With a focus on the women designers of early avant-garde jewelry, this publication paints a fascinating picture of Austrian jewelry production from the 1970s to the present day. The show brings together some 80 jewelry objects, many of which exemplify sculptural and conceptual approaches to jewelry design. Selected works from more recent generations not only highlights references to works of the pioneers but also attests to the developments of a contemporary, vibrant jewelry scene, whose diversity is yet to be discovered. The book’s title refers to the landmark exhibition Kunst mit Eigen-Sinn: Aktuelle Kunst von Frauen (Willful Art: Contemporary Art by Women), which took place at the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna in 1985 and is regarded as a milestone in the artistic and social history of women.
Text in English and German.
To document and preserve an ancient craft tradition in danger of disappearing, Douglas Brooks apprenticed with five master boatbuilders in Japan between 1996 and 2010, building a different traditional wooden boat with each. His research and experiences were presented in his landmark 2015 publication, Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding. This book documents his most recent apprenticeship, building a cormorant fishing boat with 85-year-old master craftsman Seichi Nasu, in Gifu, Japan.
Using trained cormorants to fish has a 1,300 year history in Gifu, and is done at night from special river craft called ubune, literally “cormorant boat.” The boat features an extended bow with pivoting boom from which is hung an iron fire basket to light up the water and attract fish, which are then retrieved by the enthusiastic birds.
Together with Mr. Nasu, then 85, Brooks worked with several volunteers over a two-month period to build the 42 foot craft, a design largely unchanged for centuries. As in his previous publications, readers are introduced to important aspects of traditional Japanese boatbuilding, including design and measurements, workshop and tools, wood and materials, joinery and fastenings, and above all, secrets of the craft.
Say Cheeeeese is the highly anticipated first book by British painter Rachel Jones featuring her explosive new works and an original, collectible insert. The book was published to accompany Jones’ new commission at Chisenhale Gallery, London, in Spring 2022. For this first solo exhibition, she used her signature material, oil pastels, to produce a new body of paintings on canvas and paper. The publication includes a photo essay and commissioned text by poet and artist Anaïs Duplan; Chisenhale Gallery senior curator Ellen Greig; curator and researcher Aïcha Mehrez; poet, essayist, playwright and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine; and curator Yates Norton. The foreword is written by Zoé Whitley, Chisenhale Gallery Director.
“The audience should feel as they come out of this show that they have over-eaten an enormous cream meringue”. Jonathan Miller’s ambition was completely successful, and his Mikado has been revived umpteen times in London and played in LA, Houston, New York and Venice. It brought together some of the finest stage talents of its time, and revolutionized Gilbert and Sullivan. Richard Suart, iconic incarnation of KoKo, Lord High Executioner, celebrates this landmark production in all its variations over the years, with his unmistakeable wit and humor, and deep understanding of the stagecraft of opera and the history of G&S. Over 200 photographs take the reader on a unique journey into the heart of a theatrical masterpiece.
“The subtle forms and modelled curves and planes in a skeleton were to George Stubbs what a symphony is to a musician.” — Oxford Companion to Art
“The most unique thing of its kind ever compiled. This heroic effort, an epic of the eighteenth century, is as great and unselfish a work as anything could be.” — Sir Alfred Munnings
George Stubbs was one of the most original artists Britain has produced, and it is easy to forget how much his success was based on rigorous scientific observation. In 1756 he rented a farmhouse where he erected scaffolding to hold the cadavers of horses as he dissected and drew. After 18 months, Stubbs produced the drawings for The Anatomy of the Horse, which he later etched. The result was sensational. Scientists from all over Europe sent their congratulations, amazed at the perfection of the work. The Anatomy remained a textbook for artists and scientists for over a century, and its strange, spare beauty continues to fascinate.
This edition is taken from the 1853 printing, the last to use Stubbs’ original plates. The full Stubbs’ commentary is included for the veterinarially minded. Extensive texts by Constance Anne Parker and Oliver Kase place Stubbs’ work in the context of his life and times, and of 18th-century medical science.
“The subtle forms and modelled curves and planes in a skeleton were to George Stubbs what a symphony is to a musician.” — Oxford Companion to Art
“The most unique thing of its kind ever compiled. This heroic effort, an epic of the eighteenth century, is as great and unselfish a work as anything could be.” — Sir Alfred Munnings
George Stubbs was one of the most original artists Britain has produced, and it is easy to forget how much his success was based on rigorous scientific observation. In 1756 he rented a farmhouse where he erected scaffolding to hold the cadavers of horses as he dissected and drew. After 18 months, Stubbs produced the drawings for The Anatomy of the Horse, which he later etched. The result was sensational. Scientists from all over Europe sent their congratulations, amazed at the perfection of the work. The Anatomy remained a textbook for artists and scientists for over a century, and its strange, spare beauty continues to fascinate.
