Jephan de Villiers’ book is an invitation to break away from the alienating burdens of everyday life and immerse ourselves in an imaginary civilisation. Here, we set out with the artist on a journey to encounter a lost world, where nature and culture were once closely entwined, where humanity lived in harmony with the elements.
Trees and water are of central importance throughout the artist’s work. Whether as a reminder of the origins of life or as testimonies of ancestral beliefs and practices, nothing has been invented in this singular world of sculptures. Everything in his work has been composed and transferred from a forgotten world. His creations are made from materials derived from natural objects that have fallen to the ground: splinters of wood, bark, water chestnuts, rays’ eggs, mysterious sea balls washed up by the ocean and fragments of horseshoe crab shells.
For the artist, the time he devotes to his work means being alone, in the strictest sense of the word. It is time spent scouring the ground, in search of materials gathered “on the edge of the world”. His work of one of memory, a tribute to all those on the look‐out, watching over our forgotten world.
Text in English and French.
120 years ago the first permission was granted for archaeological excavations in Ephesos. The signature of Emperor Franz Josef I laid the foundation for one of the most prominent excavation enterprises in the world and to this day it has lost none of its significance for science or its fascination for visitors. The pulsating, cosmopolitan metropolis of antiquity may have turned into a site of ruins, but here, more than anywhere else, archaeology has succeeded in bringing past eras into the focus of both science and the public. Today more than 2 million people visit Ephesos every year indisputable proof of the fascination and interest that earlier cultures can arouse as well as confirmation for the relevance and topicality of archaeological research. In their joint book project, archaeologist Sabine Ladstätter and photographer Lois Lammerhuber venture behind the historical front. Central for them is the economic role of Ephesos as antique trading town, modern archaeological enterprise and visitor magnet.
Text in English, German and Turkish.
The complex, enigmatic work of Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985) has lost nothing of its fascination to the present day. Much has been written about her career and her art. Yet very little is known about the real person Meret Oppenheim, who always remained secretive about herself and banned publication of any personal documents until 20 years after her death.
In 1958, Oppenheim put together an album that she titled Von der Kindheit bis 1943 (From Childhood to 1943). It has a dual identity of a diary and a work of art in itself. It assembles photos, objects, notes and brief texts, as well as ideas and concepts for art works, and offers very personal insights into Oppenheim’s private life and thought. This book features the entire album in true-size colour reproductions and, for the first time ever, with the full text translated into English. This is supplemented with a previously unpublished autobiographical text by Oppenheim, which she wrote in 1957-58 on the request of the French scholar Yves Poupard-Lieussou for his never completed project of a bio-bibliographical history of Dada and Surrealism.
An introduction by the editors Lisa Wenger and Martina Corgnati rounds out this beautiful book that offers entirely new perspectives on one of the most distinguished woman artists.
Text in English and German.
This inspiring and beautifully illustrated book chronicles the lives of seventeen pioneering women sculptors who dared to speak their truths about inequality and injustice and overcame obstacles of gender and race in the last hundred and fifty years. The works that these talented artists cast, carved, and moulded mirror both their internal worlds and the society surrounding them. There is no better way to inspire young women to fulfil their destiny with courage than to give them these brilliantly brief and cogent portraits of great women who shaped the world of sculpting and through that, our culture, and our world. Ausherman puts the spotlight on women artists simply by celebrating them insightfully, and so well.
With many helpful references for additional in-depth readings and beautiful photographs taken by Steven Taylor, this book is a gem for anyone who loves reading how immensely skilful and creative people pursue their passions through the art of sculpture.
From his childhood in Melbourne, David Neilson (b. 1946) has been motivated by his twin loves of mountaineering and photography. He has made multiple expeditions to southwest Tasmania, Patagonia, and Antarctica, and published critically acclaimed photo books about each of these places; he has also carried his camera into the Karakoram, and the Alps of Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. In this oversize volume, Neilson recounts his lifelong quest to capture the mountain light and encourage the preservation of wild places. His most spectacular images of jagged peaks, massive glaciers, and hardy wildlife are reproduced as duotones of the highest quality. A number of vertical double-page images even invite readers to turn the book sideways to immerse themselves in the mountain heights. Chasing the Mountain Light will delight all lovers of the outdoors.
