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...
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...
When Stan Lee first pitched the idea of Spider-Man in 1962, his boss was full of objections: People hate spiders. Teenagers aren’t lead characters; they’re sidekicks. He should be glamorous and successful, not a friendless loser. But Stan persisted and Martin Goodman let him give the unlikely hero a tryout in Amazing Fantasy, which was already slated for cancellation. With Spider-Man on the cover, No. 15 shot to the top of Marvel’s best-seller list for the year, and the rest ...
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 ...
At the dawn of the Victorian era in her open-air laboratory in Halstead, Kent, Anna Atkins embarked on a radical experiment to document botanical species using a completely new artistic medium. The inimitable cyanotype photograms of algae and ferns she created were made into the first books to feature photographic images. Striking yet ethereal, these albums are a perfect synthesis of art and science.Although the cyanotype technique was discovered by her friend John Herschel, ...
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...
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...
“Elvis who?” was photographer Alfred Wertheimer’s response when, in early 1956, RCA Victor asked him to photograph an up-and-coming crooner from Memphis. Little did Wertheimer know that this would be the job of his life: just 21 years old, Elvis Presley was—as we now know—about to become a legend.A fly on the wall in Presley's presence, Wertheimer took nearly 3,000 photographs of Elvis that year, creating a penetrating portrait of a man poised on the brink of superstardom. Ex...
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...
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German-born biologist, naturalist, evolutionist, artist, philosopher, and doctor who spent his life researching flora and fauna from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean. A vociferous supporter and developer of Darwin’s theories of evolution, he denounced religious dogma, authored philosophical treatises, gained a doctorate in zoology, and coined scientific terms which have passed into common usage, including ecology, phylum, and stem ...
Movies from the decade of excess, enormity, and experimentalismFrom Aliens to Amadeus, get your fill of 1980s nostalgia with this movie bible of all things bold, bizarre, and boisterous. We've diligently compiled a list of the most influential films of the 1980s that's sure to please popcorn gobblers and highbrow chin-strokers alike. Adventurous, excessive, and experimental, ’80s cinema saw moviegoers get their kicks from pictures as wide-ranging as Blade Runner, Gandhi, and ...
Raphael (1483–1520) is considered the most important artist of the Italian High Renaissance alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo. In his short lifetime he created around one hundred paintings and numerous frescoes, including nine fresco cycles, on an unsurpassed variety of themes – from sensual female beauties, antique myths and portraits of wealthy Romans and church dignitaries to history cycles and biblical scenes. He produced altarpieces, as well as designing tapestries for...
With his smooth, warm, ruddy face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s.Chairman Mao, portrayed as a stoic superhero (aka the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Helmsman, the Supreme Commander), appeared in all kinds of situations (inspecting factories, smoking a cigarette with peasant workers, standing by the Yangzi River i...
Travel across continents and climates to experience architecture that’s rewriting the rules of sustainability. Like the other titles in our Homes for Our Time series, each of the 63 projects in Sustainable Living opens a window into a unique dwelling inspired by the pressures and possibilities of a warming planet with finite resources. The result is a sweeping story of architects, ranging from Norman Foster to the Snøhetta practice, building in bold new ways that honor the ec...
Enter a world populated by private eyes, gangsters, psychopaths, and femmes fatales, where deception, lust, and betrayal run rampant. This film-by-film photography book on film noir and neo-noir begins with the early genre influencers of German and French silent film, journeys through such seminal works such as Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Vertigo, and arrives at the present day via Chinatown, Pulp Fiction, Heat, and the recent cult favorite Drive.Ent...
Frank Frazetta has reigned as the undisputed king of fantasy art for well over 50 years, the value of his paintings now climbing as high as his fans’ admiration. Each year his works break the previous year’s auction records, with the cover for Lancer books 1967 Conan bringing $13.5 million in September 2025.Born to a Sicilian immigrant family in Brooklyn, 1928, Frazetta was a minor league athlete, petty criminal and serial seducer with movie star looks and phenomenal talent. ...