This edition is taken from the 1853 printing, the last to use Stubbs’ original plates. The full Stubbs’ commentary is included for the veterinarially minded. Extensive texts by Constance Anne Parker and Oliver Kase place Stubbs’ work in the context of his life and times, and of 18th-century medical science.
a+u’s January issue features Caruso St John Architects, led by Adam Caruso and Peter St John. Practicing for more than 30 years, the firm is completing a series of major buildings, such as ZSC Lions Ice Hockey Arena, a competition-winning project 10 years in the making, and Royale Belge, an ambitious renovation of a landmark corporate building. Founded in London in 1990, Caruso St John carefully analyzes the existing situation – be it the sociocultural context or an old building – to create a unique architecture that informs both materiality and detail. The scale of the projects vary but the architecture is always their own, as their design approach, while consistent, responds sensitively to the variations. Caruso St John Architects have approached the 19 works in this issue with the same passion and sensitivity as in Tate Britain’s Millbank Project and Brick House, projects introduced in a+u’s March 2015 issue. Whether the subject is an existing building or a new construction, Caruso St John always questions norms and standards, and by extracting ideas and materials from the existing built environment, the firm embraces “the challenge to reframe the way we see the world around us and change how we define architecture.” (a+u)
Text in English and Japanese.
First edition since 1865, this anthology brings together 80 of Sir John Everett Millais’s finest illustrations. Collected from his work for Trollope, Tennyson, Collins, and the weekly periodicals over most of his long working life, these prints range from visionary romance to comedy of manners. They are some of the finest black and white work of the Victorian era.
Millais was the most precociously talented artist England has ever produced, and the Royal Academy’s youngest ever pupil. When just 19 he founded with six others the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which revolutionized English art. Although Millais soon abandoned the Pre-Raphaelite style, he remained the pre-eminent painter of his period. Not least amongst his achievements was a revival of serious black and white work. His drawings were widely published and led to the creation of a greatly respected English school of print-making. This book, collected by his publisher, shows the wide range of his work.
Visions in Silk presents the first comprehensive exploration of exquisite Japanese fine art textiles from the Meiji era (1868-1912), showcasing the unparalleled treasures from the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.
This beautifully illustrated volume reveals how Japanese artists and craftsmen ingeniously adapted centuries-old textile traditions to create innovative art textiles that captivated international audiences, won exhibition awards, and served as prestigious diplomatic gifts.
Featuring over 300 spectacular examples, the book examines dazzling works of embroidery, yuzen resist-dyed silk and cut velvet, tapestry, and oshi-e raised silk, ranging from elegant panels, hangings and screens to grand exhibition showpieces. Each represents the pinnacle of artistic collaboration and hitherto unsurpassed technical mastery.
Written by leading international experts, this landmark publication provides unprecedented insight into these remarkable yet understudied treasures. Visions in Silk will enchant anyone interested in Japanese art, textile design, Japonisme, and the cultural transformations that occurred during the Meiji era, when Japan opened to the outside world.
The penthouse is the ultimate iteration of contemporary urban living. As much a state of mind as a location, the word ‘penthouse’ evokes drama, luxury, endless views and lateral space. First emerging a century ago with the dawn of the skyscraper, the penthouse has become the aspirational talisman of the modern global city.
Penthouse brings you inside incredible apartments such as the $200 million One Hyde Park Penthouse in London, Central Park Tower in New York – the world’s highest residential building, the landmark 111 West 57th Street, Dubai’s $135 million Jumeira Penthouse, and the iconic 181 Fremont in San Francisco. But it also surveys a different side to penthouse style – from coastal residences in Miami and the French Riviera to mid-century penthouses in London’s Clerkenwell and the Hollywood Hills.
A luxury, fabric-bound edition with over 200 stunning images, Penthouse is a journey told through interviews with leading penthouse interior designers alongside insights from real-estate leaders Sotheby’s International Realty and Knight Frank. Penthouse is this generation’s definitive survey of lateral style and sky-high living.
What sort of home would you create for yourself if you could build whatever you wanted—if money, as they say, were no object?
