A prefab is a mass-produced house, constructed in a factory and assembled on–site in a few days or weeks. Once regarded as a cheap, easy solution for urgent housing problems, the prefab has evolved to become a synonym for ambitious design and sophisticated detailing solutions.The amazing history of prefabricated houses started in England in the 1830s with a building kit for emigrants moving to Australia. Even today, prefabricated houses provide a high percentage of living spa...
Whether it's diamond-encrusted grills, oversized “truck” style chains, bust-down Rolex and Patek Philippe watches or a Tiffany necklace, jewelry is a cornerstone of hip-hop culture. Glittering, blinged-out jewels are the shining statement of a collective identity: unapologetic, charismatic, and street savvy.Spanning the history of hip-hop jewelry, from the 1980s to today, Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History is a stunning compilation of storytelling and visuals. Hundreds of ex...
In Darren Almond’s Fullmoon photographs, the light of the moon is eerily enhanced, infusing the landscape with haunting ideas of nature and time. This expanded edition includes over 370 images—from Yosemite to the Japanese seashore, from Patagonia to Bermuda, and from the Alps to the English meadows—in a beautiful journey around the globe at night.
By early 1963 the foundations of the Marvel Universe had been laid. Following the introduction of the Fantastic Four in 1961 came the amazing (Spider-Man), the astonishing (Ant-Man), the strange (Doctor, that is), the incredible (Hulk), the invincible (Iron Man) and the mighty (Thor). Still, Marvel editor in chief Stan Lee realized something was missing.“I was writing these characters and I thought it would fun to put them together in a team,” he recalled. So Lee and artist J...
Hoping to break out of a sales slump at Marvel in the early 1960s, veteran comic creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby hit on the idea of doing a super-team. Kirby, who thought super heroes were due for a revival after 15 years of being pushed aside by romance, horror, and war comics, saw it as smart business. Lee just once wanted to “do the type of story I myself would enjoy reading.” The Fantastic Four forever changed their careers, their lives, and the comic book industry.Some ...
When Marvel publisher Martin Goodman asked Stan Lee to deliver another new team book for his line of comics, he had no idea he’d be getting something like The X-Men. In fact, nobody could have imagined the extraordinary phenomenon the X-Men would eventually grow into—not Goodman, not Lee, not even the forward-thinking futurist Jack Kirby. What they started out as was a charming, ragtag team of misfits, devised by Lee and Kirby to be mutants—youngsters born with “X-tra” powers...
Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) was a founding father of modern botany, honored to this day in the vivid flower, and corresponding color, Fuchsia. In 1543, Fuchs combined his masterful botanical knowledge with groundbreaking medical research in his New Herbal, a catalog of some 500 types of plants and their healing properties.While a dependable scientific reference, The New Herbal won fame above all with the detail and quality of its illustrations. Alongside essays describing the ...
Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes, but in the case of Donald Duck the opposite is true: the candor with which Donald reveals his weaknesses wins our hearts and stays with us forever.Revisit Donald's life's work from nine decades in this vibrantly illustrated publication on the Disney universe. Following Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by TASCHEN, we witness the career of Mickey's only rival for the throne as Disney's most popular creation. Fro...
Experience the making of JR’s La Caverne du Pont Neuf through behind-the-scenes shots and preparatory material. This book presents La Caverne from inception to installation, including earlier works featuring caves and trompe l’oeil as well as an in-depth interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist about the visual references for this monumental installation.
Soon available in a limited edition.
Our Movies series enters the 21st century with this definitive lineup of the 100 most important films made during the 2000s, an age of evergreen franchises, historical epics, and comic-book superheroes, as well as fast-evolving CGI aesthetics, low-key global indies gaining unprecedented audiences, and hard-hitting documentaries (and mockumentaries) becoming mainstream feature hits.Through the gripping stories, insightful dramas, and thrilling, mindless escapism 100 Movies of ...
