“This is the very best of Antwerp and the best from here in Oxford.” — The Oxford Times Weekend
“This entertaining exhibition of the 16th- and 17th-century drawings from the Low Countries has energy to spare.” —  The Telegraph
This catalogue will accompany the Bruegel to Rubens exhibition held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford between 23 March and 23 June 2024.

Through a selection of over 100 world-class drawings created by Flemish artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an insightful and comprehensive overview will be given into how these drawn sheets were used as part of artistic practice, within or beyond the artist’s studio. By revealing the drawings’ function, rather than on their attribution or iconography, these sheets will become more fully understood through the eyes of contemporary readers. Identifying how and why these sheets were created will render these artworks more accessible to a wider audience. The three main essays will each deal with one of the principal functions of drawings at the time: studies (copies and sketches), designs for other artworks (paintings, prints, tapestries, metalwork, stained glass, sculpture and architecture), and finally the independent drawings. Each essay will discuss the relevant works within their functional context and compared with other related objects. Introductory chapters will focus on what precisely can be considered a drawing, including its materials, media and techniques, in addition to an attempt to explain the notion of Flanders and Flemish art. Emphasis will be placed throughout the catalogue on how Flemish artists collaborated in creating the most astonishing artworks of their time, unveiling their networks and friendships, as well as their travels across Europe, revealing their international importance.

The exhibition is a partnership with the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp and will bring together for the first time the most stunning drawings from both the Ashmolean and the Plantin-Moretus collections, in addition to further loans from renowned Antwerp and Oxford institutions like the Rubenshuis and Christ Church Picture Gallery. Many of the sheets coming from Antwerp are registered on the Flemish Government’s Masterpieces List and will not be shown again for the next five to ten years to protect them from fading. Prominent artists featured in this catalogue include Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacques Jordaens, among many others. Highlights will include a sketchbook in which a young Rubens has copied Holbein’s Dance of Death woodcuts, intricate pen and ink drawings by Pieter Bruegel, meticulously drawn miniatures by Joris Hoefnagel, portrait studies by Anthony van Dyck, and a rare survival of a friendship album containing numerous drawings and poems dedicated to its owner. Two recently discovered sheets by Rubens will also be included, a design for a book-illustration on optics and an anatomical study of three legs.

“The London Youth Portraits (ACC Art Books), a sumptuous collection of never-before-seen photographs of punks, skinheads, New Romantics, goths, ravers, and fetishists.” — Huck Magazine

“A new edit of a beloved classic.” — Marc Jacobs Instagram

“Across 176 pages, the oversized volume documents Ridgers’ vision of England’s seminal youth culture from the height of punk to the birth of acid house, each image a tribute to the trials and triumphs of youth.” — 10 Magazine

‘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

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.

Broadly based on the now out of print book 78/87 London Youth, this showcases a completely fresh selection of images from the depths of Ridgers’ exceptional archive – including many 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.

“This is a reissue of a sought after classic that has stood the test of time, and this new edition now stands as a testament to its creators and an age that has passed.” —  Black + White Photography Magazine

“My London is Soho” — Frank Norman

For as long as anyone can remember, Soho has been the fluttering heart of London. Its storied pubs, shops, trattorias, gambling dens and nightclubs are every bit as alive as the millions of tourists, locals and crosstown visitors who crowd the streets all year round. People from all walks of life are made and unmade in Soho, and few knew it better than Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard. Writers and raconteurs, the pair haunted Soho’s establishments for much of their lives. While Bernard was renowned for his Low Life column in the Spectator, these pages collect his photos of the Soho he loved, with insightful commentary from Norman, an acclaimed novelist in his own right. Soho Night & Day is an authentic and very personal portrait of a special time and place, telling the tale of Soho in the ’60s.

This new edition is embellished with an introduction by Barry Miles, as well as Jeffrey Bernard’s moving obituary for Frank Norman.

