“So far, there haven’t been many women who have dared to dream on a truly megalomaniac scale—and see those dreams through to completion.” — Niki de Saint Phalle.
The story of the Tarot Garden, created by Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002), unfolds like a fairy tale. For the first time, this book documents the extraordinary adventure of its construction, from 1978 to 1998. It all began when, at the age of twenty-five, Niki de Saint Phalle visited Gaudí’s Park Güell and decided to give form to her lifelong “desire for grandeur.” The result was the creation of twenty-one monumental and esoteric sculptures spread across two hectares in Tuscany’s Maremma region—an artistic interpretation of the Tarot’s major arcana, a system that had long captivated her imagination. The Tarot Garden stands within a visionary lineage of fantastical environments, alongside the Palais Idéal of Ferdinand Cheval, Gaudí’s Park Güell, Alain Bourbonnais’s Fabuloserie, and the Gardens of Bomarzo in Lazio. Enriched with rare archival material, this book reveals the behind-the-scenes story of Niki de Saint Phalle’s magnum opus, shaped by Etruscan heritage, local craftsmanship, and rituals drawn from cultures around the world.

“Seeing the garden Gaudí built in Barcelona changed my life. From that moment on, my path would be a slow apprenticeship—until the day I, too, would be capable of creating a magnificent work like his, a place of joy.” — Niki de Saint Phalle.

Text in English, Italian and French.

Lukas Dhont is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker who earned an Oscar nomination for Girl. With both his debut Girl and its follow-up Close, he moved audiences and charmed festival juries alike. Now Coward his third and most ambitious film, set against the backdrop of the First World War, is on its way. Once again, the focus is on two characters and their personal journeys, amidst the violence and sorrow of war. Central to the narrative is life in the barracks, where space was nevertheless found for beauty and theater – an aspect of the war that has often been overlooked. With this book, we therefore aim to go beyond a mere ‘making-of’; it also delves into the historical material that forms the basis of this project. Peppered, of course, with unique set images and a glimpse into the notes – and thus the creative mind – of creator Lukas Dhondt.

On the second floor of the 1986 British Designer Show in London, tucked away among the bridal gowns, six unknown Flemish designers were discovered almost by chance. With names so unpronounceable for the international crowd, someone must have called out, “Come up and see the Antwerp Six!” The echo of those words never left the Six. On the contrary, it only grew louder over the years, elevating the group to mythical status. Through their global success, Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Bikkembergs, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee put Belgian fashion firmly on the international map. In The Six, novelist Oscar van den Boogaard reconstructs the origins and dynamics of the Antwerp Six through intimate conversations with the designers themselves, weaving their memories and experiences into a one-of-a-kind biography.

Text in English and Dutch.

Marilyn Monroe to Muhammad Ali. Cher to Chappell Roan. The Beatles to Banksy. Over the past 20 years, Julien’s Auctions has auctioned countless unique objects owned by icons of stage, sport, screen and song to collectors worldwide. Today, it’s an auction house like no other, built from scratch by fans, for fans. This commemorative book explores its story, from small start-up with big hopes, to an established global brand to the stars. With expert essays, an in-depth candid conversation with eco-founders Darren Julien and Martin Nolan, and photographs of hundreds of items sold over the years, this is a joyous, kaleidoscopic celebration of pop culture. Featuring some of Julien’s Auctions’ record-smashing highlights — Marilyn’s Happy Birthday Mr. President gown, John Lennon’s Gibson guitar, Kurt Cobain’s cardigan and Princess Diana’s exquisite dresses — Pop Culture presents a uniquely desirable chronicle of celebrity in the 21st century.      

The official book to discover all the beauty and richness of the Palace of Versailles.

The Palace of Versailles gives you a guided tour of the château, its gardens and the Trianon estate, exploring their rich and diverse history. With over 220 photographs from the palace’s official archives, this book offers a comprehensive, unique and exclusive vision of the estate. Many of the photos highlight recently renovated spaces, such as the richly detailed furniture of the King’s Bedchamber, which was restored to its original splendour in April 2026 – as well as a number of spaces with limited public access. These pages also include exclusive drone footage revealing spectacular perspectives and details that are completely invisible to visitors.

