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Men in stately black, women with huge ruffs, children with golden rattles, old women with wizened faces, and self-satisfied artists… These are the main players in just about every portrait ever painted in the Southern Netherlands. From the15th to the 17th centuries, the tract of land that we today call Flanders was the economic, cultural, intellectual and financial heart of Europe. And money flows – with everyone who could afford it investing in a portrait.

Today, these cherished status symbols of the past have largely lost their original significance. But beyond their functional and emotional aspects, these portraits turn their subjects into gateways to the past. This book takes masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation and outlines the broad context in which they came into being, peeling back levels of meaning like the layers of an onion. Whether captured in an impressive Rubens or Van Dyck, or an intimate portrait by a forgotten artist, the persons portrayed were once flesh and blood, each with their own peculiarities, hidden agendas and ambitions. Some portraits are very personal and hyper-individual. Others are a little dusty, the ladies and gentleman being children of their time. In most cases, however, their dreams and aspirations are surprisingly timeless and soberingly recognisable.

The Bold and the Beautiful
is an appointment with history: a meeting through portraiture with men and women from bygone centuries. But for those willing to look closely, the border between the present and the past is paper-thin.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Blind Date. Portretten met blikken en blozen, Autumn 2020, in Snijders&Rockoxhuis Antwerp, curated by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren & Hildegard Van de Velde with a scenography by Walter Van Beirendonck.

A unique insight into the ways in which one of today’s leading artists is inspired by great works of the past. In 16 emphatically modern new paintings, renowned artist, Alison Watt, responds to the remarkable delicacy of the female portraits by eighteenth-century Scottish portraitist, Allan Ramsay. Watt’s new works are particularly inspired by Ramsay’s much-loved portrait of his wife, along with less familiar portraits and drawings. Watt shines a light on enigmatic details in Ramsay’s work and has created paintings which hover between the genres of still life and portraiture. In conversation with curator Julie Lawson, Watt discusses how painters look at paintings, explains why Ramsay inspired her, and provides unique insight into her own creative process. Andrew O’Hagan responds to Watt’s paintings with a new work of short fiction and art historian Tom Normand’s commentary explores further layers of depth to our understanding of both artists.

This volume marks the publishing debut of the Spanish-Argentinian photographer based in Milan, Patricio Reig, and introduces one of the artist’s preferred subjects: the female portrait.

Patricio Reig prints and sets his images on special oriental paper, folded over and over, and finally dipped in a bath of coffee and sodium thiosulfate. He has found the result intriguing ever since his very first experiments: fortuitous coffee stains become scars that denote each photograph, and consequently every story they tell.
As he himself says: “A portrait is not the recording of a single identity, but rather the layering of many elements. For this reason, the image may be fragmented, pieced back together, or even folded over, and yet it never loses its essence.” 

Text in English, French and Spanish.

The fascinating and truly exceptional Portrait of a Lady in White Satin, which forms part of The Klesch Collection, offers Marco Tanzi the leading expert on 16th- and 17th-century Cremonese painting an opportunity to delve into some hitherto unknown aspects of the painter’s artistic production. Breaking away from the repetitive monotony of a celebration firmly rooted in an audacious biography that is more or less fictional, but above all anchored to some erroneous attributions that are traced back to Bernardino Campi, her first master.

The Konyaks – a once fearsome headhunting tribe in Nagaland on the border of Myanmar in northeast India – are well known for their iconic body and facial tattoos, originally earned for taking an enemy’s head. This book – over four years in the making – is the personal journey of a Konyak woman who retraces the steps of her grandfather and great-grandfather by documenting her tribe’s tattooing practices. She explores the Konyak’s concept of beautification of the body using it as a canvas for art, with inscriptions marked on the skin as a form of rite of passage and cycle of life. With elegant and powerful portraits of elders, both men and women, this book preserves the unique but vanishing practices of the culture, together with tattoo patterns, their meanings, and the oral traditions attached to them in folktales, songs, poems and sayings. It includes descriptions and information on headhunting and tattooing practices; reasons behind them; techniques used; tattoo artists; different tattoo groups; types of tattoos; and personal stories. Contents: The Konyaks; Headhunting; Traditional Tattooing Art; Tattoo Artist; Face Tattoo Group SHEN-TU; Body Tattoo Group TANGTA-TU; Nose Tattoo Group KONG-TU; The Last of the Tattooed Headhunters; Glossary.

