After the globally sold-out success of their first book Weird and Wonderful Post-Mortem Fairy Tales and the even more successful follow-up Dark and Dystopian Post-Mortem Fairy Tales, the artistic and eccentric duo Mothmeister once again ignites the imagination with their third book: Sinister and Spiritual Post-Mortem Fairy Tales. This grim and spiritual dream world is inspired by bog bodies, druids, voodoo cults, the mummified Sokushinbutsu monks, the cannibalistic Asmat tribe, Victorian freak shows, and much more.
As always, Mothmeister pays homage to the animal kingdom, which, through their passion for taxidermy, comes to life in an enchanting biotope where everything coexists intuitively and effortlessly. Partly familiar, but mostly surreal. And because of that, extraordinarily intriguing.
In a former shipyard of 8,000 square meters at the ultra-hip NDSM Wharf in Amsterdam, you will find Europe’s largest street art museum: STRAAT. Yearly an impressive 200,000 visitors admire their collection of over 180 works by around 170 artists, many of which were specially created for this location. As STRAAT’s collection is constantly refreshed and expanded, it’s time for a second catalogue featuring only new works by about 80 artists. Divided into chapters by genre—muralism, art and activism, native/nature, abstract graffiti, and installations—and interspersed with essays by experts like Steven P. Harrington, Carlo McCormick, Charlotte Pyatt and Christian Omodeo, this book is a wonderful anthology of the key figures in the contemporary street art scene.
This lavishly illustrated book, the second volume in the series Orchha,Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850),deals with the second and third periods of Orchha painting, which span the years 1605 through 1675. A central theme of the paintings presented in this volume is the love between the archetypal couple Krishna and Radha, which is both mystical-religious and secular-playful in nature. Indeed, it is the confluence of sacred and profane love that gives India’s culture and art its unique spirit. The images were created to illustrate poetic works such as the Rasikapriya, whose author, the Orchha court poet Keshavdas, invites his readers to savor the aesthetic and religious delight of Radha-Krishna love through his riti lyrics in the vernacular language of his era. Through stylistic analyzes and interpretations of over 100 paintings from his collection, many of them published here for the first time, the author brings to light the accomplishments of the Orchha school during its heyday in the seventeenth century.
“These photos are stunning, bittersweet visions of a past shared by all of us.” – Tom Hanks.
“Brian Hamill is best known as a still photographer and a photojournalist. But I’ve always regarded him – first and foremost – as a master portraitist. And this book bears that out – capturing as it does, the many-faceted phenomenon that was John and Yoko – artists, lovers, cultural comrades and – most elusively – business partners. Behind his camera, Hamill is something of a phenomenon himself.” – Richard Price
John Lennon’s life, death and music shaped the world. His reputation as a philanthropist, political activist and pacifist influenced millions worldwide. If Elvis was King, Lennon was his rightful successor – and fittingly, several images in this collection of both classic and unseen photos show him wearing a diamond-studded ‘Elvis’ pin over his heart, in homage to his forefather on the throne of Rock ‘n’ Roll. John Lennon is seen here in several sessions in New York, performing on stage, relaxed at home and walking on the street with Yoko Ono.
Renowned celebrity photojournalist Brian Hamill delivers his own insider view of this Beatles icon, through intense, intimate photographic portraits and insightful text. Whether Lennon is dominating the stage, posing on the roof of the Dakota building, or relaxing with Yoko Ono, Hamill’s photography takes this quasi-mythical figure from the world of Rock ‘n’ Roll and shows him as the man he really was.
