The Galleria Borghese brings together an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture within a beautifully decorated villa. This volume, dedicated to modern sculpture (Late Renaissance to Baroque to Neoclassical), marks the start of a new general catalogue of the collection.
The introduction narrates the history of the collection, from its creation by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century to its sale to the Italian Republic at the end of the 19th century. The entries are full of chronological details, new attributions, information on restorations and account for the different historical settings thanks to an accurate study of the inventory records of the villa. They include world-famous masterpieces by Algardi, Bernini and Canova among others. The sale to Napoleon of many of its Antique works of art (now in the Louvre) was key to the Borghese’s commission works of ancient inspiration, the analysis of which animates the pages of another section, based on the concepts of copy and remake. The catalogue closes with a section on restoration, that gives an account of the fundamental role of 16- to 18th-century sculptors in the maintenance and transformation of the archaeological collection in relation to the villa’s display requirements.
Text in Italian.
The volume accompanying an exhibition at Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, from 8 December 2023 to 28 April 2024 invites us to reflect on the role a face can play in mediating communication through the gaze. We are all aware of how powerful it can be when eyes meet, as well as their crucial role in giving dignity to people through caring. But the face can also be considered from another, almost conflicting, point of view, as a visible surface masking the invisible aspects of the human being: it can either reveal or conceal feelings and emotions, thoughts and concerns…
The subject of faces deserves to be explored here in all its anthropological depth. In Art Brut, its production marked as it is by a powerful creative urge, this exploration takes on a singular dimension, with the presentation of works whose figurative content facilitates the encounter with this inalienable aspect of humanity, which becomes somehow inevitable, regardless of the marginality of the social and cultural acknowledgement of the artists.
These faces, whether withdrawn or seeking, with their attentive, questioning, communicative, absent, or empty expressions, reflect a manner of relating to the world that interrogates, through a mise en abyme of sorts, our very encounter with humanity.
Ceramics designed by Gio Ponti for Italian firm Richard-Ginori are well known to collectors and design scholars around the world. The originality of Ponti’s designs and their flawless execution are among the notable aesthetic qualities of this body of work. This is a catalogue raisonné of Gio Ponti’s ceramics in the collection of the Museo Richard-Ginori della Manifattura di Doccia, one of the first company museums in Italy and the one of the oldest ceramic museums in Europe.
The book aims to give Ponti’s ceramic works a precise chronological order based on correspondence and documentation from the Museum’s archive. On the basis of verified data this volume reconstructs the detailed history of most of the decorations and forms belonging to the collection, certifying their attribution and investigating, on a case by case basis, the iconography of rich and fascinating imagery that informs Doccia’s ceramic art at the time of Ponti.
Text in English and Italian.
1000 piece puzzle featuring the artwork of acclaimed New York City based outsider artist Nicole Appel.
Nicole Appel’s Patchwork Portraits represent people non-traditionally, as a collection of the things that they like or care about. Pakistani Truck Art was done as a gift for Jerry Saltz, the Pulitzer Prize winning art critic who has long championed her work. With images of Dante’s Inferno, elaborately decorated Pakistani trucks, and even the Drive-By Truckers, this “portrait” of Saltz references his purgatorial years as a long haul truck driver after he had abandoned his career as an artist. Conventional portraits have traditionally represented people using their faces. Nicole Appel’s Patchwork Portraits represent people non-traditionally as a collection or ‘patchwork’ of the things that they like or care about. Her “Patchwork Portraits” have been exhibited at the Outsider Art Fair, in New York City, and sold out for the past 13 consecutive years. Her works are included in important collections, nationally and internationally, including representation in the collections of The Museum of Everything and Brian Donnelly, a.k.a KAWS. In 2025, KAWS included 10 of Appel’s Patchwork Portraits, from his personal collection, in the critically acclaimed, blockbuster show, The Way I See It: Selections from the KAWS Collection, at the Drawing Center, in N.Y.C.