The 500 Hidden Secrets of Berlin is the perfect book for those who wish to discover the city without ending up in all the usual tourist haunts, as well as for residents who are keen to track down the city’s best-kept secrets. In The 500 Hidden Secrets of Berlin, Nathalie Dewalhens shares hundreds of must-know addresses in the German capital, like the unexpected authentic coffee bar around the corner of Checkpoint Charlie, or the apartment where David Bowie stayed while composing some of his best songs. Or how about trying a pizza topped with purple potato crisps at one of the hippest pizzerias in town? Visit the boutique of an unconventional fashion designer with Iranian roots, or venture off to a peaceful lake outside the city, where you can enjoy a drink sitting on the wooden boardwalk, or check out a hip food market on the banks of the Spree? Berlin has so much to offer, and this guide will help you decide where to begin.
Alongside Erasmus of Rotterdam, Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) is one of the most important European humanists whose works marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The year 2022 marks the 500th anniversary of the Pforzheim-born jurist, Hebraist, and religious philosopher’s death, cause indeed for an exhibition and publication to bring jewellery, writings, and language into a stimulating dialogue and to offer new meanings to the titular mystery of signs. At the fore stands the human quest for understanding and tolerance, which has lost none of its relevance today. One particular focal point comprises selected manuscripts and works by Reuchlin, highlighted from new perspectives. An additional emphasis is placed on objects that reflect Reuchlin’s cognitive world through script and symbols from the resplendent collection of the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim [Pforzheim jewellery museum].
With contributions by Jonathan Boyd, Beatriz Chadour-Sampson, Matthias Dall’Asta, Cornelie Holzach, Wolfgang Mayer, Susanne Nagel, Katja Poljanac, Stefan Rhein, Nathan Ron, Isabel Schmidt-Mappes, Pierre Vesperin, and Anja Wolkenhauer.
Text in German.
Germany is currently experiencing an intense debate about the reconstruction of synagogues that were destroyed under Nazi rule in the 1930s, and the related search for an appropriate architectural expression of Jewish life and culture in the country’s major cities today. This book, which results from a collaboration between the Technical Universities of Darmstadt and Dresden, Hamburg’s HafenCity University, and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, vividly contributes to this discussion.
The Synagogue Project features designs for new synagogues replacing the lost buildings on Berlin’s Fraenkelufer and on Joseph-Carlebach-Platz and Poolstrasse in Hamburg by students at the participating universities. They illustrate the search for a structural expression that can provide space for Jewish life and worship in the future. In conversation, members of Jewish communities and Franz-Josef Höing, representing the City of Hamburg’s department of urban development and housing, explain their views on the past and future of synagogues in Hamburg and Berlin. Mirjam Wenzel, director of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, Salomon Korn, former vice-president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Rabbi Edward van Voolen, and Swiss architect Roger Diener also contribute to the discussion on the history and significance of spaces for Jewish life, culture, and religion in German cities.
Text in English and German.
The first comprehensive illustrated book on the Cyclades archipelago, which also includes the well-known islands of Santorini, Naxos, Paros and Mykonos. The islands are currently among the trendiest travel destinations in the world. There is no Hollywood or Instagram star who has not been photographed in front of the white cities of the Greek islands.
This illustrated book attempts to capture the islands’ attitude to life in an undisguised way. In doing so, the volume does not aim at the big tourist hotspots and Instagram shots that can be seen everywhere else, but would like to capture the Greek island world as a whole – with all its discrepancies. Lonely bays and half-ruined towns stand next to the glossy world of the rich and famous who spend the summer on the islands. Highlife in summer next to almost deserted streets in winter. Greek tradition next to modern mass tourism. It is precisely these discrepancies that make the volume so distinctive. In addition, each individual island has its own exciting peculiarities that are worth discovering. The volume also portrays in pictures and text local Greeks who pursue an exciting profession: The last fishermen of the island, the priest of a mountain church on Naxos, the last local beekeeper, etc.