“I have never read a text which goes even half as far as this one in expressing the particular poignancy which lay at the heart of the impressionist movement. I say this as an art critic. As a novelist I would simply like to pay my tribute to the mastery of language, portraiture and storytelling which Figes has now at her command.” – John Berger
“A small masterpiece” – Susan Hill
“A luminous prose poem” – Joyce Carol Oates

This shimmering novel is an extraordinary portrait of a day in the life of an artist at work and at home. In prose as luminous as the colors Monet is using to portray his garden, Eva Figes guides us from dawn (‘midnight blueblack growing grey and misty’) through midday (‘the sun was high now… shrinking what little shadow remained, fading colors, the pink rambler roses on the fence by the railway track looked almost white’) to evening (‘the tide of shadows rising as the sunset glow faded outside.’) Monet’s wife, grieving for a lost daughter; a living daughter, fretting that she will not be able to marry the man she loves; their friend the abbé, eating and drinking with them; two children playing, closest to Monet in the freshness and certainty of their vision; all experiencing in different ways the richness of the light that Monet works unceasingly to pin down in his last, great paintings.

“Legendary Bruce Springsteen photographer’s iconic travel images showcased in lavish new coffee-table book, from storms in South Dakota to penguins in Antarctica.” —  The Daily Mail

“… a dazzling collection that bursts with vibrant colours and energy. This book is more than just a visual feast; it’s a journey into the stories behind each photograph, offering readers a behind-the-scenes look.” —  Digital Photographer Magazine

Bending Light: The Moods of Color showcases photographer Eric Meola’s use of light and color throughout his career of editorial, advertising, and personal work. In one hundred iconic photographs, including recent experiments with color abstracts, and in dozens of stories and anecdotes, he examines his five-decade journey using color in photography, its symbolism, and how it affects our moods.

Meola’s work is informed by writers, painters, musicians, and the desire to create visual metaphors with his imagery — whether intimate portraits, unique landscapes, or color-saturated abstracts, his use of geometry within the frame of the photograph creates a tension that is instantly recognizable.

In awarding him its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023, the Professional Photographers of America noted that “Eric Meola champions photography as a visual language capable of great emotion. He’s a photographer with a love affair for color, light, and artistic freedom.”

As Meola says, “Light and color are my subject as much as the subject itself. It’s the confluence of color with light — the movement within the color — that’s important to me. Although the end image is a still photograph, the story of its creation, the how and why it came to be, is part of every photographer’s psyche. Telling the stories behind the photographs is my way to revisit the creative process, both as a means of introspection as well as expression. Photography has always been a way for me to create what I feel, and feel as I create.”

Bending Light: The Moods of Color takes us on a visual journey around the world as Meola tells the story behind the creation of each image, giving insight into the thought process behind creating photographs. A photographer from Rangefinder magazine referred to him as one of “a handful of color photographers who are true innovators.”

“Most photographers have a style and a favourite subject, but few are as synonymous with their chosen field as Anouk Krantz, who is known for her spectacular – and immensely popular – black & white studies of cowboy culture.” — Black & White Photography Magazine
“Incredible photos capture modern-day cowboys throughout the USA and South America and reveal ‘humanity at its best’.” — Daily Mail

“…fascinating and expansive photo project on the many manifestations of cowboy culture, encompassing the North American cowboy that’s forever enshrined in popular culture, the Central American ‘vaquero’ and the South American ‘gaucho.’” — Amateur Photographer Magazine

In Anouk Masson Krantz’s most expansive work to date, she travels tens of thousands of miles across the Americas, broadening her focus from the United States to both American continents. In her exquisite, large-scale photographs – all new for this book – Anouk captures sweeping landscapes and paints an intimate portrait of the enduring cross-boundary legacies of the North American cowboy, Central American vaquero, and South American gaucho. Her time spent at ranches and rodeos across The Americas has culminated in a magnificent book honouring a way of life many around the world dream of but rarely have experienced first-hand. Frontier builds upon Anouk’s renowned body of work with her bestselling Wild Horses of Cumberland Island (2017); West: The American Cowboy (2019); American Cowboys (2021); and Ranchland (2022). Her stunning black and white, large-scale photographs capture a culture deeply rooted in principled, timeless values, sacrifice, strength, and self-reliance. From stunning panoramas to the intimate everyday lives of working cowboys and their families, Frontier is a must-have addition to her impressive body of work.