Over the course of his firm’s 30-year history, American architect Mark P. Finlay has been in the privileged position of helping clients answer that very question. This first reprint and revised edition of Country Houses: The Architecture of Mark P. Finlay, originally published in 2018, showcases the dream homes Finlay has designed for some of America’s wealthiest and most sophisticated families.
The renowned architect and interior designer works in the United States’ most storied pastoral locations, including the South Carolina lowlands, Virginia horse country, coastal New England, and the Rocky Mountains. Whether historic restorations or ground-up builds, Finlay’s attention to detail and focus on fine craftsmanship make the magnificent homes look and feel as if they’ve lived on their sites for centuries.
This beautifully presented monograph offers gorgeous photography of 12 superbly designed country residences. Each home is accompanied by an intimate, detailed architectural account that conveys Finlay’s skill and passion for creating residences that telegraph a distinct sense of place and a unique appreciation for their owners’ aspirations.
One of the most famous works of classical antiquity, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, has profoundly influenced Western art from antiquity to today. Since the Renaissance, its stories have been a key source of inspiration for artists. Ovid recounts the lives of gods, mythological figures, and mortals, all undergoing dramatic transformations. Among the most striking are Daphne turning into a laurel tree to escape Apollo, Jupiter seducing Io in the form of a cloud, and the sculptor Pygmalion falling in love with his own creation – a statue of Galatea brought to life.
The exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum (February 2026) and the Galleria Borghese (June 2026), as well as the accompanying catalogue, showcase the vast artistic legacy inspired by Ovid across time and media. Sculptures by Bernini and Rodin stand alongside paintings by Titian, Poussin, and Rembrandt, while works by 20th and 21st-century artists are also included.
With text contributions by Frits Scholten, Francesca Cappelletti, Bart Ramakers, Claudia Cieri Via, Lucia Simonato et al.
Working at the intersection of art, science, and technology, Refik Anadol is best known for his large-scale immersive installations and public artworks that use machine learning, AI, and big data to visualize complex systems. Anadol’s work transforms raw data – ranging from urban landscapes to brainwaves – into dynamic, multi-sensory experiences, pushing the boundaries of how we perceive space, memory, and reality.
For the inaugural program at BRUSK, the new museum for contemporary art in Bruges, Belgium, Anadol presents a major site-specific installation that immerses visitors in a data-driven landscape unique to the city.
Published to accompany Refik Anadol’s exhibition at BRUSK in Bruges, Belgium, on view from May 8 to November 8, 2026.
This book accompanies a major exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum on the early work of internationally acclaimed German artist Anselm Kiefer. It focuses on his paintings, drawings, photographs and artist books created between 1969 and 1982, in the private collections of the Hall Art Foundation. Anselm Kiefer: Early Works is the first institutional show and publication in the UK dedicated to Kiefer’s early practice. The book introduces themes, subjects and styles that have become signature to Kiefer’s work, while providing a more intimate and complementary context for his large-scale installations that he is best known for today. The early works are accompanied by three recent paintings from the artist’s own collections and White Cube, chosen by the artist himself.
Art historians, artists, curators and experts of Kiefer’s art from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Britain and the US have contributed 46 original texts on individual works, organized in a chronological structure. An illustrated chronology at the end of the book compiled by Stephanie Biron from the Hall Art Foundation provides an overview of the artist’s early practice and life, to contextualize the works.
The book begins with Kiefer’s iconic Occupations and Heroische Sinnbilder series, created in 1969 and 1970, which Kiefer views as his first serious works. Kiefer was among the first generation of German post-war artists to directly confront the country’s troubled past and identity. Full of complex references to German socio-political history but also to culture, literature and his personal life, Kiefer’s early works carry a unique iconography, linking classic ideas of great art with a distinctive understanding of concrete artistic materiality. The landscapes in his watercolors are historically charged; hand-written words on paintings are closely linked with poetry well known to most German viewers; motifs and symbols point at Nazi ideologies and a collective feeling of guilt.
Mixing Roman and medieval roots, Chichester sits at the heart of a storied landscape where South Down hills dotted with idyllic hamlets ripple back from a shoreline mixing wild dune-backed beaches with old-school seaside resorts. Reminders of smuggling and war add spice.
But a thrilling thread of modernity runs through this slice of West Sussex too. Chichester’s modernist Festival Theatre provided the foundation for London’s National Theatre, while masterpieces of contemporary architecture that draw admirers from around the world include Sea Lane House in East Preston and The White Tower in Bognor Regis.
