The 1970s: that magical era betwixt the swinging ’60s and the decadent ’80s, the epoch of leisure suits and Afros, the age of disco music and platform shoes. As war raged on in Vietnam and the Cold War continued to escalate, Hollywood began to heat up, recovering from its commercial crisis with box-office successes such as Star Wars, Jaws, The Exorcist, and The Godfather. Thanks to directors like Spielberg and Lucas, American cinema gave birth to a new phenomenon: the blockbu...
Across small cottages and lavish villas, beach houses and forest refuges, discover the world’s finest crop of new homes. This cutting-edge global digest features such talents as Shigeru Ban and Marcio Kogan alongside up-and-coming names like Aires Mateus, Xu Fu-Min, Vo Trong Nghia, Desai Chia, and Shunri Nishizawa. Here, there are homes in Australia and New Zealand, from China and Vietnam, in the United States and Mexico, and on to less expected places like Ecuador and Costa ...
The history of nude photography is the history of people’s fascination with the topic. Indeed, the photographic depiction of the human body is the only subject that has enthralled photographers, theoreticians, and consumers over such a long period—more than 150 years. No other motif is as prevalent as this one during all the phases of development comprising the history of photography, no other is present, whatever the technique, and is a subject of discussion within the conte...
“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...
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...
Before reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) had already sculpted Pietà and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the achievements of this Italian master are unique—no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multifaceted, and wide-ranging œuvre. This fresh TASCHEN edition traces Michelangelo’s ascent to the cultural elite of the Renaissance. Ten ri...
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...
Flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) devoted himself exclusively to capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as copper engravings, with careful botanical descriptions. The darling of wealthy Parisian patrons including Napoleon’s wife Josephine, he was dubbed “the Raphael of flowers,” and is regarded to this day as a master of botanical illustration. This collection brings our best-selling XL-sized edition to a ...
It started in 1978 with an ordinary coffee shop near Kyoto. Word spread that the waitresses wore no panties under their miniskirts. Similar establishments popped up across the country.Men waited in line outside to pay three times the usual coffee price just to be served by a panty-free young woman. Within a few years, a new craze took hold: the no-panties “massage” parlor. Increasingly bizarre services followed, from fondling clients through holes in coffins to commuter-train...
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...
The Book of Symbols combines original and incisive essays about particular symbols with representative images from all parts of the world and all eras of history. The compelling texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol’s psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shado...
This inspiring collection covers the work, the lives, and the enduring impact of five key Impressionists, in one volume that’s a primer and a celebration of probably the most popular artistic genre of all time. Each featured artist broke boundaries in different ways, astounding late 19th-century society with their boldness of vision and technique. Edgar Degas explored movement and the human form with masterly style and innovative compositions, most famously of dancers, raceh...
“What is it about a dull yellow metal that drives men to abandon their homes, sell their belongings and cross a continent in order to risk life, limbs and sanity for a dream?” – Sebastião Salgado When Sebastião Salgado was finally authorized to visit Serra Pelada in September 1986, having been blocked for six years by Brazil’s military authorities, he was ill-prepared to take in the extraordinary spectacle that awaited him on this remote hilltop on the edge of the Amazon rain...
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, ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Making sense of revolutionary new forms Abstraction shook Western art to its core. In the early part of the 20th century, it refuted the reign of clear, indisputable forms and confronted audiences instead with vivid visual poems devoid of conventional representational imagery and characterized by allegories of emotion and sensation. This radical artistic adventure established new artistic means, as much as narratives. Expression became characterized by shocking juxtaposition...
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...
A key figure in the international avant-garde, Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was at once an extraordinary painter and leading art theoretician whose influence resonates to this day. Coining the term “Neo-plasticism”, he pursued a style of painting composed only of primary colors against a grid of black vertical and horizontal lines and a white base background. Mondrian’s vision was that this essential painting would help to achieve a society in which art as such has no place, but...
In the work of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) lies an impact akin to a sudden acquisition of sight. His landscapes and seascapes scorch the eye with such ravishing light and color, with such elemental force, it is as if the sun itself were gleaming out of the frame. Appropriately known as “the painter of light,” Turner worked in print, watercolor, and oils to transform landscape from serene contemplative scenes to pictures pulsating with life. He anchored his work...
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,...
George Eastman’s career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak progressed from a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, and a crucial innovator in photographic history. Eastman died in 1932, and left his house to the University of Rochester.Since 1949 the site has operated as an international museum of photography and film, and today holds the largest collection of its kind in the world, containing over 400,000 im...
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...
To travel through Italy is as close as one gets to being in paradise. For centuries, writers, artists, architects, and merchants have been drawn here, inspired by the beauty of Venice, Florence, Naples, and Rome. Countless books, paintings, poems, and sculptures are evidence of its undying appeal, and over the past 60 years, the country has become one of the world’s top travel and holiday destinations. The loveliness of Italy is, if not eternal, certainly enduring, and the ea...
“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...
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 ...
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 ...
He was the most sought-after painter in the prosperous trading city of Amsterdam yet died completely impoverished. Though he never left his homeland, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn's (1606–1669) work extends far beyond the confines of his personal experience, constituting some of the most effective and multifaceted works in art history, forever engraved on the collective memory – The Night Watch, epitomizing the flowering of Dutch urban culture in the 17th century, or Self-Port...
The last decade of the 20th century consolidated once again the fascinating power of the silver screen, both by looking to the future and drawing on the past. It's no exaggeration to say that never before had there been a time when the cinema focused so ironically on its own vanity, and never had it been so intensely preoccupied with itself as a medium. Filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, and Ang Lee created worlds that were as cryptic as they w...
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...
At the height of the Jazz Age, when Prohibition was turning ordinary citizens into criminals and ordinary criminals into celebrities, America’s true crime detective magazines were born. True Detective came first in 1924, and by 1934, when the Great Depression had produced colorful outlaws like Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger, the magazines were so popular cops and robbers alike vied to see themselves on the pages. Even FBI boss J. Edg...
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...
Global travel can be a wearying business: mass tourism, overcrowded planes, chaotic airports, heightened security, cookie-cutter hotel chains, well-worn tourist trails. Finding even a sliver of adventure can sometimes feel impossible. But take heart: for all of us with an unfulfilled spirit of wanderlust, The Golden Age of Travel evokes an era when traveling the world was a thrilling new possibility for those with the resources, time, imagination, and daring. This richly ill...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
The Kisokaidō route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travelers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaidō journey. After produ...
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 machine than man. After driving the development of nascent digital technolog...
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, ...
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...
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 ...
“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 ...
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...