“I have never read a text which goes even half as far as this one in expressing the particular poignancy which lay at the heart of the impressionist movement. I say this as an art critic. As a novelist I would simply like to pay my tribute to the mastery of language, portraiture and storytelling which Figes has now at her command.” – John Berger
“A small masterpiece” – Susan Hill
“A luminous prose poem” – Joyce Carol Oates

This shimmering novel is an extraordinary portrait of a day in the life of an artist at work and at home. In prose as luminous as the colors Monet is using to portray his garden, Eva Figes guides us from dawn (‘midnight blueblack growing grey and misty’) through midday (‘the sun was high now… shrinking what little shadow remained, fading colors, the pink rambler roses on the fence by the railway track looked almost white’) to evening (‘the tide of shadows rising as the sunset glow faded outside.’) Monet’s wife, grieving for a lost daughter; a living daughter, fretting that she will not be able to marry the man she loves; their friend the abbé, eating and drinking with them; two children playing, closest to Monet in the freshness and certainty of their vision; all experiencing in different ways the richness of the light that Monet works unceasingly to pin down in his last, great paintings.

“… will satisfy every lover of this famous wine region.” —   Bloomberg
“The publishers have hit upon a winning formula, with Susan Keevil compiling an informative, eclectic, but always enjoyable, collection of beautifully written pieces from some 30 contributors.” — The Sun

“The accumulated effect is thoughtful and intriguing, inspiring readers to open up a Chianti Classico or Brunello and take a trip to Tuscany via wine glasses.” — NY Times

“…this enjoyable book compiles articles about the evolution of Tuscan vineyards, with entertaining portraits of innovative winemakers and insightful commentary about the region and the wines by a who’s-who of regional experts, including Burton Anderson, Gerald Asher, Andrew Jefford, Hugh Johnson and Ruth Rogers. “ — Toronto Globe

From the melée and muddle of Italy’s vinous past, Tuscany emerged triumphant. The world’s restaurants began to clamor for its Chianti and the Super Tuscan rebel-wines that captured the hearts, palates and pockets of any wine lover who sipped them. It found fame and fortune but had it gone too far…? On Tuscany’s authors unravel the truths of this enchanted vineyard – its tortured landscape of clashing mountains and upended seas, its mysterious Etruscan forebears, the Medici aristocrats and warring tribes who fought to control it. And the stoic peasants, whose thwarted creativity and intuitive ways with wine won through in the end. It tells the story of its king of grapes, Sangiovese, and the courtiers that grapple for its throne, and of the maverick winemakers who harness this region’s passion for wine today, steadying the roller coaster before it once again goes too far and too fast…

With contributions from Andrew Jefford, Hugh Johnson, Nicolas Belfrage MW, Jancis Robinson MW, David Gleave MW, Walter Speller, Gabriele Gorelli MW, Burton Anderson, Ruth Rogers, Neil Beckett, Victoria Moore, Gerald Asher, D H Lawrence, Fiona Morrison MW.

The East has been for centuries, or perhaps forever, the holy, the sacred, the source of life. Not only does the sun rise in the East, so does a Gautam Buddha. The East has produced thousands of mystics. Just as the West has produced great scientists, the East has produced great explorers of one’s being. The East attracts the seeker, almost like a magnet. Mystics of the East is a compilation of Osho’s discourses on some of the Enlightened Masters who were born in the East: Atisha, Baul mystics, Boddhidharma, the Buddha, Chuang Tze, Kabir, Lao Tzu, Mahakashyap, Nansen, Patanjali and Tilopo. Contents: Introduction Atisha Baul Mystics Bodhidharma Gautama the Buddha Chuang Tzu Kabir Lao Tzu Mahakashyap Nansen Patanjali Tilopa

Madhubani art’s origin is believed to go back to the ancient era of the Ramayana, when the town was decorated by inhabitants of the region for the wedding of Lord Rama and Sita with elaborate wall paintings and murals. The philosophy of Madhubani art is essentially based on the principle of dualism. The artscape appears inundated with divine deities, the sun and moon, and flora and fauna along with features found in Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, tantric symbols and classical Hinduism. Primarily a significant socio-cultural engagement for the womenfolk of Bihar, this art was a welcome break from their daily drudgery. Immersed in the folklore of Mithila, fresh forms and figures are painted and repainted on walls and floors of their homes to mark special occasions. Well-established procedures are followed and techniques are passed on from one generation to the next, keeping the ephemeral art form and ancestral tradition and its lore alive. Madhubani artists today are seen to work more with brushes and acrylic paint rather than natural dyes and pigments. They now also work on paper, cloth, canvas and wood to create art and artifacts, besides painting on walls and floors. Contents: Foreword by H.E.M.S. Puri, Ambassador of India in Belgium; Preface by Martin Gurvich; Imaging the Divine: Artscape of Bharati Dayal by Sushma K Bahl; Krishna; Shiva; Ganesha; Devi; The Mahabharata Nature; Bharati Dayal.

