La Collection Courtauld. Le parti de l'impressionnisme accompagne l'exposition majeure du printemps 2019 à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris qui mettra en lumière l'industriel et mécène anglais Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), l'un des plus importants collectionneurs du XXe siècle. Le catalogue et l'exposition présenteront son extraordinaire collection d'art impressionniste, qui n'a pas été vue à Paris depuis plus de soixante ans.
Courtauld constitua l'une des plus importantes collections d'art impressionniste au monde. Au cours des années 1920, il rassembla un ensemble exceptionnel de tableaux de tous les plus importants peintres impressionnistes, du chef d'oeuvre de jeunesse de Renoir, La Loge, à la dernière grande toile de Manet, l'emblématique Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère. Sa collection comprenait également Nevermore, le grand nu tahitien de Gauguin, et l'un des plus célèbres tableaux de Van Gogh, Autoportrait à l'oreille bandée, dont ce sera la première présentation à Paris depuis l'exposition organisée en 1955 au musée de l'Orangerie.
This catalogue, the fi rst of its kind in the UK, accompanying the 2024 exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, explores the important contribution to Japanese woodblock printing of the Yoshida family, from patriarch Hiroshi down to the current generation, led by Yoshida Ayomi. The story of the Yoshida family has been woven into the story of Japanese printmaking across two centuries, with each generation infusing this traditional art form with their sensitivity and imagination. Trained as a painter and watercolourist, Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) was a pioneer of the shin hanga artistic movement, which revived the traditional ukiyo-e prints ('pictures of the floating world') focusing on beautiful landscapes and landmarks and combined them with Western influences. His incredible corpus of woodblock prints, inspired by his travels across Japan but also in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and North America, greatly contributed to the popularity of Japanese prints in the West. A rare instance in the early twentieth-century Japanese art world, the Yoshida legacy relies also on the important contribution of its women: first Fujio (1887-1987), Hiroshi's wife, a watercolourist, painter and printmaker, who was the first Japanese woman artist to gain international acclaim. Her style developed over time from naturalism towards greater stylization and organic abstraction, with her late still lifes strikingly balancing boldness and sensuality. Toshi (1911-1995) and Hodaka (1926-1995), Hiroshi and Fujio's sons, represent the second generation of this artistic dynasty; Toshi introduced post-war abstraction to the Japanese printmaking process, while Hodaka pushed these modernist instances further, achieving a unique personal style inspired by the sosaku hanga movement of artistic self-expression. His wife Chizuko (1924-2017) co-founded the first group of female printmakers in Japan, the Women's Print Association. Her works sapiently connect popular art movements like Abstract Expressionism with Japanese printmaking. The youngest member of the Yoshida family is Ayomi (b. 1958), daughter of Hodaka and Chizuko, whose practice bridges the gap between ukyio-e and contemporary art thanks also to the exploration of organic materials. She has been exhibited at major international institutions and will contribute an original installation to the Dulwich show.
This beautiful catalogue reassesses the work of acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929-2014), famous for his arresting street scenes capturing Britain's post-war youth. It accompanies an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, the first of its kind since 2017. Self-taught and influential in the advocacy of photography as an art form, Mayne was passionate about representing human life as he found it - most famously, in his street images of low-income communities in West London. Capturing children at play and the emerging phenomenon of the 'swaggering teenager', Mayne discovered in the young a defining energy that perfectly embodied both the scars and the vitality of post-war Britain. The exhibition of more than sixty photographs brings together a selection of Mayne's iconic London scenes with later, almost entirely unknown intimate portraits of his own family in rural Dorset. While these two strands have a different tenor, they share Mayne's radical empathy and his evident desire to create images with lasting impact, sensitivity and artistic integrity. With those pictured from the 1950s now in their senior years and a new generation of young people faced with myriad crises, Mayne's images of childhood, adolescence and family feel especially poignant and timely. The catalogue is richly illustrated and includes an original essay by Jane Alison and an interview with Mayne's daughter, Katkin Tremayne.
