Antique Collectors Club

David Hicks was one of the foremost designers of the twentieth century whose gardening commissions were worldwide. This title displays his garden designs.

'Impressionists in their Gardens' explores gardens through the senses of the Impressionists from three continents — Europe, North America and Australia — enjoying the essentially similar pleasures of the garden, but engaging with the light from their skies in order to create very different sensations. The enclosure of the garden acts like a picture frame showcasing a living canvas that exudes the individuality, vision and taste of its tenants, their family, friends, lifestyles and, in the simple words of the greatest Impressionist and gardener Monet, providing motifs to paint. The first section uses contemporary paintings and photographs to see the who, what and where of Impressionist gardens — planting, eating, loving, sleeping, children, animals, working and painting. The second section, illustrated with paintings, old photographs and modern images, starts at the horticultural source — the nurseryman Latour-Marliac at Temple sur Lot, then Monet at Giverny; American Impressionists at Old Lyme, Cos Cob and Appledore in the USA; Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood and beyond; the Heidelburg School and Frederick McCubbin at Fontainebleau; and, chronologically last but not least, Renoir at Les Colettes. Caroline Holmes' travels have enabled her to take this unique approach, as a garden historian and gardener she understands how weather has shaped and formed the earth's sublime topography and how the control of the human hand is beautifully displayed in its fine crafted gardens, observed and colourfully captured by these artists. Join her in the garden for the great pleasures of solitude and sociability; food and friendship; sound and scent; cool shade and balmy warmth, not forgetting glorious colour.

'Lost Worlds: Ruins of the Americas' is a unique visual exploration that vividly captures the haunting mystery and visual poetry of historic ruins throughout the Americas. This extraordinary collection perfectly portrays the architectural, geographic and historical significance of ruins that are considered world wonders and little known gems. Included are monumental temples of Mexico's Mayan civilization, a Colonial era palace on the island of Haiti, earthquake-ravaged cathedrals in Guatemala, and astonishing Incan citadels in Peru's Sacred Valley — culminating with the breathtaking beauty of Machu Picchu. This unprecedented publication transports the reader on a journey to ancient temples, abandoned palaces and lofty citadels. Evocative and enlightening, 'Lost Worlds' will stir the imagination of those with a passion for photography, travel, history, architecture, and archaeology. Shot in infrared format on a specially adapted digital camera, these images expose crumbling, overgrown walls, broken columns, and cracked arches in ways most readers have never seen. They will offer readers a new way of viewing the landscape as well as an enhanced vision of the collective identity of the Americas. Includes a foreword by noted travel writer Pico Iyer and text by Arthur Drooker explaining each site's rise, fall and lasting significance.

Claude Monet spent the last 43 years of his long life at Giverny, creating the paintings and gardens for which he is now revered. From the standpoint of his garden this book considers the controlling intelligence behind both landscape and art, and the influences that shaped Monet's life and vision. The artist is shown as a consummate plantsman who composed his gardens with an Impressionist's care for colour and form, re-interpreting its motifs in paintings of power and abstraction. Drawing upon the voices of Monet and his contemporaries and offering a wealth of horticultural detail, this is a fascinating celebration of a unique artistic mind. Using contemporary correspondence and plant catalogues, with over 150 illustrations including paintings, engravings and garden views from Monet's lifetime and today's magnificent recreation, this book provides a visual exploration of the gardens at Giverny where Monet celebrated his passion for painting and plants.

The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida owns one of the finest and most comprehensive Meissen collections in the world, outside those of the Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden and the Arnhold Collection in New York. Donated to the Museum by Ralph H. and Constance I. Wark in 1965, it features nearly 700 pieces of Meissen porcelain, including rare pieces from the earliest years of the royal factory, established in 1710. Author Ulrich Pietsch uses the fascinating history of the foundation of the Meissen factory in order to set the background for his essay on Wark's collection, and the surprising story of how it survived the Second World War in a Hamburg cellar before being shipped to America. The catalogue features notable examples by the leading sculptors and painters of early Meissen production including Bottger, Johann Joachim Kandler, and Johann Gregor Horoldt.

Pop art created a fresh new outlook using everyday objects and design conflating high and low culture into a bright bold aesthetic. Fueled by the prestigious art schools in London specifically the Royal College of Art, the Pop artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s found their voice. A young, eager, and talented textile student, Zandra Rhodes, took inspiration from the Pop movement encircling her at the Royal College of Art and the energy and personalities that put London on the fashion map. Zandra Rhodes was one of the most pioneering and influential textile designers of the late 1960s and 1970s who took her remarkable pop art inspired fabrics and revolutionized the fashion world. This book highlights Rhodes's early textile designs from her years at the Royal College of Art, to her first foray into the fashion world with designs for the legendary Swinging London duo Foale and Tuffin, to the launch of her eponymous collection as well as special commissions for Jacqmar, &Vice Versa, and Sekers Pty Australia. The book features stunning photography of never seen before textiles, drawings, and archival images combined with fashion photography by Clive Arrowsmith, Guy Bourdin, Henry Clarke, David Bailey, Helmut Newton, and Richard Traeger.