A comprehensive volume covering five seminal genres that shaped art, from the late 19th century and well into the 20th: Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Each approach was distinct in aesthetic and philosophy, but all had immediate impact and enduring influence. Many great names were indelibly associated with one, some explored several during their careers.Impressionism, led by Monet and Renoir, focused on light and color, capturing...
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...
From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of japonaiserie that first enthralled France and, later, all of Europe—but often remains misunders...
Zaha Hadid (1950 - 2016) was a revolutionary architect. For years, she was widely acclaimed and won numerous prizes despite building practically nothing. Some even said her work was simply impossible to build. Yet, during the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a new and unique architectural language to cities and structures such as the Port House in Antwerp, the Al Janoub Stadium near Doha, Qatar, and the spectacular new airport term...
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...
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” —Albert Einstein Our everyday lives are filled with a massive flow of information that we must interpret in order to understand the world we live in. Considering the complex variety of data floating around us, sometimes the best—or even only—way to communicate is visually. This unique book presents a fascinating perspective on the subject, highlighting the work of the masters of the profession, creato...
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...
Simon “Woody” Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, has spent the last two decades analyzing the global cult of footwear fanatics. That experience directly inspired World’s Greatest Sneaker Collectors, a stonking 752-page journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of prominent aficionados.From Tokyo to New York, via London, Philadelphia, Melbourne, and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned as over 2,500 vintage classics, unique...
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 Brasília. 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...
Have you ever thought of citrus fruits as celestial bodies, angelically suspended in the sky? Perhaps not, but J. C. Volkamer (1644–1720) did—commissioning an extravagant and breathtaking series of large-sized copperplates representing citrons, lemons, and bitter oranges in surreal scenes of majesty and wonder.Ordering plants by post mostly from Italy, Germany, North Africa, and even the Cape of Good Hope, the Nuremberg merchant Volkamer was a devotee of the fragrant and exot...
Petite but Powerful A sweeping survey of small-scale architectural invention Small Houses is a tribute to the endless artistic inventiveness of architects and ingenuity of perception of the familiar and known concepts. It is also a conscious pivot towards sustainability and reduction of impact on the environment as well as a daring attitude of change in lifestyle. As humanity faces inevitable pressures such as climate change, an increase in population, and strain on resource...
By the late 19th century, trademarks began to replace traditional emblems, like coats of arms, as identifying symbols for companies. At first, logos tended to be figurative, but over time they morphed into the abstract marks that we see everywhere today. Yet many iconic brands—like Rolex, BMW, Louis Vuitton, and the New York Yankees—still use logos designed 100 years ago. Bringing together two previous volumes—Logo Beginnings and Logo Modernism—into one compendium, design exp...
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...
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...
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...
From the Los Angeles riots to the Columbine High School massacre, Americans witnessed events and purchased items that reflected the best and worst of the decade. Bill Clinton’s presidency was in jeopardy, the digital age had erupted, and Silicon Valley was affecting everyone on the planet. Meanwhile nudity and sex ruled the pages of magazines, selling everything from haute couture to fragrances and microwave ovens. Nirvana entertained Generation X while the “Greatest Gene...
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...
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?The sexiest, funniest, weirdest record covers ever wrapped around vinylEric Godtland has worked in the record industry for over 35 years, and collected records since turning 12 in 1977. As manager of the American band Third Eye Blind from 1995 he traveled the world, exploring record stores in every country, adding to his collection. Sexy covers were not a priority, but always welcome.When Godtland switched to managing, and touring with, Village People in ...
Travelling widely, Ralph Gibson works primarily in inspired series, associated image reveries in both monochrome and colour, whose titles—The Somnambulist, Déjà-Vu, Days at Sea, and Chiaroscuro—underline the particular poetic sensibility that informs his work. Starting out in 1960 with Dorothea Lange, he made his way to New York in 1967 and was soon considered in the same light as the likes of Larry Clark and Diane Arbus. The photographs and series can of course speak for the...
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...
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...
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...