Rudi Sebastian has spent many weeks on the islands over several years in all seasons and has followed the soul of the country and its people. He was at least once on every single island of the region, so he attaches importance to completeness. The result is a probably unique collection of images that reflects the island life in all its facets.
Text in English and German.
Five continents, three decades: with Walking Distance, Olaf Unverzart presents his interpretation of a travel diary. Beyond tourist attractions, well-known places with supposedly typical folklore, his volume of photography opens our eyes to the things and creatures ‘in between’ – this ‘in between’ mainly takes place on the street.
The power of the images lies in the stillness and intimacy of the scenes. Unverzart’s photographs do not have a voyeuristic feel; they do not pretend to uncover essential insights and truths about places or their people, but appear as fleeting impressions. The individual photographs with their black-and-white composition and grainy texture have a strange quality that seems removed from time and place, lending them an almost universal character.
Unverzart explores the most diverse types of transition: we see cars, rails and streets as well as passers-by and pedestrians. Scenes of the old-fashioned and the obsolete point to the photographer’s search for a lost era and repeatedly allude to the extreme cultural, social and technological changes of the last three decades.
Text in English and German.
It’s easy to fall in love with the Hamptons. Charming towns, pristine beaches – and that luminous light cherished by locals and generations of beach lovers. While it’s famous for its magnificent mansions and coiffed hedges, there is so much more here to than meets the eye. Come find the hidden secrets of the Hamptons waiting to be discovered with 111 Places in the Hamptons That You Must Not Miss. Hang ten at a secret surfers’ beach. See the studio where artist Jackson Pollock painted his masterpieces. Get lost in a field of lavender. Visit a haunted lighthouse. Ride a horse along a secluded beach. Take a stroll in the graveyard where Picasso’s forgotten muse is buried. From wood-shingled windmills to hydrangea-rimmed roads. White, sandy beaches – to calm, bayside views. These places of nature, history, art, and delightful quirkiness are the very reasons why the East End of Long Island has become one of the most beloved travel destinations in the world.
Aidan Dodson’s British Royal Tombs covers all the burials of the kings, queens (and lords protector) of England, Scotland and the United Kingdom, from the occupant of the great Sutton Hoo ship burial, to George VI, last Emperor of India, including of course the long-lost Richard III. This fully revised edition of a book that became an immediate classic of its kind will be equally interesting to the interested visitor and the student. The career of each ruler is briefly described, followed by what is known about his or her burial arrangements and the subsequent history of the tomb and its contents. Each tomb is illustrated as far as possible by at least one photograph or drawing. The posthumous fate of royal spouses is also included, together with information on each of the cathedrals, churches, chapels and other structures that house or once housed royal tombs; there are detailed diagrams for the major sites. A list of monarchs, family trees and an extensive bibliography complete the book.
Michelangelo Buonarrotti (1475-1564) is perhaps the greatest artist in the entire Western tradition. In painting, sculpture and architecture he created works that went beyond anything imagined before. The David – miraculously created, as Vasari describes, out of a piece of marble botched by another sculptor – the Sistine Ceiling, the Sistine Last Judgement, before which the Pope knelt in terrified prayer when it was first unveiled: these works have lost none of their awe-inspiring power. Michelangelo’s impact was immediate, and he achieved a level of fame and influence that was unprecedented. It is not surprising, therefore, that the painter Giorgio Vasari should have made him the culmination of his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, the first true work of art history. Vasari was a close colleague as well as a fellow artist and fellow Florentine. The biography printed here, from Vasari’s much improved second edition, draws a picture of Michelangelo the man and the artist that has an immediacy and an authority that have not been surpassed. The introduction by David Hemsoll situates this great work in the context of 16th century Italian art.
