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.

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.

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.

American Industry is as much a celebration as it is documentation. Through his unique vision and privileged access, photographer Kim Steele has achieved a spectacular distillation of a variety of icons of power. Some of these places of power are literal: sources of hydro-electric energy, such as dams or atomic and accelerators. Other places of power are more metaphorical: the might of massive construction as only heavy industry can achieve, whether in architecture or ships; or the romance of aviation and the exploration of space.  

The photographic images are as iconic as their subjects. Formally pure and powerful in their scale and clarity, they mirror the ambitious and inspirational quality of what are now understood to be quintessential and classic symbols of American ingenuity and drive. Together, the seven chapters, Hydro Power, Aviation, Heavy Industry, Energy, Space, Atomic Energy, and The Future, create a visual tapestry of American industrial power in the 20th century. A testimony of a gilded age of American Industrial might. 

Within the human-machine collaborations cultivated in the digital age, crafts and materials are playing an increasingly important role in forming various ways of matter aggregation for architecture. Based on the pedagogical exploration of the design studio—Matter Aggregation at UVA, the book seeks new values of wood craft for contemporary architectural design, by introducing digital design and robotic fabrication techniques into the design process for timber building. The book integrates explorations of traditional crafts with digital fabrication technique, establishing a digital crafting as a new field for contemporary practice. The book explores the computational mechanisms and diagrammatic grammar within these craft-based aggregation systems, paying close attention to geometrical configurations, material effects and fabrication details and take advantage of these qualities to produce a unique spatiality.

It comes as a surprise to many that the elemental human impulse to tell stories, far from being the exclusive realm of children’s bedtime, long-forgotten civilizations and remote cultures, is also a burgeoning creative art form here, now, in twenty-first century, postindustrial societies. Storytelling in the Moment is a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary yet accessible exploration of contemporary verbal storytelling in Britain and Ireland. Primary research focuses attention on the working practices of today’s storytellers, the role of the listener/participant in a storytelling event, the informal groups and established organizations that sustain its development, the multifaceted roles that storytelling now plays in our society and the complex network interconnections that link its component parts. It also seeks to reveal how an emergent, grassroots, socio-cultural movement can become ubiquitous in society but pass largely unnoticed by a wider public in an age of global mass-media.

In 1542 Pope Paolo III Farnese, with the approval of Michelangelo, commissioned to Perino del Vaga (1501–1547) a tapestry basement for the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel (Vatican).

The Spalliera was never completed, but its model, painted on canvas, was later acquired by cardinal Bernardino Spada to be placed in his roman palace (now Galleria Spada), where it was used in radically different fashion as a frieze, completed with parts by other artists.

The book is the first in-depth study of this work and of its significance in Perino’s artistic career, marked by an intense dialogue with Michelangelo’s art. It also explores the importance attributed by Michelangelo to decoration, apparently antithetical to the heroic dimension for which he is celebrated

The reception of the Spalliera by different artists is studied through a group of drawings deriving from it and lasting until the baroque age, as attested by Rubens.

“When the pre-eminent portrait photographer of the day met the Cockney kid dominating the London film scene, magic was made.” — Australian Women’s Weekly Icons

“Caine, the timeless gentleman.”  — Diego Armes, GQ Portugal

“The engaging images are either black and white or in color and therefore perfectly show all facets of the actor. A wonderful book about a very special and remarkable actor! 5 Stars!” — Lovely Books

“I had to be an actor,” Michael Caine once said. “[…] And of course, you have to remember with me, the alternative was a factory.”

A working-class actor who broke through to stardom, Caine’s screen-time involves standout performances across multiple genres. To this day, he is synonymous with a certain kind of urbane cool. No camera has captured this quality over the decades better than that of his collaborator and long-time friend, Terry O’Neill.

Michael Caine: Photographed by Terry O’Neill offers an immersive visual journey through Michael Caine’s career, immortalising Caine’s charm both in and out of character. Caine occupies a landmark position in cinema and O’Neill was there from the early days of his stellar career. From the comedy of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to the European drama of Seven Times A Woman; from the miasma of The Magus to the British cult classic Get Carter, this book combines black and white and colour images and includes never-before-seen contact sheets.

Featuring the following films: Mona Lisa, Midnight in Saint Petersburg / Bullet to Beijing, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Blue Ice, Without a Clue, Get Carter, Deadfall, Magus, Woman Times Seven, Funeral in Berlin.