What is the relationship between the Holy Trinity and social media? How do hashtags influence us? Why are we so inclined to use filters? Why do we treat digital images differently than analogue ones? Art history offers a beginning of answers.
Instagrammable explores the paradox of looking without seeing and seeing without looking. Koenraad Jonckheere examines trust in and distrust of images, drawing on 2,500 years of thinking about visual art. In eleven chapters, he examines the world of digital images through numerous intriguing examples from art history.
The story of the discovery of the 55 most important colors in creative man’s existence from prehistoric times to the present, written from the artist’s perspective. Monica Rotgans describes the many dyes and pigments that humans have turned into paint and color, and how to recognize them.
Learn all about red mercury, white lead, blue glass, black kohl, pink louse, yellow earth, brown asphalt, green arsenic, and much more. A richly illustrated and accessibly written book about the origins and growth of the painter’s palette.
The vibrant collection of floral design compiled in this festive tenth edition of the International Floral Art is once again testimony to the boundless nature of our human imagination. Each arrangement is a one-off expression of creativity, showcasing the beauty and diversity of flowers through very individual perspectives. About 120 talented international floral designers share their finest works, inviting us into their personal worlds filled with breathtaking and expressive blooms. From bold and dramatic displays to delicate and intricate designs, these artists welcome us into a floral wonderland where creativity knows no bounds.
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.
The new edition of The Art of Cookery re-proposes the recipes of the Florentine culinary tradition, enhancing their simplicity, capturing their modern aspects, veering some of them towards an accuracy in the procedures to ensure that those who try the recipes – and then those who are lucky enough to taste them – will discover the presence and taste of each individual ingredient. All organized within the time frames of today’s schedules. We should not be scandalized if the procedures cemented in the historical memory of domestic walls are made faster through the use of the appliances now routinely used in the kitchen. So bring on the pressure cookers, mixers, blenders and immersion robots if they can help to free up a bit of time and a bit of happy effort in favor of imagination and creativity.
Cooking with passion is a game that continually puts us to the test, with results that only our guests can judge.
Racines | Roots is a vibrant art book reflecting the unique vision of a passionate collector and entrepreneur. Garance Primat unveils a selection of works drawn from the heart of her aesthetic and spiritual journey. For her, art is a life-sustaining force: deep roots nourish our being and link us to nature, allowing us to flourish like a tree.
Born into a family responsive to nature and art, she has honed her eye through contact with different cultures during her travels, particularly in Australia and the United States, where she became aware of how everything in the realm of nature was interconnected. This quest inspired her to acquire the Domaine des Étangs in Charente Limousine.
With its ability to question the world and shape the future, contemporary art occupies a special place in her eclectic collection, interacting with modern art from around the world, minerals and wisdom-bearing objects. Garance Primat invites us to trust her sensibility as we explore the universal, where words struggle to grasp the interconnectedness of living things. An original message emerges from the “root” of things, awakening a shared consciousness. This book, built around the etymology of seven key words linked to nature and the universe, is an invitation to let ourselves be carried away by the senses and discover the invisible links that unite us.
Text in English and French.
In this publication, Dana Widawski reveals a fascinating panorama of ceramic work. With subtle humor and provocative depth, she transcends the boundaries between art and craft in her tiled tableaux and assemblages. In surprising, playful, yet precise ways, she dares to expose both our present-day kitsch and also that found in art itself, right up to its tipping point.
“Dana Widawski’s figures … provoke a simultaneous attraction and disgust: too delicate, too cute, too pretty, too frivolous, too direct—all industrial white sugar. Something happens, you become gripped, emotionally, personally. You are made aware of your own feelings and associations.” (Esther Niebel)
Text in English and German.
Resonant Histories is an invitation to revisit encounters between India and the Arab world in the 20th century that continue to shape artistic and intellectual discourse today. By bringing the collections of the Barjeel Art Foundation and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation into dialog, the project aims to situate artistic practice within broader transnational frameworks of exchange and mutual influence. This publication explores the story of modern art as not a singular narrative, but a network of voices shaping one another across time and place.
With contributions by Nadine Nour el Din, Patrick Kane, Vivek Gupta, Neha Vora, Amal Allana, Iaroslav Volovod, Rasha Alduwaisan, Deepak Unnikrishnan and Bhoomika Ghaghada.
Mathematics is art—created not with colors or forms, but through abstract thought. This is the central idea behind Art of Mathematics by acclaimed author Snezana Lawrence. In this work, she explores the history of mathematics through themes such as the elements, ratio, and dimensionality, highlighting the inherent beauty of the discipline. Along the way, she presents a rich selection of artworks inspired by mathematical ideas. Through this approach, Lawrence reveals what mathematical beauty truly is: the ability to trace a thread through history that weaves together the stories of people and cultures around a single, original abstract concept.
