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Tove Jansson: Work and Love
By Dr Tuula Karjalainen. 2013
The definitive illustrated biography of one of the most unique and beloved children's authors of the 20th century, the creator…
of the Moomins. Tove Jansson (1914-2001) led a long, colourful and productive life, impacting significantly the political, social and cultural history of 20th-century Finland. And while millions of children have grown up with Little My, Snufkin, Moomintroll and the many creatures of Moominvalley, the life of Jansson - daughter, friend and companion - is more touching still. This book weaves together the myriad qualities of a painter, author, illustrator, scriptwriter and lyricist from fraught beginnings through fame, war and heartbreak and ultimately to a peaceful end.Warhol: A Life As Art
By Blake Gopnik. 2020
The definitive biography of a fascinating and paradoxical figure, one of the most influential artists of his—or any—age To this…
day, mention the name “Andy Warhol” to almost anyone and you’ll hear about his famous images of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. But though Pop Art became synonymous with Warhol’s name and dominated the public’s image of him, his life and work are infinitely more complex and multi-faceted than that. In Warhol, esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions. “The meanings of his art depend on the way he lived and who he was,” as Gopnik writes. “That’s why the details of his biography matter more than for almost any cultural figure,” from his working-class Pittsburgh upbringing as the child of immigrants to his early career in commercial art to his total immersion in the “performance” of being an artist, accompanied by global fame and stardom—and his attempted assassination. The extent and range of Warhol’s success, and his deliberate attempts to thwart his biographers, means that it hasn’t been easy to put together an accurate or complete image of him. But in this biography, unprecedented in its scope and detail as well as in its access to Warhol’s archives, Gopnik brings to life a figure who continues to fascinate because of his contradictions—he was known as sweet and caring to his loved ones but also a coldhearted manipulator; a deep-thinking avant-gardist but also a true lover of schlock and kitsch; a faithful churchgoer but also an eager sinner, skeptic, and cynic. Wide-ranging and immersive, Warhol gives us the most robust and intricate picture to date of a man and an artist who consistently defied easy categorization and whose life and work continue to profoundly affect our culture and society today.The Years with Ross
By James Thurber. 1957
From iconic American humorist James Thurber, a celebrated and poignant memoir about his years at The New Yorker with the…
magazine’s unforgettable founder and longtime editor, Harold Ross“Extremely entertaining. . . . life at The New Yorker emerges as a lovely sort of pageant of lunacy, of practical jokes, of feuds and foibles. It is an affectionate picture of scamps playing their games around a man who, for all his brusqueness, loved them, took care of them, pampered and scolded them like an irascible mother hen.” —New York TimesWith a foreword by Adam Gopnik and illustrations by James ThurberAt the helm of America’s most influential literary magazine from 1925 to 1951, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker. But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber, whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well. "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it." But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do.Offering a peek into the lives of two American literary giants and the New York literary scene at its heyday, The Years with Ross is a true classic, and a testament to the enduring influence of their genius.From Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet comes the perfect Thanksgiving Day picture book. Let's have a parade!Meet the master puppeteer…
who invented the first balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Melissa Sweet brings to life the inspirational story of the puppeteer who invented the giant balloons floating in the sky during the annual parade celebrating Thanksgiving. The Caldecott Honor artist brilliantly captures the essence of Tony Sarg, a self-taught immigrant with a fascinating imagination.The collage illustrations coupled with Sweet’s storytelling portray Sarg’s joy in his childhood inventions and his ingenious balloon creations that still bring delight to viewers around the country. This nonfiction illustrated book will capture the hearts of all ages.“This clever marriage of information and illustration soars high.” (Kirkus starred review)¿Quién fue Salvador Dalí? (¿Quién fue?)