Bernie Taupin, Oscar winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and long-time song-writing collaborator with Elton John, has contributed an exceptional foreword.

“There’s an honesty and integrity in these images that parlays all the elements of what it means to exist outside the boundaries of conformity and confinement. The rebel spirit, the rugged individualism, and the absolute unapologetic rhythm of history. This is stunning work—a true testament to the men and women who are the anvil on which America’s backbone was forged.” —Bernie Taupin

In Anouk Masson Krantz’s most expansive work to date, she travels tens of thousands of miles across the Americas, broadening her focus from the United States to both American continents. In her exquisite, large-scale photographs – all new for this book – Anouk captures sweeping landscapes and paints an intimate portrait of the enduring cross-boundary legacies of the North American cowboy, Central American vaquero, and South American gaucho. Her time spent at ranches and rodeos across The Americas has culminated in a magnificent book honouring a way of life many around the world dream of but rarely have experienced first-hand. Frontier builds upon Anouk’s renowned body of work with her bestselling Wild Horses of Cumberland Island (2017); West: The American Cowboy (2019); American Cowboys (2021); and Ranchland (2022). Her stunning black and white, large-scale photographs capture a culture deeply rooted in principled, timeless values, sacrifice, strength, and self-reliance. From stunning panoramas to the intimate everyday lives of working cowboys and their families, Frontier is a must-have addition to her impressive body of work.

Bernie Taupin, Oscar winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and long-time song-writing collaborator with Elton John, has contributed an exceptional foreword.

“There’s an honesty and integrity in these images that parlays all the elements of what it means to exist outside the boundaries of conformity and confinement. The rebel spirit, the rugged individualism, and the absolute unapologetic rhythm of history. This is stunning work—a true testament to the men and women who are the anvil on which America’s backbone was forged.” —Bernie Taupin

Also available in a standard edition Frontier ISBN 9781864709810, £70.00.

‘Beauty is the beacon of God,’ said Botticelli. ‘No, it’s not. Love is,’ snapped his sister.

Beauty: Botticelli in Florence imagines what Botticelli was feeling and thinking as he painted. The people he loved and despised, his private struggle between spirituality and sensuality, the tempestuous times he lived through – all come to life in his images…

The novel is a speculation based on the few facts known about Botticelli, informed by his paintings. There are many surprises. The Birth of Venus was a tapestry design. And his famed self-portrait didn’t depict him (as widely believed) but Pierfrancesco de Medici, who sued his powerful cousin Lorenzo for robbing him, abolished Florence’s homophobic witch-hunts, funded Vespucci’s journey to the New World and commissioned Botticelli’s most famous works. There was boiling tension between him and Botticelli.

This is the first in a sequence of illustrated ‘painting novels’ that make sights as telling as words.

Step back in time to the captivating world of 16th-century Europe with this compelling portrait of Margaret of Parma, governor of the Netherlands for Philip II of Spain, and a woman who left an indelible mark on history. Through vivid storytelling and meticulous research, this book delves into the life and legacy of Margaret, shedding light on her influence and contributions to the tumultuous political landscape of her era. From exhilarating falcon hunts to lavish feasts, intricate etiquette, and the complexities of dress codes, readers are transported to a time of opulence and intrigue. With profound reflections on customs and traditions, this captivating narrative offers a rich tapestry of life in the Renaissance court.

Within the possibilities of her role, she tried to prevent war and bloodshed. Religious conflicts would divide Europe for more than another century. Margaret of Parma’s story is sure to leave a lasting impression.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) remains arguably the most powerful artist in the Western canon. Painter, sculptor, architect, poet, he redefined both the possibilities of the imagination and the image of the artist. In 1550, he became the first artist to be the subject of a biography within their own lifetime, presented by Giorgio Vasari as the divinely inspired culmination of the history of art. Dissatisfied with Vasari’s treatment, Michelangelo encouraged his close friend and fellow-painter Ascanio Condivi to publish a rival biography. Condivi’s Life is an impassioned, intimate portrait, giving an unparalleled picture of the master’s life, work and personality. This compelling narrative of genius and its struggles in the treacherous world of Papal politics and Italian wars remains one of the most fascinating and influential texts in art history. This edition reproduces the long unavailable translation by Charles Holroyd and has 49 pages of illustrations covering the span of Michelangelo’s achievement.