From the explosive energy of Fauvism to the mature cut-outs, this monograph dedicated to Henri Matisse traces the journey of an artist who transformed physical limitations into new modes of creation. The book illuminates a body of work in which color becomes structure and line organizes space, highlighting the decisive choices that profoundly redefined pictorial modernism. Written by Colin Lemoine, an art historian, critic, and exhibition curator, the work resonates with the Matisse exhibition presented at the Grand Palais starting in March, the most important held since the venue reopened.
True to the editorial line of Cercle d’Art, this monograph combines intellectual rigor with accessibility.
This monograph devoted to Pablo Picasso naturally finds its place in the catalog of Cercle d’Art, a publishing house historically linked to the artist. Through a selection of around 60 major works, the book traces the key stages of his journey at the heart of the twentieth century, from his early periods and Cubism to seminal masterpieces such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica. Conceived as a true visual biography, this monograph offers a clear, rigorous, and accessible reading of a major artistic career, designed to provide lasting support for bookstores and their readers.
This book focuses on the production of chairs, discussing the work of Avisse, Blanchard, Boucault, Carpentier, Cresson, Delanois, Foliot, Gourdin and Tilliard and recreates the environment centred around the leading figure Nicolas Heurtaut. Sculptors, gilders and upholsterers are the other professions which contribute to the elaboration of a chair. The book’s theoretical section is completed with more technical observations, notably on the art of distinguishing an authentic piece from an imitation. The period covered extends from the end of the regency style to the beginning of neo-classicism (1730-1775). Text in French.
The extraordinary life of Barbara Cartlidge (b. 1922 in Berlin) – influential gallerist, curator, jewelry artist and author – together with the history of her legendary Electrum Gallery, which she founded in 1971 with Ralph Turner in London, are documented for the first time in a single publication. Pioneers and colleagues as well as around seventy internationally renowned artists of the gallery all have their say and, in anecdotes and recollections, countless illustrations and hitherto unpublished images, tell of a strong and resolute woman and the significance of her gallery as a promoter and platform for the understanding of contemporary art jewelry. Particular attention is paid to the life of Barbara Cartlidge, who fled from Germany in 1938. For over fifty years she was a driving force in what she described as the ‘the brotherhood of jewelers who make modern and thought-provoking jewelry all over the world’.
The present publication is an essential part of the narrative of Wayne Higby’s retrospective exhibition – focusing on the concept of the artist scholar – at ASU Art Museum, in Spring 2013. It documents his ceramic work with over 150 images of 50 seminal works and gives context to the story behind the artwork. Wayne Higby’s international reputation both as an artist, a scholar and teacher will be explored in the contributions to this book that includes a detailed chronology of Higby’s life and career as well as highlights and excerpts from his well known writings on ceramic art. Essays on the American Landscape and American landscape art as the inspiration behind Higby’s work as well as his important, influential explorations into contemporary vessel aesthetics are included along with an essay that chronicles his central role in the development of contemporary Chinese ceramic art. Additionally, Higby’s recent, dramatic, late career move to large architectural installations is explored in detail. Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Wayne Higby received a B.F.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, in 1966, and an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1968. Since 1973, he has been on the faculty of the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY. Wayne Higby is recognized as one of the most important and influential ceramic artists of the late 20th, early 21st, century. In particular, his work is celebrated for its innovative use of the language of landscape. Contents: Helen Williams Drutt – Foreword; Peter Held – Overview/Statement; Henry Saye – The American Landscape; Tanya Harrod – The Vessel in Contemporary Art; Ezra Shales –The Artistic Scholar; Mary McInnes – Architectural Work; Carla Coch – China Journal; Appendix; Chronology; Biography; Works in Public Collections; Bibliography; Artist Statements; Artist’s Acknowledgements.
Maple, birch, walnut, lemonwood and palisander are just a few of the woods from which Liv Blåvarp (b. 1956) creates exceptional one-off jewelry pieces. The rigidity or softness of the wood plays just as much of an important role in the selection process as its structure or texture. The works are comprised of numerous single elements, which fuse together to become sculptural volumes tactile creations that come alive when touched. Yet at the same time Blåvarp’s expressive and colorful pieces remain flexible and wearable. Their forms are not clearly defined; associations to organic growth, animals and plants, light and shade, water and waves all come to mind. With around 55 works from 2002 to 2017 Liv Blåvarp presents the first comprehensive review of her creative output. Text in English and German.
Beginning with the renaissance of gemstones in jewelry design since the 1970s, Ute Eitzenhöfer, Theo Smeets, Lothar Brügel (ret. 2014) and Eva-Maria Kollischan (since 2014) successfully established the Hochschule Trier in Idar-Oberstein as a creative European jewelry centre. To mark the exhibition in the Stadtmusem Simeonstift in Trier on thirty years of the Gemstone and Jewellery Department, the publication shows an exciting selection of works from the last ten years. Works in creative design and photography accompany diverse approaches that exemplify the contemporary use of a reputedly ‘outmoded’ raw material. In exploring the aesthetic characteristics of the material and the experimental confrontation with its physical qualities, the gemstone’s potential for design comes entirely into its own. Within current discourse it comments ironically, on the one hand, on the unilateral societal ascription as a luxury item; on the other, it functions as a charming and noble object of nature.