Ce magnifique volume accompagne une exposition à la Courtauld Gallery
qui réunira pour la première fois en 120 ans un extraordinaire ensemble
de tableaux impressionnistes de Londres par Claude Monet. L'exposition
concrétisera l'ambition inassouvie de l'artiste de montrer les oeuvres sur les
rives de la Tamise, à seulement deux pas de l'endroit où un grand nombre
d'entre elles ont été créées.
Claude Monet (1840-1926) est mondialement connu comme étant la figure
marquante de l'Impressionnisme français, le mouvement qui a changé le
cours de l'art moderne. Ce qui est moins connu en revanche est le fait que
les tableaux impressionnistes les plus remarquables de Monet n'ont pas été
réalisés en France mais à Londres. Ils représentent des vues exceptionnelles
de la Tamise, comme jamais observées auparavant, pleines d'atmosphères
évocatrices, de lumières mystérieuses et de couleurs radieuses.
Commencée au cours de trois séjours dans la capitale entre 1899 et 1901,
la série, qui dépeint Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge et les Chambres
du Parlement, fut dévoilée lors d'une importante exposition à Paris en 1904.
Monet tenait profondément à les présenter à Londres l'année suivante, en 1905,
mais le projet tomba à l'eau. Encore aujourd'hui, ils n'ont jamais été le sujet
d'une exposition au Royaume-Uni.
Monet and London: Views of the Thames concrétisera l'ambition inassouvie
de Monet de montrer cet extraordinaire ensemble de tableaux à Londres, sur
les rives de la Tamise, à seulement 300 mètres du Savoy Hotel où la plupart
furent réalisés. En présentant les tableaux que Monet a lui-même choisis pour
son public à Paris et Londres, les visiteurs auront la chance unique de voir le
spectacle que Monet a lui-même organisé et les oeuvres qu'il pensait les plus
représentatives de son ambitieuse entreprise, rassemblées pour la première fois
plus d'un siècle après leur exposition inaugurale.
Accompanying a major exhibition of new and recent works by Peter Doig at The Courtauld, London, this publication will present an exciting new chapter in the career of one of the most celebrated and important painters working today and will include paintings and works on paper created since the artist's move from Trinidad to London in 2021. Doig (born Edinburgh, 1959) is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading artists. He secured his early reputation in the 1990s as a highly original figurative painter, producing large-scale, immersive landscape paintings that exist somewhere between actual places and the realms of the imagination. Layered into his paintings is a rich array of inspirations, such as scenes from films, album covers, and the art of the past. His works are often related to the places where he has lived and worked, including the UK, Canada and Trinidad. In 2021, Doig moved back to London where he has set up a new studio. This new studio has become the crucible for developing paintings started in Trinidad and New York and elsewhere, which are being worked up alongside completely fresh paintings, including a new London subject. The works produced for the exhibition at The Courtauld convey this particularly creative experience of transition, as Doig explores a rich variety of places, people, memories and ways of painting that have accompanied him to his new London studio. For Doig, printmaking is an integral part of his artistic life: his prints and his paintings often work in dialogue with one another. The catalogue will also showcase the artist's work as a draughtsman and printmaker by exploring a series of his new and recent drawing and prints, allowing readers to consider the full span of Doig's creative process. Doig has long admired the collection of The Courtauld Gallery.
This stunning catalogue of 15th- and 16th-century Italian drawings from Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen will showcase highlights from this outstanding but still
relatively little-known part of the collection. It includes internationally significant
sheets by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Pontormo, Pisanello, Giorgione
and Tintoretto, as well as an important group of early Venetian drawings and a large
number of workshop studies by Fra Bartolommeo.
Published to accompany exhibitions at the Fondation Custodia, Paris, and The Morgan
Library & Museum, New York, this volume will mark the conclusion of a five-year
cataloguing project at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, funded by the
Getty Foundation. During the project all the Italian drawings were fully researched and
catalogued, many for the first time. Several of these drawings have not been published
in the last 70 years, if at all.
