates the 600th anniversary of KU Leuven University, Belgium, featuring the work of renowned heritage and architecture photographer Karin Borghouts. Through her lens, Borghouts offers fresh and unexpected perspectives on the university’s rich architectural heritage, capturing everything from auditoriums and laboratories to student residences, sports facilities, libraries, chapels, and more. Accompanying her striking images, historian Liesbet Nys delves into the storied history of KU Leuven. She offers an insightful narrative that complements the visual journey through one of Europe’s oldest universities.
This volume collects the papers presented at the international study conference Sculpting in the Renaissance: an art to (com)move / Sculpter à la Renaissance. Un art pour (é)mouvoir organized by the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Castello Sforzesco in Milan to accompany the exhibition Le corps et l’âme. De Donatello à Michel-Ange. Scultures italiennes de la Renaissance (Officina Libraria, 2020), held between 2020 and 2021. With the involvement of some of the most important specialists in Renaissance sculpture, the aim was to investigate the interactions, influences and exchanges between the plastic arts and other Renaissance art forms capable of revealing feelings through expressions of the body, trough the works of Agostino di Duccio, Donatello, Michelangelo and other local sculptors. The aim is also to place within their social, devotional and intellectual context the different manifestations of feeling of which sculpture is one of the privileged media. Sacred art themes in particular were addressed, in an attempt to explain their formal evolution in relation to the socio-cultural transformations of the time, but also to local traditions and their dramatization.
Text in English, French and Italian.
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.
The ARCASIA Awards for Architecture is an annual award established by the Architects Regional Council Asia to recognize the outstanding architectural works of Asian architects. It hopes to encourage the inheritance of the Asian spirit and promote the improvement of the Asian architectural environment as well as the role of architects and architecture in the social, economic and cultural development of Asian countries. This special issue of Architecture Asia gives a comprehensive review of the 26 winning projects of ARCASIA Awards for Architecture 2021, which includes Single Family Residential Projects, Multi-family Residential Complexes, Commercial Buildings, Resort Buildings, Institutional Buildings, Social and Cultural Buildings, Specialized Buildings, Industrial Buildings, Conservation Projects, Integrated Projects, Socially Responsible Architecture, and Sustainable Buildings.
Through brief jury comments, project descriptions and rich images, this book provides a wonderful opportunity for readers all over the world to give a quick glance at what happened in Asian architecture in 2021.
From the Coolest Corner – Nordic Jewellery presents groundbreaking and fresh jewelry from Northern Europe, a comprehensive selection of current works by artists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic States. The best and most innovative Scandinavian art jewelry is presented, assessing its possibilities and potential at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The project presented in this publication, culminating in a symposium and a traveling exhibition, challenges stereotypical notions of northern European art jewelry. Do the typical Nordic trends of the nineteen-nineties still apply today? Indeed are there currently any general trends at all in Scandinavian design? Or has the orientation towards international design become so dominant that there are no longer any regional characteristics? Renowned experts have made a selection of representative works, as a basis for researching the role of northern European jewelry in the context of international art.
Text in English, Norwegian & Swedish.
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 relationship Ernst Gamperl, an artist of international renown, has developed with wood as a living material and the acknowledgment of inescapable serendipity are a source of creative inspiration as well as the driving forces behind his work – a work revolving around the artist’s deep connection with nature and respect for his raw material. The wood worked by Gamperl sometimes comes from majestic trees tens or even hundreds of years old – grown in nature, it is nature that has often sent these unmistakable creatures crashing down.
Trees are an integral part of creation, symbols of life and strength that Gamperl has studied and “perceived” for many years in symbiosis with their essence and nature. His ability to combine an unconventional approach to the material with a revolutionary technique and an original interpretation honed over many years results in works that stand out for their elegance and charisma. Gamperl stretches technique to its limits in creating powerful sculptures that unfailingly stir the viewer, who discovers something never before encountered.
Text in English, Italian and German.
“an excellent short book, which focusses in detail on a single work, a newly restored screen by William Bell Scott” — Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, Volume 29, 2024-2025, p.128
William Bell Scott’s screen, The King’s Quair, was commissioned by James Leathart, an important collector of Pre-Raphaelite art. The beautifully decorated folding screen took as its inspiration The Kingis Quair, a 15th-century Scots poem attributed to James I of Scotland. Depicting key scenes from the king’s 18-year imprisonment in Windsor Castle, it is adorned by exquisite botanical details and gold leaf.
Split into three parts, this book reveals the history of the screen’s commission, details the remarkable imagery of the screen itself, and finally situates the screen in its historical context by explaining the fascinating personal relationships that were the backdrop to its creation, including Scott’s relationship with the artist and heiress Alice Boyd.
Drawing together the chivalric medieval tale of an imprisoned, love-struck king with the vibrancy of the Pre-Raphaelite social circles in which Scott moved, the reader is given a vivid picture of how this captivating artwork was created. Illustrated with new photography of the screen, this book is a vital new part of the story of British, as well as Scottish art.
“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.
A vibrant, colorful and beautiful book that introduces readers to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. It explains the difference between the two movements and the main artists associated with each. Illustrations are drawn from the renowned and outstanding collection of French art held by the National Galleries of Scotland and they include a number of rarely seen works.
This book tells the fascinating stories of how key paintings and drawings found their way into the collection.
Artists include Monet, Millet, Gauguin, Bastien-Lepage, Charles Jacque, Troyon, Corot, Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Vuillard, Bonnard, Derain, Matisse, Legros and Rodin.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and South Korea, this volume offers a unique point of view on the work of Ji-Young Demol Park and Lee Lee Nam. The evocation of nature unfolds through connections interwoven over the centuries between culture and objects, materials, colors, and motifs. Jade- and pine-colored decorated ceramics, cobalt oxide for the horizon, porcelain white as snow or the moon, all feature in the work of both artists, their gazes meeting and reflecting in the landscapes of a great painter of old, Jeong Seon (1676-1759). Despite all their differences, the mountains rendered in ink by Ji-Young Demol Park and Lee Lee Nam’s virtual landscapes are truly united by the uniqueness of their relationship with this cultural heritage as well as the strength of their individual universes, oriented towards the re-enchantment of nature.
Text in English and French.
Working from his Urbana practice in Bangladesh, Kashef Chowdhury designs architecture that is rooted in the history and nature of its location – whereby the latter also relates to a spiritual and cultural level. This explains his fascination for Kahn’s parliamentary building in Dhaka, which inspired this volume of photo essays.
Kahn’s design is characterized by an innovative architectural language that combines western and eastern traditions, forms and materials. For instance, in view of the great importance of water in Bengali tradition, he placed the building complex by an artificial lake. Furthermore, although it is defined by strict geometrical forms, the parliamentary building reflects the transcendental nature of the National Assembly, defining the hopeful founding years of the independent state of Bangladesh.