Showing titles in Artists, Architects & Photographers

The remarkable and inspiring story of how London was transformed after the Great Fire of 1666 into the most powerful city in the world, and the men who were responsible for that achievement. Opening in the 1640s, as the city was gripped in tumult leading up to the English Civil War, The Phoenix charts the lives and works of five extraordinary men who would grow up in the chaos of a world turned upside down: the architect, Sir Christopher Wren; gardener and virtuosi, John Evelyn; the scientist, Robert Hooke; the radical philosopher, John Locke; and the builder, Nicholas Barbon.

Art dealer Stan Lauryssens made millions in modern art, but he sold only one name: Salvador Dalí. The surrealist painter's work was a hot commodity for the newly rich, investors, and businessmen looking to launder their black-market cash. Lauryssens didn't mind looking the other way; he just hoped the buyers would look the other way as well.

In thirteen fascinating chapters, Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal to their architects-architects who either killed themselves or are rumored to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire in seventeenth-century France to a theater that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC, and an eerily sinking swimming pool in the author's hometown.

The everyday lives of the Polish-Jewish community depicted in Moshe Rynecki's paintings simply blended into the background of Elizabeth Rynecki's life when she was growing up. But the art transformed from familiar to extraordinary in her eyes after her grandfather - Moshe's son, George - left behind journals detailing the loss her ancestors had endured during World War II, including Moshe's art. Knowing that her family had found only a small portion of Moshe's art, Elizabeth set out to find them.

A unique joint memoir by a US marine and a conflict photographer whose unlikely friendship helped both heal their war-wounded bodies and souls.

Selvatico. Avido. Fragile. Ossessionato dall'arte, nella quale convogliava tutta la sua straripante energia, Michelangelo fu segnato dal fuoco della genialità e attraversò la magnifica stagione del Rinascimento italiano. Con raro talento letterario, Forcellino fa rivivere l'uomo e i suoi anni. Antonio Forcellino è tra i maggiori studiosi europei di arte rinascimentale. Ha realizzato restauri di opere di valore assoluto, come il Mosè di Michelangelo e l'Arco di Traiano.

Rural Free, first published in 1961, beautifully conveys the joys of family life on an Indiana farm. Marked by the slow pace and rich variety of seasonal change, Rachel Peden's narrative offers an authentic month-by-month chronicle of her family's daily adventures. Today, as the slow-food movement gathers support and more urban dwellers return to the land to plant roots again in honest soil, Peden's stories of country life and her lessons on sustainability, frugality, and wastefulness gain a special resonance. Rural Free will be a source of inspiration for all who rejoice in rural virtues.

Unlike most artists, Van Gogh developed very slowly, beginning with work as an art dealer that exposed him to many great works. He undertook this work for several years, after which he spent time as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church. Thereafter, he drifted for several years before returning home to his parents’ house, where he took up painting, largely self-taught with books on anatomy and painting. His great works all date from the later years of his life.

From National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair, the definitive biography of Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorker's most iconic artists.

To get a sense of the kind of prestige that Claude Monet's reputation has within the art world, one need only learn that his Le Bassin Aux Nympheás (1919) - from his series of paintings featuring water lilies - sold for the equivalent of more than $70 million. This is an incredibly staggering price, especially considering that early in his life, Monet had been so poor and debt-ridden that some of his paintings were taken from him by creditors.

La muy premiada biografía definitiva de Elvis Presley, en edición revisada y económica, en dos volúmenes. Pasará mucho tiempo antes de que otra biografía coseche tan encendidos elogios como los obtenidos por esta obra definitiva (el adjetivo no es, por una vez, hiperbólico) sobre la fulgurante ascensión y la apoteósica decadencia de un cantante ya instalado en la mitología popular contemporánea.

In this insightful and provocative book, comics-industry veteran Danny Fingeroth explores the backgrounds of the most well-known superheroes and their creators—largely young American Jewish men from Eastern European backgrounds. These innovators include Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Will Eisner, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In Disguised as Clark Kent, Fingeroth explores how the creators’ Jewish backgrounds helped make superheroes the most familiar popular-culture icons of all.

Rose Boyt explores her complicated relationship with her beloved father, the renowned artist Lucian Freud, through the diary and other accounts of sitting for him, naked or otherwise. Enthralled by his genius, it was only after his death that she began to question the version of events she had come to accept. The shock of the truth is profound but what emerges is her love and compassion not just for herself as a vulnerable young woman, but for the man himself, who is shown in all his brilliant complexity.

Phoebe Hoban, author of definitive biographies of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Alice Neel, now turns her attention to Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund and one of the greatest painters England has produced. Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the first biography to assess Freud’s work and life, showing how the two converge.

Capturing history was Jonathan Alpeyrie's job, but he never expected to become a news story himself. For a decade, the French-American photojournalist weaved in and out of over a dozen conflict zones. But, during his third assignment to Syria, Alpeyrie was betrayed by his fixer and handed over to a band of Syrian rebels. For 81 days, he was bound, blindfolded, and beaten. Over the course of his captivity, Alpeyrie kept his spirits up and strived to see, without his camera lenses, the humanity in his captors.

While still a young boy, Robb White built his first boat, hewn from the tin roof of an abandoned chicken coop in the backyard. Today, without any formal training, White constructs some of the most sought-after wooden boats around. In How to Build a Tin Canoe, this Southern raconteur and self-taught expert wooden-boat builder recounts tall tales of a life lived on the water, from his childhood exploring the Gulf of Mexico to growing up - or not really growing up - to share his accrued wisdom with others.

Unlike most artists, Van Gogh developed very slowly, beginning with work as an art dealer that exposed him to many great works. He undertook this work for several years, after which he spent time as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church. After that, he drifted for several years before re-turning home to his parents’ house, where he took up painting, largely self-taught with books on anatomy and painting. His great works all date from the later years of his life.

Many of the first artists in the West were assigned to exploration and geological parties, working as archivists and obedient to demands of cold accuracy. However, a few were driven by an imaginative mix of real events and fantastical visions to whet the appetite of Eastern consumers and preserve their own nostalgia on canvas. Among the most prominent artists depicting the "old" West was Charles Marion Russell, a prolific painter, sculptor, writer, and storyteller based in the heart of the Montana country.

Los intereses literarios de Octavio Paz se manifestaron de manera muy precoz, y publicó sus primeros trabajos en diversas revistas literarias. Sus preocupaciones sociales también se hicieron presentes a temprana edad y en 1937 realizó un viaje a Yucatán con la intención de crear una escuela para hijos de trabajadores.

A distilled, crystal-like companion to H is for Hawk, Birds Art Life celebrates the particular madness of chasing after birds in the urban environment and explores what happens when the core lessons of birding are applied to other aspects of art and life. Moving with ease between the granular and the grand, peering into the inner landscape as much as the outer one, this is a deeply personal year-long inquiry into big themes: love, waiting, regrets, endings.