“Brian looked at the John Lennon who had become an icon and saw instead a familiar face. He saw a working-class hero like those that built the City of New York. And so when John Lennon came to live in New York, Brian captured him as a New Yorker, in the joyous images that you will find in this book.” – Pete Hamill
“Lennon, one of the most famous men in human history, wanted to live as one among many. Of course, he hit it off with Hamill. The guy that flew so high needed some oxygen. Hamill is fresh air. His folio of Lennon images shows Lennon focused, present, but edgy, never relaxed.” – Alec Baldwin
“I only feel comfortable at home with my dog, my pencils and my paper” – Yves Saint Laurent, The Guardian, February, 2000
Successor of Christian Dior then director of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent has established himself as a visionary designer throughout his career. Inseparable from the myth of Saint Laurent, his dogs accompanied him as much in the habitation of his apartments shared with Pierre Bergé, as in the effervescence of the workshop on Avenue Marceau, and fashion shows. The author highlights the forgotten dogs of childhood, extravagant chihuahuas, such as Hazel, who were faithful companions of the artist for more than 20 years. Effigies on annual greeting cards, evening models for Rive Gauche, and muses of Warhol or Hockney, the four famous French Bulldogs – all named Moujik – will be an integral part of the legend of the creator.
Enriched by a new iconography by Hedi Slimane, artistic director of Saint Laurent from 2012 to 2016 and artistic director of Céline since 2018, the book includes nearly 80 images from photographic archives, and drawings by Yves Saint Laurent.
After the season of the great Renaissance painters, the prestige of the figurative arts grew as never before in history. During the 16th century, the artist went from being a common craftsman to holding a status equal to that of the greatest intellectuals of his time. The relationship between poetry and painting was consolidated in the 17th century, and became close, even competitive, when artists and men of letters confronted each other with the same themes. In this framework, the great poetry of Giovan Battista Marino (Naples, 1569-1625) plays a fundamental role. His compositions are rich in visual suggestions, derived as much from direct contact with the art collections he visited during his itinerant life as from the memory of the images of the great artists of the past. The Galeria (1620), one of his most famous books, projects onto the walls of an imaginary gallery the names of the artists and works of art that marked the poet’s courtly experience.
Stucco decorations have traditionally been studied considering their formal and artistic qualities. Although much research and numerous publications have explored the works of stucco artists and their cultural context, little attention has been paid to their professional role in relation to the other actors involved in the decorative process (architects, painters, sculptors, patrons), the technical skills of these artists, and how their know-how contributed to the great professional success they enjoyed. From the 16th to the 18th century, many of the stucco decorations in churches and palaces throughout Europe were made by masters from the border area between what is now Canton Ticino and Lombardy. This collection of essays aims to examine how these artists worked from Spain to Poland, from Denmark to Italy, via the Netherlands, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Austria, adapting to the realities of the different contexts. The authors examine these issues with an interdisciplinary approach, considering art history and social history, the history of artistic techniques, and the science of materials.
Text in English and Italian.
The first work of great French journalist Louis-Sébastien Mercier, this seminal work of travel writing remained unpublished for over 200 years.
Mercier first traveled to London, and began recording his impressions, in 1780. An exemplar of a new form of journalistic, reflective literature, he presented emotive representations of the city as collections of experiences, habits and personalities. And differently from Dickens’s London or Baudelaire’s Paris, with their contrasts of opulence and misery, Mercier describes a less familiar urban environment – more optimistic, perhaps even utopian. His version of London is, in fact, a projection of his philosophical imagination – not simply a rounded portrait but also a reflection of what he hoped Paris could become.
For this first publication in English, Laurent Turcot and Jonathan Conlin’s translation preserves the life and humor of Mercier’s text. It is illustrated with contemporary images, with an emphasis on Thomas Rowlandson and Gabriel-Jacques de Saint-Aubin, the first Parisian flâneur-artist.
Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, the prolific artist-couple were central to the development of mid-century design in Southern California. They combined modernist craft—in weaving, carving, ceramics, tapestries, hookings, and mosaics—and made it accessible to the middle class. Their works were celebrated for their combination of bright colors and craftsmanship, with an artisanal attention to detail. In Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman: California Mid-Century Designers Laura Ackerman-Shaw, their daughter, who has expanded their legacy with both commercial and institutional recognition, takes the reader through her parents’ unique impact on post-war design in America. Because of the success of Hand-in-Hand, Pointed Leaf Press is publishing a new book, in a much larger format, with 80% new material, much of it discovered by Ackerman-Shaw in her parent’s archive. By showcasing their output through Jenev Design Studio, ERA Industries, and their involvement in the prestigious California Design exhibitions from 1954 to 1976, readers can see how they translated their ideas into the varied materials of their choosing. Unlike the previous monograph, this book focuses less on their personal lives and more on the Ackerman’s impact on the world, a must-read for collectors and connoisseurs. With new and updated essays by scholars, as well as numerous never-before-seen drawings, photographs, and archival materials, Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman: California Mid-Century Designers is the indelible story of a lifetime of artistic partnership.
