Authors: Leonardo da Vinci.
Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Publication Date: 2005-08-01


Reviews :

    Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed arguably the greatest mind the world has ever known. Artist, draftsman, inventor, and philosopher, his contributions to modern society are profound and wide-reaching. Throughout his life, Leonardo kept dozens of notebooks, elegant studies on topics ranging from architecture to botany to philosophy—indeed nearly anything of which the human imagination could conceive.

Leonardo’s Notebooks collects a variety of the most fascinating of these studies and compiles them into one monumental volume that demystifies his insights and clearly illustrates his ideas, experiments, and observations with hundreds of his original sketches, line drawings, and paintings. Topics include Anatomy and the Movement of the Human Figure; Botany and Landscape; Engineering and Military Engineering; Physical Sciences; Aerodynamics and Flight; Geography—and more....

Authors: Domenico Laurenza. Mario Taddei.
Paperback, 200 pages
Publisher: David & Charles
Publication Date: 2006-06-01


Reviews :

    Combining the original coded notebooks and modern computer imaging, over 30 of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions are pieced together in this work, in never-before-seen, mechanically accurate, computer generated artworks. Annotated diagrams show each working part of the contraptions, demonstrating in incredible detail how the machines would have operated. It also includes fascinating recreations of the finished inventions that show how they would have been used in contemporary life - from manned flying machines and mechanical bridges to musical instruments and devastating circular tanks. In-depth analysis of da Vinci's inventions reveal the stories that led to the finished designs....

Authors: Martha Tedeschi. Kristi Dahm.
Hardcover, 228 pages
Publisher: Art Institute of Chicago
Publication Date: 2008-02-26


Reviews :

    American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) created some of the most breathtaking and influential watercolours in the history of the medium. This handsome volume provides a comprehensive look at Homer's technical and artistic practice as a watercolourist, and at the experiences that shaped his remarkable development. Focusing on 25 rarely seen watercolours from the Art Institute's collection, along with 75 other related watercolours, gouaches, drawings, and paintings - including many of the artist's characteristic subjects - this book proposes a new understanding of Homer's techniques as they evolved over his career.Accessibly written essays consider each of the featured works in detail, examining the relationship between monochrome drawing and watercolour and the artist's lifelong interest in new optical and colour theories. In particular, they show how his sojourn in England, where he encountered leading British marine watercolourists and the dynamic avant-garde art scene, precipitated an abrupt change in technique and subject matter upon his return home. Conservators address the fragility of these watercolours, which are prone to fading due to light exposure, and demonstrate, through pioneering research on Homer's pigments and computer-assisted imaging, how the works have changed over time. Several of Homer's greatest watercolours are digitally 'restored', providing an exhilarating glimpse of the original impact of Homer's groundbreaking colour experiments....

Authors: Jeffrey Deitch. Julia Gruen.
Hardcover, 522 pages
Publisher: Rizzoli
Publication Date: 2008-10-28


Reviews :

    Closely based on Haring’s own concept for the monograph he wanted to publish before his untimely death, this volume represents more than a decade of research and contains a wealth of unpublished photographic and written material including drawings, studio photographs, and journal entries. From chalk drawings deep in the New York City subways to murals in Pisa and Berlin; collaborations with William Burroughs and the famous body painting of Grace Jones, this book follows the incredible trajectory of Keith Haring’s artistic career: how a young man from a small town in rural Pennsylvania came to revolutionize the art world—and the course of art history—within little more than a decade. An incredibly prolific artist, Keith Haring created countless bold, provocative, endearing, and unforgettable images that continue to inspire artists—and delight children—worldwide. Tracing the arc from his early subway "tags" to his poignant work on social issues as diverse as AIDS, illiteracy and apartheid, this visually stunning book is the definitive work on Keith Haring....

Authors: Robert Descharnes. Gilles Neret.
Hardcover, 780 pages
Publisher: Taschen
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
Edition: 25th

Reviews :

    TASCHEN's 25th anniversary ? Special edition! Two large-format hardcover volumes in a slipcase at a special bestseller price Picasso called Dal? "an outboard motor that's always running." Dal? thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head. Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dal? (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 lively monograph presents the infamous Surrealist in full color and in his own words. His provocative imagery is all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. A friend of the artist for over thirty years, privy to the reality behind Dal?'s public image, author Robert Descharnes is uniquely qualified to analyze Dal??both the man and the myth....