The catalogue is a scholarly touchstone for this part of the collection. It includes two
essays and 111 catalogue entries based on the online catalogue texts prepared by several
Italian drawings specialists. They include the most well-known drawings in Rotterdam
as well as drawings that have never been published or exhibited before, such as newly
attributed sheets by Pontormo, Federico Zuccaro and Aurelio Lomi.
Ce catalogue apporte un nouveau regard sur les jeux Olympiques de Paris 1924, souvent
considérés comme les premiers Jeux internationaux. De leurs origines dans la Grèce
antique à leur transformation moderne en événement visuellement puissant à l'échelle
mondiale, les jeux Olympiques ont conservé leur place unique dans le monde du sport
et de la culture. Le livre, qui a été publié pour coïncider avec les jeux Olympiques de
Paris 2024, accompagne une grande exposition au Fitzwilliam Museum.
L'été 2024 verra le retour des jeux O lympiques à Paris un siècle après avoir été ville
organisatrice. Les Jeux de 1924 furent sans doute les premiers vrais Jeux internationaux,
les premiers à diffuser des émissions de radio en direct et les premiers à accueillir
un village olympique. Ils associèrent compétition d'art et événements sportifs, et
cédèrent trente-cinq médailles à la Grande Bretagne, notamment au sprinter de
Cambridge, Harold Abrahams, du renommé Chariots of Fire. Ce catalogue explore les
jeux Olympiques d'une perspective visuelle en enquêtant sur les tensions entre le urs
débuts classiques et leur représentation en 1924 et à travers l'ère moderne. Comment
les jeux Olympiques de 1924 ont ils été influencés par la culture visuelle de l'époque
Et comment, à leur tour, ont-ils influencé les arts? De moulage s en plâtre des statues
d'athlètes du Vème siècle avant J.C au cinéma holl ywoodien, et des portraits classiques
des protagonistes à l'art plus abstrait, ce catalogue rassemble peintures, sculptures, films,
photographies, posters, lettres, médailles et autre s souvenirs pour raconter l'histoire
d'une entreprise sportive qui a tout autant reflété qu influencé son temps. Questions de
genre, race et classe, ainsi qu'une exploration de la célébrité et de la place du spectateur,
montrent que le débat autour du sport était aussi complexe et capital dans le passé qu'il
ne l'est aujourd'hui.
Le catalogue d'exposition offre aux lecteurs l'opportunité d'explorer en détails
quelques uns des thèmes fondamentaux du spectacle. Il comprend des essais rédigés par
des spécialistes dans les domaines des lettres classiques, de l'histoire de l'art, de l'histoire
de France, de l'histoire du sport et de la médecine, chacun d'entre eux se concentrant
sur des thèmes essentiels de l'exposition et des protagonistes clés de l'histoire des Jeux.
Le large éventail d'art attirera les fans de classicisme, modernisme, cubisme, surréalisme
et futurisme, ainsi que d'Art déco, tandis que le sujet fera également écho aux amateurs
de sport et puisera dans l'enthousiasme de tout ce qui touche aux jeux Olympiques en
2024
This bold catalogue brings together the work of two cultural icons for the very first
time: Beryl Cook (1926-2008) and Tom of Finland (1920-1991). It was inspired by the
2024 exhibition Beryl Cook / Tom of Finland at Studio Voltaire in London.
Beryl Cook was a painter renowned for her exuberant style and descriptions of everyday
life. Her work captures the social milieu of the areas she lived in and visited, notably
Plymouth. Her most enduring images are of larger-than-life women carousing in
nightclubs, eating in cafés or enjoying ribald hen parties, rendered in graphic and
colourful forms. Cook's work came to prominence in the mid-1970s and she quickly
became known as one of Britain's best-loved artists, highly recognised for her distinctive
works, which are both celebratory and provocative.