By Paula K. Manzanero, Who Hq. 2023
Learn about the fascinating career of surrealist Salvador Dalí from his early life in Spain through his public life as an…
internationally famous artist in this exciting addition to the #1 New York Times Best-Selling series.Conoce la fascinante carrera del surrealista Salvador Dalí, desde sus primeros años en España hasta su vida pública como artista de fama internacional, en este nuevo libro de la serie número uno en ventas del New York Times.Most famous for his surrealist painting The Persistence of Memory and its melting clocks, Salvador Dalí combined his dreamlike ideas with his excellent technical skills to become one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century. Beyond painting, Dalí pursued the arts in many other mediums including sculpture, film, fashion, photography, architecture, and more. He was friends with many of his famous contemporaries, including Picasso, Bunuel, Miro, and Duchamp. Learn about the sometimes-shy man with the instantly recognizable upturned mustache in this book for young readers that details the life of one of modern art's most celebrated figures.Más famoso por su pintura surrealista La persistencia de la memoria y sus relojes derretidos, Salvador Dalí combinó sus ideas oníricas con sus excelentes habilidades técnicas para convertirse en uno de los artistas más famosos del siglo XX. Más allá de la pintura, Dalí se dedicó a las artes en muchos otros medios, como la escultura, el cine, la moda, la fotografía, la arquitectura y más. Era amigo de muchos de sus contemporáneos famosos, incluidos Picasso, Buñuel, Miró y Duchamp. Aprende sobre el hombre a veces tímido, con un bigote reconocible al instante, en este libro para lectores jóvenes que detalla la vida de una de las figuras más célebres del arte moderno.The See-Through House: My Father in Full Colour
By Shelley Klein. 2020
'A charming account of a daughter, a house and a fastidious dad' Sunday TimesShelley Klein grew up in the Scottish…
Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid. With colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art. Her father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style.Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision - or his distinctive way of looking at the world. Told with great tenderness and humour, this is Shelley's account of looking after an adored yet maddening parent and a piercing portrait of the grief that followed his death. 'A sad, funny, utterly fascinating book about families, home and how to say goodbye' Mark Haddon'Original, moving and bracingly honest... often hilarious' Blake Morrison, Guardian'It is strange that grief should produce such a life-affirming book, but it has. Read it for the solace it contains, or for its captivating descriptions. Either way, it's a delight' TelegraphRoy Lichtenstein: How Modern Art Was Saved by Donald Duck (Penguin Specials)
By Alastair Sooke. 2013
A Penguin Special on Roy Lichtenstein by Alastair Sooke - read in 2 hours or less'Why, Brad darling, this painting…
is a masterpiece! My, soon you'll have all of New York clamoring for your work!' Roy Lichtenstein - architect of Pop art, connoisseur of the comic strip, master of irony and prophet of popular culture. From exhilarating images of ice-cool jet pilots in dog fights, to blue-haired Barbie dolls drowning in scenes of domestic heartache, Lichtenstein's instantly recognisable paintings, with their Ben-Day dots and witty one-liners, defined the art of a generation. But how did a jobbing, unassuming painter of the Fifties become a world-famous Pop artist whose work today sells for millions? What do his paintings really tell us? And what is his legacy?This book, by art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke, is a perfect introduction to the artist and his work. Spanning Lichtenstein's career, and explaining his unique style, it is a journey through the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.Published in time for a major new retrospective of the work of Roy Lichtenstein.'Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude' Sarah Vine, The Times'His shows are excellent - clever, lively, scholarly, but not too lecturey; he's very good at linking his painters with the world outside the studio, and at how these artists have affected the world today' Sam Wollaston reviewing 'Modern Masters', GuardianAlastair Sooke is deputy art critic of the Daily Telegraph. He has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC, including Modern Masters, an acclaimed BBC One series that chronicled modern art in the twentieth century. Since 2009 he has reported regularly for The Culture Show on BBC Two. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.The Promise: The Moving Story of a Family in the Holocaust
By Barbara Powers. 2006
A Holocaust survivor's own story, told specially for young readers.This is the remarkable true story of a young Jewish girl…
