This volume is dedicated to Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780), grandson of Canaletto and protagonist of 18th century landscape painting. It explores the less investigated period of the Venetian painter’s life, the one preceding the successful career undertaken in the European courts starting from 1747, the year in which he moved to Dresden.
In the age of the Grand Tour, the eighteen year old Bellotto visited the great Italian art cities, leaving us with exceptional views that already reveal the peculiar characteristics and modernity of his painting.
This book contains precious and rare works, among which are the ones related to the itinerary followed by the painter in Tuscany in 1740, and the series dedicated to the city of Lucca, coming from the British Library in London and the York Art Gallery, along with the views of Florence and Livorno.
Edited by Bozena Anna Kowalczyk, one of the greatest scholars of Canaletto and Bellotto, the volume is divided into sections introduced by texts resulting from new and unpublished historical and archival research, and is completed by a documentary appendix, bibliography and indicies.
Text in English and Italian.
Richard Manion Architecture creates distinctive residences and estates with a respect for traditional forms and historic imagery adapted to modern living. The curated selection of rarely published projects in this second volume of RMA’s work, Streamlined, demonstrates the firm’s signature classicist style, which draws upon traditional and streamlined classical, regional, and contemporary influences to reflect authentic details, proportions, and a sophisticated sense of place for the 21st century.
In this book, the firm’s focus is on the integration of modernism within an overall framework of simplicity and restraint, discretion and harmony. Academic studies of European modernism, with its visionary approach and embodiment of the machine age, have come back to inspire, but with the understanding that many of its roots can be traced back to the heritage of classical design principles. This exquisite, fully illustrated volume showcases RMA’s goal to unite ideas about tradition, history, and modernity in a synergy and explores the meaning of shared architectural imagery and heritage for our time.
“Moonwatch Only is certainly one of the best books ever written about a single watch model.” – William Massena – Timezone.com “It is an indescribable reference work and a true must-have for every Speedmaster collector.” – Forbes “This book sets a new standard. Not only for books on the Omega Speedmaster, but for watch books in general. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me when I tell you that I could fill an impressive sized wall with books on watches. Authors of other books or publishers should take a look at Moonwatch Only as well to see how it should be done.” – Robert Jan Broer – FratelloWatches “The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional – the Moonwatch – has done things that no other timepiece has done and it’s been worn in places that only a few human beings have been.” – Captain Eugene Cernan, ‘Last man on the moon’ There are very few timepieces in the world that deserve a definitive and comprehensive book such as this one. The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is one of them. Initially designed for automobile racing teams and engineers, the Omega Speedmaster embarked on a very different trajectory when NASA chose it to accompany astronauts heading for the Moon in 1965. Its involvement in the space adventure has propelled the Moonwatch to the top of the list of celebrated timepieces. After years of research and observation, the authors present a complete panorama of the Moonwatch in a systematic work that is both technical and attractive, making it the inescapable reference book for this legendary watch. This third edition has been enriched with numerous new features including a 16-page gallery of astronauts and their Speedmaster, QR codes to extend your exploration and a detailed story of a vintage Speedmaster.
“Moonwatch Only is certainly one of the best books ever written about a single watch model.” – William Massena – Timezone.com
“It is an indescribable reference work and a true must-have for every Speedmaster collector.” – Forbes
“This book sets a new standard. Not only for books on the Omega Speedmaster, but for watch books in general. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me when I tell you that I could fill an impressive sized wall with books on watches. Authors of other books or publishers should take a look at Moonwatch Only as well to see how it should be done.” – Robert Jan Broer – FratelloWatches
“The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional – the Moonwatch – has done things that no other timepiece has done and it’s been worn in places that only a few human beings have been.” – Captain Eugene Cernan, ‘Last man on the moon’
There are very few timepieces in the world that deserve a definitive and comprehensive book such as this one. The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is one of them. Initially designed for automobile racing teams and engineers, the Omega Speedmaster embarked on a very different trajectory when NASA chose it to accompany astronauts heading for the Moon in 1965. Its involvement in the space adventure has propelled the Moonwatch to the top of the list of celebrated timepieces.
After years of research and observation, the authors present a complete panorama of the Moonwatch in a systematic work that is both technical and attractive, making it the inescapable reference book for this legendary watch.
This third edition has been enriched with numerous new features including a 16-page gallery of astronauts and their Speedmaster, QR codes to extend your exploration and a detailed story of a vintage Speedmaster.