Authors: Frida Kahlo.
Hardcover, 296 pages
Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Publication Date: 2005-08-01


Reviews :

    Published in its entirety, Frida Kahlo's amazing illustrated journal documents the last ten years of her turbulent life. These passionate, often surprising, intimate records, kept under lock and key for some 40 years in Mexico, reveal many new dimensions in the complex personal life of this remarkable Mexican artist. The 170-page journal contains the artist's thoughts, poems, and dreams-many reflecting her stormy relationship with her husband, artist Diego Rivera-along with 70 mesmerizing watercolor illustrations.

The text entries, written in Frida's round, full script in brightly colored inks, make the journal as captivating to look at as it is to read. Her writing reveals the artist's political sensibilities, recollections of her childhood, and her enormous courage in the face of more than 35 operations to correct injuries she had sustained in an accident at the age of 18. This intimate portal into her life is sure to fascinate fans of the artist, art historians, and women's culturalists alike. ...

    Frida Kahlo, one of the most dynamic figures of 20th-century art, has very nearly become a saint, so legendary is her tumultuous and tragic life. While there is no dearth of books about Kahlo and her work, none are as poignantly revealing as this diary, which includes her own words and pictures. We find the genesis of some of her most famous paintings, her love letters, and sketches of people she knew such as her husband, the Mexican mural painter Diego Rivera, and numerous studies for self-portraits. The most fascinating part of the book is the facsimile diary, in its exact size, reproduced here for the first time, with color illustrations. It is accompanied by an English translation with explanatory commentaries. ...

Authors: Gottfried Fliedl.
Hardcover, 239 pages
Publisher: Taschen
Publication Date: 2006-06-01
Edition: 25th

Reviews :

    Gustav Klimt's art is thoroughly fin de siecle. It expresses the apocalyptic atmosphere of Vienna's upper middle-class society - a society devoted to the cultivation of aesthetic awareness and the cult of pleasure. The ecstatic joy, which Klimt (1862-1918) and his contemporaries found - or hoped to find - in beauty, was constantly overshadowed by death, and death therefore plays an important role in Klimt's art. Klimt's fame, however, rests on his reputation as one of the greatest erotic painters and graphic artists of his times. Particularly his drawings, which have been widely admired for their artistic excellence, are dominated by the erotic portrayal of women. Klimt saw the world "in female form." Author Gottfried Fliedl also discusses the Secession movement and Klimt's role within this important group of artists....

Authors:
Hardcover, 176 pages
Publisher: Skira
Publication Date: 2008-09-09


Reviews :

    Published for the exhibition in Milan between March 4th and June 29th, 2008, this catalog offers a selection of approximately sixty works by Bacon. The collection spans his works from his first paintings in the 1930s, which reveal how early he was attracted to a figure’s deformation and ambiguity, to his late triptychs, in which the artist’s existential torment seems to move towards a suffered serenity. This publication includes important contributions from leading international scholars as well as technical information on all the exhibition works. Artworks are gathered from such prestigious museums as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Birmingham Museum, the Sara Hilden Museum in Tampere, the Fondazione Beyeler in Basel, the Museo de Arte Contemporanea in Caracas, the Toyota Municipal Museum in Aichi, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. The publication also includes a series of documents—drawings, photographs, and works on paper such as collages and retouched photographs—from the Dublin City Gallery....

Authors: Ulrike Becks-Malorny.
Hardcover, 199 pages
Publisher: Taschen
Publication Date: 2007-07-01
Edition: 25th

Reviews :

    Illustrated throughout and bound in a flexi-cover, Ulrike Becks-Malorny's study of Kandinsky provides an essential companion to all levels of study....

Authors: Jacob Baal-Teshuva.
Hardcover, 279 pages
Publisher: Taschen
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Edition: 25th

Reviews :

    No doubt one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) created a unique world full of pathos, poetry, humor, and enchantment, drawing on vivid memories of his Jewish upbringing in Russia. His original style and his connection to the past endured throughout his seven-decade career, despite the great movements and schools of 20th century art which he saw developing around him. All aspects of Chagall's work are covered here, from paintings to stained glass, tapestries, ceramics, and more....

    Find out what role Marc Chagall played in the history of 20th-century art. This fine volume captures the distinctive creativity of a painter whose images were heavily influenced by literature, religious symbols, and folk tales from his native Russia. You'll enjoy more than 60 reproductions of one of the most original and imaginative geniuses of 20th-century art....