Bringing together all the greats-from Air Jordan 1 to Air Presto-Nike and Virgil Abloh reinvent sneaker culture with the collaborative project The Ten and redesign 10 sneaker icons. Experience engineering ingenuity and Ablohs investigative design process: each shoe is a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once.
Land of the Rising Sun at the Turn of the CenturyThe Golden Age of Travel neatly overlaps with the reign of the Emperor Meiji, which began in 1868 with the overthrow of a feudal order that had kept Japan secluded from the outside world for more than 200 years. In the ensuing four-and-a-half decades, Japan became a less remote and more attractive destination for the international traveler and a popular subject for photographers, both Japanese and foreign.In 536 pages, this boo...
Defining design of the 20th and 21st centuriesFrom Azzedine Alaia, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood, more than a century’s worth of fashion greats from the permanent collection of The Museum at FIT in New York City are celebrated in this fresh edition of Fashion Designers A–Z. 15 new names join the ranks of the industry’s most admired—Phoebe Philo, Patrick Kelly, and Sonia Rykiel, to name a few—in this updat...
An illustrated edition of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, with photographs by Steve Schapiro First published in 1963, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America’s so-called “Negro problem.” As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is considered one of the most passionate and influential explorations of 1960s race relations, weaving thematic threads of love, faith, ...
It’s been thirty years since Laurence Anholt began his beloved series about great artists and the real children who knew them. Since then, these classic tales of Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other geniuses of Western art have provided a springboard into a lifetime’s love of art, selling millions of copies around the world. The stories have been adapted in many forms including ballet, opera, Braille editions for blind and partially ...
The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is as old as humanity. In this neat TASCHEN edition, take a tour of some of our finest arboreal adventures with the most beautiful, inventive, and enchanting tree houses around the world.From romantic to contemporary, from famed architects to little-known craftsmen, you’ll scale the heights to visit all manner of treetop structures, from a teahouse, restaurant, hotel, and children’s pl...
Bettina Is Back 35 years of daring, defiant photography Since her first photographs in the late ’70s, Bettina Rheims has defied the predictable. From her series on Pigalle strippers (1980) to her cycle on the life of Jesus in I.N.R.I. (1998), from Chanel commercials to Gender Studies (2011), her work has shaken up traditional codes of representation and pushed restlessly at the breaking point between two great human preoccupations: beauty and imperfection. This Rheims retr...
This electrifying vinyl edition creates a new and edgy definition for “album art.” Produced in collaboration with Colors magazine, it brings together more than 500 remarkable records from the collection of Alessandro Benedetti and Peter Bastine.This book forms a junction between photography, music, and design, celebrating vinyl for the integrity of sound recording and its artistic potential as a material form. With featured artists including Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Prince, M...
The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities is one of the 18th century’s greatest natural history achievements and remains one of the most prized natural history books of all time. Though scientists of his era often collected natural specimens for research purposes, Amsterdam-based pharmacist Albertus Seba (1665–1736) was unrivalled in his passion. His amazing collection of animals, plants and insects from all around the world gained international fame during his lifetime. In 1731, a...
“Elvis who?” was photographer Alfred Wertheimer’s response when, in early 1956, RCA Victor asked him to photograph an up-and-coming crooner from Memphis. Little did Wertheimer know that this would be the job of his life: just 21 years old, Elvis Presley was—as we now know—about to become a legend. A fly on the wall in Presley's presence, Wertheimer took nearly 3,000 photographs of Elvis that year, creating a penetrating portrait of a man poised on the brink of superstardom. E...
Building is one of very few endeavours that are physically connected to the surface of the earth, fixed and enduring. Nevertheless, for centuries, especially in the West, we have considered ourselves separate and above nature, drifting away, defining our own systems and order, and using the ground as a nothing more than a passive foundation. Other times we sought connection, drawing on nature for ritual and religion, fortified protection, and ecological balance.This global co...