The work of photographer Gérard Uféras (b. 1954, Paris) covers a compelling and charming array of subjects, from glimpses of life behind the scenes at the opera and ballet, to marrying couples and their families on their wedding day, to the spontaneous energy and interaction of crowds at carnivals and sporting events. With the discreet but unerring eye of the seasoned photojournalist (he began a long association with Libération newspaper in the 1980s), Gérard Uféras captures people from all walks of life in moments of contemplation, creation and camaraderie, resulting in a body of work that offers a rich and nuanced picture of humanity.
Published to coincide with a retrospective of his work in 2025, this book presents the photographer’s own choice of some of his finest work from a long and distinguished career. What emerges most strongly from this collection is Gérard Uféras’s great passion for favorite themes such as music, theater and dance, but, perhaps more resoundingly still, his profound empathy and respect for his human subjects.
In Florence, cassettai refers to the special group of street vendors who take their name from the drawer-like containers in which they display their wares. They have belonged to the association of the same name since 1909; today they are recognized as an important part of Florence’s historical and cultural heritage. They are both promoters and protagonists of a volume on the history of the illustrated postcard, in whose diffusion they have traditionally played an important role.
The history of the postcard intersects closely with that of the art of the last two centuries, beginning with the emergence of photography. Over time, the postcard became an art form in its own right; it also had a hand in transforming communication, providing travelers with the opportunity of recording spontaneous impressions while forever capturing a picture of the visited site.
Sponsored by the association of the cassettai, the volume offers a rich and varied overview of the illustrated postcard, which was once an extremely popular means of conveying messages through words and images. Still today, the postcard holds its own in a world dominated by more modern and rapid means of communication, while retaining its connection with a fascinating history, one imbued with culture, identity, beauty and romanticism.
Text in English and Italian.
Explorer, Oriental scholar and diplomat, Pierre Lefèvre-Pontalis (1864-1938) was a member of Pavie Mission to Laos in the 1890s, participating in drawing up the borders between French Indochina and independent Siam, as well as the French territories and Burma, annexed by the British in 1886. He was later appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Siam. However, before taking up this ambassadorial role he journeyed in Siam and Burma in 1912, during which he wrote copious notes recording ethnographic, historical and geopolitical thoughts. This is the first time these journals have been published and provides a unique window into the colonial mindset of the time.
In the Land of Fire and Ice: Horses of Iceland is photographer Guadalupe Laiz’s second book celebrating her love for Iceland and its horses. In this follow-up book, Laiz widens her lens to not only capture the horses, but to showcase the rugged, harsh, and unpredictable environment that has shaped the character of these animals. It is the interaction between the horses and their epic terrain that tells the whole story, with incredibly beautiful images that exceed the imagination.
Laiz’s color and black-and-white portraits of the majestic Icelandic horses are poetry in motion. For this second publication, Laiz undertook a more ambitious production, collaborating with local horse breeders to capture the horses in iconic and breathtaking locations—from the famous Skógafoss blanketed with snow to the active Fagradalsfjall volcano, and galloping across black sand beaches and glaciers, and with waterfalls, tundra, and fierce ocean backdrops.
Laiz’s work invites viewers to experience an intimate connection with the mystical horses, as she skillfully juxtaposes their wild power and inherent softness, creating images with a profound sense of emotion. In the Land of Fire and Ice: Horses of Iceland includes a special note signed by the artist.
