Unmatched in his ingenuity, technical prowess, and curiosity, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) epitomizes the humanistic ideal of the Renaissance man: a peerless master of painting, sculpture, cartography, anatomy, architecture - and more. Simultaneously captivating art historians, collectors, and the millions who flock yearly to admire his works, Leonardo's appeal is as diffuse as were his preoccupations. His images permeate nearly every facet of Western culture - The Vitruvian Man is engraved into millions of Euro coins, The Last Supper is considered the single most reproduced religious painting in history, and the Mona Lisa has entranced countless artists and observers for centuries. This updated edition of our XL monograph is an unrivaled survey of Leonardo's life and work, including a catalogue raisonné of all paintings. Through stunning full-bleed details, we experience every measured brushstroke, each a testament to Leonardo's masterful ability. An expansive catalog of nearly 700 of Leonardo's drawings further illuminates the breadth of his pursuits. From diagrams of intricately engineered machines to portraits of plump infants, they stand reflective of his boundless and visionary technical imagination, balanced with a subtle and perceptive hand, capable of rendering quotidian moments with moving emotional timbre. For the new edition, Frank Zöllner has written a new preface in which he considers the latest scholarly findings on Leonardo's oeuvre and takes a critical look at the much-discussed painting Christ as Salvator Mundi, sold at auction for the record sum of around 400 million euros. Numerous illustrations have been replaced by new photographs.
Peaking in the 1960s, Pop Art began as a revolt against mainstream approaches to art and culture and evolved into a wholesale interrogation of modern society, consumer culture, the role of the artist, and of what constituted an artwork. Focusing on issues of materialism, celebrity, and media, Pop Art drew on mass-market sources, from advertising imagery to comic books, from Hollywood's most famous faces to the packaging of consumer products, the latter epitomized by Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans. As well as challenging the establishment with the elevation of such popular, banal, and kitschy images, Pop Art also deployed methods of mass-production, reducing the role of the individual artist with mechanized techniques such as screen printing. With featured artists including Andy Warhol, Allen Jones, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, this book introduces the full reach and influence of a defining modernist movement.
Until his death at age 104, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) was something of an unstoppable architectural force. Over seven decades of work, he designed approximately 600 buildings, transforming skylines from Bab-Ezzouar, Algeria, to his homeland masterpiece BrasÃlia. Niemeyer's work took the reduced forms of modernism and infused them with free-flowing grace. In place of pared-down starkness, his structures rippled with sinuous and seductive lines. In buildings such as the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, EdifÃcio Copan, or the Metropolitan Cathedral in BrasÃlia, he brought curvaceousness to the concrete jungle. In the futuristic federal capital of BrasÃlia, he designed almost all public buildings, and thus became integral to the global image of Brazil. With rich illustrations documenting highlights from his prolific career, this book introduces Niemeyer's unique vision and its transformative influence on buildings of business, faith, culture, and the public imagination of Brazil.
The Book of Symbols combines original and incisive essays about particular symbols with representative images from all parts of the world and all eras of history. The compelling texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol's psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image--all these factors are taken into consideration. Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche's unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance. The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a clerk in the Paris customs service who dreamed of becoming a famous artist. At the age 49, he decided to give it a try. At first, Rousseau's bright, bold paintings of jungles and exotic flora and fauna were dismissed as childish and simplistic, but his unique and tenacious style soon won acclaim. After 1886, he exhibited regularly at Paris's prestigious Salon des Indépendants, and in 1908 he received a legendary banquet of honor, hosted by Picasso. Although best known for his tropical scenes, Rousseau, in fact, never left France, relying on books and magazines for inspiration, as well as trips to natural history museums and anecdotes from returning military acquaintances. Working in oil on canvas, he tended toward a vibrant palette, vivid rendering, as well as a certain lush, languid sensuality as seen in the nude in the jungle composition The Dream. Today, "Rousseau's myth" is well established in art history, garnering comparison with such other post-Impressionist masters as Cézanne, Matisse, and Gauguin. In this dependable TASCHEN introduction, we explore the makings of this late-blooming artist and his legacy as an unlikely hero of modernism.