What Denis Rouvre admires about Sâdhus is the way they are in the world, the way they respond to the world, and the way they carry the burden of parallel paths. In non-identity toward extinction, they resist the necessity of their birth. They are born to die, to no longer exist. Every day, individuals defy their common destiny. Among the people whose portraits are exhibited by photographers, we are referring to those who, by their own will and courage, place themselves among the gods.

Shot over three years from 2019 to 2022, Thank You For Playing With Me by Yolanda Y. Liou is an intimate look at two plus-size models, Enam Ewura Adjoa Asiama and Vanessa Russell. Liou first came across Asiama’s Instagram in 2019 and was blown away by her confidence and charisma. It was the type of confidence that Liou struggled to have about her own body due to her upbringing in Taiwan. “Growing up in Taiwan, I was consistently exposed to the relentless beauty standards that prioritised being skinny… This obsession led me to believe that I was never beautiful enough, and consequently, I felt unworthy of love. I constantly sought ways to conform, believing that only then would I be accepted and appreciated.” Liou’s main aim with this photo book is to help people embrace their individuality.

Hollywood: Confidential is the latest collection of beautifully timed photos from bestselling society photographer Dafydd Jones. Formerly of Tatler and Vanity Fair, Jones is a serial capturer of intimate moments during high-society functions. As famous Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter puts it, when it comes to party photographers, ‘Dafydd Jones is the sniper’s sniper – the best of the best.’

On numerous occasions in the 1990s and 2000s, Jones turned his lens to the faces of Hollywood with all his usual impudence, as they mingled and danced at private events in the Hollywood Hills, Oscar-night parties and awards ceremonies. The result is a rare thing – photographs that convey the underlying personalities of the world’s most public personas.

Following on from England: The Last Hurrah and New York: High Life / Low Life, this is an essential portrait of celebrity culture from behind the scenes, featuring the likes of Anna Nicole Smith, Tom Cruise, Prince, Winona Ryder, Tony Curtis, Oprah, Nicholas Cage and more.

Praise for Dafydd Jones:

“Dafydd catches those moments of genuine exhilaration, wealth and youth.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“Mr. Jones goes about his business with cheery zest and a wicked eye.” – New York Times

“Some carefully tended public images are punctured with such rapier precision that one can hear the hiss as they deflate.” – Mitchell Owens, The World of Interiors

“Sublime vintage photographs…”– Hermione Eyre, the Telegraph

“Modest though he is, Dafydd’s photographs will endure for having perfectly captured a society on the brink of decline.” – Country & Townhouse podcast

“The New York book is an evocative historical document, brimming with nostalgia and menace.” – Hannah Marriott, The Guardian

“The best party photographers, and their numbers are few, are like snipers… Dafydd Jones is the sniper’s sniper – the best of the best.” Graydon Carter, foreword from New York: High Life / Low Life

“Dafydd’s brilliant evocation of a time and a class only seem more potent today, when we know that so many of the moneyed twits in his ’80s portfolio ended up running the country, as they always have” – Tina Brown, The New Yorker

In 1987 The Main: Portrait of a Neighborhood (9781550130461) was published and quickly sold out. The critically acclaimed project celebrated the communities around Montreal’s Boulevard Saint Laurent and contributed to the eventual designation of “The Main” as a Canadian heritage landmark.

In 2017 to celebrate the city’s 375th anniversary, the author was invited to re-imagine the original book. Returning to his former neighborhood, his new book weaves old and new photographs with texts and archives, inviting us on a journey into his creative process to reflect on questions of home, identity, time, memory, and the evolving urban landscape, and asking: in a globalized world where people and cities are in constant movement, what happens to places and memories? Can we go home again?