The Baliem valley lies in Papua, a remote eastern region of Indonesia and home to some of the last peoples on earth to come into contact with modern civilization. When anthropologist O.W. Hampton visited in the 1980s, he found isolated peoples using stone tools, spears, and bows and arrows. Over the following ten years he documented life in the valley, including the making of stone axes and adzes—the last such tools to be in daily use on our planet. He collected sacred stones wrapped in orchid fiber and feathers, tools, net bags, and many other objects, and documented their uses in rituals of war and healing. In this book, author Christopher Buckley presents Hampton’s fieldwork alongside new studio photographs of his collection with detailed explanations.
The book will be of value to archaeologists, anthropologists, students, collectors and curators of Papuan art, and anyone with an interest in how mankind lived in millennia past.
Miami is a city in constant motion, where luxury high-rises reshape the skyline and vibrant art, neon-lit beaches, and tropical charm create a one-of-a-kind atmosphere. Beyond the lively nightlife lies the serene paradise of the Keys, a chain of islands steeped in history, hidden gems, and sun-soaked adventures.
This guide uncovers Miami and the Keys’ most unusual experiences, inviting you to explore places you’ve passed or never noticed. Discover rotating art displays in a millionaire’s mansion, dance to Latin rhythms in Little Havana, or slide down a two-story chute into a shopping haven.
Dive into crystal-clear waters to explore pirate shipwrecks, visit the country’s smallest post office, or track down Florida’s elusive Skunk Ape. Seek tranquility at a tropical Buddhist temple, stroll through mango groves, and celebrate sunsets at the southernmost point of the U.S. 111 places are waiting to reveal the magic of Miami and the Keys.
A beautifully illustrated and extensively researched collection of 100 exquisite houses of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Arts and Crafts Movement produced some of the world’s most charming and enduring architectural masterpieces. Author and architect David Cole presents 100 great houses of Arts and Crafts domestic architecture (1860–1914), each house individually described and analyzed with insightful detail and illustrated with stunning photography.
Cole tells the story of the shifts and influences within the Arts and Crafts Movement through the lens of 100 houses, from those by the pioneer and great reformer architects, to the countryside craftsmen and Scottish architects, and finally the houses of the Garden Cities. He dedicates a short chapter to each of the 100 great Arts and Crafts houses, beginning with the iconic Red House, designed and owned by William Morris, a pioneer and key proponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. In addition to Morris, the book features houses created by some forty of the movement’s renowned architects, including Philip Webb, Richard Norman Shaw, Wiliam Lethaby, C.F.A. Voysey, Edwin Lutyens.
This extensively researched and exquisitely produced large-volume book presents the Arts and Crafts Movement’s 100 most important houses, illustrated with more than 900 full-color photographs. As Morris famously said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
The Rothschild Library of the Age of Johnson brings together the most comprehensive collection of rare books and autograph works in private hands of the 18th-century literary giant Samuel Johnson, together with extensive collections of the works of the other principal authors of the period long-known as the Age of Johnson— including James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Frances Burney, Oliver Goldsmith, Hester (Thrale) Piozzi, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift.
An introduction to each of these authors provides information placing the author in his or her historical and literary context, and the descriptive entries for each of the over 900 individual manuscripts, letters, and rare books records bibliographical information, significant facts, and critical information about the work recorded.
The individual entries, when viewed in the aggregate, survey and illuminate the breadth and depth of the literary and intellectual canon of the authors of the Age of Johnson, illuminate their relationships and their works to one another. The text taken as a whole demonstrates why Samuel Johnson, as an individual and as an author, defined the era long named for him.
Following the success of Portrait of Britain and Portrait of Humanity, this third edition of the latter brings together 200 new portraits taken by photographers of all levels from all over the world, selected from tens of thousands of entries. The publication supports a world-touring exhibition which will visit USA, India, Hungary and among other places, bringing global exposure to the book. The award and exhibition is organized by 1854 Media (British Journal of Photography). Each image in the book is accompanied by a short, telling story from each photographer, bringing home the humanity of those photographed.
