The rise of digital photography is perhaps the most manifest legacy of the digital revolution in art. Through the use of sophisticated software and scanners, artists are able to enhance photographs, saturate them with colour, and create mesmerizing effects. Focusing exclusively on digital photography and its enormous varieties of technique and style being practiced today, Sylvia Wolf explores a genre that challenges our notions of the art and the role of the artist. This lavishly illustrated book takes readers from the earliest experiments in digital photography to the latest innovations. Wolf candidly discusses issues of authenticity and narrative and points to technological trends of the future. A global panoply of artists, including Andreas Gursky, Chris Jordan, Loretta Lux, and Lucas Samaras, demonstrates just how diverse and complex the field has become. Today as digital photography is being used by artists to portray unbridled consumption and warn of ecological disaster; as artists employ Photoshop, Google and their own programming skills to create software-cum-art objects; and as seasoned photographers turn from film to their laptops, this volume offers a riveting snapshot of a medium that is changing the way we look at pictures.

Part survey, part artist's book, this long-awaited look at the full range of Kiki Smith's photography allows that body of work to be recognized as an essential part of her working process and of the acclaimed body of work that includes her sculpture, installations, drawings, prints, and books. Over the three decades of her career, Smith has experimented with photography as a working tool, a means of personal expression and simply as a medium in which she can explore space, composition, colour and texture. I don't think my work is particularly about art, A Smith has said. It's really about me, being here in this life, in this skin. I'm cannibalizing my own experience, my surroundings. A Smith's selection of unseen photos for this book parallels the four concerns discussed in Elizabeth Brown's essay-studio process, reflecting and constructing identity, making stories and recording her own artworks-and allows us to intimately share her unique vision.

Organized around the themes of models, monuments, and memorials-key subjects in Schutte's art-this volume offers a comprehensive selection of work from the late 1970s to today by an artist considered a key figure of his generation. Schutte's installations, sculptures, prints, drawings, and watercolours often take contradictory forms, and his art may seem to depict alien worlds. Yet his focus is everyday life, whose basic constituents-natural, cultural, political-he revises, using a broad range of materials and colours, while asking questions about the place of art in society. Schutte has long engaged with many of the traditional genres of sculpture-the reclining female figure and the commemorative portrait bust, for example-yet the results are utterly unconventional. A deeply contrarian spirit informs his approach, resulting in a transformation of standard and formulaic modes into singular statements that reflect on history, politics, social space, and collective experience. Together the works in this book comprise an impressive career marked by constant change and innovation.

The importance of the work of Hannah Wilke (1940-1993) has never been clearer. In retrospect, her artwork, like her life, frames a heroic story about formal invention and social activism; about personal loyalties and individual freedom; and, above all, about breathtaking risk. A defining presence in a nascent community of women artists, determined to expose (and fix) the inequities of the fast-growing art world of the 1960s. At the same time, Wilke was an unapologetic individualist, who celebrated her relationships with men as well as women and frankly explored the pleasures of sexuality. Using a wide range of unconventional media, including latex and chewing gum as well as photography and film, she paid tribute — however irreverently — to her predecessors, from Duchamp to David Smith. A key concern was the body as instrument and object of visual expression; Wilke was most boldly honest in an unremitting self-exploration that she undertook without false modesty (when her naked body was an uncomplicated delight to behold) or shame (when it was mercilessly blighted by cancer). Beauty and glamour, power and individual prerogative, and the responsibility to account for one's place in the political landscape are all issues that Wilke explored thoroughly, and in which her work provides an essential seminar for younger artists. Wilke's photographs, films, installation and writing now find themselves in a cultural climate that once again seems more favourable to candour and controversy.

Few contemporary buildings demonstrate the purpose of their existence as effectively as Hawkins\Brown's newest scheme. Built to bring together lecturers, researchers and students previously based in separate buildings across Oxford's campus, its glass and steel exterior literally reveals the cutting-edge work being done in its interior — challenging the notion that laboratory walls should be opaque and secretive. The building includes an ambitious art project, Salt Bridges, which combines chemistry and design to illustrate the chaos and coincidence that so often shape scientific discovery. This volume features a fascinating critical introduction to the project, photographs of plans and models, contributions from the builder on the construction process, and conversations between architects, artists and scientists at the heart of the building's conception. The story of collaboration between seemingly disparate disciplines makes this monograph particularly appealing to those interested in the relationship between art, architecture and science.

The firm of Hilmer & Sattler und Albrecht has been making headlines after winning the competition to design the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. This book highlights their prolific output from 2004 to 2010 and features housing projects, hotels, office buildings, retail shops and private residences in Germany, Switzerland, and other countries. Full-colour photographs, sketches, and detailed plans reveal the firm's talent for incorporating classic European principles into cutting-edge buildings.