Text in English and German.
Mari Ishikawa sees a parallel world off the beaten track of everyday living that she wants to make visible with her art. Such counter-worlds are discovered in photographs with long exposures, which are taken up in art jewelry. Together these pairings result in an overall picture that is almost mystical. Silver casts taken from nature are reborn as jewelry in combination with diamonds, pieces of charcoal, or paper. Thus Mari Ishikawa interrupts for a brief moment the flow of transience; a precious object is created that has been wrenched from the cycle of life and death to stand for itself and for the moment.
Everything is black and white. Takamatsu’s hand-painted monochrome images are created using a mixture of watercolor and opaque white pigments in gouache. “White and black metaphorically express the ambiguity of positive and negative, good and evil, race and religion,” the artist writes. After meticulously painting multiple gouache layers, Takamatsu colors each individual pixel of the object a different shade of grey, resulting in an astonishing sense of depth and surrealism. “His hologram-like, female characters look digitized,” writes Hi-Fructose, “though they’re executed entirely by hand.” This extreme attention to detail allows the viewer to experience Takamatsu’s fantastical depictions of Japanese women in an immersive presentation.
Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris in the atelier of Georges Jeanclos, Elsa Sahal quickly focused on working with ceramics for their sensuality and fragility. Former resident at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, in 2013 (Helena, MT), at Alfred University, New York State College of Ceramics, in 2009-2010 (Alfred, NY) and at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres (2007-2008), Elsa Sahal has also taught at the Haute École d’Art et de Design in Geneva and at the École Supérieure d’Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg.
She experiments in particular with the idea of volume and balance in sculpture, while returning to an exploration of the themes of the body and femininity. Ambiguous, dense, sensual and colorful, her works oscillate between anthropomorphic landscape and the landscaped body, taking up Cézanne’s dream of uniting women’s curves with the shoulders of hills. Elsa Sahal conceives, kneads and then produces complex and disturbing forms sustained by dense colors and sublimated through enamel.
Winner of the MAIF prize for sculpture, in 2008, and the contemporary sculpture prize awarded by the Fondazione Francesco Messina, in 2007, Elsa Sahal has presented her work in one-woman shows and group exhibitions in numerous museums around the globe: at the Bonnefantenmuseum, ‘Ceramix, Ceramic art from Gauguin to Schütte’, in 2015 (Maastricht); at the MAD Museum, ‘Body and Soul, New International Ceramics’, in 2013 (New York); at the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, ‘Sculptures’, in 2008 (Paris); and at the Incheon Women Artists Biennale, in 2008 (Korea).
Text in English and French.
The Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian art, recently auctioned at Sotheby’s, is the most comprehensive collection of its kind. Comprising some 300 works from Mexico, Central, and South America – wood and stone sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and ritual objects – it spans 1200 BC to AD 1500. The Barbier-Mueller Collection, one of the most important and wide-ranging art collections in the world, was begun by Josef Mueller in Paris in 1908 with the purchase of works by Hodler and Cézanne; the Swiss Mueller then looked beyond Western art and bought his first pre-Columbian piece, an Aztec stone water goddess, in 1920. Today, Mueller’s daughter and son-in-law, Monique and Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, continue to collect Western, African, Oceanic, and Cycladic art, which is frequently on loan to museums around the world. Text in English and French.
Along with 150 full-color glossy illustrations of the terracotta, earthenware, stone, silver, and copper objects, a Pre-Columbian art lover and prestigious curator journey into a fine art collection, describing the rich cultural context and artistic merits of each work. On his part, the acclaimed author, explorer, and filmmaker Hugh Thomson gives a detailed, exciting narrative – based upon extensive research – of the role art played in the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés and of Peru by Francisco Pizarro. It is rare that a collector takes such a personal, descriptive part in publishing his treasure trove, but in this lavishly illustrated book, Stuart Handler describes why he gathered Pre-Columbian art, what attracted him to the individual pieces, and what artistic attributes make these objects outstanding works. Contents: The Collection and Patrimony by Stewart Handler; Introduction: Beginning the Journey, by Stewart Handler; Traveling with Cortés, by Hugh Thomson; Traveling with Pizarro, by Hugh Thomson; The Stuart Handler Collection; Index.
This book presents a personal collection of ancestor sculpture and protective deities, following the ancient migratory and trade routes of the Austronesian, Southeast Asian Bronze Age, and Hindu-Buddhist peoples. The author, Thomas Murray, has spent a lifetime studying this art through his endeavors as a peripatetic dealer, collector, and field researcher. The objects illustrated come from a swath of widely varied cultures from Nepal eastward to Hawaii, with the overwhelming majority from Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Murray’s eye is highly informed and based on an unusually large sampling of objects to which his experience and research have exposed him. The artworks documented represent some of the top examples he has acquired and retained over the course of a long career. They are characterized by sculptural balance and a harmony of line, as well as a rare quality of expressiveness. Each ranks high in terms of aesthetics and desirability within its own particular style as perceived by the art market and by other western aficionados.