Caravaggio’s Portrait of a Gentleman with a Ruff, which is a recent arrival in the Klesch Collection, has a short critical history. It also has a very limited history as regards the associated bibliography and media coverage, perhaps because the painting came to the fore prior to the social media explosion characteristic of recent years and, above all, at a time when today’s almost obsessive interest in Caravaggio was certainly not so developed. This interest has since expanded to incorporate all levels of communication, even the most widely popular. The Portrait first came to people’s attention in 1992 and despite the fact that the artist already exerted an appeal that few other painters could boast at the time, Caravaggio’s following was far removed from what it is today.
Text in English and Italian.
This book explores Larry Fink’s recent works, with a selection of pictures taken over the past five years, examining the series of subjects – near and far – that he investigated. Divided into four sections – ‘In Politics,’ ‘Countryside Stories,’ ‘In Town,’ ‘At Home’ – The Polarities offers the chance to follow Fink from Washington, New York, and Panama City to rural Pennsylvania. The portrait of American society that Fink sketches out starting in the 1950s continues. The Polarities narrates modern America, the radical changes between the Obama years and the arrival of Trump, the society of the spectacle – in which ‘the show must go on’ – and the continuing divide between metropolitan and rural areas. Here, Fink’s images recall those of the Farm Security Administration, the great project designed to study American territory between 1935 and 1943.
Scotland has produced an astonishingly high number of men and women whose lives have inspired and changed the world. This book, illustrating just over forty portraits, represents only a few of them, but with Robert Burns and Walter Scott, Eric Liddell and Alex Ferguson, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Queen Victoria, it represents the flavour of the collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
This is the first study of a fascinating, international phenomenon in the art of the past century. Naked portraiture is an original hybrid of the traditional genres of the nude and portrait, and has been created by an astonishing range of major artists, in many different media and in a variety of major artistic centres. Martin Hammer’s ground-breaking book compares work by painters such as Egon Schiele, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Pierre Bonnard, Stanley Spencer, Lucian Freud, Tracey Emin and Jenny Saville. The analysis encompasses a rich tradition of naked portraiture using photographic media, produced by figures such as Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Boris Mikhailov, Nan Goldin, Gary Schneider and Melanie Manchot. The subjects are men and woman, old and young, black and white, healthy and disabled. They might be lovers, close relatives or friends, with their nakedness suggesting the intimacy and tenderness existing between artist and subject. Conversely, the artist might not know them beyond the circumstance of making the pictures. Many of the images represent the artists themselves, with nudity carrying connotations of self-exploration, vulnerability, playfulness or fantasy. Martin Hammer’s innovative study seeks to explain naked portraiture as a symptom of wider currents in modern culture, a visual parallel to various other manifestations of an impulse to reveal what is hidden, profound, or authentic, beneath the surface facade. The book also opens up for consideration the wider issue of how and why the genre of portraiture has been radically extended and reinvented, in so many different ways, within the art of the last hundred years.
Considered to be one of Scotland’s leading figurative painters, Moyna Flannigan is known for her wry and penetrating observations on society. Her portrait miniatures reflect the styles, manners and culture of contemporary life. In this book Keith Hartley examines Flannigan’s paintings and discusses the artistic and social influences on her work. The illustrations are accompanied by poetic prose by award-winning Scottish writer Dilys Rose, which sets up an imaginative dialog with the miniatures. ‘Dilys Rose is one of the most versatile writers in Scotland, as well as one of the best‘ – Douglas Dunn
This book reveals the wealth of British and European miniatures preserved in Scottish private collections, most of which are not normally on show to the public. Some of these intimate and private works are new discoveries, published here for the first time. These works are drawn from some of the notable private collections in Scotland, led by the most famous of all, that of the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry. The protagonists of the Stuart cause are well represented in portraits of Prince James and his sons Prince Charles Edward and Prince Henry Benedict, taken from the collection of one of the most significant Jacobite families, that of the Dukes of Perth. The book illustrates some of the most personal portraits of the leading figures among the great families of Scotland from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Twenty of the key works are illustrated in colour, with extended captions, and a complete catalogue of the collection is also included.