Tom of Finland's pioneering depictions of homosexual machismo in his images of
bikers, soldiers, cowboys, sailors and labourers broadly represent queer, leather and
muscle communities. A master draughtsman, he used his works to give form to an
imaginative universe that, in turn, helped fuel real-world liberation movements and had
significant influence on a wide range of cultural figures including the Village People,
Freddie Mercury, Jean Paul Gaultier and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Beryl Cook / Tom of Finland puts their work into conversation for the first time. The
pairing is perhaps unexpected, yet immediate and compelling relationships between
their practices are evident. Fundamentally, both artists employed a sustained and
coherent way of hyper-realising the body in images that celebrate pleasure and deny
shame. Together, their works reveal interconnected ideas surrounding sexuality, gender,
taste and class.
Artist and writer Huw Lemmey has contributed an incisive new essay exploring
the queer contexts inherent to Tom of Finland's work, but that also finds latent
resonance in Cook's paintings of gay bars and shapely women. He further considers
the commercial forms of distribution that made their complex bodies of works highly
accessible.
Spanning five decades of paintings, drawings and archival materials, this companion
catalogue contributes to new readings of the artists' practices and their enduring impact
on popular culture.
Henry Spencer Moore (1898-1986) was one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century. This catalogue considers Moore's celebrated Shelter drawings as the point of departure for a new reading of the artist's fascination with images of walls, during and immediately after World War II. It accompanies a focused exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. After the destruction of his London studio early in World War II, Henry Moore began drawing figures sheltering from bomb raids in the London Underground. This catalogue and exhibition consider Moore's celebrated series as the point of departure for a new reading of the artist's fascination with images of walls, during and immediately after World War II. In the London Underground, where Moore drew these figures, the walls of these sheltered spaces came to absorb his attention in an altogether new way, becoming scene-setters, and key components of his drawings. This fascination with the bricks and the presence of walls, their texture, mass and volume, became especially important after his project to illustrate the wartime radio play The Rescue, based on Homer's Odyssey. Henry Moore: Shadows on the Wall, a collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation, suggests for the first time that the walls in his drawings offer a new way to understand some of his most individual and monumental Post-War sculpture projects.
This catalogue invites readers to dive deeper into the captivating dialogue between
materiality and imagination, as envisioned by IRTH ??? at the 18th International
Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.
Prepared for the Biennale Architettura 2023, for which the theme was 'The Laboratory
of the Future', the catalogue of IRTH ??? immerses visitors into the profound interplay
between material and immaterial. It chronicles the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia's
multi-faceted contribution to the discussion, in which the essence of earth as a material
becomes a canvas for envisioning tomorrow's architectural legacies.
In a curatorial journey told through essays from visionary architects, researchers
and experimental material alchemists, the catalogue represents the multiple viewpoints
and projects emerging from Saudi Arabia and its wider region. It delves into vernacular
Saudi architecture, which, meticulously deconstructed and reimagined, forms the key
point of reference for this journey.
As we navigate the universal challenges of belonging and legacy, this exhibition
transcends geographical boundaries, seeking common ground in the tapestry of diverse
identities and perspectives. Through the lens of materiality, the National Pavilion of
Saudi Arabia compels us to answer collectively the problems of tomorrow, one narrative
at a time.
Notable topics: The Exploration of Immateriality in Architecture; Examining
Experimental Materials for Future-proofed Built Environments; Understanding
Vernacular Architecture and Modernization in Saudi Arabia.
Showcasing thirteen hundred years of Qur'anic calligraphy, this lavishly illustrated
catalogue presents over 80 Qur'ans and Qur'an folios from a prominent private
collection. For the specialist connoisseur and those new to the field of Islamic
calligraphy alike, this publication presents a fresh perspective on this essential area
of Islamic Art. The catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Sharjah Museum of
Islamic Civilization.