Temporality and age are inherent in every object and creature and, depending on one’s outlook, may transcend to infinity. How can this be imagined? What goes beyond it? Swiss filmmaker Christoph Schaub sets out for a personal journey through time and space. He starts in his childhood, when his fascination with sacred buildings began, and also his wondering about beginnings and ends. In dialogue with architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Alvaro Siza, artists James Turell and Cristina Iglesias, and musician Jojo Mayer, Schaub explores the magic of sacred spaces, a term that for him represents much more than just churches.
Architecture of Infinity traces spirituality in architecture and fine arts as well as in nature, and even over and above the limits of thought. The lightly floating camera immerses the viewer in somnambulistic images, taking him on a sensual and sensing journey through vast spaces, guiding his eye towards the star-spangled sky’s infinity and the depths of the ocean. Past and present, primeval times and light years, it is all there.
The running time of the film is 85 minutes, and the DVD is accompanied by a 32-page booklet with text in English and German.
Christine Vanoppen (born 1962) has always been interested in the interaction between art and the private and public spaces. Glass is her preferred medium of expression, a challenging material that is flexible and pliable and at the same time stiff and brittle.
Christine Vanoppen designs her glass art in dialogue with the environment and in the context of architecture. She finds the inspiration for the monumental works in architecture, but also in nature. Christine wants to make the light visible through the different layers or structures of transparent and coloured glass, for this she loves to challenge herself and to push the boundaries of the material itself. Her glassworks and installations are characterised by high technical quality and a pronounced aesthetic beauty. Every new assignment is preceded by intense research and experiment. Her work reflects a contemporary aesthetic and gives a new dimension to an age-old and noble craft. In this book 13 glass projects are highlighted through text, sketches, studio photos, and the final result.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
As the world speeds up, as technology takes over, it is worth remembering how we used to live. This three-book series is a nostalgic hymn to an era when life was slower: a meandering ramble through the British countryside by bicycle, automobile and train.
Take an amble across the countryside with this book, which celebrates a time when our railway network was more than a permanently delayed omnishambles of overcrowded and overpriced trains. Country stations and lonely halts, milk churns and coal yards, enamelled signs and platform clocks – these are the fragments of a more leisured age, from a time when the local station was a well-loved institution at the heart of so many communities. Here are gas-lit rural stations, oil lamps on level crossing gates, enamelled signs, waiting room fires, timetables and luggage labels. Less a clattering, steamy ride into the past than a touchstone for joyous memories of such a vital and well-loved institution, The Slow Train harks back to a more measured, considered era.
Felix Vallotton (1865-1925), born in Lausanne (Switzerland), went to Paris in 1882 to study at the Academie Julian among the founders of the Nabis group and made the French metropolis his home for the rest of his life. During his membership of the Nabis 1892-1901 he mainly worked as a printmaker, developing a very distinctive style in woodcutting. After breaking with the Nabis in 1901, Vallotton turned more to painting, soon to become a major figure of French post-impressionism and the most important Swiss symbolist artist. He also wrote plays and a novel. His naturalism, with an eerie note at times, is close to a literary one and the symbolist language of his pictures puts him close to psychoanalyis. This book presents Vallotton from today’s point of view not just as a symbolist painter and printmaker of great accomplishment at the beginning of the modern age, but also as an intelligent observer of his time who exposed bourgoise conventions critically and ironically.
Hans Josephsohn, born in 1920 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), came to Zurich via Florence as a Jewish immigrant in 1938. In more than six decades he has created a sculptural oeuvre that transcends the fashions and fads of the art world and yet testifies to his incomparably sensitive understanding of our age. This comprehensive monograph introduces the reader to Josephsohn’s approach, outlines his development and places him within the development of twentieth-century art. The book shows the fascinating uniqueness and the tense calm of an oeuvre that offers many young artists an attitude to art that mirrors their own concerns.
In the digital age, reality itself faces profound revolutions. The everyday, cohabitation, labour, our perception, and our senses radically shift into virtuality. In images and displays, installations, performances, and films, Anna K.E. (*1986) and Florian Meisenberg (*1980) explore the complex effects and repercussions of the latest technologies on the analogous world and the human body. For the Kunstpalais Erlangen, they have devised their collaborative exhibition as an associative circuit, which, both textually and visually multiplied, will continue within this intricately designed artist book.
