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.
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.
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...
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...
Arranged alphabetically, this biographical encyclopedia features every major photographer of the 20th century alongside her or his most significant monographs. From the earliest representatives of classical Modernism right up to the present day, Photographers A–Z celebrates those photographers who have distinguished themselves with important publications or exhibitions, and who have made a significant contribution to the culture of the photographic image. The entries include ...
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 ...
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...
“Girls, Gags & Giggles,” ran publisher Robert Harrison’s recipe for dishing up pin-up to the American male. Men loved his tasty dishes, a mixture of strippers and starlets dressed in outfits so fetishistic no one noticed they were never nude. While other magazines delivered the girl next door, Harrison’s publications banked on bad girls in satin and leather, fishnet stockings, and six-inch heels performing slapstick stunts straight from the burlesque stage.Harrison lured his ...
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...
In Animals, we discover a different side to the famed photographer who skillfully explores animals’ complex relationship with humans and the environment.Tenderness abounds, particularly in scenes of unkempt street dogs sleeping contentedly next to a human. But there’s also a kind of essential solitude, with animals belonging to no one and simply wandering through life with only their survival instincts to guide them. We witness camels caught in the crossfire during the first ...
Widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers, Mario Testino is responsible for the creation of emblematic images, transmitting emotion and energy in an open and intimate way. Throughout his four-decade career, Testino has been on a journey beyond the world of fashion capturing Earth’s traditions and cultures with unparalleled access and an extraordinarily unique point of view. Peruvian by birth, Testino’s intimate connection to Italy f...
The creator of the ubiquitous Knoll “Tulip” chairs and tables, Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) was one of the 20th century’s most prominent space shapers, merging dynamic forms with a modernist sensibility across architecture and design. Among Saarinen’s greatest accomplishments are Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport, the very sculptural and fluid TWA terminal at JFK Airport in New York, and the 630 ft. (192 m) high Gateway Arch of St. Louis, Missouri, each of them defi...
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 ...
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...
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...
“Through these travels and the photographs, I got to love the United States more than I could have in any other way.” — Jack Delano Amid the ravages of the Great Depression, the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) was first founded in 1935 to address the country’s rural poverty. Its efforts focused on improving the lives of sharecroppers, tenants, and very poor landowning farmers, with resettlement and collectivization programs, as well as modernized farming meth...
In 1953 Marlon Brando donned a black leather Perfecto motorcycle jacket, military cap, denim jeans, and engineer boots to portray Johnny, sneering leader of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, in The Wild One. In 1954 Tom of Finland abandoned brown leather in his artwork to create his own wild ones: muscular, hyper-masculine, black leather-clad rebels with powerful engines between their legs. The look was adopted by the Satyrs Motorcycle Club, the first gay outlaw club, that sam...
With his geometric structures perched upon the hillsides, beaches, and deserts of California, John Lautner (1911–1994) was behind some of the most striking and innovative architectural designs in mid-20th-century America. This introductory book brings together the most important of Lautner’s projects to explore his ingenious use of modern building materials and his bold stylistic repertoire of sweeping rooflines, glass-paneled walls, and steel beams. From commercial buildings...
Back in 2002, Simon “Woody” Wood was dreaming up schemes to get free sneakers. Two weeks later, he was the proud owner of Sneaker Freaker and his life was never the same. From its early roots as a punk-style fanzine to today’s super-slick print and online operations, the fiercely independent publication has documented every collab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike, and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last 15 years. Woody’s original premise ...
Discover how scenes of daily life and delicate dabs of color shocked the art world establishment.In this TASCHEN Basic Art introduction to Impressionism, we explore the artists, subjects, and techniques that first brought the easel out of the studio and shifted artistic attention from history, religion, or portraiture to the evanescent ebb and flow of modern life.As we tour the theaters, bars, and parks of Paris and beyond, we take in the movement’s radical innovations in sty...
This book documents a revolution. With photos, plans, and descriptions, it explores new approaches in building and presents resourceful and green private homes. Rejecting “stardom” but celebrating diversity, talents such as Suzuko Yamada, Gurjit Matharoo, and the collective Frankie Pappas truly build our future.
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...
Peter Lindbergh and Azzedine Alaïa, the photographer and the couturier, were united by their love of black, a love that they would cultivate alike in silver print and solid color garments. Lindbergh ceaselessly turned to black and white to signify his search for authenticity in the faces he brought to light. Alaïa drew on the monochrome of timeless clothes to create veritable sculptures for the body.In this book, the unique dialogue between the two artists is immortalized in ...
Through the turbulent events of the last century-and-a-half, graphic design—with its vivid, neat synthesis of image and idea—has distilled the spirit of each age. It surrounds us every minute of the day, from minimalist packaging to colorful adverts, environmental graphics to sleek interfaces: graphic design is as much about reflecting society’s aspirations and values as it is about transmitting information. Now published as part of our popular Basic Art series, this vibrant ...
