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Thames and Hudson
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Spectacular, mysterious, elegant, or grotesque, the vertebrate skeletons of Earth's fossil record carry within them the traces of several billion years of life. Evolution in Action, a resounding success on its initial publication in 2007, is a unique and beautiful attempt to provide a map of those billion years in time. Now updated and presented in a smaller format with seventeen new utterly distinctive photographs, this book steps beyond the debate and presents the undeniable truth of Darwin's theory, showing through 200 photographs of skeletons both obscure and commonplace, but always intriguing, the process by which life has transformed itself, again and again. |
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In 1931, Diego Rivera was the subject of The Museum of Modern Art's second monographic exhibition, which set new attendance records in its five-week run. The Museum brought Rivera to New York six weeks before the show's opening and gave him on-site studio space. There he produced five portable murals — large blocks of frescoed plaster, slaked lime and wood that feature bold images drawn from Mexican subject matter and address themes of revolution and class inequity. After the opening, to great publicity, Rivera added three more murals, now taking on New York subjects through monumental images of the urban working class and the city during the Great Depression. Published in conjunction with an exhibition that brings together key works made for Rivera's 1931 show, this catalogue casts the artist as a highly cosmopolitan figure who traveled between Russia, Mexico and the United States and examines the intersection of artmaking and radical politics in the 1930s. Illustrated with reproductions of each panel as well as related paintings, drawings, prints and documentary photographs, the book's essays investigate the international politics of muralism, Rivera's history with MoMA, the iconography of the portable murals and technical aspects of the artist's working process. Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was a central figure in the development of Mexican muralism, an ambitious public art initiative intended to relay Mexico's ideals after the Revolution (1910-1920). A highly cosmopolitan artist, Rivera had spent many years in Europe before returning to Mexico in 1921, and in 1927 he traveled to the Soviet Union where he met Alfred Barr, the soon-to-be founding director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Rivera's artistic celebrity benefitted from major commissions in the United States, including murals for the Pacific Stock Exchange, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, MoMA and the Detroit Institute of Arts. By the 1930s, he enjoyed an unrivaled status at the center of international debates about public art and politics... |
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Pompeii: Echoes from the Grand Tour is a collection of 53 photographs of Pompeii by the master photographer Mimmo Jodice, published here for the first time. These unique images, visions conjuring up a long-lost past tradition, are coupled with texts by Ethan Canin, Jim Nisbet and Jay Parini. |
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Just as Picassos Guernica or Géricaults Raft of the Medusa survive as powerful cultural documents of their time, there will be works from our own era that will endure for generations to come. But which ones? Which contemporary artworks best capture the zeitgeist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries? This bold and engaging book, written by one of the freshest and most exciting new voices in cultural criticism, predicts which artists and artworks from the past two decades will come to define our age through their power to question, provoke and inspire. This is essential and enjoyable reading for all those working with and studying contemporary culture, as well as for the general art-lover keen to find a clear path through the maze of global contemporary art. |
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The encounter between art and fashion has been a rapidly growing phenomenon over the last decade, with major international artists working with top fashion houses to produce contemporary masterpieces that challenge the traditional boundary between these two dynamic cultures. In Art/Fashion in the 21st Century, five chapters feature concise essays with profiles of the key designers, break-out stories about the most avant-garde projects and interviews with the leading lights of the art-fashion crossover phenomenon. Nearly 250 illustrations showcase collaborative art/fashion work from Acne Studios, Balenciaga, Chanel, Hussein Chayalan, Tracey Emin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Zaha Hadid, Hermès, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Jeff Koons, Stella McCartney, Issey Miyake, Takashi Murakami, Prada, Richard Prince, Anselm Reyle, Cindy Sherman, Juergen Teller, Viktor & Rolf, and many more. This is essential and inspiring reading for all those interested in the very cutting edge of both art and fashion and those who are already there. |
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Eyemazing is a breathtaking overview of the most collectible and daringly original contemporary art photography. Masterfully curated from over 10 years of content in the eponymous and innovative photography magazine, this book pushes boundaries and defies conventions. Divided in two flowing streams of imagery Dreams and Memories of a Past Life and Our Body, Our Cage. Our Body, Our Home, and with text contributions by Karl E. Johnson, Steven Brown and John Wood outstanding images from the worlds groundbreaking image makers in art photography are brought together in this collectible volume, which will be coveted by all photographers, photography collectors, curators and gallerists. |