Effie Gray was an innocent victim of a male-dominated society, repressed and mistreated. Or was she? John Ruskin, the greatest art critic and social reformer of his time, was a callous misogynist and upholder of the patriarchy. Or was he? John Everett Millais, boy genius, rescued the heroine from the tyrannical clutches of the husband who left his wedding unconsummated for six years. Or did he? What really happened in the most scandalous love triangle of the 19th century? Was it all about impotence and pubic hair? Or was it about money, power and freedom? If so, whose? And what possibilities were there for these young people caught in a world racked by social, financial and political turmoil? The accepted story of the Ruskin marriage has never lost its fascination. History books, novels, television series, operas and now a star-filled film by Emma Thompson have all followed this standard line. It seems to offer an easy take on the Victorians and how we have moved on. But the story isn’t true.
In Marriage of Inconvenience Robert Brownell uses extensive documentary evidence – much of it never seen before, and much of it hitherto suppressed – to reveal a story no less fascinating and human, no less illuminating about the Victorians and far more instructive about our own times, than the myths that have grown up about the most notorious marriage of the 19th century.
“A page turner, even for those familiar with the subject…The surprising truth that emerges is no less human, and no less revealing about the Victorians than the myths; on the contrary it gives a far more compelling insight into what relationships, family and money really mean.” — Country Life
“Ruskin’s marriage was doomed from the start, but not for the reason most people think, argues this well-researched book.” — The Times
Effie Gray was an innocent victim of a male-dominated society, repressed and mistreated. Or was she? John Ruskin, the greatest art critic and social reformer of his time, was a callous misogynist and upholder of the patriarchy. Or was he? John Everett Millais, boy genius, rescued the heroine from the tyrannical clutches of the husband who left his wedding unconsummated for six years. Or did he? What really happened in the most scandalous love triangle of the 19th century? Was it all about impotence and pubic hair? Or was it about money, power and freedom? If so, whose? And what possibilities were there for these young people caught in a world racked by social, financial and political turmoil? The accepted story of the Ruskin marriage has never lost its fascination. History books, novels, television series, operas and now a star-filled film by Emma Thompson (to be released in 2013) have all followed this standard line. It seems to offer an easy take on the Victorians and how we have moved on. But the story isn’t true.
In Marriage of Inconvenience Robert Brownell uses extensive documentary evidence – much of it never seen before, and much of it hitherto suppressed – to reveal a story no less fascinating and human, no less illuminating about the Victorians and far more instructive about our own times, than the myths that have grown up about the most notorious marriage of the 19th century.
Gauguin’s great diary from Tahiti almost never saw the light of day in its original form. The manuscript was sent by the artist from his island refuge to his friend Charles Morice in Paris, and published in 1901 with immediate success, under the two names of Paul Gauguin and Charles Morice. Morice, with Gauguin’s permission, had ‘edited’ and enlarged it to make it more readable. How much of the charm and crispness of the manuscript had been lost in the process was anyone’s guess. It was to be 40 years before Gauguin’s original version came to light, and it is published here in a translation by the poet Jonathan Griffin, together with a detailed description by the art historian Jean Loize, who re-discovered the manuscript. Loize shows that Morice had in parts altered Gauguin’s text beyond recognition – a startling discovery that entirely changed ideas about Gauguin’s style and intentions. This genuine version of Noa Noa is not only an important document, it is also a beautiful piece of writing: amusing, acid, wide-eyed, moving. Gauguin feared that, unedited, it would seem absurdly crude; and no doubt it would have, to most readers in his day. Today we can appreciate its sketch form, jerky directness, authentic freshness. This edition is illustrated with the watercolours, wood-engravings and drawings that Gauguin assembled for the book.
In 1975 Abram Games, one of Britain’s greatest graphic designers, was commissioned to make a fund-raising poster for the Royal Shakespeare Company. His brilliant solution was to become iconic: the face of Shakespeare built up from the titles of all the plays as they appear in the First Folio.
The poster has been seen all over the world; but Abram Games intended much more. After his death, his daughter Naomi discovered a mock up he had made of a flick book. As the reader flicked the pages, Games planned to make Shakespeare’s face gradually emerge.