Perfect for architecture, art and history enthusiasts, this is an extensive and detailed guide to the Palace of Versailles’ fascinating and diverse history.

The official book to discover all the beauty and richness of the Palace of Versailles.

The Palace of Versailles gives you a guided tour of the château, its gardens and the Trianon estate, exploring their rich and diverse history. With over 220 photographs from the palace’s official archives, this book offers a comprehensive, unique and exclusive vision of the estate. Many of the photos highlight recently renovated spaces, such as the richly detailed furniture of the King’s Bedchamber, which was restored to its original splendor in April 2026 – as well as a number of spaces with limited public access. These pages also include exclusive drone footage revealing spectacular perspectives and details that are completely invisible to visitors.

Perfect for architecture, art and history enthusiasts, this is an extensive and detailed guide to the Palace of Versailles’ fascinating and diverse history.

During World War II, art was plundered on an immense scale. From the occupied territories, the Nazis hauled art off to Germany to build ambitious collections. For the first time, that story is being told for Belgium. How could paintings by Memling, Van der Weyden, Brueghel, Jordaens, and Cranach simply leave the country? After ten years of research, Geert Sels pieces together the puzzle from evidence he found in archives all over Europe.

Through rigorous detective work, he maps out the routes along which the art was taken away. After the war, paintings from Belgium found their way to the Louvre, Tate Britain, the Getty Museum, and the Yale Art Gallery. The Netherlands, France, Germany, and even Russia turn out to still hold art that should have been returned to Belgium. That makes the Belgian story an international one. Other works did come back and now are on display in Belgian museums – but without any effort to trace their rightful owners. Why did that never happen? Unlike other countries, Belgium has remained painfully passive on the issue of Nazi-looted art. Art for das Reich presents an uncomfortable truth and serves as a stress test for government policy.

Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910) is one of the most neglected figures in late nineteenth-century design. In exploring Day’s dual career as an industrial designer of extraordinary range and versatility as well as a major writer and critic, this well-illustrated book restores his place among the influential figures of his time. Day’s relationships with colleagues William Morris, Walter Crane, W.A. S. Benson and others placed him in the vortex of development of design in Britain. Joan Maria Hansen, design historian, examines Day’s work as a prolific industrial designer whose mastery of pattern, color, ornament and superb draftsmanship resulted in tiles and art pottery, clocks and furniture, wallpapers, textiles, stained glass, and interiors of remarkable diversity and beauty. Day embraced modern technology. His views on the role of the designer for industry, along with his unshakable belief that a marriage of design and industrial processes was essential to produce beautiful furnishings for the majority of people, reveal him to be startlingly modern in his attitudes and practice in the changing world of industrial production. Today collectors prize Lewis F. Day’s clocks, furniture, tiles and art pottery, and books – which he both wrote and designed – along with reproductions of his patterns for wallpapers and textiles which are enjoyed by enthusiasts. Day’s textbooks on design continue to influence designers, and his magazine journalism provides insightful and balanced commentary on developments in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century design. This book – the very first full treatment of this major figure – is the definitive reference on Day’s life and work and is an invaluable reference for collectors and dealers, decorative arts professionals, designers, business historians and enthusiasts of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century design.

The common denominator linking the artists in this book is that they all went to the Near East or North Africa and painted the experiences drawn from their travels. The “Orient” in question covers a geographic area which spreads from the Balkans through the Maghreb down to Marrakech. Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Sudan were a part of this vast territory as well. This “covering” of the Orient occurred during the 19th century, in between Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt and the First World War. Text in French.

Since the 1970s the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich has held culturally significant collections of Heinrich Harrer (1912-2006) and Peter Aufschnaiter (1899-1973).

Between 1945 until 1951 both lived in Tibet. Aufschnaiter then worked in Nepal, whereas Harrer undertook numerous expeditions. In the 1960s he traveled to Asia, South America and Oceania. In the artifacts brought back, craft skills as well as social organizational structures and world views from the local communities are represented. They also reflect the viewpoints of the travelers themselves.