Arabic calligraphy, with its sinuous lines, is recognizable to nearly anyone anywhere
today. Its aesthetic appeal transcends cultural boundaries, yet if one were to travel back
in time and show it to the inhabitants of Arabia in the first century ce, they would
not recognize it; for it simply did not exist. It would have beggared belief that a new
alphabet from this part of the world would spread to the confines of the earth and
become a major vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge over many centuries.
Eternal Letters includes beautiful examples illustrating some of the calligraphic styles
used in Qur'an manuscripts across the Islamic world, from the first century of Islam to
the modern period. Undoubtedly highlights of the collection include folios from some
of the earliest Qur'ans ever written; rare examples of Qur'anic calligraphy from Islamic
Spain; a selection of early Qur'ans in cursive script from Central Asia and important
manuscripts from the Mamluk, Safavid and Ottoman empires.
Six chapters, arranged chronologically, follow the evolution of Islamic calligraphy
from its infancy to the present day. Each chapter is accompanied by an introduction
presenting the developments in style, technique and the cultural and historical
backdrop against which this evolution occurred. Chapter 1 begins with examples of
'Hijazi' and Kufic scripts on parchment from the first centuries of Islam. Chapter 2
explores new styles in Qur'anic calligraphy, the legacy of legendary scribes and some
of the earliest Qur'ans on paper. Chapter 3 illustrates the artistic links between the
Iranian world and the Eastern Mediterranean after the Mongol invasions. In Chapter
4 attention is turned to North Africa and Al-Andalus, including some of the earliest
known Qur'ans from Valencia. Chapter 5 discusses the Timurid influence on the
imperial courtly styles of India, Iran and Turkey in the early modern period. Finally,
Chapter 6 focuses on the Ottoman tradition of calligraphy, which forms the historic
core of the Abdul Rahman Al Owais Collection.
Covering as they do so many facets of civilization, rings tell us more about the hopes, aspirations, taste and sentiments of our ancestors than any other jewels surviving from the past. Moreover, the examples from the Griffin Collection, which have been assembled with taste and discernment over several decades, are not only rare but also of unusually high quality and intrinsic value. As well as being aesthetically attractive, these rings offer us a glimpse into the lives of their owners, as becomes evident in the vivid account offered by Diana Scarisbrick, one of the world's leading jewellery historians.
The collection illustrates the many uses of rings-as seals needed for business, in expressing religious belief, political loyalties and personal interests such as theatre going, hunting, classical art and astrology. Some demonstrate high rank and commemorate great historical occasions; others dating from the Middle Ages to Victorian England mark the major events of human existence - love, marriage and death - with rings bearing symbols and inscriptions. Often connected with historical figures, monarchs, notably Charles II and William IV or Isabella Zápolya, Queen of Hungary, but also with popes or artists, such as the Romantic poet Lord Byron. Each ring reveals personal information about the people who wore them and the societies in which they lived. An unusually high proportion of the rings have distinguished later provenance, coming from celebrated collectors: George Spencer 4th Duke of Marlborough, Constantine Ionides, Ernest Guilhou, Ralph Harari and Maurice de Rothschild.
Richly illustrated with colourful, quirky rag rugs (also known as hooked rugs), this
delightful book examines Winifred Nicholson's relationship with the Cumbrian
craft, the way in which she helped revive the tradition in the 1960s and '70s, and her
influence on contemporary makers. For anyone interested in textiles, naive art, British
folk traditions or mid-century craft, this book will be a treasure trove.
British artist Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981) initially encountered rag rugs in
Cumberland in the early 1920s, when, with her husband Ben Nicholson (1894-1982), she
visited her neighbour Margaret Warwick, who was sat in her kitchen making a rug from
scraps of old clothing. The Nicholsons were interested in 'naive art' at that time and had
explored the work of Rousseau, as well as African sculpture, but this was the first time
they had come face to face with naive art being made in their own country.