“The deeper the white man went into Africa, the faster the life flowed out of it, off the plains and out of the bush...vanishing in acres of trophies and hides and carcasses.” — Peter Beard A landmark publication on Africa, The End of the Game combines Peter Beard’s salient text and remarkable photographs to document the overpopulation and starvation of tens of thousands of elephants, rhinos, and hippos in Kenya’s Tsavo lowlands and Uganda parklands in the 1960s and ’7...
In his distinguished career as a Hollywood photographer, Bob Willoughby captured Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda, but remains unequivocal about his favorite subject: Audrey Kathleen Ruston, later Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, best known as Audrey Hepburn. Willoughby was called in to shoot the new starlet one morning shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in 1953. It was a humdrum commission for the portraitist often credited with having perfected the photo...
Daniel Kramer’s classic Bob Dylan portfolio captures the artist’s transformative “big bang” year of 1964–65. Over the course of a year and a day, Kramer’s extraordinary access to Bob Dylan on tour, in concert, and backstage, allowed for one of the most mesmerizing photographic portfolios of any recording artist and a stunning document of Dylan breaking through to superstardom.Highlights include the Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall concert with Joan Baez; the Bringing It All...
Hartmann Schedel’s Weltchronik, or Chronicle of the World (better known today as the Nuremberg Chronicle, after the German city in which it was created), was a groundbreaking encyclopedic work and at the time the most lavishly illustrated book ever printed in Europe. Both a historical reference work and a contemporary inventory of urban culture at the end of the 15th century, the Chronicle was to have a remarkable influence on the cultural, ecclesiastical and intellectual his...
When the excavations at Pompeii were first placed on a scholarly archaeological footing in the 19th century, brothers Fausto and Felice Niccolini were close at hand and ready to respond. Making use of the newly introduced technique of color lithography, they documented the buildings, frescos, statues, as well as the most ordinary everyday objects, of the city buried in just 24 hours by the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius and preserved for over 1,600 years under a mantle of ...
One day in 1945, fashion photographer André de Dienes met an aspiring model named Norma Jeane Dougherty. It was a momentous moment, both for his personal life and his photographic portfolio. Over the next few years, he would be briefly engaged to Norma Jeane, take a number of adventurous road trips with her, and build up a stunning series of portraits which would help launch her modeling, and later movie, career.This collection of de Dienes's photographs and private memoirs o...
First impressions count, especially in Milano. In this unprecedented photographic journey, editor Karl Kolbitz opens the door to 144 of the city’s most sumptuous entrance halls, captivating in their diversity and splendor. These vibrant Milanese entryways, until now hidden away behind often restrained façades, are revealed as dazzling examples of Italian modernism, mediating public and private space with vivid configurations of color and form, from floors of juxtaposed s...
In 2005, Scott Schuman transformed fashion photography forever when he founded the blog The Sartorialist. The idea was simple: to open a dialogue between fashion and daily life, by shooting locals in public spaces. But in the lineage of Bill Cunningham and August Sander, that unpretentious, radical emphasis on “real people”—off the runway, out of the studio—elevated people-watching to an art and street style to high fashion, long before Instagram. In Milano, Schuman found a m...
This book presents the epic story of New York on nearly 600 pages of emotional, atmospheric photographs, from the mid-19th century to the present day. Supplementing this treasure trove of images are over a hundred quotations and references from seminal books, movies, shows, and songs. The city’s fluctuating fortunes are all represented, from the wild nights of the Jazz Age to the hedonistic disco era, from to the grim days of the Depression to the devastation of 9/11 and its ...
Mount Fuji has long been a centerpiece of Japanese cultural imagination, and nothing captures this with more virtuosity than the landmark woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849). The renowned printmaker documents 19th-century Japan with exceptional artistry and adoration, celebrating its countryside, cities, people, and serene natural beauty. Produced at the peak of Hokusai’s artistic ambition, the series is a quintessential wor...