Even though they belong to the mineral kingdom, the stones in the collection of the French writer Roger Caillois appear miraculously similar to works of art. Beginning from this mysterious but captivating link between two such apparently distant universes, the book collects a carefully curated selection of the finest stones in the collection and recounts the life of Caillois (sociologist, member of the surrealist movement…), reviewing and presenting his essays on stones. The persona and the personality of this atypical 20th-century intellectual emerge from the essay by Stefano Salis, who introduces us to Caillois’ world and that of Marguerite Yourcenar, who took his place in the Académie de France after his death with a speech reviewing his life and work. The literary critic Carlo Ossola traces the outlines of the cultural climate in which Caillois lived and operated, while François Farges, now in charge of the collection, illustrates it in the final essay.
This catalog presents masterpieces of calligraphy, painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquers, and textiles from two of America’s greatest Japanese art collections, which are featured in a landmark exhibition at the Asia Society in New York. Impermanence is a pervasive subject in Japanese philosophy and art, and recognizing the role of ephemerality is key to appreciating much of Japan’s artistic production. The dazzling range of art and objects in this beautifully photographed exhibition catalog show the broad, yet nuanced, ways that the notion of the ephemeral manifests itself in the arts of Japan throughout history. Insightful contributions from noted scholars explore the aesthetics of impermanence in religion, literature, artifacts, the tea ceremony, and popular culture in objects dating from the late Jomon period (ca. 1000-300 B.C.E.) to the 20th century.
Contents:
The Art of the Ephemeral;
Works in the Exhibition:
I. Retrieving Lost Worlds; II. Buddhism: Perpetual Impermanence; III. Tea: Choreographed Ephemerality; IV. Transforming Impermanence into Art.
Published to accompany an exhibition at the Asia Society Museum, New York, between 11 February and 26 April 2020.
It is a fascinating story that the merchant companies of Europe, established with the aim of sourcing exotic eastern spices, stumbled upon Indian handmade textiles and found these a highly profitable product for their home markets. This process was to have far-reaching consequences for colonial history.
In When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Europe the author takes us on a tour of 30 masterpieces of Indian textiles from the TAPI Collection, commissioned by European patrons in the 17th and 18th centuries. Presented here are outstanding examples of large, intricately hand-drawn, dye-painted cotton chintzes made in the Coromandel Coast, and embroidered palampores and garment pieces made in Gujarat and the Deccan. Textiles made for Dutch and British patrons demonstrate the aesthetic high point achieved by Indian artisans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Indian patterned cottons such as these, with their infinite variety of floral motifs, left a profound and enduring impact on textile designers in the western hemisphere, unexpectedly setting the stage for the Industrial Revolution.
The informative text is accompanied by rarely seen images from museums and private collections, offering fresh insights into these iconic examples. Three essays followed by individually explained catalog entries for each textile add to a greater understanding of an important, historical phase in the development and global recognition of India’s textile art, now preserved in museums and collections worldwide as a testament to the handiwork of the skilled artisans of India.
With her unmistakable signature and exuberant imagination, Beate Kuhn (1927-2015) is one of the most significant German ceramicists of the post-war era. She turned to the liberal arts as early as the end of the 1950s. In linking sculptural reasoning with the possibilities of the material and inherent pottery techniques, the internationally renowned artist conquered the frontiers of ceramics and created virtuosic works that went on to form their own contribution to the history of modern sculpture.
With around 190 works from all her periods of creativity, the Mannheim architect Klaus Freiberger was able to compile a collection unmatched anywhere else in the world. In honour of its foundation at the Neue Sammlung, the impressive oeuvre of Beate Kuhn is now being presented for the first time in this comprehensive publication.
This book accompanies an exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, Munich (DE), 13th July – 19th November 2017.
Text in English and German.
The Galleria Borghese not only houses an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture, but also one of the most extraordinary collections of paintings in the world, with masterpieces by the most important European painters, including Giovanni Bellini, Correggio, Dosso Dossi, Parmigianino, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio and Rubens.
In two volumes – the first is presented here divided into two tomes and dedicated to works created between the 15th and 16th centuries – the intention is to continue the work begun with the catalogue raisonné of modern sculpture, also published by Officina Libraria (2022), thanks to updates, discoveries, archive research and analysis of works.
The entries in this volume, preceded by introductory essays illustrating the main nuclei of paintings produced between the Renaissance and Mannerism periods in the museum, have been entrusted to scholars specializing in the productions of individual artists or regional schools, experts in the history of the gallery and a large group of younger experts in 15th and 16th century painting. The individual texts present a significant degree of in-depth study both chronologically and in terms of attribution, with notes on restorations and archival documents.