Whether highly bred canines or loveable mixed breeds, America has fallen in love with the dog, and who better than Christine Merrill, America's premier pet portraitist, to chronicle this long term relationship. As best selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford exclaims, «She has caught my Jemmy exactly; the portrait is perfect in every way.» While grounded in the traditions of 18th and 19th century England, this Baltimore artist has over the past 20 years created a body of work, which depicts the American dog in its own especially American environment. Each chapter of this book features an American dog owner who has commissioned Merrill to capture their dog in oils, and answer the «who, what, where and why's» of each collector's story, and how they came to seek out Merrill to portray their dogs — members of the family whose portraits often supplant the portraits of their human relatives. Each chapter is lavishly illustrated, not only with Merrill's paintings, but also with colour photographs of the pet owner with their «American dog at home.» Merrill's paintings, executed in the centuries old style of the great English masters of animal painting, are timeless testaments to our love for the dog, and Americans all over the country have chosen her to create portraits in oil of their beloved pets. Merrill counts movie stars, authors, socialites and captains of industry among her clients, each with one thing in common: their love for their pets. This book provides a glimpse into these worlds, but more importantly something which each of the 40 million dog owners in America can identify with — their pet's unconditional love. Some thirty-five different dog breeds are represented, from fifteen different states. The first part of the book includes 33 essays on Merrill's clients, illustrated with her paintings, but also photographs of the collectors with their dogs, their collections and their homes, personally photographed by the author, William Secord. Each essay has six colour photographs. It is exceptional in its access to the largely private lives of these collectors, providing a unique insight into Americans' relationship with their dogs. The second part of the book traces Merrill's career, with over 50 colour illustrations of her paintings.

When Sindy was launched in the autumn of 1963 with an exciting wardrobe of fashionable clothes, no-one could have predicted that over the next thirty or so years she would become one of Britain's best-selling teenage dolls. Accompanied by her boyfriend Paul and her kid sister Patch, Sindy was supplied with ever-changing fashions designed by, among others, Mary Quant, Hardy Amies, the Emanuels and more recently Vivienne Westwood. This 300 page book with over 400 colour illustrations is packed with detailed year by year descriptions of all the changes made to Sindy herself and her marvellous wardrobe which forms a veritable gallery of British fashions in miniature.

A contemporary of Picasso, Matisse and Kandinsky, Goncharova is now recognised as one of the leading Russian artists of the Twentieth Century. This book traces the development of her art from its impressionist origins, through a provocative phase of 'primitive' style paintings on peasant themes to highly innovative abstract works that rivalled the most daring experiments of the Cubists and Futurists. As a woman artist she was galvanized by gender issues and addressed these directly in her work. In both her paintings and her behaviour she questioned accepted conventions and scandalised Russian society. Arrested in 1909 on the grounds of the 'pornographic' content of her paintings, accused of heresy against the Orthodox Church in 1914 because of her religious work and branded a Futurist because she walked about in public with a painted face, her large-scale retrospective in Moscow in 1913, in which she exhibited over 700 works, demonstrated to public and critics alike that she was, unquestionably, one of the greatest painterly talents that Russia had ever produced. In 1914 Diaghilev, the director of the famous 'Ballets Russes' invited Goncharova to make designs for The Golden Cockerel which was staged at the Paris Opera. The staggering success of this production opened up new creative horizons for her and she remained in Paris to become one of Diaghilev's 'resident' designers. Her work of this period reveals her gifts not only as a superb stage designer but also as a designer of women's fashions for the haute-couture industry of Art Deco Paris. Her work is now in the collections of museums and galleries across the world and is so highly sought that she has achieved the highest sale price ever recorded at auction for a woman artist.

A comprehensive study of the Japanese Okimono's history during the Meiji Era ( 1868-1912).

A new title in the Design series and an excellent introduction to the life and work of this versatile Russian artist. Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (1891-1953) was a central figure in the Russian Constructivist art movement; a radical activist, a pioneer of photomontage, a theorist, and a teacher. He was an active force in the organization of the first museums of modern art that arose in Russia in the first years after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Attending art school in 1914 in Kazan was to be a defining influence: that year Russian Futurists performed in the town, and Rodchenko saw their leading figures in action. It transformed his vision and he was still working with Futurist artists and their ideas twenty-five years later. And it was at art school where Rodchenko first met the artist Varvara Stepanova, with whom he collaborated extensively, and who would become his life-long partner. Central in the re-examination of art and its place in society after the Revolution, and in the search for a new culture without the class implications of the past, Rodchenko's radical approach proposed a new understanding of a constructed, rather than a tastefully composed, culture. This concise, comprehensive and informative work focuses largely on Rodchenko's graphic work in the form of book jackets, posters and advertising. Abbemuseumr is Visiting Professor at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Tutor, painter, writer, and exhibition organizer, John Milner specialises in nineteenth and twentieth century art in France and in Russia. He is currently preparing a re-presentation of the extensive collection of works by El Lissitzky at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands. He has lectured at the National Gallery, Tate, and Royal Academy of Arts in London, at the Henry Moore Institute, and at many other universities and museums.