The Book of Symbols combines original and incisive essays about particular symbols with representative images from all parts of the world and all eras of history. The compelling texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol's psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image--all these factors are taken into consideration. Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche's unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance. The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.
Before reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already sculpted Pietà and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the achievements of this Italian master are unique--no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multifaceted, and wide-ranging oeuvre. This fresh TASCHEN edition traces Michelangelo's ascent to the cultural elite of the Renaissance. Ten richly illustrated chapters cover the artist's paintings, sculptures, and architecture, including a close analysis of the artist's tour de force frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Full-page reproductions and enlarged details allow readers to appreciate the finest details in the artist's repertoire, while the book's biographical essay considers Michelangelo's more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor.
With unparalleled artistic originality Max Ernst (1891-1976) transformed everything he touched. By pushing the boundaries and breaking loose from the confined view of the culture of his time, he became one of the most important figures of Dadaism and Surrealism. Driven by the counter-reaction to the horrors of World War I, he became a pioneer of the Dada movement. The closing of the famed Dada exhibit in Cologne for 'obscenity' led Ernst to spend the rest of his life in Paris, where he came in contact with the Surrealists. Above all, Ernst stands out for his varied style and technique, having produced an oeuvre that reaches from paintings, drawings, and sculpture, across texts and stage settings to collage novels and the development of his own 'frottage' technique. During World War II, Ernst, like many of his colleagues, became an 'undesirable foreigner' and was forced to emigrate; however, he returned to France after the war. Continuing a career that spanned decades, in 1954 he received the Grand Prize for Painting at the Biennial in Venice. This book is a journey through magic, vividness, and fantasy. It is a gateway into the intricate mind and world of Max Ernst.
Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Ãdouard Manet (1832-1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Manet's work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city's parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Déjeuner sur l'herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian's Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal. This richly illustrated book introduces Manet's work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.
Sharp angles, strange forms, lurid colors, and distorted perspectives are classic hallmarks of Expressionism, the twentieth century movement that prioritized emotion over objective reality. Though particularly present in Germany and Austria, the movement's approach flourished internationally and is today hailed as one of the most influential shifts in art history. With leading groups Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), and key players such as Wassily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele, and Emil Nolde, the Expressionists disowned Impressionism, which they regarded as "man lowered to the position of a gramophone record of the outer world", to depict instead a raw and visceral experience of life as it was felt, rather than seen on the surface. Their paintings brim with emotive force, conveyed in particular through intense and non-naturalistic color palettes, loose brushwork, and thick textures. Covering the group's stylistic tendencies, influences, and most important protagonists, this introductory book explores the Expressionist panorama of moods, ideas, and emotions and their abiding quest for deep authenticity.
In the architecture of Richard Neutra (1892-1970), inside and outside find their perfect modernist harmony. As the Californian sun glints off sleek building surfaces, vast glass panel walls allow panoramic views over mountains, gardens, palm trees, and pools. Neutra moved to the United States from his native Vienna in 1923 and settled in Los Angeles. He displayed his affinity with architectural settings early on with the Lovell House, set on a landscaped hill with views of the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica Mountains. Later projects such as the Kaufmann House and Nesbitt House would continue this blend of art, landscape, and living comfort, with Neutra's clients often receiving detailed questionnaires to define their precise needs. This richly illustrated architect introduction presents the defining projects of Neutra's career. As crisp structures nestle amid natural wonders, we celebrate a particularly holistic brand of modernism which incorporated the ragged lines and changing colors of nature as much as the pared down geometries of the International Style.
While anchoring his practice in the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) paved the way for modern sculpture. From a very early stage, he was interested in movement, the expression of the body, chance effects, and the incomplete fragment. It was these elements that gave shape, and the impression of life, to such famous works as The Kiss and The Thinker. Produced in collaboration with the Musée Rodin, this TASCHEN Basic Art introduction examines the formative years of Rodin's training as well as the key stages of his subsequent career. It retraces the genesis of his sculptures and monuments from both a historical and an aesthetic point of view and illuminates the links between his different works. The reader gains access to the artist's ideas, as well as to the real material processes in his studio--the modeling in clay, the passage from plaster to bronze or to marble, enlargement, the creation of assemblages, and his deeply sensual erotic drawings. An inexhaustible source of inspiration for subsequent generations of artists, Rodin's work incorporated innovation and transgression, but above all an unrivaled passion for working in front of the living model and for capturing the truth of human experience and forms. With rich illustration and texts from François Blanchetière, this book invites us to discover--and rediscover--this priceless legacy.