In 1960 Winifred moved back to Banks Head, the old Cumbrian farmhouse she had
owned since 1923. It was here that she helped to revive the local 'hooky' rag rug making
tradition. Through Winifred's efforts, well over a hundred new rugs were made. Notable
makers included Mary Bewick, Janet Heap and Florence Williams. Winifred herself
designed a number of rugs, and she also encouraged her grandchildren, who were paid a
pound a time for a design.
This beautiful book also presents a number of contemporary rag rug makers, with
direct links to Winifred. Emma Tennant, who lives in Scotland not far from Winifred's
house, was inspired to start making rugs after seeing the ones in Winifred's home. Also
included are works by Winifred's nieces Louisa Creed and the late Jenny Steinbugler.
The author also discusses the extensive rag rug collection at Chillingham Castle,
Northumberland, which has interesting parallels with Winifred Nicholson's approach to
rug making, as well as the rug by Lucie Aldridge in the Fry Art Gallery, Essex.
This is a revised second edition of the best-selling book which incorporates new and additional material on the majority of the objects as well as an expanded glossary which will be of interest to both collector and scholar. The first edition was long-listed for the R.L. Shep Award by the Textile Society of America and chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Crafts Council of the UK, both in 2020.
This informative guide to the most iconic works in The Frick Collection's holdings
is published on the occasion of the fall 2024 reopening of the museum following its
renovation.
From paintings and sculpture to decorative arts, this publication encapsulates the range
and depth of the collection. Organized chronologically and by geographic school, the
guide is designed to offer a sense of the connections between, and diversity among,
contemporaneous artistic production across different fields, genres, and media in earlymodern
Europe.
When American industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) built his New York home
on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, he intended for it to one day become a public art
museum for the "use and benefit of all persons whomsoever." After his death and that of
his wife, Adelaide, in 1931, the house was transformed into a museum and was opened to
the public in December 1935. The Fricks' daughter Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984), along
with a board of trustees, was instrumental in the continuance of her father's legacy and
the care of his bequest. Over the years, the collection grew and the number of visitors
increased, requiring renovation campaigns in the 1970s and 2020s to accommodate
these changes, the latest giving access to the public for the first time to a suite of
rooms on the second floor. Originally the Frick family's private quarters, these rooms
are now galleries for works of art, providing space for more objects to be on view. The
scope of the collection, which spans from about 1300 to 1900, was never intended to be
encyclopedic and reflects the taste of the founder, who chose to acquire works for his
home that were "pleasing to live with."
This important publication accompanies a major exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, London, of paintings by Edvard Munch, one of the world's greatest modern artists. The exhibition and catalogue showcase 18 major works from the collection of KODE Art Museums in Bergen. The works span the most significant part of Munch's artistic development and have never before been shown as a group outside of Scandinavia
Presenting for the first time the Alexis Gregory Gift to The Frick Collection, this exquisite publication provides illuminating insights into Gregory's magnificently eclectic collection, cataloging his fine and decorative works of art in detail. Twenty-eight works of art bequeathed to the Frick by Alexis Gregory range from Limoges enamels to Saint-Porchaire ware to pastels by the Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera. This remarkable gift has introduced new types of objects to the Frick: works in ivory and rhinoceros horn are the first of their kind to be held in the collection. Gregory's gift includes fifteen Limoges enamels, one of them produced in the workshop of Suzanne de Court, the only woman known to have led an enamel workshop in Limoges. Also part of the gift are a gilt-bronze sculpture, an ivory hilt, a pomander, ewers, saltcellars, and two clocks. Many of Gregory's objects came from such prestigious owners as the French royal collections and the Rothschilds. Included in the publication are commentaries on each gift. This lavishly illustrated publication accompanies an exhibition that will be on view at The Frick Collection February 16 through May 14, 2023.