Rocky Balboa is the Philadelphian icon who took on the world and won. The original “Italian Stallion,” the gutsy fighter who rose above the odds to boxing glory, and a rags-to-riches legend in the business of making movies. Ever since Sylvester Stallone unleashed his impassioned title character in 1976, the resilient fighter has earned his place in history as a symbol of tenacity and courage and a legend of cinematic success.The story of Rocky the movie is as exciting as t...
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,...
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 ...
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...
The earliest forms of human creativity – in carvings, markings, and cave paintings – bear witness to humanity’s engagement with color. Almost as old as these examples is the desire to assign structure, order, and meaning to this universal yet elusive concept, and it is this fascination that unites the works compiled in this expansive edition. Gathering over 40 rare books and manuscripts from a wealth of institutions, including the most distinguished color collections worldwid...
Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements, and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of “home” into a workable, constructed reality. This publication rounds up 100 of the...
The Kama Sutra gives detailed instructions on how to spank it. Contemporary Italians touch it for luck before placing a bet. Americans are having it cosmetically enhanced at rates approaching breast enlargement surgery. The female butt, tush, culo, or derrière has always inspired awe, fantasy, and slavish devotion.Curiously, its primary purpose is functional rather than aesthetic: butts balance our bodies while running, according to biologists. But ask any pygophiliac—as f...
Virtually unparalleled in scope and spanning more than five decades, the photography of visionary Helmut Newton (1920–2004) reached millions through publication in magazines like Vogue and Elle. His oeuvre transcended genres, bringing elegance, style, and voyeurism to fashion, portrait, and glamour photography through a body of work that remains as inimitable as it is unrivaled. Having mastered the art of fashion photography early in his career, Newton’s shoots invariably wen...
Modernist aesthetics in architecture, art, and product design are familiar to many. In soaring glass structures or minimalist canvases, we recognize a time of vast technological advance which affirmed the power of human beings to reshape their environment and to break, radically, from the conventions or constraints of the past. Less well-known, but no less fascinating, is the distillation of modernism in graphic design.This unprecedented TASCHEN publication, authored by Jens ...
Sebastião Salgado is one the most respected photojournalists working today, his reputation forged by decades of dedication and powerful black-and-white images of dispossessed and distressed people, taken in places where most wouldn’t dare to go. Although he has photographed throughout South America and around the globe, his work most heavily concentrates on Africa, where he has shot more than 40 reportage works over a period of 30 years. From the Dinka tribes in Sudan and the...
Simply the BestTina Turner by Peter LindberghWith her music and boundless passion for life, Tina Turner enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Peter Lindbergh was a lifelong friend of the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll and shot intimate portraits of her over many years.Lindbergh’s photographs do more than just document her iconic status; they reveal the powerful, joyful, and at times introverted woman behind the public persona. Through his len...
Discover a world of decorative ideas with this compendium of history’s most elegant patterns and ornamental designs.The World of Ornament brings together the two greatest encyclopedic collections of ornament of the 19th century: Auguste Racinet’s L’Ornement polychrome Volumes I and II (1875–1888) and Auguste Dupont-Auberville’s L’Ornement des tissus (1877) to provide one lavish source book spanning jewelry, tile, stained glass, illuminated manuscript, textile, and ceramic orn...
Mario Testino is one of the world’s most successful fashion and portrait photographers, whose images are noted for their freshness and intimacy. Peruvian by birth, Testino has been fascinated by Rio de Janeiro since his earliest summer vacations. "When I was 14, on holiday, and going from my house to the beach and seeing everyone walk everywhere in their tiny bathing suits―the girls and boys were so sexy and carefree and wild―I just could not believe it."This easy sensuality,...
Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp’s 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th century saw ever more fertile exchange between sounds and shapes, marks and melodies, and different fields of composition and performance. In Francesco Spampinato’s unique anthology of artists’ record covers, we discover the rhy...