and her brother caught in a world turned upside down by the Nazis during the Second World War. Eva Schloss describes her happy early childhood in Vienna with her kind and loving parents and her older brother Heinz, whom she adored. But when the Nazis marched into Austria everything changed.Eva's family fled to Belgium, then to Amsterdam where, with the help of the Dutch Resistance, they spent the next two years in hiding - Eva and her mother in one house, and her father and brother in another. But in the end they were all betrayed and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Despite the horrors of the camp, Eva's positive attitude and stubborn personality (which had often got her into trouble) saw her through one of the most tragic events in history but sadly her father and brother perished just weeks before the liberation. Eva and her mother travelled back to the house in Amsterdam where Heinz and his father had hidden and discovered over thirty beautiful paintings by her brother. Heinz hadn't wasted any of his talents during his captivity. For Eva, here was a tangible, everlasting memory of her beloved older brother, and a reminder of her father's promise that all the good things you accomplish will make a difference.Heinz's paintings have been on display in exhibitions in the USA and are now a part of a permanent exhibition in Amsterdam's war museum.Eva Schloss is the posthumous step-sister of Anne Frank, after mother, Fritzi, was remarried to Otto Frank, the only surviving member of his immediate family.Michelangelo: His Epic Life
By Martin Gayford. 2013
At thirty one, Michelangelo was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world; long before he died at almost…
90 he was widely believed to be the greatest sculptor or painter who had ever lived (and, by his enemies, to be an arrogant, uncouth, swindling miser).For decade after decade, he worked near the dynamic centre of events: the vortex at which European history was changing from Renaissance to Counter Reformation. Few of his works - including the huge frescoes of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, the marble giant David and the Last Judgment - were small or easy to accomplish. Like a hero of classical mythology - such as Hercules, whose statue he carved in his youth - he was subject to constant trials and labours.In Michelangelo Martin Gayford describes what it felt like to be Michelangelo Buonarroti, and how he transformed forever our notion of what an artist could be.Leonardo Da Vinci
By Kenneth Clark, Martin Kemp. 1939
Get your paints and canvases ready for a fun-filled journey through art! Explore how artists get ideas and bring them…
to life, how art can affect the way we think and feel, and why people throughout history loved it so much.Why is art important? What's so great about it? In this illustrated book, you'll see the world through famous artists' eyes, and what inspired them to make art. And you'll use their techniques to produce your own masterpieces. Did you know that early humans spent a great deal of time on their cave paintings? Before cameras and smartphones were invented, people had paintings and drawings made of them to keep a record of what they looked like. Many artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, used art as a language to express their feelings, thoughts, and emotions in ways that words couldn't. Explore techniques you can use to create art, and you don't have to be good at drawing and painting to do it. If you want to learn why art has the power to be beautiful, shocking, entertaining, and even political, What's the Point of Art? is the place to start. This book is about how art has changed the world, one artistic movement at a time, and it is guaranteed to inspire, surprise, and entertain everyone who picks it up.Portrait of a Woman: Art, Rivalry, and Revolution in the Life of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
By Bridget Quinn. 2024
Discover the story of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard—a long-ignored artist and feminist of eighteenth-century France—in this imaginative and illuminating biography from an…
award-winning writer.Born in Paris in 1749, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard rose from shopkeeper’s daughter to an official portraitist of the royal court—only to have her achievements reduced to ash by the French Revolution. While she defied societal barriers to become a member of the exclusive Académie Royale and a mentor for other ambitious women painters, she left behind few writings, and her legacy was long overshadowed by celebrated portraitist and memoirist Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.But Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s story lives on. In this engaging biography, Bridget Quinn applies her insightful interpretation of art history to Labille-Guiard’s life. She offers a fascinating new perspective on the artist’s feminism, her sexuality, and her vision of the world. Quinn expertly blends close analyses of paintings with broader context about the era and inserts delicately fictionalized interpersonal scenes that fill the gaps in the historical record. This is a compelling and inspiring look at an artist too long overlooked.INSPIRING HISTORICAL NONFICTION: Despite numerous setbacks, Labille-Guiard built a legacy as an accomplished royal portraitist and a mentor to other young women artists of her era. This tale of solidarity, self-belief, and true passion for painting is sure to inspire contemporary creatives and women today. CREATIVE AND COMPELLING ART HISTORY BOOK: Bridget