“Bond, James Bond.” Since Sean Connery uttered those immortal words in 1962, the most dashing secret agent in the history of cinema has been charming and thrilling audiences worldwide. This impeccably British character created by author Ian Fleming has starred in 25 EON-produced films played by six different actors over seven decades.Paul Duncan, who has compiled this volume covering every James Bond film ever made, beginning with Dr. No (1962) and ending with No Time To Die ...
The kind of fame and success The Rolling Stones have achieved in their 60-plus year career is without parallel; their most famous riffs and catchiest lyrics are indelibly engraved in our collective memory. With their mesmerizing on- and off-stage presence, the Stones set the standard for how a rock band should sound, pose, pout, and behave. They were the first to instinctively understand that what you looked like was as important as the music, and that photography had a vital...
Step inside one of the world’s most enviable closets to celebrate the empowering, sensual, playful, and practical shoe. Hundreds of groundbreaking designs, ephemera, and sketches are featured in this volume, a follow-up to Fashion Designers A–Z, from the most coveted labels such as Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahník, Gucci, Roger Vivier, and more.
Mushrooms—psychoactive, medicinal, or delicious—have fascinated us for millennia. They have facilitated spiritual quests in ancient and modern times, and their whimsical forms have inspired artists from Bosch to Kusama. Join The Gourmand’s culinary experts on an in-depth mycological journey, with original recipes and texts by top chefs and critics.
A key contributor to Nouveau Réalisme in early 1960s Paris, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) worked alongside artists such as Arman, Yves Klein, and Jean Tinguely, scavenging real objects in place of traditional art materials. She connected art to life by instrumentalizing household items, machine parts, and even toys for her early assemblages. Saint Phalle created her first shooting painting, or Tir, in 1961, and went on to conduct these performances in such varied locations...
In this era of progress, we have gone from being protectors of life on earth, to its greatest threat. One challenge we will confront in the next millennia is water. This book offers a wide diversity of ancient wisdom and technology from Hawaii to Brazil, from fishing to wastewater treatment, to navigate and co-create our increasingly aquatic world.
At the dawn of the automobile age, Americans’ predilection for wanderlust prompted a new wave of inventive entrepreneurs to cater to this new mode of transportation. Starting in the 1920s, attention-grabbing buildings began to appear that would draw in passing drivers for snacks, provisions, souvenirs, or a quick meal. The architectural establishment of the day dismissed these roadside buildings as “monstrosities”. Yet, they flourished, especially along America’s Sunbelt, ...
Above the forest floor, a world of wonder awaits. Tree houses have always captured our imaginations—symbols of escapism, endless youthful summers, and a deep-rooted connection to nature. But today, they’ve evolved beyond childhood hideaways into architectural marvels that blend sustainability and cutting-edge design. So, climb up and explore 62 elaborate tree houses from around the world, each with its own fascinating story. With no single blueprint, they take many forms—some...
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 pa...
Paris is the City of Light in all its facets. In the 1920s La Ville des lumières gleams especially bright and becomes a magnet for creative people from around the world. This is the decade of Coco Chanel and Josephine Baker, Art Deco and Surrealism, café culture and cabaret.The most famous artists of the epoch, later called Classic Modernism, are in close contact and have lively exchanges with one another – including Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Réne Clair,...
The unfading popularity of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) attests not only to the particular appeal of his luxuriant painting but also to the universal themes with which he worked: love, feminine beauty, aging, and death.The son of a goldsmith, Klimt created surfaces of ornate and jewel-like luminosity which show the influence of both Egyptian and Japanese art. Through paintings, murals, and friezes, his work is defined by radiant color, fluid lines, floral elements, and mosaic-lik...
The 20th century saw fashion evolve from an exclusive Parisian salon business catering for the wealthy elite into a global industry employing millions, with new trends whisked into stores before the last model has even left the catwalk. Along the way, the signature silhouettes of each era evolved beyond recognition. For women, House of Worth crinolines gave way to Vionnet’s bias-cut gowns, Dior’s New Look to Quant’s Chelsea Look, Halston’s white suit to Frankie B.’s low-rise ...
The buildings burned in our memories, which to us represent the spirit of ’50s and ’60s architectural design, were those whose pictures were widely published in magazines and books; but what about those that got lost in the process, hardly or never appearing in publication? The exchange of visual information is crucial to the development, evolution, and promotion of architectural movements. If a building is not widely seen, its photograph rarely or never published, it simpl...
Samuel Johnson famously said that: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” London’s remarkable history, architecture, landmarks, streets, style, cool, swagger, and stalwart residents are pictured in compelling photographs sourced from a wide array of archives around the world. London is a vast sprawling metropolis, constantly evolving and growing, yet throughout its complex past and shifting present, the humor, unique character, and bulldog spirit of the people ...
Drawn from TASCHEN’s Illustration Now! series, this go-to catalog brings together 100 of the most successful and important illustrators around the globe. With featured artists including Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Brad Holland, Mirko Ilić, Anita Kunz, and Christoph Niemann, the international overview provides an invigorating record of the dynamism and diversity of the illustration scene. Each illustrator is featured with a self-portrait, samples f...
To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane...
From the beginning of human history, individuals across cultures and belief systems have looked to the sky for meaning. The movement of celestial bodies and their relation to our human lives has been the central tenant of astrology for thousands of years. The practice has both inspired reverence and worship, and deepened our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.While modern-day horoscopes may be the most familiar form of astrological knowledge, their lineage rea...
This is a photographic love story tracing the fifty-five years of collaboration, partnership and history of Helmut and June Newton. First published in 1998, their legendary joint project Us and Them was presented in book form and accompanying exhibitions. The book‘s first part – Us – features personal portraits of each other and self-portraits taken over several decades, revealing affection and intimacy behind each image and bringing forth nostalgia of the time. It is a phot...
With the patronage of the powerful Medici family, a canon of secular and religious work, and contributions to the celebrated Sistine Chapel, Sandro Botticelli (1444/45–1510) was well placed for fame. After his death, however, his work was eclipsed for some four hundred years. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the painter began to gain major art-historical recognition.Today, Botticelli is hailed as a towering figure of the Florentine Early Renaissance. His secular works Th...
In 1947, Bill Gaines inherited EC Comics, a new venture founded by his legendary father M. C. Gaines, who was responsible for midwifing the birth of the comic book as we know it during his tenure at All-American Comics, bringing the likes of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to the world. Over the next eight years, Bill Gaines and a “who’s who” of the era including Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, and Wally Wood would reinvent the very notion of the comic book with titles like Tal...
From the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, the slums of the Lower East Side to magnificent art deco skyscrapers, New York’s remarkable rise, reinvention, and growth is not just the tale of a city, but the story of a nation. This beautiful book lays out the streets, sidewalks, culture, and crowds of the greatest city in the world—in all the greatness of its extremes, contradictions, energy, and attitude. With vistas of Central Park alongsi...
As a boy, Tom’s first crush was a strapping young farmhand who worked the fields around his family home. Finland is a land of tough physical men, catching fish in the icy sea; cutting logs in the endless forests; threshing oats, rye, and barley on the farms. Tom, a more sensitive boy, admired these rough men and their distinctive clothing, designed for protection and utility.He later said, “When I was young, leather was worn by people who worked outside because it was warm. A...
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) was only 31 when he died, but during his short life he created hundreds of drawings, oil sketches, and paintings on canvas that introduced a fresh perspective in European painting.As a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he carefullly observed the work of Delacroix and became fascinated with the interplay between light and color. In doing so, he developed Divisionism, using small dabs of paint from the point of the brush to create pointili...