The Mauritshuis has ten paintings by Rembrandt. The most famous is undoubtedly The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, but just as popular are Simeon’s Song of Praise, Portrait of an Old Man and Self-Portrait, one of the last which the Master painted. In this playfully designed book, the paintings and their distinctive features are conveyed in an accessible manner. A large number of detailed images capture Rembrandt’s extraordinary painting technique from close by: the quick brushstrokes, the crisscrossing in wet paint and the carefully placed dabs and jabs. The recent restoration of three Rembrandts at the Mauritshuis also receives special attention.

David Bailly’s Vanitas Still Life with Portrait of a Young Painter earned him a prominent place in art history. Almost 400 years after it was made, the painting – a masterpiece that raises all kinds of questions – continues to fascinate art historians. Is this a self-portrait? What do all the objects in the painting refer to? And who is the mysterious woman whose image appears against the wall? This book subjects the painting and the artist to a thorough examination. Bailly lived in Leiden, at the same time as Rembrandt. He painted and drew portraits and still lifes. This book considers his life and work together for the first time and presents the results of a technical investigation that has revealed the hidden layers in his most important masterpiece.

Gertrude Vernon, or Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, was an English woman who married a Scot. The American artist John Singer Sargent excelled as a painter in Europe. His portrait of Lady Agnew was painted in London but has found its definitive home in Edinburgh. All these contexts converge in a supremely beautiful painting which is one the icons of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Created in the 1890s, it proved to be a seminal work in the lives of the artist and his subject and has enjoyed a rich afterlife, inspiring artistic and written responses. This book offers a fascinating biography of this most accomplished, evocative and admired of portraits, placing it in the context of Sargent’s career and how he worked, discussing the life of the sitter and unveiling the picture’s rich critical history.

Martha Bibescu (Bucharest, 1886 – Paris, 1973) was one of the greatest and most representative protagonists of the extraordinary world of the Belle Époque, of which Paris, which became her adopted city, was the capital. Linked to the most important political and intellectual personalities of the time, from the kings of Romania to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, from Charles de Gaulle to Winston Churchill and Marcel Proust, Martha intertwined her life with that of the sculptor and architect Domenico Rupolo (Caneva, 1861-1945), the creator of the radical modernization, lasting almost twenty-five years, of the Bibescu palace in Mogoșoaia. To crown the profound association that bound him to Martha, Rupolo executed the hitherto unpublished marble portrait of her in 1933, on which this volume focuses. This face emerging enigmatically from the marble, a paradigm of the art and culture of an entire era, is a remarkable and unexpected addition to the portraiture of one of the most popular women of the 20th century.

Text in English and Italian. 

Between 1978 and 1987, renowned British photographer Derek Ridgers captured London youth culture in all its glory. With skinheads, punks and new romantics, in clubs and on the street, his images have come to define a seminal decade of British subculture.

This completely reimagined edition of 78/87 London Youth showcases a fresh selection of those images from the depths of Ridgers’ exceptional archive – including several previously unseen – beautifully printed and bound in an oversized volume.

Each picture is a tribute to the trials and triumphs of youth, and a precious document of style and culture in 1980s England, from the height of punk to the birth of acid house. Several have been exhibited internationally in cities as far-ranging as Moscow, Adelaide and Beverly Hills, in the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain and Somerset House. Ridgers has also collaborated with a number of major fashion houses, including Saint Laurent and Gucci, and his images continue to inspire photographers, artists and fashion designers around the world.

‘As time passes, this kind of observational photography attains a new importance’Sean O’Hagan, The Observer

‘Ridgers’ portraits of young boys and girls are weighted with a raw poetry and beauty’Cory Reynolds, artbook.com

The Bund was once a mud land criss-crossed with farm fields, wild reeds, and a rooster fighting yard. Then its shape transformed dramatically looking similar to a European City, thus the mud Bund became the modern and attractive gold Bund. The stories of the Bund are about how the mud land turned into a billion-dollar skyline.