Text in English and French.

Parian – a high-quality, unglazed porcelain – was developed in the early 1840s by Copeland & Garrett, which was the first company to exhibit it in 1845. Its purpose was to provide small sculptures for the public at a time when full size marble statues were gracing the homes of wealthy people. Parian – Copeland’s Statuary Porcelain tells this fascinating story in detail, beginning with its origin and introduction. The book goes on to describe the manufacturing processes of mould-making and the casting of the figures. Also included is a comprehensive catalog of Copeland’s productions of statuettes, groups and portrait busts.

‘I felt physically sick from the pit of my stomach and to be honest was now feeling vulnerable and completely outside my depth of knowledge. The world had seemingly gone mad and I was having visions of the base now being ransacked; I was confused and unsure what to do. My solution was to do the only thing that I could do. I climbed the nearest sangar and started to draw.’ Jules George

The book also features the work of four other war artists in Afghanistan: Douglas Farthing, a former Sergeant Major in the British paratroopers; and Michael Fay, soldier-turned-combat artist for the United States Marine Corps; Arabella Dorman, internationally recognised portrait painter and war artist; and Matthew Cook, trained illustrator, former Times war artist and Territorial Army solider. Each artist’s work is accompanied by their own, first-hand account of war in Afghanistan.

Jules George, war artist, travelled to Helmand, Afghanistan, in 2010, in the wake of its bloodiest year for British troops. War Artists in Afghanistan: Beyond the Wire reproduces the remarkable sketches, watercolours and oil paintings born of his experiences with the 2nd Yorkshires (Green Howards). His work captures the vast scale and stunning, fertile beauty of the Afghan landscape, and in its midst, the British soldier, out on patrol, boarding a Chinook or caught in a firefight.

In October 2004 the Art Technological Source Research study group held a highly successful symposium at the Instituut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam: Approaching the Art of the Past: Sources & Reconstructions. Recipe books, treatises and manuals on artists’ materials, tools and methods are of fundamental importance for an understanding of how art objects were made. Historically accurate reconstructions on the basis of these sources provide insight into the original appearance of an object, as well as workshop practices, and provide models for understanding material degradation. The interpretation of artists’ intent rests on this kind of basic knowledge. For example: Van Gogh never intended the blossoms in his series of orchard paintings (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) to appear quite as pale as they look today. How would they have looked originally? The recipe sources and reconstructions may answer this and help us understand what has happened. The symposium was held to discuss the role of source research and the use of reconstructions in the emerging field of art technological research. The Proceedings of the symposium (edited by Mark Clarke, Joyce Townsend and Ad Stijnman) will be published next year (2005). Table of contents Forward – Henriëtte van der Linden Preface – Alberto de Tagle Introduction – Ad Stijnman and Mark Clarke Chairman’s remarks – Arie Wallert An introduction to source research Ad Stijnman Reconstruction research, some cases and their contexts Ernst van de Wetering Blue and green, understanding historical recipes and phenomena on old master paintings Margriet van Eikema Hommes The Cologne database for Medieval painting materials and reconstruction Doris Oltrogge Levels of reconstruction of black iron gall inks for the InkCor project Ad Stijnman The value of accurate reconstructions to the art historian Lorne Campbell Historically accurate oil painting reconstructions for the De Mayerne Project Leslie Carlyle Cobalt blue, emerald green and rose madder in copal-based media used by the Pre-Raphaelites Joyce Townsend Reconstructions of French 19th-century red lake pigments for the Red Lake Project Jo Kirby When glass is made of plastic : restoration of the model of the Pavillon Saint-Gobain for the international exhibition of 1937 Olivier Béringuer ArTeS database Hayo de Boer Inventory of a pharmacy in Kolberg Andreas Burmester Page-Image Recipe Databases Mark Clarke and Leslie Carlyle 16th century portrait miniatures Alan Derbyshire, Nick Frayling, Timea Tallian Computer reconstruction of the yellow cloak of the Girl at the Virginals by Vermeer Joris Dik, Paul van Alkemade, Valerie Sivel, Jan van der Lubbe, Yuval Garini Sources and preparatory drawing in 15th-19th century Byzantine iconography Vaios Ganitis, Ekaterina Talarou 3D Digital Visualisation and Virtual Restoration of Polychrome Sculpture Angie Geary Whistler’s Correspondence: an artist in the studios Erma Hermens, Margaret MacDonald Reconstruction of recipes for flesh colours in mediaeval artist manuals Kathrin Kinseher Reconstruction of the one of Durer s drawing machines Aurélie Nicolaus, William Whitney Smalt glazes on silver leaf gildings of baroque and rococo polychromy in southern Germany Mark Richter (In)stability of pigment mixtures described in artist manuals Elzbieta Szmit-Naud Import of European painting materials in Havana, Cuba, in the 17th and 18th century Alberto de Tagle Chrozophora tinctoria : mediaeval colourant in the seventeenth century Arie Wallert Exploring Rembrandt s painting materials and techniques: Rembrandt and burnt plate oil Phoebe Dent Weil & Sarah Belchetz-Swenson Imitating ultramarine: artist’s economies reconstructed Sally Woodcock & Libby Sheldon