August Macke (1887-1914) quickly ascended to notoriety, only to be killed at the tender age of 27 at the start of World War I. Despite his brief career, the artist left a remarkable oeuvre in his wake, his obsessions with color reflecting aspects of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Expressionism. Through his engagement with these diverse schools of art, Macke assimilated disparate influences and approaches into a style entirely his own. Grouped with the Blaue Reiter movement, but eschewing the mysticism that often pervaded the works of its artists, Macke returned time and again to color-led interpretations of beauty, whether the kaleidoscopic watercolor Bright Women in front of the Hat Shop (1913), or the shimmering hues of Lady in a Green Jacket (1913). These colors reached their zenith in 1914 when Macke traveled with Klee and Moilliet to Tunis and became acquainted with North African light. With leading examples from his vivid painterly world, this book introduces us to Macke's short but influential career as a pioneering Expressionist. From cheerful scenes of parks, zoos, and promenades to his final major work, ominously titled Farewell (1914), we explore a remarkable talent for visual impact and an intense pursuit of the emotional possibilities of color.
While anchoring his practice in the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) paved the way for modern sculpture. From a very early stage, he was interested in movement, the expression of the body, chance effects, and the incomplete fragment. It was these elements that gave shape, and the impression of life, to such famous works as The Kiss and The Thinker. Produced in collaboration with the Musée Rodin, this TASCHEN Basic Art introduction examines the formative years of Rodin's training as well as the key stages of his subsequent career. It retraces the genesis of his sculptures and monuments from both a historical and an aesthetic point of view and illuminates the links between his different works. The reader gains access to the artist's ideas, as well as to the real material processes in his studio--the modeling in clay, the passage from plaster to bronze or to marble, enlargement, the creation of assemblages, and his deeply sensual erotic drawings. An inexhaustible source of inspiration for subsequent generations of artists, Rodin's work incorporated innovation and transgression, but above all an unrivaled passion for working in front of the living model and for capturing the truth of human experience and forms. With rich illustration and texts from François Blanchetière, this book invites us to discover--and rediscover--this priceless legacy.
An encounter with Gerhard Richter, the German artist who widened horizons in the relationship between painting and reality. From early photographic paintings, along with his famous RAF cycle, to late abstract paintings, experiencing Richter's work always offers us the unexpected and unseen. Where he once set out to liberate the medium from ideological ballast, today, faced with the overwhelming presence of digital images, he shows us the unsurpassed impact and intensity of painting. A definitive introduction to one of the greatest artists of our time spanning not only his entire career, but also 50 years of cultural, economic, and political events.
An encounter with Gerhard Richter, the German artist who widened horizons in the relationship between painting and reality. From early photographic paintings, along with his famous RAF cycle, to late abstract paintings, experiencing Richter's work always offers us the unexpected and unseen. Where he once set out to liberate the medium from ideological ballast, today, faced with the overwhelming presence of digital images, he shows us the unsurpassed impact and intensity of painting. A definitive introduction to one of the greatest artists of our time spanning not only his entire career, but also 50 years of cultural, economic, and political events.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is regarded as one of the key figures in 20th-century European art. A Modernist to his bones, he sent seismic waves through the art world with his hard-edged, intensely colored paintings and disseminated his ideas through Die Brücke art movement and the MUIM-Institut school of modernist painting, both of which he cofounded. Kirchner's work reconciled past and present through an Expressionist prism, reflecting the latest avant-garde ideas in art, while exploring traditional academic approaches and subjects. His works tackled social, moral, and emotional questions with a fierce intensity. Distorted perspectives, rough lines, and unusual colors were mainstays of his practice, as well as a recurring interest in capturing the human form, whether in frenetic city vistas such as Berlin Street Scene (1913) or in his famously decadent studio. In this introductory book, we explore the stretch of Kirchner's career through Germany and Switzerland, including his founding of Die Brücke, and his inclusion in the Nazis' infamous "degenerate art" exhibition in 1937. Along the way, we'll encounter vivid landscapes, stark nudes, intense urban settings, and, above all, a persistent emphasis on the emotional experience of painter and viewer.