'For me, it's really the joy of looking out into the world and getting this positive energy... It's opening up our vision, and how we look'—David HockneyWhen David Hockney discovered the iPhone as an artistic medium, it opened up entirely new possibilities for his art. He made his first digital paintings in spring 2009, describing the morning landscape in broad lines and dazzling colors directly on a display that offered subtle hues as unmixed expressions of pure light.Then i...
In 1965, Tom of Finland began flirting with the idea of an ongoing character for his panel stories, the ultimate Tom’s Man. He tried out a blond named Vicky—a common male name in Finland—followed by a Tarzan-inspired Jack. Then in 1968 Tom settled on Kake, a dark-haired, mustached leatherman who often wore a tight white T-shirt bearing the motto “Fucker.” Kake lived up to this moniker, a sort of post-Stonewall, hyper-masculine Johnny Appleseed traveling the world on his motor...
For almost half a century Valentino dominated Italian haute couture, dressing the world’s wealthiest and most glamorous women. Only a few years after opening his fashion house in Rome in 1959, Valentino could already count Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, and Audrey Hepburn among his devotees. Despite his retirement in 2007 little has changed; his brand continues to thrive and prosper, and is worn by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez.Valentino has always de...
A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged archival material from Klimt's own archive to trace the evolution of his astonishing oeuvre.With top-quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Friez...
On a winter’s night in 1949 in New York City, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha spotted a stray kitten in the snow, bundled it into his coat, and brought it home. Little did he know he had just met the muse that would determine the course of his life. Chandoha turned his lens on his new feline friend—which he named Loco—and was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter.These images marked the start of ...
It was on a Malibu beach in 1988 that Peter Lindbergh shot the White Shirts series, images now known the world over. Simple yet seminal, the photographs introduced us to Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Rachel Williams, Karen Alexander, Tatjana Patitz, and Estelle Lefébure. This marked the beginning of an era that redefined beauty, and Lindbergh would go on to alter the landscape of fashion photography for the decades that followed.This book gathers more than 300 images...
Decades’ worth of images have been distilled down to 512 pages of photographs in this ultimate retrospective collection of Nobuyoshi Araki's work, selected by the artist himself. First published as a Limited Edition and now back in a new format to celebrate TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary, the curation delves deep into Araki’s best-known imagery: Tokyo street scenes; faces and foods; colorful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As girls...
With a career spanning seven decades, Catalan-born Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a polymath giant of modern art, producing masterworks across painting, sculpture, art books, tapestry, and ceramics, and embracing ideologies as varied as Fauvism, Surrealism, Dada, Magic Realism, Cubism, and abstraction. Over the course of his prodigious output, Miró evolved constantly, seeking to eschew categorization and the approval of “bourgeois” art critics as much as he pursued his own dreamli...
Meet the artist whose majestic breaking wave sent ripples across the world. Hokusai (1760–1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also significantly influenced Western modernism, whose prolific gamut of prints, illustrations, paintings, and beyond forms one of the most comprehensive oeuvres of ukiyo-e art and a benchmark of japonisme. His influence spread through Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and beyond, enrapturing the likes of C...
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is something of an American success story, if only his success had come swifter. At the age of 40, he was a failing artist who struggled to sell a single painting. As he approached 80, Time magazine featured him on its cover. Today, Hopper is considered a giant of modern expression, with an uncanny, unforgettable, and utterly distinct sense for mood and place.Much of Hopper's work excavates modern city experience. In canvas after canvas, he depicts d...
These restorative retreats have it all Looking for a vacation that leaves you relaxed, restored, and uplifted? In this gorgeous updated guide, Angelika Taschen gathers the most exquisite and inspirational yoga retreats around the world, from an exotic luxury hotel in Bhutan to a spiritual ashram in India, a beach resort in Mexico to a tucked-away treasure in Brazil`s tropical forests. Highlights include the Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh—one of the holy cities of the Ga...