Whether it’s a culinary adventure in vibrant Mexico City, a historic and meditative train ride through Siberia, or a solo trip to Paris, get your bucket lists ready with the discoveries of Explorer a curated collection of 100 dream trips from the distinguished travel writers and photographers of The New York Times. In four volumes’ worth of adventures in one, the Times writers offer guidance, from the personal to the practical, along with a wealth of color photographs that ca...
From the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean, the vast Sahara to the Cape Verde archipelago, Africa offers a lifetime of travel adventures. Whether you’re a wide-eyed newcomer or an ever-returning visitor, the continent promises 54 extraordinarily diverse countries, urban creative hubs, pristine night skies and wildlife, as well as a momentous sense of our human past. In this visual journey through Africa, we discover glimpses of postcard-ready landscapes, rich culture, and...
Through ancient wonders, world capitals, and tiny places with infectious personalities, Europe packs some serious travel punches. The world’s second-smallest continent makes up for size with its intricate cultures and abundant charms, boasting artistic masterpieces and architectural marvels as much as natural splendor. This revised and updated edition brings you a curated selection of the most unique hotels and atmospheric guesthouses across the European continent. Selected f...
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...
There are over 1,000 catalogued works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the 16th-century flag bearer for Baroque drama, movement, and sensuality. This essential introduction takes in the most important works from this astonishingly prolific oeuvre to explore Rubens's influences and innovations, and his remarkable visual, and art historical, impact. The richly illustrated survey takes in Rubens's portraits, landscapes, and historical paintings, as well as his famed and bou...
Whether it's Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Big Sleep, roam a screen world of dark and brooding elegance with this essential handbook to Film Noir. From private eyes and perfect crimes to corrupt cops and doomed affairs, editors Paul Duncan and Jurgen Muller examine noir's key themes and their most representative movies from 1940 to 1960.Copiously illustrated with film stills as well as original posters, this book offers page after page of noir's masterful visual co...
After flirtations with Realism, Impressionism, and Symbolism, Kiev-born Kazimir Malevich (1878–1935) found his métier in dissolving literal, representational figures and landscapes into pure emotionally-charged abstraction. In 1915, he created what is widely lauded as the first and ultimate abstract artwork: Black Square, a black rectangle on a white background, hailed as the “zero point of painting,” a seminal moment for modern and abstract practice.In this book, we follow M...
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 stones...
One of the leading lights of the Impressionist movement, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) remains a towering figure in art history with enduring public appeal. Sun-kissed, charming, and sensual, his work shows painting at its most lighthearted and luminous, while championing the plein air and color innovations of his time. Renoir’s oeuvre was prolific, with some several thousand works in his lifetime. Much influenced by forerunners such as Courbet, Degas, Manet, Delacroix, ...
Psychodrama: The reverberating power of an Expressionist icon A hairless, ghostly figure on a bridge. The sky orange-red above him. His hands raised to his ears, his mouth wide in a haunting wail. In painting The Scream, Edvard Munch (1863 1944) created Mona Lisa for our times. The shriek of his iconic figure reverberates around the world, its echo resounding in the work of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, and Tracey Emin.This introductory book s...
Though numbering just 35 known works, the oeuvre of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is hailed as one of the most important and inspiring portfolios in art history. His paintings have prompted a New York Times best seller, a film starring Scarlett Johansson, and record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington. Vermeer's subjects focus on daily domestic activities, from letter writing to music playing to preparations in the kitchen. The scenes astound with...
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 d...
The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/31-1569) was an astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, who made his art historical mark with beautiful, evocative landscapes as well as religious subjects, both notable for their vernacular language and attention to everyday, contemporary life. Immersing himself in rural or small-town communities, Bruegel is particularly notable for his depiction of peasant experience and folk culture, earning the artist nick...
Largely self-taught as an artist, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) developed a unique ability to transform interior and unconscious impulses into figurative forms and intensely claustrophobic compositions. Emerging into notoriety in the period following World War II, Bacon took the human body as his nominal subject, but a subject ravaged, distorted, and dismembered so as to writhe with intense emotional content. With flailing limbs, hollow voids, and tumurous growths, his gripping,...