This volume contains the papers presented at the ICON Paintings Group conference ‘Wet Paint – Interactions between Water and Paintings’ held in Edinburgh on 12th October 2018. There are many ways in which water and humidity can physically alter paintings, sometimes with disastrous effect e.g the staining of canvases; flaking and blanching paint; warping of wooden panels and cockling canvas supports. However, water is also a useful material for conservators that can be employed in the treatment of painted surfaces in the form of aqueous cleaning solutions, moisture treatments to reduce deformations and as a carrier for adhesives. Contents: The Conservation Legacy of the 1966 Flooding: the Experience of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Firenze through the Restoration of The Last Supper by Giorgio Vasari / L’eredità conservativa dell’Alluvione del 1966: l’esperienza dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure di Firenze attraverso il restauro dell’Ultima Cena di Giorgio Vasari – Andrea Santacesaria. Methodology for Monitoring the Impact of Moisture on Lined Canvas Paintings in Historic Houses – Vladimir Vilde, David Thickett, David Hollis and Emma Richardson. The Conservation of Two Water Sensitive Fourteenth-Century Italian Fresco Fragments by Spinello Aretino, Previously Treated and Displayed as Easel Paintings in the Nineteenth Century – Eric Miller, Lynne Harrison and Helen Howard. The Application of Water-based Cleaning Systems in the Treatment of George Stubbs’ Wax Paintings – Annie Cornwell. 25 Years After the Perth Museum & Art Gallery Flood: Reflections – Clare Meredith. Edvard Munch’s Monumental Aula Paintings: Reviewing Soiling and Surface Cleaning Issues and Searching for New Solutions – Lena Porsmo Stoveland, Maartje Stols-Witlox, Bronwyn Ormsby, Francesco Caruso and Tine Frøysaker. Bulging in Wax-Resin Impregnated Canvas paintings: review and cases – Cecil Krarup Andersen, Christine Slottved Kimbriel, Karen-Marie Henriksen, Cecilia Gregers-Høegh, Marie Christensen and Martin N. Mortensen. ‘It is a formal problem to represent water, to describe water, because it can be anything ‘ [1] Watery subjects, media, materials and conservation solutions for paintings by David Hockney – Rebecca Hellen, Rachel Scott and Bronwyn Ormsby. Using High Molecular Weight Polysaccharides to Clean Vinyl Paintings: a Case Study on a Polymateric Contemporary Artwork – Paola Carnazza and Serena Francone. The Challenges of the Reconstruction of the Paint Layer on Painted Wooden Panelling Damaged by Rainfall – Maja Sucevic Miklin. Paintings Affected by Mould at the Palace of Westminster – Alison Seed and Sally Higgs. Oil Based Paint Under a Layer of Water: A Rare Miniature Painting Technique from the Eighteenth Century – Tatjana Wischniowski.