This book is a practiced journalist’s notebook about historical buildings in the Bund. The story of the Bund is the history of Shanghai’s rapid development. The book records the past and present details of 30 buildings on the Bund north of Yan ‘an East Road, and shares hundreds of architectural photos and historical pictures. The 30 buildings listed in the book are accompanied by the latest tourist tips, as well as colorful architectural maps of the Bund and data analysis charts. The great changes in Shanghai can be seen more clearly from the authors’ unique perspective.

Michelle Qiao has done arduous research in Xujiahui Library where abundant historical archives from Shanghai’s old English newspapers are kept. This book presents Bund architecture with the authors’ unique descriptions and vivid photos.

Text in English and Chinese.

Goya’s last set of etchings were made between 1815 and 1823, the dark years after the fall of Napoleon, when Goya was living in his farm, The House of the Deaf Man (Quinta del Sordo). Enigmatic and sinister, the etchings were not published until long after his death. They are variously known as The Proverbs, The Dreams, or, most often, Los Disparates, or The Follies. They are some of the most compelling images in Western art and their technical virtuosity is second to none.

In 111 Places in Buffalo That You Must Not Miss, author Brian Hayden reveals the lesser-known stories, off-the-beaten path locales, and hidden gems that make Buffalo and nearby Niagara Falls extraordinary. Journey through the region and explore century-old ethnic clubs, neighborhood taverns with incredible wings, a hiking trail in the shadow of a collapsed power plant, possible buried treasure in the Niagara River and the small town that invented the kazoo.

Find out why Irish Civil War Veterans launched an invasion on Canada from Buffalo, how the manuscript of a Mark Twain masterpiece ended up in a downtown library, and where you can see a “stunter’s row” of daredevils buried together in a Niagara Falls Cemetery. Shop for unique finds in the city’s last “junk shop,” browse for produce grown by recently resettled refugees at an urban farm, and play Buffalo Gay Bingo in an Amvets Hall. Discover the places and people who have called this region home for centuries – and the new arrivals from around the world who have infused New York’s second largest city with new life. Experience the Buffalo and Niagara Falls that even locals might not know about – and come away with a renewed appreciation for this historic and inspiring region.

Andy Goldsworthy tells the story of his career in his own words – from school art classrooms to the ambitious retrospective exhibition this book accompanies. In a wide-ranging and personal conversation, Goldsworthy recalls the triumphs and tribulations that have shaped his journey to become an artist of global renown. Illustrated by many of his iconic installations and ephemeral works, this book also includes previously unseen drawings for new creations. This is an unmissable account of the life and work of an artist pushing the boundaries of the art world.

In celebration of the centenary of artist, poet and landscape designer Ian Hamilton Finlay’s birth, Fragments draws together 100 of his artworks. With each piece accompanied by a short text, either by the artist or by a noted writer on Finlay’s work, this book accompanies a series of eight exhibitions taking place in Basel, Brescia, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Palma de Mallorca, London, New York and Vienna in May 2025.

Best known for his Little Sparta – a seven-acre site at Stonypath farm in Scotland that has attained almost-mythical status – and for his installed guillotines, A View to the Temple, at Documenta Kassel 1987, Finlay’s large body of work can be found in museums, parks and gardens worldwide. His artistic creations also incorporate short stories, poems and concrete poetry, many of which have been published by his own publishing house Wild Hawthorn Press, and which, with a mixture of wit and beauty, engage with the relationship between violence and civilization.

Wu Changshuo is one of China’s most celebrated calligraphers and painters. On the 180th anniversary of his birth, the Shanghai Wu Changshuo Art Museum has put together this anthology of selected writings alongside over 130 works from the museum’s collection to accompany a year-long series of exhibitions of this celebrated artist. With each piece written from a different perspective, this fascinating book is an appreciation of the resolute character and accomplishments of this great Chinese calligrapher, painter, seal engraver and poet.