Evocative ancient memorials abound. Chichester is blessed with the only English cathedral visible from the sea, while England’s largest castle rises above the ravishing – and cosmopolitan – riverside town of Arundel. Ancient yew trees mark the burial spots of Viking warriors in an idyllic Downland spot. And it’s a land vibrant with creative imprints: poets, painters, composers, from Blake and Keats to Joyce and Chagall.
This guidebook takes you exploring through Chichester and its surroundings to find incomparable natural beauty, hidden secrets, astonishing history, art of all kinds, and much more.
This book is put together like a jewel and contains a carefully chosen selection of around 100 West African combs from one of the world’s largest and finest private collections of sub-Saharan African art. Featuring a hitherto unseen assortment of pieces assembled over a period of more than 60 years, the book also includes an authoritative analysis by Alain-Michel Boyer, who approached this rarely addressed theme in what was his final work, begun almost ten years ago.
As well as offering us valuable insights into the cultures that produced these miniature sculptures (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), he explores the way the form itself is approached. These creations transform what is in principle a plain accessory and in the effort to attain pure beauty, they display an aesthetic awareness that raises the adornment of the body to the level of fine art.
This study of the wooden Serpent figures/headdresses of the Baga people of Guinea is a collaboration by the author, as an art historian, with many contributions from diverse perspectives, including scientists preeminent in their fields, Robert J. Koestler, Roy Sieber, Dennis William Stevenson, Mark T. Wypyski, and Peter J. Zanzucchi.
The text begins with a thorough exploration of the ethnological and art historical evidence for the Serpent masquerade among the Baga of Guinea, bearing an immense wooden serpent figure on top of the head representing a python. Never witnessed or photographed by an outsider, it disappeared in the 1950s along with most ritual performance after an Islamic jihad instated strict prohibitions against indigenous religions. The ritual context is followed by an in-depth analysis of the Serpent masquerade figures now extant in collections in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, as well as other representations of the python in the ritual art of the region. The final sections present the arguments, as a debate, between interested persons in the arts, including art historians, dealers, appraisers, collectors, and curators, and the scientific examinations by specialists in botany, chemistry, physics, entomology, and conservation concerning one particular Serpent figure in question.
The jarring emptiness following the loss of a loved one, the expansive out-of-body sensation of sensual touch, the lassitude of melancholy and the ecstatic receptivity to sunshine. His ability to capture and convey sensation and feelings through the materials of art, places the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) at the forefront of European art at the turn of the last century.
Interestingly, Munch’s artistic exploration of perception, and his persistent questioning of the objectivity of vision, intersect with ideas that matured within the fields of psychology and experimental optics at the time.
Edvard Munch: Inner Fire examines these connections, demonstrating his continuing exploration of the conditions of sight. The essays in this catalogue examine this phenomenon while also probing a lesser-known aspect of the artist’s work: Munch’s relationship to Italy.
The first essay, Lasse Jacobsen’s ‘Edvard Munch. Italian Impressions’, explores this connection explicitly, as part of a general overview of Munch’s life and work.
The second text, ‘Reflections in Munch’s Inner Eye’ by Patricia G. Berman, charts the art historical context of Munch’s exploration of experience’s subjective dimension. Emil Leth Meilvang’s ‘Seeing without Sight. Munch’s Vision’, on its part, explores the relationship between Munch’s artistic development and simultaneous developments within the perceptual sciences. Edvard Munch. Inner Fire includes essayistic pieces by authors Melania G. Mazzucco and Hanne Ørstavik: ‘I am a Romantic’ and ‘Who Am I’. Each demonstrates Munch’s continuing ability to light the inner fires of other artists.
Mixing Roman and medieval roots, Chichester sits at the heart of a storied landscape where South Down hills dotted with idyllic hamlets ripple back from a shoreline mixing wild dune-backed beaches with old-school seaside resorts. Reminders of smuggling and war add spice.
But a thrilling thread of modernity runs through this slice of West Sussex too. Chichester’s modernist Festival Theatre provided the foundation for London’s National Theatre, while masterpieces of contemporary architecture that draw admirers from around the world include Sea Lane House in East Preston and The White Tower in Bognor Regis.