Apart from a handful of art historians no one has ever heard of the Brussels painter Hendrick De Clerck (1560-1630). Nevertheless, De Clerck was a contemporary of Peter Paul Rubens – the latter having gone down in history as an artistic trailblazer and painting powerhouse, while Hendrick De Clerck has quietly faded into oblivion. Yet the subtly coded, vibrantly colored pictures that De Clerck painted for Archduke Albert of Austria and his wife Isabella are political propaganda of the highest order. In creating a mode of archducal representation that could help to gain an empire, the sky is quite literally the limit. De Clerck represents Isabella as wise Minerva, chaste Diana, the Virgin Mary. And that’s nothing compared to her husband, for in De Clerck’s paintings Albert is transformed into the sun god Apollo or even into Jesus Christ himself. Hendrick De Clerck’s mastery of ingenious pictorial strategy made him a leading player in one of the most ambitious projects history has ever seen. For those who know how to read them, his paintings tell a story of power, political promises, and grandiose ambition. Most of all, they are supreme examples of image-building; for as the Archdukes were well aware, even as a monarch you’re only as important as you make yourself. Text in English and Dutch.

Archaeological objects offer outstanding opportunities to explore the way people conceived life in past ages. Their study demonstrates that subjects such as fertility, myths, rituals and cosmogony are embedded in all man-made artefacts, as they have always been part of daily human life. Even when creating artefacts for individual use, we have adopted imaginative and ingenious ways to represent and convey a message, a narrative that is a facet of our personal and social identity. That’s why the amulets presented in this outstanding catalogue hold secrets: memories of deeds, lands and sacred representations. Objects used as offerings are full of life: the warrior recalls his heroic condition during his long mortal journey; the deceased person, who travels to the other world equipped with his objects of power, arrives satisfied and disposed to be generous toward his descendants, who receive fertility and well-being in return.

The choice of materials is a fundamental aspect of such objects. The use of metals, for example, is etched into the language of social communication, whereas the vital force that moves the universe is found immersed to a large degree in magical materials like fired clay, the product of extensive chemical transformation, or shell, a product of the sea, its brilliance a sign of spirituality, or imperishable gold, which is the embodiment of the Sun itself, ductile and able to express extraordinary religious ideas.

This catalogue introduces us to this world of magic, life and death.

Text in English and Spanish.

Just as the ‘black continent’ is nothing like as monochrome as our stereotyped ideas of it, so neither are the skin tones of its inhabitants. One variant, however, here more than elsewhere, marks people out as misfits: very white skin, unusually light hair color, blue or green eyes. This congenital metabolic disease is called albinism. People with albinism (PWA) are often visually impaired and need special protection from the sun. Most of all they suffer from social stigmatization. So it is little short of a miracle how courageously and confidently that the PWA of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, try to overcome their role as outsiders. Lead by the famous Congolese albino wrestler, Mwimba Texas, they demand to be treated with respect. In her photographs Patricia Willocq helps boost the self-assurance of people with albinism in the Congo. Her photo report is a testimony to hope, courage, love and success to give them the dignity they deserve.

Text in English, French and German.

Contents:
Photographic Essay; About albinism; The Dibwe family; Mwimba Texas; Gaëlle Kayowa Mukadi; Michel Mualaba Senga; Social Project.

List of events surrounding publication:
3 June 2015: press conference in Brussels to launch the book and to announce the opening of the photo exhibition and the First International Albinism Awareness Day
13 June (to 27 July 2015): opening of the exhibition “White Ebony” at the Halles St Gery in Brussels to celebrate the first International Albinism Awareness Day
02 July 2015: Projection of a movie about Mwimba Texas, the famous wrestler with albinism and albinism in DRC
13 July 2015: Concert with the Congolese artist Freddy Massamba engaged in the cause of albinism
09 – 30 October 2015: Exhibition “White Ebony” at the Maison de la Laïcité in La Louvière, Belgium
13 November to 11 December 2015: Exhibition “White Ebony” at la Maison du Hainaut, Charleroi

Supported by a wealth of photographs of archaeological objects, this book delves into a fascinating world of ancestral spirits, revealed by the surprising richness and variety of these pre-Columbian pieces fashioned out of various materials. These works, on exhibition in the Museo Casa del Alabado, in Quito (Ecuador), outline the pre-Columbian view of the world centred on a flow of energy aimed at preserving life. These pieces evoke this primordial energy emerging from mother earth, the source of the good deeds performed by spirits and the ancestral guardian of the permanent renewal of the world of daily life, where spirits constantly draw on the balance of the forces ensuring their survival. Pre-Columbian art has the extraordinary capacity to express the power of reciprocal opposites which together provide a meaning to the existence of animate and inanimate beings.