Born in 1844 in the late Qing period, Wu Changshuo went from impoverished farm worker to celebrated artist. Leading the Xiling Seal Art Society, Wu would go on to become part of the avant-garde Shanghai School with its unique ‘East meets West’ culture. A great believer and practitioner in studying the ancient masters and their techniques in order to create a solid foundation and expert knowledge of the arts, Wu went on to create his own school of thought which combined this ancient wisdom with his own innovative interpretations.

Dorset doesn’t have any motorways. Or cities. Or major industries. We do have railways – but don’t expect high speed intercity connections. But these are the reasons why the county is so appealing: The pace of life is slower, the people friendlier, the views more unspoiled. The county is a magnet for creative types: artisan food producers, eco-preneurs, artists and craftspeople who are quietly building businesses in small towns and villages, tucked away in back lanes and converted farm buildings.

Whether you’re a local, a seasoned traveler or first-time visitor, beautiful, quirky Dorset will surprise and delight you. This guide will introduce you to 111 off-the-beaten track (and sometimes off-the-wall) locations that make this slice of the West Country a wonderful place to live and a great place to visit.

Pick flowers in the grounds of a ruined abbey. Watch the summer solstice at a mini Stonehenge. Spot badgers in fancy dress. Buy wobbly bread from a post office. Moon-bathe in a beach-side sauna. Or fill your boots at a dry dock.

The Classicist is an annual journal dedicated to the classical tradition in architecture and the allied arts. Focused on Northern California, the Classicist No. 21 explores the region’s rich architectural history; contemporary examples of classical design through professional and student portfolios; and academic articles authored by leaders within the field. Contributing authors include Daniel Gregory, architectural historian and editor; Laura Ackley, author of San Francisco’s Jewel City: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915; Lucia Howard, Partner at Ace Architects and Piraneseum; Therese Poletti, author of Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger and journalist at MarketWatch; and Andrew Shanken, Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.

In 111 Places in Buffalo That You Must Not Miss, author Brian Hayden reveals the lesser-known stories, off-the-beaten path locales, and hidden gems that make Buffalo and nearby Niagara Falls extraordinary. Journey through the region and explore century-old ethnic clubs, neighborhood taverns with incredible wings, a hiking trail in the shadow of a collapsed power plant, possible buried treasure in the Niagara River and the small town that invented the kazoo.

Find out why Irish Civil War Veterans launched an invasion on Canada from Buffalo, how the manuscript of a Mark Twain masterpiece ended up in a downtown library, and where you can see a “stunter’s row” of daredevils buried together in a Niagara Falls Cemetery. Shop for unique finds in the city’s last “junk shop,” browse for produce grown by recently resettled refugees at an urban farm, and play Buffalo Gay Bingo in an Amvets Hall. Discover the places and people who have called this region home for centuries – and the new arrivals from around the world who have infused New York’s second largest city with new life. Experience the Buffalo and Niagara Falls that even locals might not know about – and come away with a renewed appreciation for this historic and inspiring region.

You’ve heard of the “Starchitects.” Now meet the “Marketects.” This monograph spans all twenty-five years of Powers Brown Architecture and evinces why all clients deserve good design.

“Marketecture,” a term coined by Powers Brown Architecture as an antithesis to the “Starchitecture,” is a market-driven strategy for striving for the best design solutions for all clients. Through this bottom-up approach, Powers Brown seeks cutting-edge solutions that elevate a seemingly mundane building type beyond client expectations. Its dedication to working with clients to develop cost-effective, market-driven buildings without sacrificing good design has resulted in a broad range of commercial projects that respond to everyday pragmatics while still exhibiting strong architectural ideas and developing new technologies along the way.

In Powers Brown Architecture: Commodity and Virtue in Architecture, the firm presents a curated collection of work that spans its entire twenty-five years in practice and includes projects not covered in earlier publications. The body of work evinces the disciplined structure of the practice itself over a predominant style or form.