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Exactly 500 years after its first publication by the great Venetian printing house Aldus Manutius, Francesco Colonna's weird, erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was translated into English and reprinted in full, together with all of its 174 original — and enchanting — woodcut illustrations. It is one of the most important documents of Renaissance imagination and fantasy, and its woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens. This translation was first published in 1999 in a large format that exactly matched the original in size, design and typography. This new, smaller paperback edition retains all the text and illustrations and is easy to handle and read. Long prized by bibliophiles, pored over by generations of scholars, this classic book may now gain the wider audience its melancholy genius merits. |
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ariamna Davydoff, the Russian lady who wrote and illustrated this memoir, was born in 1871. It was after she fled Russia for France in 1919 that she set down her detailed recollections and painted the accompanying watercolours. She did this mainly to enlighten one of her granddaughters about the familys life in the last decades of Tsarist Russia. The result is a first-hand account of a way of life that weve known mainly through the writings of Chekhov and Turgenev. Here are the country estates, the large families indulging in sports and pastimes, the Easter and Christmas holidays, the heat of summer and the frost of winter. Mariamna Davydoff had studied painting and made something of a reputation as a caricaturist, but when she fled from Russia she had to leave behind all her watercolours and drawings. These were destroyed by the Bolsheviks, but the portfolios she created in France are fortunately intact. This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in 19th-century Russian history, art or literature, or simply in the deeply human story of our recent but irretrievable past. |
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A photographic journey that spans the greats of contemporary literature, Portrait of the Writer is a collection of more than 250 images of the worlds most renowned and revered writers, as immortalized by renowned photographers. The book features unforgettable images of 20th-century literary greats Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Samuel Beckett to the stars of today Haruki Murakami, Zadie Smith, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan and many more. Portrait of the Writer offers a sweeping cast of literary characters, showcasing a stunning collection of photographs that are now part of our collective memory. |
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Sergio Larrain (19312012) crossed the photographic universe like a meteorite. After much travelling, his concern for purity and his attraction to meditation led him to withdraw to the Chilean countryside and live self-sufficiently. From there he began to write concerned as he was about the need to encourage the world to wake up to its possible fate while continuing in his deep love of photography. His work became limited to instants of enlightenment, pure moments of amazement. Sergio Larrain only published four books of his work during his lifetime, and a complete monograph of his work has never been put together. It was his choice, but this book fills that gap. Created with the full agreement of his family, it is edited by Agnès Sire, who after keeping up a long correspondence with the photographer, has worked with Magnum on preserving his estate. The selection of over 200 photographs is made up of two main axes, Latin America and Europe: Macchu Pichu, Bolivia, Chile and Valparaiso; and London, Paris and Italy. A true reflection of Larrains extraordinary personality, the book also features a selection of essential letters, drawings, workbooks and handwritten texts about meditation. |
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Posters by their very nature are ephemeral: crookedly plastered on a roadside billboard, tacked to the back of a tabac, they lasted a few weeks until advertisers issued another imaginative argument for soap or an ocean voyage. While few contemporary observers understood the richness of their design or appreciated the ingenuity of their unsung creators, they are now highly prized. William Crouse, long-time poster aficionado, has selected over 300 of the most sought-after examples of poster art created between the wars to include in this definitive volume. Organized thematically into subject categories (aviation, communication, fashion and more), this book includes over 300 highly rare and even unique examples by masters of the art form, including Nizzoli, Cassandre and Beall. Each poster digitally photographed under carefully controlled conditions is accompanied by an expanded caption that addresses the aesthetic, sociological, economic and/or political context of the image. Introduced by Art Deco specialist Alastair Duncan, Art Deco Posters is an essential addition for all interested in graphic design, Art Deco, and life and culture between 1919 and 1939. |
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Some of the most important people in fashion Chanel, Alaïa, Blahník, Yves Saint Laurent, Pucci, Kenzo and Missoni are known for their public image and their iconic designs. But what kind of world have they cultivated behind closed doors? From France to Italy, from England to Morocco, come along on a private visit to the remarkable homes of the worlds great couturiers, stylists, muses and fashion personalities. Ivan Terestchenkos glorious photographs revel in the décor, works of art and the personal collections of these legendary designers. Some interiors, such as Chanels apartment at 31 rue Cambon, are mythic, while others are completely unconventional. For some, home is a sanctuary, for others a place of reflection and inspiration; but in every case, the surroundings of these people reveal much about their enjoyment of textiles, art, space and light. |