Quinn is an award-winning author and art historian who has spent years researching Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s work and life. She vividly evokes both and weaves a compelling narrative at the intersection of art, gender, and politics. GORGEOUS ART REPRODUCTIONS THROUGHOUT: This biography features full-color images of artwork by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, her rumored rival Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and other artists of the era, including portraits of key players in the narrative. These images, interspersed throughout the book, offer valuable visual references to illuminate the engaging text even further.AN ARTFUL GIFT BOOK: Uniquely crafted and thoroughly researched, this volume makes an outstanding gift for art history enthusiasts and readers who love exploring untold stories in women's history.Perfect for:Readers of memoirs and biographiesHistory buffs and fans of historical fiction and nonfictionArtists, art lovers, museumgoers, and art history studentsFeminists and readers seeking feminist booksFrancophiles and those interested in the French RevolutionFans of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and other historical dramasA Life of Picasso Volume II: 1907 1917: The Painter of Modern Life (Life of Picasso #2)
By John Richardson. 1988
John Richardson draws on the same combination of lively writing, critical astuteness, exhaustive research, and personal experience which made a…
bestseller out of the first volume and vividly recreates the artist's life and work during the crucial decade of 1907-17 - a period during which Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism and to that extent engendered modernism. Richardson has had unique access to untapped sources and unpublished material. By harnessing biography to art history, he has managed to crack the code of cubism more successfully than any of his predecessors. And by bringing a fresh light to bear on the artist's often too sensationalised private life, he has succeeded in coming up with a totally new view of this paradoxical man of his paradoxical work. Never before has Picasso's prodigious technique, his incisive vision and not least his sardonic humour been analysed with such clarity.Henri Matisse: A Second Life
By Alastair Sooke. 2014
Henri Matisse by Alastair Sooke - an essential guide to one of the 20th century's greatest artists'One January morning in…
1941, only a fortnight or so after his seventy-first birthday, the bearded and bespectacled French artist Henri Matisse was lying in a hospital bed preparing to die.'Diagnosed with cancer, the acclaimed painter, and rival of Picasso, seemed to be facing his demise. Then something unexpected happened. After a life-saving operation that left him too weak to paint, and often too frail to even get out of bed, Matisse invented a ground-breaking and effortless new way of making art. The results rank among his greatest work.In an astonishing blaze of creativity, he began conjuring mesmerising designs of dazzling dancers and thrilling tightrope walkers, sensuous swimmers and mythical figures falling from the heavens. His joyful and unprecedented new works were as spontaneous as jazz music and as wondrous as crystal-clear lagoons. Their medium? Coloured paper and scissors.This book, by art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke, focuses on Matisse's extraordinary final decade, which he called 'a second life', after he had returned from the grave. Both a biography and a guide to Matisse's 'cut-outs', it tells the story of the valedictory flourish of one of the most important and beloved artists of the twentieth century.Published in time for a major Tate Modern retrospective.'Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude' Sarah Vine, The Times 'His shows are excellent - clever, lively, scholarly, but not too lecturey; he's very good at linking his painters with the world outside the studio, and at how these artists have affected the world today' Sam Wollaston reviewing 'Modern Masters', GuardianAlastair Sooke is art critic of the Daily Telegraph. He has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC, including Modern Masters, The World's Most ExpensivePaintings, Treasures of Ancient Rome and, most recently, Treasures of Ancient Egypt. He is a regular reporter for The Culture Show on BBC Two. He is the author of Roy Lichtenstein: How Modern Art was Saved by Donald Duck.Christy Brown: The Life That Inspired My Left Foot
By Georgina Louise Hambleton. 2007
Christy Brown was severely disabled with cerebral palsy, unable to use any part of his body other than his left…
foot. Doctors said he was a 'mental defective' and that he would never be able to lead any kind of normal life; Christy proved them wrong.His mother taught him to write using chalk on the worn floor of their small home, and Christy grew into a talented artist and writer. His 1954 memoir My Left Foot was made into an Oscar-winning film starring Daniel Day-Lewis, while his bestselling novel Down All the Days was described by the Irish Times as 'the most important novel since Ulysses'.Using previously unpublished letters and poems, this first authorised biography marks Christy Brown's importance as a writer and celebrates his indomitable spirit. His story proves that, with hope and determination, almost impossible odds can be overcome.Bernini