Projects such as Hillel Student Center in Washington, D.C. and the Transit Terminal in Galveston, Texas showcase the firm’s approach to public work. Frank’s International and Seismic Exchange explore the possibilities of corporate architecture to create place as much as to make a statement. Arabella showcases the potential for variety, rather than repetition, in a condominium building, and the Thompson Hotel & Arts Residences in San Antonio navigates pedestrian scale in a twenty-storey tower. POST covers the commitment to resiliency and the future of the planet, while MEDDNet™ transforms urban design tactics into a national-scale disaster relief strategy.

The introduction is by journalist Stephen Sharpe, who has covered Powers Brown’s work for nearly twenty years. An extended essay by principal Jeffrey Brown, FAIA, situates the firm’s position at the conversational threshold of scepticism about “Starchitecure” and the reality of everyday architecture, or “Marketecture.” Architecture professor and author Donna Kacmar, FAIA, interviews Brown to reveal the details behind the firm and its work.

“… a fascinating collection of images of wild horses.”Amateur Photographer

Photographer and wildlife activist, Alfie Bowen presents his two-year-long project photographing Britain’s wild horses through the eyes of someone living with autism spectrum disorder. Wild Horses is all about connection: Bowen’s personal connection to the animals he photographs; his connection to photography as an art form; the horses’ connection to one another; and our collective connection to the land and our planet.

Bowen borrows the words of American landscape photographer Ansel Adams to describe his approach to his work: ‘You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.’ For Bowen, photography is an outlet for his emotional energy. It enables him to draw from difficult moments in his life and turn the energy that manifests from his emotions into truly mesmerizing images.

“Capturing the spirit of every Glastonbury since 1992, this coffee table book from award-winning photographer Liam Bailey brings together three decades of revelry and wonder among festivalgoers on Somerset’s most famous dairy farm.” Redonline.co.uk

“…Iconic Photos That Capture the Messy Essence of Glastonbury.”VICE

“The book’s images capture the rugged anarchy that spreads through Somerset each year around the solstice.”MSN

“There are many books about the music scene but few that show punters in all their beautiful variety. Liam Bailey’s long-term documentation has really paid off – this book about the craziness of Glastonbury Festival is terrific.” – Martin Parr

Glastonbury is the striking distillation of over 30 years’ unprecedented photographic access to the world’s largest green-field music and performing arts festival. In over 120 memorable images, Liam Bailey invites us to share his experiences of being among its diverse tribes.

Although Glastonbury has evolved into a sprawling fixture of the British summer calendar, this famously vibrant event is still powered by the belief in alternative communal culture. It is this special energy that has kept Bailey returning every year since 1992. Above all, this ‘access all areas’ visual diary makes a case for the positive human potential of over 200,000 people being able to get together in the open air – to enjoy music, performance and each other.

Bailey’s work has been exhibited in the UK and abroad, and appeared in magazines and newspapers including The Independent, The Guardian and Condé Nast Traveller.

Food is a social phenomenon: it keeps us alive, influences our identity and creates social codes and values. Food and food preparation is no longer simply a question of sustenance, but of lifestyle as well. At the same time, however, agriculture and the current standards of food production are among the main drivers of climate change. What does the future of our food look like in the light of dwindling resources and the globalization of the food industry? How can we produce enough food for the rapidly increasing global population in a way that respects the earth’s ecosystems? Food Revolution 5.0 tries to find answers to these questions. The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg has invited the Dutch design studio Makkink & Bey to create a multidisciplinary laboratory dedicated to the future of food, including four stages – farm, supermarket, kitchen and table as visual representations of the food cycle from start to finish. The book takes a critical look at the global food industry and presents visions of designers, architects, scientists and photographers. Text in English and German.

A Shepherd’s Life centres on Jenny Armstrong, born in 1903 at the farm of Fairliehope, who spent her life working as a shepherdess in the Pentland Hills. In a series of remarkable paintings made over twenty years and based on close observation, Victoria Crowe, one of Scotland’s foremost painters, pays tribute to the life and work of this exceptional woman. In spite of their different ages and backgrounds, the two women came to value each other’s company and it was through the shepherdess that the artist learned how to interpret the surrounding landscape. At the same time the paintings depict an ancient way of living that has been long in the decline and which, at the start of a new millennium, may be finally disappearing.