Text in Italian.
This publication marks Anthea Hamilton Reimagines Kettle’s Yard – an installation by Turner Prize nominee Anthea Hamilton at The Hepworth Wakefield, exhibited during September 2016 – May 2017.
The ambitious installation included a series of new works, created by the artist in response to works from the Kettle’s Yard Collection. Hamilton is renowned for her art-pop, culture-inspired sculptures and installations that incorporate references from the worlds of art, fashion, design and cinema. Based on her research into the art and objects of the Kettle’s Yard Collection, Hamilton re-appropriated objects from the collection, using unexpected details as starting points for new works.
Hamilton invited several British and international artists, with whom she has either previously worked, or whose work is important to her, to contribute to the new installation. These include: French artist Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann; British artist Nicholas Byrne; German artist Daniel Sinsel and the celebrated American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Kindred Spirits showcases the remarkable flowering of Chinese style ceramics that took place in Japan after the mid-19th century. For over a thousand years, Chinese ceramics have been admired and emulated in Japan. This book discusses for the first time how this artistic relationship evolved during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa eras. A selection of 100 works from the acclaimed Shen Zhai Collection demonstrates the range and quality of these ceramics, from elegant celadons to sophisticated underglaze blue porcelains. Detailed descriptions, makers’ marks, and box inscriptions make this a valuable reference resource for collectors and art historians.
An astonishing 25 photographers from around the world have contributed to this celebration. Their images are accompanied by personal essays and reflections about working with this astonishing artist. From memories of the earliest days at the Arts Lab in Beckenham to what it was like touring the world with Bowie, each contributor shares their experiences of working with – and knowing – this most extraordinary figure.
From portraits and album covers, performances and rehearsals, to rarely seen private moments and candid snapshots, this collection is at once powerful, sentimental and inspiring. The thoughts and reminiscences of the photographers, many sharing their memories for the first time, give us an insight into this artist unlike any other.
When David Bowie passed away on 10 January 2016, the world lost a musical hero. But his legacy lives on. While his sound and style evolved throughout his career – from Ziggy to the Thin White Duke – two facts never changed: he was an innovator; and photographers adored him. This book pays homage to this ultimate icon.
A beautifully illustrated and extensively researched collection of 100 of the most famous houses of Britain’s Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Arts and Crafts Movement, founded in the philosophies of John Ruskin and William Morris, produced some of the world’s most enduring architectural masterpieces. Author and architect David Cole presents the 100 great Arts and Crafts houses, each individually described and analyzed with insightful detail and floor plans, and illustrated with stunning photography.
Beginning with Morris’s own iconic Red House, the book traces the fifty-year span of the movement, with a short chapter dedicated to each of these extraordinary houses: from the works of the pioneer Arts and Crafts architects, to the great reformer architects of the next generation, to the craftsman architects who took their lives and their work to the countryside, to the movement’s Scottish architects, and finally to the houses of the Garden Cities and suburbs built through the movement’s last decade before the First World War. The book features the great houses of some forty of the movement’s most renowned architects, including Philip Webb, R. Norman Shaw, E.S. Prior, William Lethaby, C.F.A. Voysey, Edgar Wood, Ernest Gimson, the Barnsley brothers, C.R. Ashbee, M.H. Baillie Scott, Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Robert Lorimer, Parker and Unwin, and many others.
As Morris famously said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
The series contains a collection of masterpieces by famous Chinese painters of all ages, with a rich variety of subjects and styles. It presents a selection of paintings from the Tang and Song dynasties, including figure and landscape paintings, showing the splendid charm of traditional Chinese painting at its peak from multiple perspectives. The volumes are accompanied by expert interpretations, analyzing the characteristics of the paintings and the key points of appreciation, and guiding the reader through the beauty of the paintings in an insightful text.
The essays in this lavishly illustrated volume offer a multi-faceted portrait of American financier J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) as a collector of art. A riveting exploration of Morgan’s acquisitions from antiquities to medieval manuscripts to Old Master paintings and European decorative arts, Morgan—The Collector introduces the reader to how and why he amassed his vast collection. The lively essays also serve as a tribute to Linda Roth, curator at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, who dedicated much of her forty-year career to researching Morgan and the over 1,500 works from his collection now in the museum. This much-needed publication focuses on Morgan as a collector and is directed at both a scholarly and more general audience that is interested in the history of collecting, America in the Gilded Age, Pierpont Morgan, and European art.