Evocative ancient memorials abound. Chichester is blessed with the only English cathedral visible from the sea, while England’s largest castle rises above the ravishing – and cosmopolitan – riverside town of Arundel. Ancient yew trees mark the burial spots of Viking warriors in an idyllic Downland spot. And it’s a land vibrant with creative imprints: poets, painters, composers, from Blake and Keats to Joyce and Chagall.
This guidebook takes you exploring Chichester and its surroundings to find incomparable natural beauty, hidden secrets, astonishing history, art of all kinds, and much more.
Tong Jun was an outstanding architect and architectural educator in contemporary China. He was widely considered an all-round talent in theory, creation, writing and painting in Chinese architecture. He had a deep foundation in ancient Chinese literature, and studied Chinese classical poetry since childhood. While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, he won many awards in the national architectural student design competition. He has left behind many works and manuscripts on landscape, architecture, and architecture history, sculpture history, and painting history that have enlightened and educated many generations. However, there are few records about him. This book recollects the last 20 years of his life, and introduces the reader to the very real and vivid practitioner that was Tong Jun.
In 1751, John Holker (1719-1786), an English textile manufacturer exiled in France, undertook an industrial espionage mission to England to collect samples of English textiles on behalf of the French king, Louis XV. On his return, the samples were assembled in a manuscript volume, which is now preserved at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Each sample in this album is accompanied by a handwritten technical description specifying the quality of the fabric, its price, its dimensions and the manufacturing processes. This album is famous for preserving the oldest identifiable samples of jean fabric.
Completely bilingual, the book includes a facsimile reproduction of the album, accompanied by a transcription of its handwritten text and a dozen essays. The essays, written by academics, curators and specialists from France, Britain and North America, explore the album from various angles: the globalization of commerce, the slave trade, industrial espionage, economic rivalry between France and England, the taste for cotton and its role in the history of fashion, etc. The book demonstrates the importance of centuries-old links between France and the United Kingdom and is an indispensable work of reference for the history of textiles.
Text in English and French.
The famed Bengal textiles which once ‘clothed the world’ have received little scholarly attention. With the systemic destruction of Bengal’s textile industry, prompted by the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the muslins and Balucharis of Bengal were lost in obscurity. The partition of the Indian subcontinent and the consequent varieties of cultural and social identity in present-day India and Bangladesh have contributed to this neglect. This pioneering publication explores in depth the lost textile traditions of Bengal from the 16th to the 20th century and traces its impact on the historical and cultural aspects of the region.
Supported by superb illustrations of textiles, maps and trade documents from the past, most of which have never been published before, the book serves as a public history, with engaging chapters presenting a unique perspective on the textiles of wider Bengal. This volume will inspire the reader, reorient scholarly attention and provoke a rethinking of the nature and history of Bengal textiles.
Nineteenth-Century European Painting: From Barbizon to Belle Époque represents a comprehensive guide to the range of stylistically diverse genres of nineteenth-century European painting. Accessible and insightful, this exquisitely illustrated volume presents the historical context behind the century’s essential artistic movements including Romantic Painting, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Realist Painting, Academic Painting, and Impressionist Painting. Influenced by an overwhelming wave of political, military and social change, nineteenth-century Europe represented an era more diverse in painterly subjects and styles than any before it. Indeed, it was a period that saw many European painters moving away from the strictures of the academy system, choosing instead to use their training to develop new techniques and traditions. A collection of independent stories, this book also outlines the unique progression between the different movements, exciting and enlightening the reader about the most magnificent period of art the world has ever known. Contents: Foreword; Dr. Vern G. Swanson; Introduction; Author’s Note; STYLES: The Barbizon School; Romantic Painting; Orientalist Painting; The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; Realist Painting; Academic Painting; Impressionist Painting; The Newlyn School; Post-Impressionist Painting; SUBJECTS: Landscape Painting; Venetian View Painting; Maritime Painting; Sporting Painting; Animal Painting; Genre Painting; Cardinal Painting; Costume Painting; British Neoclassical Revival Painting; Belle Époque Painting; Conclusion; Endnotes; Bibliography. Featured works from museums and collections including: Louvre, Paris, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Wallace Collection, London, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, The Tate Gallery, London, The Schaeffer Collection, New South Wales, The Royal Collection, The Royal Academy of Arts, England, The Musée D Orsay Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Collection), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, England, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Stanhope Forbes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA, Paisnel Gallery, London, National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy, Museo de Arte, Ponte, Puerto Rico, Musée Marmottan, Paris, Musée D Orsay, Paris, Auguste Renoir, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among many others.