As sensitive to human suffering as to the simple pleasures of life, Robert Doisneau is one of the most celebrated exponents of the Photographie humaniste that swept through the 1950s. Cherished in particular for his soulful portraits of Paris, Doisneau demonstrated a unique ability to find – and perfectly frame – charismatic characters, entertaining episodes, and fleeting moments of humor and affection. A summation of a spectacular career, this extensive Doisneau collection i...
Successful interiors tell stories - be they of an industrial loft, a luxury penthouse, or a grand old villa. When presented together, as in this book, they tell us much more besides, providing insights into how the world of the early 21st century chooses to live. What does a Zurich dining room look like? Or a bathroom in Niigata, Japan? How might a Miami art collector paint his bungalow's walls? And what awaits you in a St.Petersburg apartment? We went inside a hundred homes ...
With more than 280 entries, this architectural A–Z, now part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, offers an indispensable overview of the key players in the creation of modern space. From the period spanning the 19th to the 21st century, pioneering architects are featured with a portrait, concise biography, as well as a description of her or his important work. Like a bespoke global architecture tour, you’ll travel from Manhattan skyscrapers to a Japanese concert hall, from...
For the seasoned car collector or the awestruck newcomer, this volume is the consummate sports car anthology. Bringing together 50 of the most exquisite, desirable, and adrenaline-charging sports cars of all time, it recounts the enthralling endeavors in automotive design and engineering in pursuit of optimum dynamic performance for both road and track. This expertly curated roundup of glorious, high-speed two-seaters includes both all-out sports racers as well as their stree...
The arresting pictures of Frida Kahlo (1907–54) were in many ways expressions of trauma. Through a near-fatal road accident at the age of 18, failing health, a turbulent marriage, miscarriage and childlessness, she transformed the afflictions into revolutionary art. In literal or metaphorical self-portraiture, Kahlo looks out at the viewer with an audacious glare, rejecting her destiny as a passive victim and rather intertwining expressions of her experience into a hybrid rea...
The world appears to be divided into cat and dog lovers, but fortunately Walter Chandoha, the 20th century’s greatest pet photographer found himself happily in the middle. He loved these intriguing creatures equally for their unique beauty and individualism, and as subjects to photograph in a career spanning over 70 years. While working on his critically acclaimed TASCHEN book Cats, Chandoha handpicked his favorite dog photos for a potential follow-up title, putting into care...
Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics—and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This publication presents the artist’s painted oeuvre.After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and ...
Take a journey through the makers and shapers of celluloid history. From horror to romance, noir to slapstick, adventure to tragedy, Western to new wave, this selection gathers the greats of 20th-century cinema into one indispensable guide to movie gold. The collection is arranged chronologically and in an extra-handy format.Film entries include a synopsis, cast/crew listings, technical information, actor/director bios, trivia, and lists of awards, as well as film stills, pro...
With investigations into everything from black holes to exoplanets, the Hubble Telescope has changed not only the face of astronomy but also our very sense of being in the universe. On the 30th anniversary of its launch into low-earth orbit, this updated edition of Expanding Universe presents 30 brand new images, unveiling more hidden gems from the Hubble’s archives. Ultra-high resolution and taken with almost no background light, these pictures have answered some of the m...
The Case Study House program (1945–1966) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the postwar building boom. The program’s chief motivating force was Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, a champio...
In celebration of the world’s favorite animal, we bring you over 400 photographs of or about dogs. With pictures from the 19th century to today, the collection includes works by Man Ray, Eric Fischl, Wolfgang Tillmans, Donna Ruskin, Fatima NeJame, Vincent Versace, and of course Elliott Erwitt and William Wegman. Together, their pictures, unique in style but united in canine affection, are testimony if ever there was one that dogs are not only best friends, but also pure pho...
Album art is indelibly linked to our collective musical memories; when you think of your favorite albums, you picture the covers. Many photographers, illustrators, and art directors have become celebrities from their album artworks—the best examples of which will go down in history as permanent fixtures in popular culture. Paying tribute to this art form, Rock Covers brings you a compilation of more than 750 remarkable album covers, from legendary to rare record releases.Arti...
Zen, soothing, mystical, meditative—words cannot do justice to Asia’s most beautiful interiors. Whether it’s a gilded Tibetan monastery, a plantation in Sri Lanka, or a private villa in Thailand, each of the havens featured in this book are remarkable not only in aesthetic, but also in spirit.This showcase features about 40 exceptional locations across Tibet, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Highlights include traditio...
Filling notebook after notebook with sketches, inventions, and theories, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) not only stands as one of the most exceptional draftsmen of art history, but also as a mastermind and innovator who anticipated some of the greatest discoveries of human progress, sometimes centuries before their material realization.From the smallest arteries in the human heart to the far-flung constellations of the universe, Leonardo saw nature and science as being unequiv...
Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant Magick celebrates botanicals as creative muse – from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to visionary art inspired by psychoactive plants, cacti, and mushrooms. Our myths, beliefs, and shared stories are continuall...