With motion and machines as its most treasured tropes, Futurism was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, along with painters Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà , and Gino Severini. With affiliate painters, sculptors, designers, architects, and writers, the group sought to subsume the dusty establishment into a new age of sleek, strong, purified modernity. Futurism's place in art history is as ambivalent as it is important. The movement pioneered revolutionary methods to convey movement, light, and speed, but sparks controversy in its glorification of war and fascist politics. Their frenzied, almost furious, canvases, are as remarkable for their macho aggression as they are for their radical experimentation with brushstrokes, texture, and color in the quest to record an object moving through space. With key examples from the Futurists' prolific output and leading practitioners, this book introduces the movement that spat vitriol at all -isms of the past and, in so doing, created an -ism of their own.
Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant Magick celebrates botanicals as creative muse - from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to visionary art inspired by psychoactive plants, cacti, and mushrooms. Our myths, beliefs, and shared stories are continually reflected in nature; purity represented by the white lily or spiritual awakening by the bloom of the lotus. Our joys and laments are mirrored in the cycle of the seasons, in the seed birthing sprout, or in the dead leaf falling softly from winter branches. Plants, trees, and flowers as signifiers of transition are also deeply embedded within rites of passage rituals across global cultures. Rose petals strewn along the wedding aisle mark the evolution into womanhood and marriage. A wreath of lilies stands sentinel over an open grave. A lover's bouquet awaits on the doorstep. The wooden May Day pole is circled by girls wearing crowns of woven daisies, celebrating the coming of spring. Birth, unions, and burials - cycles of joyful celebration and deep grieving, all are marked symbolically with herbs, flowers or branches of a tree - the integration of nature into ceremony our method of signifying catharsis. Since time immemorial, plants have also served as potent symbols within the religions of the world; Buddha attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Eve plucking the Apple of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. From root to vibrant blossom, Plant Magick explores the fertile, interconnected history between plants and people, the multitude of ways in which we embrace plants in spiritual ceremony, as healing medicine, as creative muse and as gateways into deeper explorations of consciousness.
With motion and machines as its most treasured tropes, Futurism was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, along with painters Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà , and Gino Severini. With affiliate painters, sculptors, designers, architects, and writers, the group sought to subsume the dusty establishment into a new age of sleek, strong, purified modernity. Futurism's place in art history is as ambivalent as it is important. The movement pioneered revolutionary methods to convey movement, light, and speed, but sparks controversy in its glorification of war and fascist politics. Their frenzied, almost furious, canvases, are as remarkable for their macho aggression as they are for their radical experimentation with brushstrokes, texture, and color in the quest to record an object moving through space. With key examples from the Futurists' prolific output and leading practitioners, this book introduces the movement that spat vitriol at all -isms of the past and, in so doing, created an -ism of their own.