An exhaustive exploration of one of art history's most mysterious masters, Hieronymus Bosch. This monograph, based on the XXL edition which saw TASCHEN commission new photography of recently restored works, unravels his oeuvre through accessible texts, a special chapter on The Garden of Earthly Delights, a fold-out of The Last Judgment, and...
In 1965, Steve Schapiro started documenting Andy Warhol for LIFE magazine: Warhol was cementing a reputation as an important Pop artist who drew his inspiration from popular culture and commercial objects. With his sunglasses, blond wig, and bland public utterances, Warhol was enigmatic, charismatic, intensely ambitious, and aware that to become a star, you needed the presence of people to document your ascent. Schapiro, also ambitious and hardworking, who in his own words "k...
German photography pioneer Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932) photographed plants so beautifully, and with such originality, that his work transcends the medium itself. Over more than 30 years, he took thousands of photographs, revealing a formally rigorous talent whose precision and dedication bridge the 19th- and 20th-century worlds of image-making and bring a distinctly sculptural aspect to a firmly two-dimensional art form.Beautifully but starkly composed against plain cardboard...
Vinyl ManiaThe greatest in jazz LP artPart design history, part trip down musical memory lane, this anthology of jazz album artwork is above all a treasure trove of creative and cultural inspiration. Spanning half a century, it assembles the most daring and dynamic jazz cover designs that helped make and shape not only a musical genre but also a particular way of experiencing life.From the 1940s through to the decline of LP production in the early 1990s, each chosen cover des...
Light up your lifeLuminary design of the 20th centuryDesigned to be a companion to our classic title 1000 Chairs, this edition contains an awesome selection of over 1000 lights. Presented chronologically by decade are the 20th century’s most interesting electric lights, from Tiffany’s beautiful leaded-glass shades to completely outrageous designs from the late 1960s and 1970s to the latest high-tech LED lamps. All major styles are represented here—Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, ...
The industrial designs that shape our livesIf you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you’ll take an even greater interest in this completely updated edition of Industrial Design A–Z.Tracing the evolution of industrial design from the Industrial Revolution to the present day, the book bursts with synergies of form and function that transform our daily experience. From ca...
Volume two of the definitive exploration [br]of the [i]Star Wars[/i] galaxy From the moment Star Wars burst onto the screen in 1977, audiences have been in equal parts fascinated and appalled by the half-man/half-machine hybrid Darth Vader. In 1999, creator George Lucas began the story of how Anakin Skywalker grew up to train as a Jedi under Obi-Wan Kenobi, found love with the Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, before turning to the dark side of his nature and becoming more machi...
Poem of ColorsThe most remarkable abodes from Costa Careyes to the Yucatán PeninsulaRich colors and woven textiles form a unique design aesthetic, crafted by the union of local Aztec and Mayan cultures and Spanish influences. Bold pigments and vivid patterns come together in simple and rustic spaces, resulting in a way of living that is both invigorating and homely; an authentic Mexican style.The dynamic writer and photographer duo Barbara and René Stoeltie have struck gold a...
Compact in format but no less magnificently endowed, The Big Penis Book will delight even the most hardened aficionado of the male member. No half-cocked measures here, as we celebrate the rampant hardware of 150 models from the 1940s to the '90s, including photos by Bob Mizer of AMG, David Hurles of Old Reliable, and Rip Colt of Colt Studio.
The deceptively simple lemon takes center stage in the second volume of TASCHEN’s collaboration with The Gourmand, masters of the rich intersection of food and art. The star of Renaissance gardens, that shaped the Medici dynasty, have the power to ward off scurvy, had a hand in forming the mob, and whose juice has been used as an invisible ink since 600 CE to pen covert messages, these joyful yellow orbs are ripe with intrigue. The Gourmand charts the fruit’s astonishingly in...
Up close and suspenseful with Alfred Hitchcock The name Alfred Hitchcock is synonymous with suspense—that is to say, masterful, spine-tingling, thrilling, shocking, excruciating, eye-boggling suspense. With triumphs such as Rebecca, Vertigo, Rear Window, and Psycho, Hitchcock (1899–1980) fashioned a new level of cinematic intrigue and fear through careful pacing, subtlety, and suggestiveness. This complete guide traces Hitchcock’s life and career from his earliest silent film...