For this publication all of the Zurich collections have been researched for the first time. ‘Starting with the object’, moments of encountering and social change as well as historical and cultural developments can be retraced, and the seemingly obvious is thus pieced together into an extended map or knowledgescape.

Accompanies an exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich (CH), from 1 July 2018-8 September 2019.

A creative exchange with artists such as the painter Guido Cadorin or the ceramicist and sculptor Hans Stoltenberg-Lerche brought the second generation Toso Brothers to the forefront of Murano glass manufactories at the beginning of the twentieth century. After the Second World War Ermanno Toso and Pollio Perelda were among the most famous designers and continued the production of lavish series in glass, complemented from the 1950s onwards with high-quality one-offs executed mainly in the celebrated millefiori technique. This decoration consists of a multitude of tiny colored discs, known as murrini, which are produced by melting, cooling and cutting bundled canes of glass to form a cross-section pattern. Together with Caterina Toso, renowned Murano expert Marc Heiremans looks back on and reviews the complex history of the famous glass manufactory. Well-informed texts, hitherto unpublished sketches and archive photos make Fratelli Toso Murano an essential reference work for all connoisseurs of glass.

With this publication a comprehensive study of Impressionism in Canada is available for the first time: from its beginnings in France, via the dissemination of the new style through artists, gallerists, dealers and collectors in North America, and its incorporation into and propagation within a hitherto conservative milieu, to the reception of Canadian Impressionism both nationally and internationally.

The study culminates in the concise portrayal of the lives and works of fourteen of the most significant Canadian artists – including William Blair Bruce, Maurice Cullen, J. W. Morrice, Laura Muntz Lyall, Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote, Helen McNicoll and Clarence Gagnon – along with several other artists who for some time also employed Impressionist techniques. In this overview not only are the sources of inspiration in French Impressionism presented but also how masterfully and with aplomb these artists found their own artistic form of expression, which has decisively shaped Canadian Impressionist painting today.

With a foreword by Guy Wildenstein and an introduction by William H. Gerdts.

Pressure exerted by America in 1854 caused Japan to open its doors after 260 years of isolation. Wide receptiveness to everything Western was the driving force behind the modernization of Japan initiated by the Meiji government, yet it also induced a rapid rediscovery of indigenous cultural values. At early Paris and London international exhibitions, the Japanese decorative and applied arts sparked off the Western fascination with all things Japanese japonisme. In Japan, on the other hand, new technologies were eagerly adopted the government realized that increasing production for export would be an excellent means of promoting Japanese economic growth and thus enhancing Japan’s status worldwide. Meiji Ceramics represents the first in-depth study of the development of Japanese export porcelain against a highly charged background of political, economic and cultural factors. Includes 180 artists’s signatures.

As the 1930s began, Alfred H. Barr Jr., founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Philip Johnson, distinguished architect, brought the principles of the Bauhaus to America – even before exiles from Nazi Germany fully established the idea of architecture and furnishings as a functional whole in the United States. Barr’s organization of the museum reflected the departmental structure of the Bauhaus, elevating architecture, graphic design, utilitarian furniture design, industrial design, photography and film to be on an equal footing with painting and sculpture, and endorsing all to be recognized as art. Barr and Johnson curated exceptional exhibitions such as Modern Architecture, International Exhibition (1932) and Machine Art (1934) at MoMA and created modern interiors in private living quarters. In this book, comprehensive essays and series of photos trace how modernism found its way into the American cultural landscape.

Text in German.

In Animal Collective, Fupete and Jacklamotta create escapist dreams through their alternative reality. The stunning addition to the 36 Chambers series leads the reader deep into a menagerie of fantastic, dark creatures accented by bold strokes and specks of gold. These creatures feature influence from the Italian streets, lending an authenticity to their portrayal as surreal daydreams from the minds of two outsiders.

Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) was one of the most innovative furniture and interior designers of the twentieth century, long renowned for the tubular-steel chairs she created with le Corbusier. Her career spanned nearly seventy-five years and included work in her native France as well as in Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe, and today her designs are highly collectable. Recently, several hundred photographic negatives were uncovered in her archives, revealing for the first time the scope of her work as a photographer. In the late 1920s, French interior and furniture designer Charlotte Perriand was at the cusp of her career, just beginning her work as an architect, designer, town planner, and political militant. Starting in 1927, she turned to photography, which was to play a pivotal role in her development as a designer through the pioneering years of the modern movement. Her photographic venture ended in Japan in 1941, when the hope of a better world was shattered by World War II. For Charlotte Perriand, photography was a machine for thinking, taking notes, and stirring emotions, but it was also an instrument of political engagement. Today, her photographs are a revelation, offering unseen glimpses into her creative process and intellectual development. Her photographs express the important themes and questions explored by modern artists of the day, and are part of the vast stream of avant-garde movements in which painters, architects, and photographers – and sometimes all three combined – worked together in a common spirit.

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.

Sicilian cuisine is known as curtigghiu – of the courtyard – with recipes passed from door to door and from generation to generation by word of mouth. Influenced by the endless crossing of cultures that is Sicily’s history, its food is as rich in tradition as it is in taste. Here this mingling of Europe, Italy, the Middle East and North Africa is celebrated in 30 recipes chosen by Maite and Marie and photographed – both landscapes and finished dishes – by Mau.

Tuscany is home to Florence, the Renaissance, stunning landscapes, great wines – and food. Simple, slow cooked, made with the finest ingredients, locally sourced. Maite and Marie collect 30 traditional recipes, combined with 40 of Mau’s delicious photographs, and published at an affordable price. Now the best of Tuscan food is within easy reach of any home cook.

Exploring the vast range of materials and techniques used in the making of Tibetan clothing and ornaments, this book takes a closer, more intimate look at the different cultural groups within this diverse country, discussing how national costume relates to their everyday life. The technical approach will appeal to spinners, weavers, felt makers, braiders, embroiderers, jewellers and costume enthusiasts. The book will also interest many general readers in Europe and America who are fascinated by the aura of the Tibetan Region; the lifestyle of the people who live amongst Tibet’s high peaks, emerald forests, and stunning lakes command world-wide interest. Richly illustrated with the author’s evocative contemporary high quality photographs, dating from the mid 1980s, this book is a visual journey into the heart of the country. It documents the people, and their costumes and related crafts, focussing on the historical Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham. Tibetan Dress is unique in its reflection of historical material. It combines this academic knowledge base with original observations and wide-ranging interviews with nomads and farmers, all of which centre around costumes locally possessed and worn by Tibetans today.

The Classicist is an annual journal dedicated to the classical tradition in architecture and the allied arts. Focused on Chicago, the Classicist No. 16 explores the city’s rich architectural history as well as contemporary examples of classical design through professional and student portfolios as well as academic articles authored by leaders within the field. Contributors include Guest Editors Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker of Cohen & Hacker Architects; Ann Lorenz Van Zanten, the first Curator of Architecture at the Chicago Historical Society; Jeanne Sylvester, founder of Sylvester Historic Consultants, LLC; Rolf Achilles, architectural historian and member of the board of the Richard H. Driehaus Museum and the Hegeler Carus Mansion; David Van Zanten, professor emeritus at Northerwestern University; Edward Keegan, architect and writer; and Aric Lasher, president and director of design at HBRA Architects.

“Although the street art is generally conveyed in a very natural matter, even his dead animal paintings seem at peace.” – Streetartbio.com “Detached from the artist’s identity, his detailed, illustrative animal paintings have brought him back to the world. With local species of animals as his main focus, ROA inevitably starts a dialogue about human interaction with nature and the environment, whether it is painting on the walls of a museum or in an abandoned rural factory.” – Hi Fructose – The New Contemporary Magazine “One of the most influential acts of street art around the world.” – The Huffington Post Fascinated by nature, the anonymous muralist and street artist ROA is inspired by the beauty of its non-human inhabitants. With great attention to detail, ROA draws over-sized black and white creatures of endemic or endangered species on buildings around the world, from Moscow to Mexico City, and from Los Angeles to London. His subjects are frequently survivors; scavengers, rodents, and unusual animals that thrive in their particular milieu.

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.