This beautiful publication accompanies an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum of the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778). It is the most important study of Piranesi's drawings to appear in more than a generation. In a letter written near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi explained to his sister that he had lived away from his native Venice because he could find no patrons there willing to support «the sublimity of my ideas.» He resided instead in Rome, where he became internationally famous working as a printmaker, designer, architect, archaeologist, theorist, dealer, and polemicist. While Piranesi's lasting fame is based above all on his etchings, he was also an intense, accomplished, and versatile draftsman, and much of his work was first developed in vigorous drawings. The Morgan Library & Museum holds what is arguably the largest and most important collection of these works, more than 100 drawings that include early architectural caprices, studies for prints, measured design drawings, sketches for a range of decorative objects, a variety of figural drawings, and views of Rome and Pompeii. These works form the core of the book, which will be published on the occasion of the Morgan's Spring 2023 exhibition of Piranesi drawings. More than merely an exhibition catalogue or a study of the Morgan's Piranesi holdings, however, this publication is a monograph that offers a complete survey of Piranesi's work as a draftsman. It includes discussion of Piranesi's drawings in public and private collections worldwide, with particular attention paid to the large surviving groups of drawings in New York, Berlin, Hamburg, and London; it also puts the large newly discovered cache of Piranesi material in Karlsruhe in context. The most comprehensive study of Piranesi's drawings to appear in more than a generation, the book includes more than 200 illustrations, and while focused on the drawings it offers insights on Piranesi's print publications, his church of Santa Maria del Priorato, and his work as a designer and dealer. In sum, the present work offers a new account of Piranesi's life and work, based on the evidence of his drawings.
Brittle Beauty presents a superlative private collection of European porcelain, comprising radical, rare and in many cases unique pieces assembled over thirty years. Lavishly illustrated and insightfully researched, the book showcases eighty vessels and sculptures, and includes accounts of their patrons and former owners, many as eccentric as the works themselves. One striking attribute of porcelain is its reflective glaze. Mirror-like in a wider sense, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th Century European Porcelain examines the context in which this porcelain was created - including cultural, political, topographical and ceremonial aspects. It also looks at related materials such as silver, textiles and glass. The 18th century was the golden age of porcelain in Europe, which had previously been dependent on precious imports from the Far East. The discovery of the formula for hard-paste porcelain in Dresden in 1709 inspired the establishment of manufactories throughout the Continent. However, its popularity was not purely commercial: porcelain - with its meld of art and science, beauty and intellect, East and West - became a symbol of Enlightenment culture for every princely court. Chinese and Japanese motifs and European forms were synthesised with deceptive subtlety; later, creations of pure fantasy emerged, often based on travellers' accounts of exotic lands. Familiar Occidental themes such as nature, hunting or archaeology were paralleled by ironic narratives of love, display and vanity. Porcelain, with its fragile allure, is uniquely expressive of the human comedy, yet its destiny has often been brutally tragic. This book features essays from eminent scholars. It also showcases a wealth of stunning imagery from Sylvain Deleu, who expertly photographed the pieces, many for the first time.
This vibrant catalogue showcases a decade's work by Memphis-based Peruvian- American photographer Andrea Morales (b. 1984), whose camera sympathetically delves into community life and activism in the American South. It accompanies her first major exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, represents the first scholarly publication on her work, and the first major museum exhibition dedicated to movement journalism. The unofficial capital of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, Tennessee, has long been a place bubbling with activism and social movements. Roll Down Like Water - a nod to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic last speech in the city in support of the 1968 Sanitation Workers' Strike - shows Andrea Morales's incredible ability to engage with her subjects, in Memphis and the surrounding region, through the lens. From intimate portraits and records of daily life to the documentation of social and environmental movements with local and national resonance, her photography builds a passionate and tender portrait of this unique part of the American South. The energy vibrating through Morales's stills is the energy of the people themselves: the artist centres her practice on building long-term relationships with the communities she photographs, and views this relationship as one of collaboration rather than detached observation. Her approach is informed by 'movement journalism', which recognizes that journalism, like the camera, is not totally objective: behind laptops and lenses are people, institutions and systems that hold and wield power, for good or ill. By establishing a human connection between chronicler and people and rooting it in an ethical and rigorous framework, Morales's 'community-driven visual storytelling' reaches beyond historical injustice to capture the liveliness and joy of the communities she photographs. For Memphis, and Morales, King's words loom large. Echoing his description of collective liberation as 'an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny', Morales's captivating images of the American South in moments of turbulence, stillness, darkness and beauty chart new, sustainable paths in photojournalism, while reflecting upon identity, community and the power of storytelling.