Hard materials, such as stones and shells, served to embody powerful spirits, such as carts, macaws, or primordial ancestors. Ceramics were suitable for the depiction of ordinary plants and animals. The extraordinary growth of metalworking skills led to the creation of ornamental pieces designed for the elite (chest decorations, nose jewellery, earrings, and crowns) whose purpose was to reflect the power of the sun.

Each picture in the book is accompanied by notes explaining the function the article would have served, while acknowledging that these pieces have lost none of their expressiveness in the modern world.

Text in English and Spanish.

What is more captivating than watching the first sunbeams appear from behind a mountaintop, above the sea or between iconic buildings? Sunrise Destinations celebrates the golden hour of sunrise in every corner of the world. Browse through famous sunrise spots – Cappadocia, Angkor Wat, Mount Kilimanjaro, and many more – and discover lesser-known places to witness the break of dawn. Find out what makes each spot in this book unique, when would be the perfect time to visit and what place to snap the best picture from. Sunrise Destinations is both the perfect inspirational travel guide and the ideal book to dream away with from the comfort of your couch.  

“I’ve been photographing my daughter and nieces for a decade. There’s something sacred about the lives of girls, and their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another is gravitational. Between them is an intimate and spiritual knowledge, both ordinary and extraordinary, and I aim to capture the brilliance of their communion. I hope when they look back on this work, they’ll see their beauty, and their devotion to each other, and find themselves here, in this work we made together, reflected with love.” – Kristen Joy Emack

Kristen Emack documents the moments of tenderness and kinship between her daughter and her cousins as they navigate childhood, bringing up social and racial issues rooted in the visual representation of our world.

“I have an old camera with which I have taken countless photographs of myself. It often produces astonishing effects”, Edvard Munch states in a 1930 interview. “Someday when I am old and have nothing better to do than work on an autobiography, all my photographic self-portraits will see the light of day again.” The autobiography was never realized, but the self-portraits have found their way to the pages of The Experimental Self. The Photography of Edvard Munch, which demonstrates the fundamentally experimental nature of the artist’s photographic practice. As a photographer, Munch embraced the freedom provided by the amateur position, and the unpredictable aspects of analogue photographic technology. By playfully approaching his own image in picture after picture, Munch extends his explorations of selfhood in other media through photography. The resulting photographs provide unique access to Munch’s radical artistic vision, which this book studies through eminent essays by Patricia G. Berman, Tom Gunning and MaryClaire Pappas.

Tornabuoni art returns to the origins of sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro’s work (1926, Morciano di Romagna), specifically to the years 1956-1965, a pivotal period of the artist’s production. His creations, initially derived from the goldsmithing produced side by side with the brothers Gio and Giorgio Perfetti, evolves towards small concrete and lead reliefs, then in large mural panels engraved with illegible glyphs, inspired by Mesopotamian tablets’ cuneiform writing, Egyptian papyruses and Paul Klee’s graphic style. In 1960, Pomodoro was among the founders of the group Continuità, next to Novelli, Consagra, Tancredi, Dorazio and Fontana, preaching an ‘aesthetic of continuity’, defined as ‘the absence, the incertitude of limit’ and attached to the formal aspects of artworks. He thus produced his first Sfere, adopting gilded polished bronze as his preferred material of work, and of which the creation marks the definitive transition to monumental scale of his career.

Today, Pomodoro’s creations can be found in prestigious museum collections such as the Guggenheim in New York and the Vatican Museums. Moreover, his monumental artworks are exhibited in more than 40 public squares in major cities around the world. The artist lives and works in Milan, Italy.

Contents: Essays: Arnaldo Pomodoro. A discordant tension by Luca Massimo Barbero; The art of Arnaldo Pomodoro within the French art exhibition and critical context; Piecing together the traces of a dialogue by Chiara Mari; Artworks.

Text in English and Italian.

There’s something especially beautiful about being able to look to the full expanse of a horizon, something that speaks to the most ancient part of our soul. With the continuing build up of our surroundings, that precious ability to gaze into the unfettered distance is one we all appreciate and savor.

This stunning edition showcases incredible houses in simply amazing locations, where the architect has rightly championed the accessibility to the endless views. Lavishly illustrated with full-color images of award-winning architecture, this compilation draws you in through its winning designs, but its the glorious and enticing images of the vast horizon that will capture your imagination.

We may all not be lucky enough to inhabit an eye-catching designer home with views to die for, but at least we can all share the beauty through these breathtakingly evocative images. Truly a book in which to lose yourself.