In this essential TASCHEN introduction to Tadao Ando we explore the hybrid of tradition, modernism, and function that allows his buildings to enchant architects, designers, fashion designers, and beyond. Through key projects including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces, we explore a uniquely monumental yet comforting aesthetic that draws as much on the calm restraint of Japanese tradition as the compelling modernist vocabularies of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. With featured projects in Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States, we see not only Ando's global reach but also his refined sensitivity for the environs: the play of light through windows, and, in particular, the interaction of buildings with water. From the mesmerizing Church of the Light in Osaka to the luminous Punta della Dogana Contemporary Art Center in Venice, this is a radiant tour through a distinctly contemporary form as much as a timeless appeal of light, elements, and equilibrium.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669) stands as one of the most important painters in Western art, but nowhere else do we encounter his inimitable talent more so than in his drawings and etchings. Hinged upon experimentation and expressive line work, they garnered him unparalleled recognition from his contemporaries. Each portrait or quotidian scene is elevated by his masterful treatment of light, shadow, and hatching. There is another world to be accessed within Rembrandt's etchings--one that dwells within the intangibilities of moody midnight contemplation and the twilit countryside, these elusive moments fixed to the page with every stroke. Meanwhile, Rembrandt's drawings display his emotional state with a candor unseen in other works. Using pen and brush, silverpoint and charcoal as well as colored chalks and ink, he drew on various types of paper which he also sometimes dyed beforehand. Commemorating the 350th anniversary of the artist's death, this stunning XXL monograph is the first-ever collection gathering Rembrandt's complete works on paper. Through the 708 drawings, brilliantly printed in color for the first time, and 314 etchings in pristine reproductions, we discover Rembrandt's keen eye, deft hand, and boundless depth of feeling like never before; and above all, we witness that he was far more than just a painter.
Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant Magick celebrates botanicals as creative muse - from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to visionary art inspired by psychoactive plants, cacti, and mushrooms. Our myths, beliefs, and shared stories are continually reflected in nature; purity represented by the white lily or spiritual awakening by the bloom of the lotus. Our joys and laments are mirrored in the cycle of the seasons, in the seed birthing sprout, or in the dead leaf falling softly from winter branches. Plants, trees, and flowers as signifiers of transition are also deeply embedded within rites of passage rituals across global cultures. Rose petals strewn along the wedding aisle mark the evolution into womanhood and marriage. A wreath of lilies stands sentinel over an open grave. A lover's bouquet awaits on the doorstep. The wooden May Day pole is circled by girls wearing crowns of woven daisies, celebrating the coming of spring. Birth, unions, and burials - cycles of joyful celebration and deep grieving, all are marked symbolically with herbs, flowers or branches of a tree - the integration of nature into ceremony our method of signifying catharsis. Since time immemorial, plants have also served as potent symbols within the religions of the world; Buddha attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Eve plucking the Apple of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. From root to vibrant blossom, Plant Magick explores the fertile, interconnected history between plants and people, the multitude of ways in which we embrace plants in spiritual ceremony, as healing medicine, as creative muse and as gateways into deeper explorations of consciousness.
Spanish visionary Santiago Calatrava is renowned around the world as an architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and artist. Famed for bridges as much as buildings, he has made his name with neofuturistic structures that combine deft engineering solutions with dramatic visual impact. From the Athens 2004 Olympic sports complex and the Museum of Tomorrow to the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Alamillo Bridge in Seville, and the Mujer Bridge in Buenos Aires, Calatrava's creations show particular interest in the meeting point of movement and balance. With influences ranging from NASA space design to da Vinci's nature studies, the structures dazzle with a sense of lightness, agility, and aerodynamism, but always with a graceful poise amid their particular surroundings. This compact introduction explores Calatrava's unique aesthetic with key projects from his career, from early breakthroughs to his most recent work. Through buildings of culture, science, faith, and across his many famous bridges, we explore his integration of organic forms and human movements, and a uniquely fluid futurism, soaring towards tomorrow.
Dream Rides: The most spectacular bikes on the planet. From the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller to the 2020 Aston Martin AMB 001, this set lavishly explores 100 of the most desirable motorcycles to have ever sped thrillingly around a circuit or along an open road. From pioneering record-breakers, luxury tourers, and legendary roadracers to GP-winning machines, iconic superbikes, and exotic customs, this book celebrates motorcycle design and engineering at its highest level. Many examples are from acclaimed private collections and very rarely seen. Others are the all-out stars of renowned motorcycle museums--such as the 1938 Brough Superior "Golden Dream" or the 1957 MV Agusta 500 4C, which took John Surtees to World Championship glory. Alongside some early survivors in astonishingly original condition is a stable of fabled racers--the actual machines that were competed on by the likes of Dario Ambrosini, Tarquinio Provini, Mike Hailwood, Giacomo Agostini, Barry Sheene, and Kenny Roberts. The fascinating stories behind these fabulous motorbikes are expertly recounted in detail, alongside stunning imagery specially taken for the book by the world's leading motorcycle photographers. Also included are rare archival gems, from early posters to remarkable action shots. In addition, there is a foreword by legendary petrolhead Jay Leno, and interviews with George Barber, founder of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum; Sammy Miller, championship-winning racer and founder of the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum; Ben Walker, Department Director of Motorcycles at Bonhams; Paul d'Orléans, founder of The Vintagent; and Gordon McCall, cofounder of The Quail Motorcycle Gathering, the world-renowned motorcycle concours event held in Carmel, California. A cornucopia of motorcycle treasures and an absolute must-have for all bike enthusiasts!