Rock music, or rock for short, serves as a generic term for music styles that have emerged since the late 1960s from the mixing of rock ‘n’ roll of the late 1950s and early 1960s with other styles of music such as B. beat music and blues have developed. Many genres within rock music are identified with individual youth cultures.
Parallel to the emancipation of the long-playing record from the single, a completely new treatment of the record sleeves developed from the mid-1960s, which had never existed before in any music genre. An art form of its own emerged that tolerated no restrictions whatsoever and for which Klaus Voormann and Peter Blake for the Beatles, Storm Thorgerson for Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as well as Doug Johnson for Tina Turner or Judas Priest deserved credit made. In this context, it also became common to design a separate band logo for each band.
For this tear-off calendar, we’ve selected 365 of the most iconic rock album covers of the last six decades. A collection that should not be missing in any collection! And the hit: with the printed SPOTIFY codes, every album can of course be played anywhere and immediately.
Marylène Madou was established in Belgium early 2017, launching the brand with a successful collection of printed scarves and today print still is the ultimate starting point in each collection. Every textile print is created in-house by the designer herself, exclusively using her own original paintings and digital illustrations.
Marylène Madou: Prints & Patterns provides an overview of Marylène’s most distinguishing print designs and patterns, a treat for print admirers and textile enthusiasts worldwide with Italy, the UK, and the Benelux being the largest sourcing countries for the materials. For the manufacturing of her ready-to-wear, she is in a unique position, working with a local atelier in Belgium. A collection of both highly detailed and more stylized prints, highlighting Marylène’s multidisciplinary design process, covering more than 190 pages, divided into 5 chapters. Marylène Madou: Prints & Patterns is printed on high-end paper, with a recognizable print all over the cover. The holographic pink foil makes the title stand out among the crowd.
Text in English and French.
A sumptuous celebration of one of the world’s most striking photograph collections from 1967 to 2017. This publication celebrates fifty years of collecting photographs at the National Gallery of Canada. In 1967, when the collection was established, the photography market was in its infancy and the collection reflects the availability of in-depth collections of work by some of the forefathers of the medium such as Charles Nègre, William Henry Fox Talbot, Gustave Le Gray and Roger Fenton, among others. Within a few short years of starting to build the collection the science of photographic preservation and conservation was making remarkable strides and influencing the acquisition and exhibition of photographs in museums. This publication celebrates the collecting of photographs, the historical and art historical context of their making and the deepening of our understanding of their physical nature. The work of 164 artists, such as: Benoit Aquin; Diane Arbus; Eugène Atget; Nicolas Baier; Edouard Baldus; Brassaï; Julia Margaret Cameron; Henri Cartier-Bresson; Lynne Cohen; Benjamin John Dancer; Walker Evans; Robert Frank; Lee Friedlander; Isabelle Hayeur; Arnaud Maggs; Robert Mapplethorpe; John Max; Lisette Model; Eadweard Muybridge; Charles Nègre; William McFarlane Notman; Marc Ruwedel; Jospeph Sudek; William Henry Fox Talbot and vernacular and news photographs by unknown photographers will also be included.
The fashion, history, and development of Jewish dress tells a story that spans the globe and crosses many cultures. In this colorful volume, Jewish communities – particularly those established for centuries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa – are revealed through their garments. Stunning photographs spin tales of family traditions and religious devotion, with a special section dedicated to jewelry worn by brides and grooms. Superb photographs of specific garments, with many close-up details, are juxtaposed with rare contextual photographs from The Israel Museum’s archives to create a tapestry of a people revealed through textiles, costume, and images. More than 350 revelatory illustrations tell us how these precious articles of dress were originally worn.