By Howard Hibbard. 1965
Sculptor and architect Bernini was the virtual creator and greatest exponent of Baroque in 17th century Italy. He has left…
his greatest mark on Rome where Papal patronage provided him with enormous architectural commissions.Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-artist
By Nicholas Foulkes. 2015
It is said that asphyxiation brings on a state of hallucinatory intoxication...in which case the 71 year old artist who…
lay in his sprawling Provencal villa died happy. In the early afternoon of Monday 4 October 1999, wracked with Parkinson's, and unable to paint because of a fall in which he had broken his wrist, Bernard Buffet calmly placed a plastic bag over his head, taped it tight around his neck and patiently waited the few minutes it took for death to arrive. Bernard Buffet:The Invention of the Modern Mega-artist tells the remarkable story of a French figurative painter who tasted unprecedented critical and commercial success at an age when his contemporaries were still at art school. Then, with almost equal suddenness the fruits of fame turned sour and he found himself an outcast. Scarred with the contagion of immense commercial success no leper was more untouchable. He was the first artist of the television age and the jet age and his role in creating the idea of a post-war France is not to be underestimated. As the first of the so-called Fabulous Five (Francoise Sagan, Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot and Yves Saint Laurent) he was a leader of the cultural revolution that seemed to forge a new France from the shattered remains of a discredited and demoralized country. Rich in incident Buffet’s remarkable story of bisexual love affairs, betrayal, vendettas lasting half a century, shattered reputations, alcoholism, and drug abuse, is played out against the backdrop of the beau monde of the 1950s and 1960s in locations as diverse as St Tropez, Japan, Paris, Dallas, St Petersburg and New York, before coming to its miserable conclusion alone in his studio.The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
By Benvenuto Cellini. 1998
Benvenuto Cellini was a celebrated Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith - a passionate craftsman who was admired and resented by the…
most powerful political and artistic personalities in sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Paris. He was also a murderer and a braggart, a shameless adventurer who at different times experienced both papal persecution and imprisonment, and the adulation of the royal court. Inn-keepers and prostitutes, kings and cardinals, artists and soldiers rub shoulders in the pages of his notorious autobiography: a vivid portrait of the manners and morals of both the rulers of the day and of their subjects. Written with supreme powers of invective and an irrepressible sense of humour, this is an unrivalled glimpse into the palaces and prisons of the Italy of Michelangelo and the Medici.Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken by War
By Jake Wood. 2013
Among You is the gripping real-life story of a soldier serving on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan, and…
an unforgettable, unflinching account of the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.Jake Wood lives parallel lives: encased in the glass tower of an international investment bank by day, he is also a dedicated TA soldier who serves on the front line during the invasion of Iraq, later returning to the war zone to conduct surveillance on insurgents. Disillusioned with the dullness and amorality of the banking world, he escapes back to the army for a third tour of duty. But in Afghanistan he discovers the savage, dehumanising effects that war has on both the body and the mind. Diagnosed with chronic PTSD on his return, he must now fight the last enemy – himself – in order to exorcise the ghosts of his past.Brutally honest and beautifully written, Among You brings home the harsh reality of front-line combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the courage of the troops who risk their lives for their country, as well as revealing the devastating after-effects of service.Ai Weiwei Speaks: with Hans Ulrich Obrist
By Hans Ulrich Obrist. 2016
'If artists betray the social conscience and the basic principles of being human, where does art stand then?' Ai Weiwei…
- artist, architect, curator, publisher, poet and urbanist - extended the notion of art and is one of the world's most significant creative and cultural figures. In this series of interviews, conducted over several years with the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, he discusses the many dimensions of his artistic life, ranging over subjects including ceramics, blogging, nature, philosophy and the myriad influences that have fed into his work. He also talks candidly about his father, his childhood spent in exile and his criticism of the Chinese state. Together, these extraordinary discussions give a unique insight into the outstanding complexity of Ai Weiwei's thought and work, and are an essential reminder of the need for personal, political and artistic freedom.