Among the women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Manuel and Lola Ãlvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an icon of 20th century art. After an accident in her early youth, Frida became a painter. Her marriage to Diego Rivera in 1929 placed her at the forefront of an artistic scene not only in the cultural Renaissance of Mexico, but also in the United States. Her work garnered praise from the poet André Breton, who added the Mexican painter to the ranks of international surrealism and exhibited her work in Paris in 1939 to the admiration of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp. We access the intimacy of Frida's affections and passions through a selection of drawings, pages from her personal diary, and an extensive illustrated biography featuring photos of Frida, Diego, and the Casa Azul, Frida's home and the center of her universe. This book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo's paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years.
Among the women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Manuel and Lola Ãlvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an icon of 20th century art. After an accident in her early youth, Frida became a painter. Her marriage to Diego Rivera in 1929 placed her at the forefront of an artistic scene not only in the cultural Renaissance of Mexico, but also in the United States. Her work garnered praise from the poet André Breton, who added the Mexican painter to the ranks of international surrealism and exhibited her work in Paris in 1939 to the admiration of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp. We access the intimacy of Frida's affections and passions through a selection of drawings, pages from her personal diary, and an extensive illustrated biography featuring photos of Frida, Diego, and the Casa Azul, Frida's home and the center of her universe. This book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo's paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years.
Emerging amid the brutality of World War I, the revolutionary Dada movement took disgust with the establishment as its starting point. From 1916 until the mid-1920s, artists in Zurich, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, and New York launched a radical assault on the politics, social values, and cultural conformity which they regarded as complicit in the devastating conflict. Dada artists shared no distinct style but rather a common wish to upturn societal structures as much as artistic standards and to replace logic and reason with the absurd, chaotic, and unpredictable. Their practice encompassed experimental theater, games, guttural sound-making, collage, photomontage, chance-based procedures, and the "readymade," most notoriously Marcel Duchamp's urinal, Fountain (1917). Throughout, the Dadaists considered the visual appearance of their work secondary to the ideas and critiques it expressed. In this sense, Dada may be seen as a fundamental precursor to conceptual art. With a selection of key works from some of the most famous proponents of Dada such as Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray, this book introduces this urgent, subversive, and determined 20th-century movement and its lasting influence on modern art.
Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in America in the 1940s, with lead protagonists including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. Abstract Expressionism spawned many different stylistic tendencies but two particularly prominent sub-categories: action painting, exemplified by de Kooning and Pollock, and color field painting, made most famous by Rothko. Throughout, Abstract Expressionists strove to convey emotions and ideas through the making of marks, through forms, textures, shades, and the particular quality of brushstrokes. The movement favored large-scale canvases, and embraced the role of accident or chance. With featured works from 20 key Abstract Expressionist artists, this book introduces the movement which shifted the center of art gravity from Paris to New York and remains for many the golden moment of American art.
Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork. They turned to everyday street life for subjects, instead of overblown heroic scenes, and they escaped the power of the Salon by organizing their own independent exhibitions. After this first assault on the artistic establishment, there was no holding back. In a constant desire to challenge, innovate, and inspire, one modernist style supplanted the next: Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, abstract art, renewed Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimal and conceptual practice. This indispensable overview traces the restless energy of modern art with a year-by-year succession of the groundbreaking artworks that shook standards and broke down barriers. Introductory essays outline the most significant and influential movements alongside explanatory texts for each major work and its artist.
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