This book of a major travelling exhibition of the same name includes nearly 100 works by the famous masters during the mid-19th century, and from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognisable of all artistic styles, Impressionism. This exhibition begins with paintings by naturalist artists such as Bougereau and Courbet and presents American expatriate James McNeil Whistler's Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as Whistler's Mother. Early work by Manet, Monet, Renoir and Sisley are included as well as a selection of Degas' paintings that depict images of the ballet, the racetrack and life in la Belle Aepoque. Notable works in this book include The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866), Family Reunion by Frederic Bazille (1867), Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 or Portrait of the Artist's Mother by James McNeil Whistler (1871), The Birth of Venus by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1879), The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872), Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877), The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876), Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet, Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866-1868), The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873-1876), Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878-1879).

Martin Ramirez created nearly 450 drawings of remarkable visual clarity and expressive power while confined in a California mental institution for more than twenty-five years. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, he achieved posthumous fame with recent exhibitions of his works. Eighty important drawings, culled from public and private collections, comprehensively survey his achievement and demonstrate that he was one of the great draftsmen of the twentieth century. The richness of Ramirez's drawings and the depth of historical and cultural influences in his work point to his deep engagement with society. The artist's unique process-employing found items, homemade pigments, matchsticks, and large swaths of paper is explored, as are his personal experiences of poverty, exile, and confinement. The volume includes recent research about Ramirez's life, family, and art, and features examples from a cache of previously unknown drawings by Ramirez, whose discovery caused a great sensation. This dazzling book displays Ramirez's skill and inventiveness and shows why his work is worthy of its own place in the annals of modern art.

The world as seen through Kalman's eyes is a quirky, slightly off-kilter place as colourful and varied as a kaleidoscope. For decades this brilliant artist has captured our hearts with her whimsical illustrations and engaged our minds with her trenchant observations. A companion to a travelling exhibition, this monograph on Kalman's work features hundreds of paintings, drawings, sketchbook pages, and journal entries as well as rarely glimpsed photographs, stills from performance pieces, and examples of her newest project, embroidery. Kalman was born in Tel Aviv in 1949 and moved to New York at the age of four. Among her varied body of work are illustrated books for children and adults, clocks she designed with her late husband Tibor Kalman, columns for The New York Times, fabrics for Maharam and Isaac Mizrahi, and sets for the choreographer Mark Morris. In this book, Kalman offers commentary on her life as an artist, collector, observer, traveller, and maker of lists, while essays by curator Ingrid Schaffner and art historian Kenneth Silver explore her unique gift for distilling the extraordinary from the merely ordinary. From the youngest readers to the most discerning critics, Kalman's many admirers will embrace this wonderful celebration of a life dedicated to making art.

Fashion is in the details. The textiles, tailoring, and trimmings all work together in the creation of the finest pieces. Drawing on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's internationally known fashion collection, this gorgeous book tells the story-in words and beautiful pictures-of fashion's aesthetic and technical development from the Age of Enlightenment to World War I, a period when fashionable dress underwent sweeping changes. Many remarkable examples of men's, women's, and children's garments are featured here for the first time, including an extraordinarily rare 1790s man's vest designed to promote sympathy with the French Revolution; a stunning 1845 black satin gown from the royal court of Portugal heavily embroidered with gold; and an 1891 evening mantle with silk embroidery, glass beads, and ostrich feathers designed by French couturier Aemile Pingat. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the evolution of fashion, this generously illustrated book provides a rich visual history of the changes that occurred in fashionable dress spanning a period of more than two hundred years.

World War II and its aftermath ushered in a new era of artistic expression. Abstract Expressionism, film noir, Beat poetry, and the New Journalism — all considered responses to war's shocking realities — were influenced by the photography of the period. Street Seen, a companion volume to an exhibition, highlights six photographers who were prominent during and immediately following the war. Lisette Model's unflinching portraits; Louis Faurer's cars, crowds and buildings; Ted Croner's haunting night images; Saul Leiter's painterly, evocative technique; William Klein's manipulation of focus and composition; and Robert Frank's documentation of American ideals gone awry — these and other beautifully reproduced photographs exquisitely communicate the emotional resonance of everyday life in post-war America. An essay by Lisa Hostetler explores the aesthetic revolution that took place after the war and reveals the principles of spontaneity and subjective interpretation that guided these photographers as they sought to make sense of new realities. Brief biographies and bibliography are also included in this valuable compilation of the mid-century's most influential photography.

This companion volume to an ambitious retrospective holds a mirror up to the iconic artist whose work so strongly reflected her life. The life and work of Frida Kahlo were inextricably intertwined. This beautiful monograph celebrates the artist while exploring the lesser-known aspects of her story. Reproductions of Kahlo s paintings are accompanied by a series of illuminating essays that explore the artist s private writings and the intense public interest in her life, the role of physical and mental suffering in the creative process, and the coded and double meanings hidden in so much of Kahlo s work. In addition, a photographic essay compiled by her grandniece, Cristina Kahlo, features images from the family s private collection. As an icon of female strength and suffering, Frida Kahlo has become something of an art world myth. This scholarly yet profoundly moving illustrated tribute to her life and work offers a measured perspective that rises above the noise of celebrity to discover the true artist and the truth of her art.