Kifwebe masks are ceremonial objects used by the Songye and Luba societies (Democratic Republic of Congo), where they are worn with costumes consisting of a long robe and a long beard made of plant fibres. As in other central African cultures, the same mask can be used in either magical and religious or festive ceremonies. In order to understand Kifwebe masks, it is essential to consider them within the cosmogony of the python rainbow, metalworking in the forge, and other plant and animal signs. Among the Songye, benevolent female masks reveal what is hidden and balance white and red energy associated with two subsequent initiations, the bukishi. Aggressive male masks were originally involved in social control and had a kind of policing role, carried out in accordance with the instructions of village elders. These two male and female forces acted in a balanced way to reinforce harmony within the village. Among the Luba, the masked figures are also benevolent and appear at the new moon, their role being to enhance fertility. Although the male and female masks fulfil functions that do not wholly overlap, they do have features in common: a frontal crest, round and excessively protruding eyes, flaring nostrils, a cube-shaped mouth and lips, stripes, and colours. Art historians and anthropologists have taken increasing interest in Kifwebe masks in recent years.
Kulango Figurines is designed to introduce various miniature works created by the Kulango in northeastern Côte d’Ivoire, who were formerly vassals of the two kingdoms that inhabited the country (Bouna and Gyaman). Their extraordinarily varied art, which can be both intriguing and disconcerting, is relatively unknown. Their metal sculptures in particular display a strikingly free expressiveness, breaking as they do with the iconographic codes that govern their works in wood. Doing away with immobile remoteness, bodies seem to reinvent movement, sometimes adopting almost choreographic gestures, an airy grace, sinuous lines. Or, in trembling tension, some display unexpected twists and provocative curves, while others stretch out impossibly or offer a chance for virtuoso foreshortening and stylized bodies. Still others are even stranger, like Siamese twins, inseparable triplets, headless figures or figures with one head on two torsos, with one leg or four, webbed feet, outsize arms and hooped bodies. Who are these enigmatic beings whose bulging eyes peer at the invisible? Is the sculpture confined to just these specimens? The range of styles is simply astonishing, the forms beyond imagination. The collection includes over 100 figurines, none of which is over 10cm tall: pendants, amulets, fortune tellers’ statuettes or weights for gold. Introduced into our world through the metamorphosis of photography, transfigured by lighting and framing effects, these resurrected works have been revitalized, like apparitions from another world. Text in English and French.
Since taking the helm of the National Galleries of Scotland in 1984, Sir Timothy Clifford has overseen the acquisition of some of the finest, and best-loved works in the national collection. This book chronicles the development of the collection under his directorship and casts light upon the wide range of acquisitions, including the fascinating stories behind their purchase. Lavishly illustrated, highlights of the book include The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child by Botticelli, The Three Graces by Canova (purchased jointly with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London), and the most recent major acquisition, Venus Anadyomene by Titian. Works from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s internationally renowned Surrealist collection are also featured, as well as paintings from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum houses an extraordinary collection of ‘prisoners’ objects’. These were made by prison inmates and presented to the ICRC delegates who visited them, as provided for by the Geneva Conventions. For over a century, these objects have borne mute witness to the numerous violent episodes that continue to ravage our planet, from Chile, Vietnam, Algeria and Yugoslavia, to Rwanda and Afghanistan. Made from simple materials – whatever comes to hand in a prison – these objects express the need to escape the world of the jailbird. As a Lebanese inmate puts it, ‘Creating is a way of acquiring freedom of expression, it gives us a means to say what we think while everything we see around urges us to keep quiet and to forget who we are.’ While some of these works touch us through their simplicity, others astonish us with their beauty or ingeniousness. Each bears the imprint of a personal story loaded with emotion, inviting us on a journey through time and collective history.
This is the book that accompanies a landmark exhibition organized jointly by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, and the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, to bring together works by Francis Bacon alongside masterpieces from the Hermitage collection. The book and exhibition focus on Bacon’s known influences and inspirations, and explore his fascination with artists such as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Titian, Michelangelo, Rodin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne and Degas. The thirteen paintings by Bacon in the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection form the core group by the artist, alongside paintings, sculptures and artefacts from the Hermitage that exemplify the theme of the project. Photographs from the Hugh Lane archive in Dublin further explore the artist’s working methods. With text by leading Bacon experts, and designed by John Morgan Studio, London, it is a book that will offer intriguing new insights into the life and work of one of the twentieth century’s most famous artists. Contents: An Introduction: Thierry Morel; Bacon, Michelangelo and the Classical Tradition: Paul Joannides; Francis Bacon’s Studio: Margarita Cappock; Bacon’s Paintings in the Sainsbury Collection: Amanda Geitner. Also available Bacon Moore ISBN 9781851497478