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Here is the long-awaited and much needed new translation of the correspondence of Paul Cézanne, known as the father of modern art. The existing collection in English, produced in the 1930s, is dated, inaccurate and incomplete; for this book, Alex Danchev has gone back to the original manuscript letters, clearing up decades of questionable scholarship and producing a fresh, honest and accurate translation. In his introduction Danchev paints a picture of Cézanne as a singular thinker and an uncompromising seeker after artistic truth qualities that shine through in the letters, but that many of his contemporaries failed to appreciate or comprehend. Danchev fills in the gaps here and in his many notes, revealing the mans very human hopes and fears as he strove to harness his sensations and artistic passion. The result is a collection of over 250 letters, written to family, friends, fellow artists and dealers, and encompassing major cultural figures of the late nineteenth century. |
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The first volume of The Mr Porter Paperback: The Manual for a Stylish Life is a witty compendium of life and style advice for the modern man. Compiled by Mr Porters Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Langmead, it covers everything from the essential (how to take care of dress shoes or charm the in-laws) to the just-in-case (how to pull off daring feats or dance at a wedding). Derived from the sites online journal (which has a large readership), the diverse content includes interviews with male icons inside and outside the fashion world (John Pawson, David Hockney, Irvine Welsh...); profiles of style icons past and present (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bob Dylan, River Phoenix, Haile Selassie, Tom Waits and many more); mini-features on fashion classics including the knitted tie, the biker jacket, the polo shirt; sixty pages of The Knack, snippets of advice on everything from how to behave in a spa to how to mix a Bloody Mary; and much more. The cover is crafted to evoke traditional letterpress printing methods and the book comes with a silk ribbon bookmark. |
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This mouthwatering book presents 38 of the finest pastry chefs working worldwide today, together with samples of their glorious, highly sophisticated confections. Some of the chefs are up-and-coming, others are well established; all are innovative pioneers in a uniquely appealing creative field. Profiles of each pâtissier include an informative biography giving a sense of their individual style. Also included are scores of recipes for world-class cakes, tarts, biscuits, petits fours, plated desserts, pastries, confectionery, chocolate, ice creams and sorbets, with a final chapter focusing on the lavish sugar-paste world of celebratory cakes. Offering a wealth of inspiring and delicious material, this book is a must for professional pastry chefs, keen amateurs and anyone interested in the gourmet lifestyle. |
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This is the most complete monograph yet published on the internationally acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge. Bringing together nearly two hundred of his works made between 1989 and the present day, the book explores Kentridges work across a wide range of media, including film, video, sculpture, design, drawing and printmaking. Two essays discuss the development of Kentridges art and his unique creative process, and a large body of Kentridges own writings help to illuminate the origins of and inspiration behind his work, including the idea of fortuna, Kentridges description of his practice as one governed by neither programme nor chance in the making of images. |
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The National Railway Museum in York has a large and varied collection of railway art and artefacts; this books shows over 200 of the best posters dating from the railways' heyday prior to nationalization. In this period, renowned poster artists of the calibre of Edward McKnight Kauffer, Tom Purvis and Cassandre were commissioned by the railway groups to promote not only their lines but also the most beautiful and appealing cities and towns in their areas for tourists to visit. The railway companies virtually invented the package tour, and promoted it intensively not only in the UK but also in the USA. The introduction explains the history of the companies during the period covered, and examines their attitudes to poster advertising. The book is then divided into four sections, one for each of the railway groups: the resulting selection makes an analysis of poster art in the UK in its golden age of the Twenties and Thirties. Extended captions explain the context of the works, and information about the artists is provided. The authors are on the curatorial staff of the National Railway Museum, York. |
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This dictionary profiles world-renowned architects, engineers, landscape architects, artists and photographers whose work has given rise to an entirely new dimension in designing the cityscape. It features leading figures from the international scene, including Tadao Andao, Emilio Ambasz, Daniel Buren, Tony Cragg, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Anish Kapoor, Rem Koolhaas, Maya Lin, Richard Long and James Turrel, among many others. Over the last decade the concept of landscape has dramatically changed, Projects that reconstruct large disused areas, the design of public spaces, parks and private gardens, and Land Art all involve landscape design. This field has come to greater prominence with the increase in public projects and by keeping pace with new theoretical approaches and design practices. This volume will be an invaluable reference for any one involved in urban planning, public art, landscape architecture and landscape design. |
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Computer-aided design (CAD) is the dominant design and drawing tool used in architecture, and all students need to acquire basic skills in using it. This book explains the key CAD skills required to create plans, 3D models and perspectives. Detailed text and hundreds of screengrabs and visuals are used to demonstrate the various techniques and processes. 2D skills are shown using AutoCAD, SketchUp and Vectorworks, while 3D modelling and presentation techniques also include 3D Max, Maya, Form Z and Photoshop. The reader will learn how to simplify the software interface and tools in order to focus on the most common and useful tasks. This is an invaluable guide for all students of architecture. |
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