Text in English and German.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is world-famous for his scenes of daily life, such as a kitchen maid pouring milk, a woman having a music lesson, or a lady writing a letter. However, when Vermeer began painting around the age of 21, he focused primarily on traditional subjects derived from the Bible and classical mythology. Not only do these early works differ greatly from his later paintings in terms of subject matter, they also differ in style. This publication deals with the young Vermeer’s training and artistic development. It also gives an account of the rediscovery of his early work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The exhibition unites three paintings from the beginning of Vermeer’s artistic career: the Mauritshuis’ Diana and her nymphs of c. 1653-1654, is joined by Christ in the house of Martha and Mary (c. 1655) from the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, and The Procuress (1656) from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden. These three paintings afford an image of the artist seeking his own style. All three paintings have recently been restored. Within this context, the differences between Johannes Vermeer’s early and late work also emerge clearly. The Young Vermeer is organised in collaboration with the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden and the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.
When the American art world turned toward abstract art and action painting, Francis Cunningham remained focused on figurative art and the human form. His interest never waned. This book chronicles his development over an astonishing seven decades. Presented in a nonlinear order, the arc of his work is there for the discerning eye to see. Landscapes, still life, and human forms are interrelated. Cunningham’s work reveals the connection between abstraction and representation. Their coexististence is the material and subject of this book, disclosing a new understanding of American painting by a living artist.
Accompanying over 180 high quality reproductions, the artist’s many facets are explored in essays by art historians and art critics, including Christopher Knight, Edward Lifson, John Walsh, and Valentina De Pasca, as well through the reminiscences of one of his life models, Regina Hawkins-Balducci.
Cunningham attended the Art Students League of New York, where he studied drawing and anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale and painting with Edwin Dickinson. He became an influential master instructor, cofounding the New Brooklyn School of Life Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (1977-1983) and the New York Academy of Art in 1983. At his current age of 90, he continues to paint in his studio in Manhattan and in the rural western part of Massachusetts, known as the Berkshires.
This is the first monograph devoted to his work.
Following the success of Magic Moments in Florence, Adriana Silvestri explores another of Italy’s historic cities. Her kaleidoscopic images and subtle variations on a theme offer new perspectives on what, in the age of mass tourism, have become all too familiar sights, capturing the true essence of the “Eternal City.” Her eye zeroes in on all kinds of small details, there are even the stray cats of the Colosseum and the Fori Imperiali, whose long shadows stand out against the purple of cardinals’ robes and the white marble of classical Rome.
Jasper Krabbe – 100 Selfportraits includes an impressive number of self-portraits made in the period between the Summer of 2004 and the Summer of 2005. The portraits’ formats have been determined by the measurements of an old bookkeeping book in which Krabbe made his self-portraits – one dating from the nineteen-fifties with squared and blank pages. Even the paint he uses for this project is from the same period. This corresponds with the idea that the self-portrait is a typical nineteenth-century activity. The book has been reproduced as a facsimile, which means that the reader has the feeling of looking at the original sketchbook of the artist. Krabbe wanted to explore what the self-portrait can still be in today’s age. He wanted to gauge changing emotions, capture a moment and find the right tone. The selection in the book shows the diversity of solutions and styles he used. The self-portraits reveal there is no such thing as a fixed identity but maybe rather a ‘core’, a soul that is unchangeable. Text in Dutch and English.
Beth Moon’s fourteen-year quest to photograph ancient trees has taken her across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some of her subjects grow in isolation, on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves; others maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization. All, however, share a mysterious beauty perfected by age and the power to connect us to a sense of time and nature much greater than ourselves. It is this beauty, and this power, that Moon captures in her remarkable photographs.
This handsome volume presents nearly seventy of Moon’s finest tree portraits as full-page duotone plates. The pictured trees include the tangled, hollow-trunked yews – some more than a thousand years old – that grow in English churchyards; the baobabs of Madagascar, called ‘upside-down trees’ because of the curious disproportion of their giant trunks and modest branches; and the fantastical dragon’s-blood trees, red-sapped and umbrella-shaped, that grow only on the island of Socotra, off the Horn of Africa.
Moon’s narrative captions describe the natural and cultural history of each individual tree, while Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections at The New York Botanical Garden, provides a concise introduction to the biology and preservation of ancient trees. An essay by the critic Steven Brown defines Moon’s unique place in a tradition of tree photography extending from William Henry Fox Talbot to Sally Mann, and explores the challenges and potential of the tree as a subject for art.
Learn how the top football stars of all time grew up and conquered the sport. This guide follows fourteen of the best men’s and women’s players from their first childhood encounter with association football – whether at the school gym or a pickup game in a vacant lot – to their first appearance in a top-division match or their first international cap. For every one of them, it was a journey with its share of both tragedy and triumph. Did you know that . . .