This is an important and ground-breaking study of rare Siamese manuscripts of two kinds, biological and cosmological. Beautiful in themselves, they are produced under unusual conditions and no one of these manuscripts is like another, though they draw on a common pool of rituals, actions and stories. This fascinating publication closely examines and contextualizes a collection of 30 of the most striking and visually unique manuscripts of this kind known, in or outside Thailand.
These manuscripts are religious in nature, containing several genres of Buddhist texts including liturgical, narrative, historical, grammatical, psychological, ritual, and magical material, but, compared to other Thai and other South-East Asian examples they are particularly strong in the realms of medical, biological and cosmological Thai thought. A recurrent feature is the story of Phra Malai, a monk whose travels to various heavens and hells are described and illustrated. A number of rare medical manuscripts serve to reveal how mythology, biology, astrology, physiognomy and pharmacology are blended together in the pre-modern Siamese/Thai tradition.
These and other such illuminated manuscripts were produced in 18th- and 19th- century Siam (as Thailand was then known) and are richly illustrated both with delightful and evocative depictions of the Buddha, Hindu deities, Bodhisattvas, nuns, monks, and laypeople, and with some grotesque and terrifying ones - they attest to a particular interest in corpses and their implications among some of their readers.
The author, who has both lived the Buddhist life in Thailand and researched in Thai monasteries, has an extensive knowledge not only of the history but of the dynamic of Thai religion, studying not just older texts but continuing rituals and contemporary media. He was inspired to write this book by the very great value he saw in these particular manuscripts, a most unusual collection amassed with a discriminating eye.
The book consists both of an explanation and a detailed catalogue of this collection of exemplary manuscripts and of a fascinating introductory essay discussing the belief systems and activities they represent.
This catalogue accompanies an exhibtion at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts that will shine the spotlight on Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564 - 1638), an artist who was hugely successful in his lifetime but whose later reputation has been overshadowed by that of his famous father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525 - 1569). Peasants and Proverbs: Pieter Brueghel the Younger as Moralist and Entrepreneur shares recent research into the Barber's comical yet enigmatic little painting, Two Peasants Binding Firewood, setting out fresh insights and offering a new appreciation of a figure whose prodigious output and business skills firmly established and popularised the distinctive 'Brueghelian' look of Netherlandish peasant life. Born in Brussels, Pieter Brueghel the Younger was just five years old when hisalready renowned father died prematurely. Clearly talented, by the time he was around 20 years old, Brueghel the Younger was already registered as a master in Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke. Between 1588, the year of his marriage, and 1626, he took on nine apprentices, demonstrating that he had established a successful studio. His workshop produced an abundance of paintings, ranging from exact copies of famous compositions by his father, to pastiches and more inventive compositions that further promoted the distinctive Bruegelian 'family style', usually focused on scenes of peasant life. He was, as a consequence, later deemed a second-rate painter, capable of only producing derivative works. This exhibition and book highlight how a more sophisticated understanding is now emerging of a creative and capable artist, and a savvy entrepreneur, who exploited favourable market conditions from his base in cosmopolitan Antwerp. From this deeper understanding of his practice, his favoured subjects and the market for them, we gain a more profound and compelling insight into the society in which he operated and its preoccupations and passions. A dozen other versions of Two Peasants Binding Firewood exist and, by examining some of them alongside the Barber painting, and using the insights gleaned from recent conservation work and technical analysis, the exhibition and book will explore how Brueghel the Younger operated his studio to produce and reproduce paintings, and the extent to which the entire enterprise was motivated by trends in the contemporary art market.