Sophisticated Sojourns100 tours to inspire and delight from The New York Times’ celebrated travel columnSome travelers dig deep, with a sharp appetite for knowledge and minds wide open to what’s old and what’s new. In Cultured Traveler, the latest in the travel book collaborations between The New York Times and TASCHEN, these adventurers hum to Mozart in Vienna and tap their toes to dance music in Dar es Salaam. They pursue Hamlet in Elsinore, Picasso on the French Riviera, a...
The Bauhaus impactThe most famous art school of modernityIn a fleeting fourteen year period, sandwiched between two world wars, Germany’s Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideals for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology to be applied across painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textiles, ceramics, theatre, and installation.As much an intense personal c...
Portrait of an Artist A comprehensive chronicle of David Hockney’s life and work Pop artist, painter of modern life, landscape painter, master of color, explorer of image and perception—for six decades, David Hockney has been known as an artist who always finds new ways of exploring the world and its representational possibilities. He has consistently created unforgettable images: works with graphic lines and integrated text in the Swinging Sixties in London; the famous swimm...
Take home one of the most cult artists in history with this handy edition, presenting all known works of Hieronymus Bosch. Through full spreads and carefully curated details, the book surveys the artists compositional scope as well as his most compelling, if disturbing, inventions, from horse-skulled harp players to devils on ice skates.
A photographic homage to our planet “In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.” —Sebastiao Salgado On a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old Sebastiao Salgado held a camera for the first time. When he looked through the viewfinder, he experienced a revelation: suddenly life made sense. From that day onward—though it took years of hard work before he had the experience to earn his living as a photographer—the camera became his ...
Behind the scenes of Nic Roeg’s 1976 sci-fi masterpiece starring David BowieFirst advertised as a “mind-stretching experience,” Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 The Man Who Fell to Earth stunned the cinema world. A tour-de-force of science fiction as art form, the movie brought not only hallucinatory visuals and a haunting exploration of contemporary alienation, but also glam-rock legend David Bowie in his lead role debut as paranoid alien Newton.Based on Walter Tevis’s 1963 sci-fi fable ...
Few devotees of the form can approach Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s radical contributions to self-portraiture. Challenging the conventions enshrined by his predecessors, Rembrandt transformed the art into a fully realized medium capable of communicating emotional depth rather than favorably immortalizing one’s likeness in the finest trappings of luxury. With more than 80 works spanning paintings, etchings, and drawings, the Dutchman’s lifelong practice of self-portraiture ...
Hailed the “Prince of the Impressionists”, Claude Monet (1840-1926) transformed expectations for the purpose of paint on canvas. Defying the precedent of centuries, Monet did not seek to render only reality, but the act of perception itself. Working “en plein air” with rapid, impetuous brushstrokes, he interrogated the play of light on the hues, patterns, and contours and the way in which these visual impressions fall upon the eye.
An illuminated manuscript for the time we live inTASCHEN presents Lost + Found and Good News, the latest and final publications from artist David LaChapelle. The books are the fourth and fifth installments of LaChapelle’s five-book anthology, which began with LaChapelle Land (1996), continued with Hotel LaChapelle (1999), and followed by Heaven to Hell (2006).Lost + Found is a visual recording of the times we live in and the issues we face, expressed through David LaChapelle’...
The life of Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona, his clothes were so shabb...
Heaven on EarthMasterpieces of botanical illustrationIn pursuit of both knowledge and delight, the craft of botanical illustration has always required not only meticulous draftsmanship but also a rigorous scientific understanding. This new edition of a TASCHEN classic celebrates the botanical tradition and talents with a selection of outstanding works from the National Library of Vienna, including many new images.From Byzantine manuscripts right through to 19th-century master...