While the female nude has long played a conspicuous role in western iconography, the male nude has not always enjoyed such attention, or acceptance. This ode to the male physique celebrates the evolving, at one time illicit, art form from anonymous 19th century erotica through to contemporary work from David Hockney and Duane Michaels. Through the classic, the playful, and the provocative, it explores the compositions, postures, and role-playing of this often under-explored g...
In 2007 TASCHEN released The New Erotic Photography, followed in 2012 by The New Erotic Photography 2. Each book featured hundreds of fresh and provocative images from the world’s most intriguing erotic talents. Now the best of both books is available in The New Erotic Photography, featuring 62 photographers from 10 countries, exploring the global variations of erotic photography, as well as the evolution of photographic media over the last decade. We see film give way to d...
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and came to characterize the Western world’s visual idea of Japan. In many ways images of hedonism, ukiyo-e scenes often represented the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo): beautiful women, actors and wrestlers, city life, and ...
In Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s, Disney artists popularized illustration for children both on the big screen and in the pages of the Golden Books, a series of affordably priced children's books. These stories distilled the visual language of Disney films and brought historic and contemporary tales to life through compelling and inventive works of art. The selection of material in this book by 7 different artists reflects the variety of stylistic approaches that defi...
The Book of Miracles first surfaced several ago and is one of the most spectacular discoveries in the field of Renaissance art. The near-complete illustrated manuscript, created in Augsburg around 1550, is composed of 169 pages of large-format illustrations in gouache and watercolor, depicting wondrous and often eerie phenomena.The mesmerizing images deal with both biblical and folkloric tales, depicting stories from the Old Testament and Book of Revelation as well as events ...
In 1968, when Stanley Kubrick was asked to comment on the metaphysical significance of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he replied: “It’s not a message I ever intended to convey in words. 2001 is a nonverbal experience… I tried to create a visual experience, one that directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content.” Now available as part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, The Stanley Kubrick Archives borrows from the director’s philosophy. From the op...
Scandinavia is world famous for its inimitable, democratic designs which bridge the gap between craftsmanship and industrial production, organic forms and everyday functionality. This all-you-need guide includes a detailed look at Scandinavian furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, metalware, and product design from 1900 to the present day, with in-depth entries on 125 designers and design-led companies. Featured designers and designer-led companies include Verner Pan...
Sportive gentlemen, lascivious ladies: Since the earliest days of photography, people have been getting up to all manner of rannygazoo in front of the lens. This collection presents the finest highlights from the collection of New Yorker Mark Rotenberg, who began collecting antique smut after finding a stash of vintage erotic pictures in a Brooklyn dumpster and now owns a 95,000 strong collection of archive pornography dating from between 1860 and 1960. Flick through these pa...
Life in the WoodsCreative cabin architecture, from California to SapporoEver since Henry David Thoreau’s described his two years, two months, and two days of refuge existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts, in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a cabin dwelling has seduced the modern psyche. In the past decade, as our material existence and environmental footprint has grown exponentially, architects around the globe have become particularly interested in the pos...
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,...
“The Tower is also present to the entire world... a universal symbol of Paris... from the Midwest to Australia, there is no journey to France which isn’t made, somehow, in the Tower’s name.” — Roland Barthes When Gustave Eiffel completed his wrought iron tower on Paris’s Champ de Mars for the World’s Fair in 1889, he laid claim to the tallest structure in the world.Though the Chrysler Building would, 41 years later, scrape an even higher sky, the Eiffel Tower lost none of its...
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...
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...
Mario Testino is recognized as the ultimate fashion photographer of his generation but his pictures of Kate Moss transcend fashion. The result of two decades of extraordinary friendship, and phenomenal glamour, this iconic collaboration is an intimate insight into the lives and minds of two of the world’s definitive style leaders. This book follows the journey of this exceptional fashion partnership, from early days backstage at the shows to behind-the-scenes glimpses of the ...
Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color and line and is today credited with creating the first purely abstract work. As much a teacher and theorist as he was a practicing artist, Kandinsky’s interests in music, theater, poetry, philosophy, ethnology, myth, and the occult...
Famed for his motto “less is more,” Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) was one of the founding fathers of modern architecture and a hotly-debated tastemaker of twentieth-century aesthetics and urban experience.Mies van der Rohe’s philosophy was one of underlying truth in pure forms and proportions. With the help of contemporary technological and material developments, he sought a stripped-down purity to architecture, showcased by the likes of the Seagram Building and Farnsw...
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 ...
With the cold war ebbing, crime and inflation at record levels, and movie star-turned-President Ronald Reagan launching a Star Wars of his own, the 1980s did not seem likely to become one of the most outrageous, flamboyant, and prosperous decades of the 20th century. The "greed is good" mantra on Wall Street spawned the power-dressing, exercise-obsessed "Me Generation" of Yuppies. The art world enjoyed the influx of capital; computers and video games ruled in the office and a...
Clothes define people. A person’s attire, whether it be a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Indeed, clothing has the power to define people and their generation.Recognizing this sartorial significance is the Kyoto Costume Institute, whose team of curators examine fashion through sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has ...
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...
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...