. . . as a boy, Pelé practiced with a newspaper-stuffed sock or a grapefruit, because he couldn’t afford a proper football?. . . Mia Hamm discovered the sport of football as a toddler in Florence, Italy, where her father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was stationed?
. . . at age ten, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency that threatened to end his football career – until Barça offered to pay for his treatment?
Illustrated with rare photos of stars-to-be on and off the field, Before They Were Stars is sure to entertain and inspire any budding soccer legend. Fans can learn more about their favourite players with other World Soccer Legends series books, such as Stars of Women’s Soccer: 2nd Edition, Stars of World Soccer, Neymar, Messi, and Alex Morgan.
“Francis Wolff’s images of musicians at work are so relaxed and intimate that they capture the spirit not just of the moment but also the era.” – Herbie Hancock
One of the most renowned Jazz photographers of all time, Francis Wolff (1907-1971) was essential to the success of the Blue Note record label. Born Jakob Franz Wolff in Berlin, Germany, he soon became a Jazz enthusiast, despite the government ban placed on this type of music after 1933. In 1939, Wolff, a Jew, left Berlin where he had worked as a commercial photographer, and established himself in New York. He began working there with his childhood friend Alfred Lion, who had co-founded Blue Note Records with Max Margulis. The latter soon dropped out of his involvement in the company, and Wolff joined Lion in running it. Wolff took thousands of photographs during the Blue Note recording sessions and rehearsals. His highly personal visual concept would be forever associated with both Blue Note and jazz as a whole.
This book compiles more than 150 Francis Wolff photos of jazz stars, most of which are published here for the very first time. Among the many artists portrayed are Art Blakey, Tina Brooks, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Grant Green, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, and Wayne Shorter. It also includes a special introduction by Grammy Award Winning music historian and jazz critic Ashley Kahn.
Text in English, with an introduction in English, French and Spanish.
“Jean-Pierre was himself a musician, but his choice of instrument was a camera, which he never put away.” – Michel Legrand
“I am so happy to see Leloir’s work published, because behind each image is a story – one that needs to be told and appreciated. Leloir was not just a photographer; instead he was a preserver of history. As a result, this book holds hundreds of stories that shine a light onto the lives of those who live in these pages. Leloir had a unique ability to preserve an entire atmosphere and its surrounding emotions. between the four corners of a picture, but beyond his talent as a photographers, he presented himself not as paparazzi, but a friend. He and my other brother Herman Leonard were two of a kind; they had the same passion for photography and an endless supply of vision.” – Quincy Jones
This book gives ample proof of Jean-Pierre Leloir’s amazing ability to immortalise performers and to capture candid moments at the airport, backstage, and in the dressing rooms of the most legendary Paris jazz and concert venues: “I loved the people I photographed, so I made myself as available, yet as discreet as possible”, he used to say. “I never wanted to be a paparazzi. I wanted them to forget my presence so I could catch those little unexpected moments.” The selection of photographs showcased here has been carefully selected from Leloir’s immense catalogue. Many of the images have never been previously published before, and can be easily catalogued as ‘atypical’ shots, as the musicians were captured primarily in spontaneous situations, away from the fanfare of the stage.
Text in English with an introduction in English, French and Spanish.
For hundreds of years, artists have been inspired by the imaginative potential of fantasy. Unlike science fiction, which is based on fact, fantasy presents an impossible reality – a universe where dragons breathe fire, angels battle demons, and magicians weave spells. Published to coincide with a major exhibition organised by the Norman Rockwell Museum, this handsome volume reveals how artists have brought to life mythology, fables, and fairy tales, as well as modern epics like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
The main text of Enchanted, by exhibition curator Jesse Kowalski, traces the emergence of the themes of fantasy in the world’s civilisations, and the development of fantasy illustration from the Old Masters to the Victorian fairy painters, to Golden Age illustrators like Howard Pyle and Arthur Rackham, to classic cover artists like Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo, to emerging talents like Anna Dittmann and Victo Ngai. Additional essays by distinguished contributors address particular aspects of fantasy illustration, such as the relationship between science and fantasy in the19th century, and the illustrators of Robert E. Howard.
Enchanted
features more than 180 colour illustrations, including numerous stunning full-page reproductions. This handsome volume is a must-have reference for artists and illustrators, and a delight for all lovers of fantasy.