At once deeply personal and brilliantly perceptive, this dynamic reconsideration of the life and work of Frida Kahlo is curated by the prominent feminist artist Judy Chicago, who helped introduce American audiences to Kahlo's paintings. For decades Judy Chicago has worked tirelessly to ensure that women's artistic achievements become a permanent part of our cultural heritage. In this sumptuous, large format book, she turns her attention to the work of Frida Kahlo, one of the world's most revered female painters. In this volume Chicago, together with her collaborator, art historian Frances Borzello, has handpicked a selection of Kahlo's work, a hundred portraits that speak to the full spectrum of women's experience. The result is a fascinating conversation between two artistic icons, one that is further enhanced by a dialogue between Chicago and Borzello, an authority on women's portraiture. The book features each work on its own spread, facing commentary by Chicago and Borzello. Essays explore Kahlo's many facets: woman, artist, historical figure, and inspiration. Designed to evoke a Mexican retablo, or altarpiece, this volume reframes Frida Kahlo for a contemporary audience.

Renowned for such powerful paintings as The Scream and Madonna, Munch continually reworked his monumental themes in the graphic arts. This publication brings together nearly sixty of Munch's most important prints, from the National Gallery of Art and two exceptional private collections, demonstrating how the artist's experimental impulses and virtuosic handling of intaglio, lithography, and woodcut over the course of his lifetime endowed his haunting motifs with new meanings. Stunning reproductions reveal Munch as a master printmaker, manipulating materials and color in the service of his artistic concepts. Scholars and general readers alike will gain a much richer and more nuanced appreciation for this great Norwegian artist.

Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms and with plenty of space to colour outside the lines.

Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms and with plenty of space to colour outside the lines.

From turn-of-the-century corsets to the most recent fashion-forward trends, this treasury of photos culled from the Getty Archives encompasses every aspect of the history of fashion. A beautiful gift book formatted as a year's worth of two-page spreads, each day features a stunning photograph facing a detailed caption, a short text, and a memorable quotation, as well as room to note birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates. Immortal designers, their unforgettable creations, the models, legendary film stars, and personalities who bring the clothes to life, and accessories that stand the test of time all contribute to this wide-ranging perspective that will delight and fascinate readers every day, year after year.

This latest volume in a successful series is a tour of the most important Western paintings since the Renaissance. 50 Paintings you should know Spanning seven centuries, this selection of fifty iconic paintings offers readers a crash course in art history while presenting gorgeous color reproductions that are a pleasure to contemplate. Starting with Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes and continuing through Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, as well as works by Monet, van Gogh, Cassatt, Cézanne, Dalí, Kahlo, Hopper, Pollock, Rothko, and O’Keeffe, nearly every important painter is represented in this book. It features works that may be familiar to the eye, but whose histories are even more fascinating. Readers will learn about the painters who created them, the reasons for their importance and the places the paintings can be found. As entertaining as it is informative, this beautiful book is the perfect introduction to great paintings that have stood the test of time.

Anyone studying a Van Gogh painting with its heavily articulated brushstrokes, dazzling color, and hypnotic perspective will wonder about the artist who created such masterpieces. Although some details of the Dutch artist’s brief and tragic life have been mythologized into the popular culture, this book takes a deeper look at Van Gogh’s history and oevre. Drawing on Van Gogh’s correspondence, this book allows readers to experience the artist’s life and work synchronistically, with brilliant reproductions of his most famous and lesser-known works. In addition, it provides valuable information about where readers can view Van Gogh’s work in museums throughout the world. Art lovers will find much to discover in this appealing and accessible overview of one of the world’s most compelling figures.

For centuries artists have been expressing their ideas, faith, passion, and rage in three-dimensional works that reflect historical eras, tell stories, reveal mysteries, and even create scandals. Starting from ancient times and continuing through the Classical, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, and Modern periods, this collection introduces readers to the artists and works that make sculpture such an exciting medium to explore. Among the artists included in the book are Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin, Duchamp, Giacometti, Calder, Moore, Beuys, de Saint Phalle, and Bourgeois. From the Madonna of Essen, the oldest known sculpture of the Virgin Mary, to the sinuous metal sheets that make up Richard Serra's Matter of Time, each work is presented in spreads that offer beautiful photographs, biographical profiles of the artists, historical context, and anecdotal information. Broader texts describe various eras and styles as the book moves chronologically toward the present day, providing an art history lesson for everyone.