Now at last Games’ original project is coming to life. All 37 plays are included, in the order they are printed in the First Folio of 1623, ending with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, added to the collection in the Third Folio of 1664. At the end, the playwright makes a graceful exit, marked by the poems and the lost or doubtful plays. The book is completed with some favourite quotations, and the date of each work. Naomi Games has written a brief introduction about the history of Games’ image.
Robert Ernest was an architect of rare promise and remarkable early success, whose award-winning career was cut short by cancer at age 28 in 1962. Despite the brevity of Ernest’s life, his education and practice were intertwined with some of the most important figures in architecture, including his interactions with Louis I. Kahn and Paul Rudolph. Ernest’s exceptional architectural designs, though honoured during his lifetime with three Progressive Architecture Awards and one Record Houses Award, have never been documented in a comprehensive manner, and are now almost completely lost to disciplinary history. Yet the materials in the architect’s personal and professional archives — upon which this book is almost entirely based — clearly indicate that Ernest was a remarkably talented and unusually gifted architectural designer, whose future promise and potential were inestimable. Ernest’s two built works, both realised before he had turned 28, his one work built after his death, as well as the remarkably innovative unrealised projects documented in his archives, indicate that had Ernest lived to a normal lifespan, he would have without question been one of the most important architects of his generation, with the potential to design precedent-setting buildings equal to those realised by the most recognised architects in the 60 years after his death.
The mountains have always fascinated people. When you think of a mountain vacation you immediately think of hiking, skiing, cross-country skiing, climbing, etc., but there are plenty of other disciplines to discover that you can practice while overlooking magnificent mountain scenery! Jurgen Groenwals, editor-in-chief of 100%Snow and 100%Trails, guides you through the rich array of mountain sports, and in the meantime lets you discover the twenty most beautiful – known and less known – mountain villages and valleys in Europe.
The extraordinary picture story by Paolo Di Paolo, which documents and narrates Italians on vacation during Summer 1959, from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic Sea; from Ventimiglia to Trieste (from the western to the eastern border). In 1959 Paolo Di Paolo is a 34-year-old photographer collaborating with the cultural weekly magazine Il Mondo directed by Mario Pannunzio, and the widely distributed magazine Tempo. Pier Paolo Pasolini is a promising 37-year-old writer who had published The Best of Youth, The Street Kids and A Violent Life. He is not yet a film director. In Italy, the “economic miracle” has just begun. The newspapers tend to offer to Italian families a microcosm of mythical characters as a diversion to the dullness and fear of war, emigration, and poverty. Arturo Tofanelli, editor in chief of the monthly Successo and the weekly Tempo, entrusts the two young men, Di Paolo and Pasolini, who did not know each other, to do a report on the Italian Summer Holidays that will be published by Successo magazine in three issues (July, August and September 1959). The writer and the photographer set off from Ventimiglia together, with the plan of travelling through the coasts of Italy to the south and climbing up to Trieste. But they have different visions. “Pasolini was looking for a lost world of literary ghosts, an Italy that no longer existed,” recalls Di Paolo. “I was looking for an Italy that was looking to the future. I conceived the title The Long Road of Sand meaning the strenuous road traveled by Italians to reach well-being and holidays after the War.” A complex, delicate partnership is born between Pasolini and Di Paolo, they will travel together only the first stage of this journey, but this experience would later be consolidated in mutual respect and trust.
Text in English, German and Italian.
“A total delight, a brilliant vignette of 17th-century Rome, the Baroque and the Catholic church – warts and all – rolled into an erudite narrative…. with an ease of writing that is rare in art history.” – Simon Jenkins
By 1650, the spiritual and political power of the Catholic Church was shattered. Thanks to the twin blows of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War, Rome, celebrated both as the Eternal City and Caput Mundi (the head of the world) had lost its pre-eminent place in Europe. Then a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mania for building, determined to restore the prestige of his church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe’s intellectual, political and cultural elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gianlorenzo Bernini, already celebrated as the most important living artist: no mean feat in the age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez.