It was a time of unimagined new freedoms. From the cafés of Paris to Hollywood’s silver screen, women were exploring new modes of expression and new lifestyles. In countless aspects of life, they dared to challenge accepted notions of a “fairer sex,” and opened new doors for the generations to come. What’s more, they did it with joy, humour, and unapologetic charm. Exploring the lives of 17 artists, writers, designers, dancers, adventurers, and athletes, this splendidly illustrated book brings together dozens of photographs with an engaging text. In these pages, readers will meet such iconoclastic women as the lively satirist Dorothy Parker, the avant-garde muse and artist Kiki de Montparnasse, and aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, whose stories continue to offer inspiration for our time. Women of the 1920s is a daring and stylish addition to any bookshelf of women’s history.
The intention of Reinhold Ziegler’s jewellery objects is to move the attention of the wearer or onlooker from themselves onto something greater – a radical strategy within a field that is strongly occupied with emphasising the individuality of the wearer. Ziegler’s art is influenced by the French philosopher Georges Bataille, who in his work Eroticism identifies a strong dilemma in humanity in which, on one hand, we want to fight for our individuality yet, at the same time, have a strong desire to be united with what he calls ‘everything that is’. In this book, Ziegler deals with this topic from many angles – gravitation, vibration, meteorites, fossils, and general aspects of humanity such as tools (from the Stone Age), talismans, spirituality, and consciousness.
Our contemporary condition, governed by the abstract apparatus of the capitalist market, demands a critical reading of the distribution, ownership, and use of common resources such as land. This is especially true in Britain with its long history of privatisation stemming from land enclosure. The latest research campaign of Laboratory Basel (laba), a satellite studio of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, investigated the English manor house and how it can serve as a testing ground to reassess Britain’s complex and ongoing relationship with the countryside.
The south-west of England, the most rural region of one of the more densely populated countries in Europe, reflects all the absurdities of a globalised country under pressure to develop economically, physically and environmentally. Highly protected landscapes, both natural and composed, form the backdrop to historic seats of political power and wealth, whilst sites of intense modern productivity are neatly concealed behind natural veils.
Manor Lessons: Commons Revisited, the concluding volume of laba’s Teaching and Research in Architecture series, explores the lessons that can be learned from the compound history of the Manorial System, whose forgotten feudalistic origins were once rooted in the idea of the land, not as private property but as common ground.
Today one of Australia’s leading architects, Angelo Candalepas’s career lifted off in 1994, when, at the age of twenty-six, he gained wide recognition for his winning project in the international competition for housing in Sydney’s Pyrmont neighbourhood. Over the course of twenty-five years, the designs of Sydney-based firm Candalepas Associates have won numerous awards and have been widely published internationally in magazines and journals. They show a development of architectural considerations drawing upon the heritage of past masters such as Louis I. Kahn, Carlo Scarpa, or Le Corbusier, and that of eminent Australian architects Glenn M. Murcutt, Richard Johnson and Colin Madigan. This has evolved into a body of work of a quality rarely found in Australia’s contemporary architectural environment.
This first full-scale monograph features a selection of on Angelo Candalepas’s key designs through photographs, plans and elevations as well as his hand-drawings and sketches. Completed buildings feature alongside unrealised projects that mark milestones in the firm’s development, and other not yet built ones, also offering an insight into the firm’s future trajectory.
Together with topical essays by Alberto Campo Baeza and Laura Harding as well as an insightful text by the architect it offers a comprehensive, lavishly illustrated survey of the outstanding achievements of Candalepas Associates to date.
The bamboo: tall, strong and flexible. This fast-growing shoot has been used as a construction material, a foodstuff and fuel for millennia, from India to Japan. Tanabe Chikuunsai IV’s art elevates bamboo to new heights. By weaving together small pieces of fibrous stalk, he creates vast, detailed sculptures without the use of rivets or adhesives. Under Chikuunsai IV’s skilled craftsmanship, bamboo is more than a functional tool: it is modern art, a unifying symbol of Japanese culture. His sculptures revere traditional workmanship, while conveying important contemporary messages – the codependence of nature and man, and the importance of protecting our environment.
Part autobiography, part introduction to the craft, this monograph follows Chikuunsai IV’s growth from a child marvelling at his grandfather’s mastery of bamboo, to a maestro in his own right. Bamboo weaves his past to his present, providing a sturdy foundation on which his art continues to build.
“Love bamboos, live with bamboos,” says Chikuunsai IV. As this book demonstrates, he has done precisely that.