Together, Alexander VII and Bernini made the greatest artistic double act in history, inventing the concept of soft power and the bucket list destination. Bernini and Alexander’s creation of Baroque Rome as a city more beautiful and grander than since the days of the Emperor Augustus continues to delight and attract.
“The magnificent photos invite you to enjoy the luxurious ambience, the views and the very special flair and to let the constant rattling of the train wheels carry you to distant lands.” — Lovely Books
“Hopefully history’s extravagant chariots serve as inspiration for the trains of the future. Newly published book Luxury Trains is full of elegant examples of how to travel in real style.” — Hoom Magazine
“Transports you back ot the golden age of travel, with pictures of 25 of the most elegant trains in the world.” — Good Housekeeping UK
Luxury trains have always fascinated and excited our imaginations. A great source of style, romance and exoticism, they have long held starring roles in literature and in Hollywood movies. This wonderful book evokes long-lost days of travel, where trains marked international railway history, from the Orient Express to the Train Bleu. Today, train companies around the world are creating new palaces on rails and these pages offer a journey into that extravagant and luxurious world.
Whether comfortably seated in the restaurant car of the Venice Simplon – Orient-Express as you glide past the Venetian Lagoon, travelling through the Highlands of Scotland on the famed Royal Scotsman, or admiring the ancient splendours of Machu Picchu at the Hiram Bingham bar aboard the Andean Explorer, this book traverses the globe in celebration of these wonderful locomotives. A superb gift for the travel enthusiast and anyone interested in the decadent features of these trains.
“In a visually arresting book titled Houses That Sugar Built, authors Gina Consing McAdam and Siobhán Doran tell the tales behind the historic homes that proliferated during the sugar boom in the Philippines.” — Tatler
Houses that Sugar Built – An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes explores the largely unknown architectural legacy to be found in the ancestral houses of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga – the three main sugar-producing provinces of the Philippines. These grand residences have yet to receive international exposure.
Nonetheless, they are important in two ways. Firstly, although easily classifiable in terms of architectural style, upon experiencing the buildings themselves there are almost always layers of additional influence. Secondly, this assured blending of styles reveals what we might call a ‘Critical Ambition’ – a desire on the part of the patrons who commissioned these residences to participate in an international architectural culture. Their relatively overlooked location did not stop the sugar barons responsible for these houses from undertaking a 20th-century form of the Grand Tour of European capitals, returning with a desire to bring the latest trends from Paris or Vienna to the provincial Philippines, or from partaking of the latest streamlined Moderne style from the US.
Beautifully photographed with over 200 pages of interiors that have rarely been seen by the public, Houses that Sugar Built- An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes is layered with intimate stories and individual house texts that transport us back to a time when these residences were in their heyday.
October 21, 1982. Three singers stand on the steps of the High Court with large cheques and broken dreams. The women are Annie (Annabel Leventon, the book’s author), GB (Gaye Brown), and Di-Di (Diane Langton). Their dream was of a British three-woman rock band, unique and different from anything that had gone before. They called themselves Rock Bottom. They were raunchy, rude and hilarious – the contemporary media described them as ‘a cross between the female Rolling Stones and the female Marx Brothers’ – and they nearly made it.
Until Thames Television stole everything and made a major award-winning series called Rock Follies, about them, based on them, but without them. It made stars of the three lookalikes playing them. And they lost everything.
A common enough tale of showbiz betrayal. Except that they fought back. At the offset of the Court trial, the Head of Drama at Thames TV sarcastically quipped, ‘three little actresses against the might of EMI?’ Forget it, the three ladies were told. Move on. They didn’t. They took the case to the High Court and won. Breach of Confidence is now on the Statute Books and it has become one of the defining cases in Intellectual Property.
The Real Rock Follies is a real-life story of youthful trust betrayed, dreams of stardom dashed and cruel lessons learnt. The three girls, then in their late twenties, learned too late that in the harsh showbiz world you can hardly trust anyone, not even your friends. However, despite everything, they got the last laugh. Their promising career couldn’t be returned to them but they enjoyed the huge satisfaction (both emotional and financial) that the ruling confirmed that the creative concept behind Rock Follies was fully theirs.