Iain R Webb's 'Postcards from the Edge of the Catwalk' is a personal photographic portfolio spanning three decades that documents the glittering brouhaha surrounding the ready-to-wear and haute couture fashion collections in New York, London, Milan and Paris. The photographs, snapped by the award-winning fashion journalist from the insider vantage point of his front row seat and invite-only parties, capture a world of show-stopping creativity and inspirational individual style. Features supermodels and style icons that include Linda Evangelista, Catherine Deneuve, Isabella Blow, Naomi Campbell, Natalia Vodianova, Erin O'Connor, Kate Moss, Anna Piaggi, Anna Wintour, Shalom Harlow and Bjork. Celebrity front row faces include Gwyneth Paltrow, Grace Jones, George Michael, Kate Winslet, Sean Combs, Liz Hurley, Tilda Swinton, Paris Hilton, Bernadette Peters, Nick Cave, Ivana Trump, Roman Polanski and RuPaul.

The photographs in this book reflect Bob Tabor's unique intimacy with horses. Each portrait combines the inner strength, spirit and gentle power of nature's most beautiful athlete. Only natural light is used to illuminate every muscle, every hair, every sinew, as Bob's aim was to meet his subjects on their own terms. In turn, his subjects have allowed him to capture their very souls; he's given the horses a voice and allowed them to speak for themselves.

El (Eleazar) Lissitzky (1890-1941) was a vital force in the revolutionary period in Russia. Having first trained in engineering and architecture and later becoming a painter and illustrator, his creative activity ranged across disciplines. This he called 'the interchange station between painting and architecture', and it made him enormously influential — as a painter, graphic designer, teacher, propagandist, exhibition designer, and also as an architectural theorist. Lissitzky had studied in Germany before the Russian Revolution, and after it he became a vital link between Soviet culture and Western art groups, travelling officially to present Soviet art in the West, but at the same time contacting many leading figures in Western art, including the De Stilj group in Holland, Dadaists in Switzerland and Germany, and artists and designers at the Bauhaus, as well as architects with international aims. He was a tireless creative force, and a determined traveller who brought many collaborative projects to a fruitful conclusion that involved connections across the political East-West division of Europe. Yet this determined and dynamic man suffered grievously from tuberculosis. From the sanatorium he still sent witty letters and drawings to his wife Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers in Russia. In his last year he turned his abilities to designing Soviet trade fairs and, briefly, to propagandist war posters.

Traces the development of Follies in Western Europe from the Baroque to the I.M. Pei Pyramid near Marlborough.

'John Bates came onto the London Fashion scene like a bolt of blue light, trailing sparks of excitement, designing the shortest skirts, the swiftest shapes, the surest colours. He had an unswerving instinct for what was new, modern, cutting edge' — Marit Allen. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, John Bates dominated the British fashion scene with a unique brand of style and innovation. No other designer had such a comprehensive influence on what the UK wore. Diana Rigg wore his designs in The Avengers , and the press went wild.Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield sang in them; Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and Penelope Tree modelled; David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Helmut Newton photographed. At every level, from shop girl to pop star, debutante and banker's wife, his label Jean Varon offered a must-have dress for a party, short or long, empire line or mini. He gave fashion-conscious women the chance to wear dresses featured extensively in the pages of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, and Queen Magazine and bridged the gap between High Street retailing and couture like no other. Richard Lester's text is based on detailed interviews with John Bates, covering his entire career in fashion. In addition the book features contributions from Felicity Green, Deidre McSharry, Brigid Keenan, Barbara Griggs, Sian Phillips and other key figures from the fashion industry, cultural scene and media of the time.

The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851 was the first of a series of international exhibitions that have continued, in one form or another, to the present day. The content of these exhibitions gave nations and individual companies of the world the opportunity to display their specialised skills and present new ideas and products to a much wider public. In this book, Jonathan Meyer looks at major international exhibitions held during the nineteenth century and focuses on the important changes taking place at this time, in both society and design. He examines the enormous impact of the Industrial Revolution and how it came to influence the decorative arts, through changes in machinery and scientific methods. This book contains a wide-ranging and striking collection of illustrations, mostly from contemporary sources, providing the reader with a very good idea of the exceptionally high quality of inventiveness and workmanship displayed by the manufacturers and their exhibits.

Southwold is a nostalgic place where childhood memories are made from sunny holidays beside the sea, coloured beach huts lining the shore and the delicate pier straddling the waves of the North Sea. To some it is nothing short of an earthly paradise — indeed it was Southwold that inspired William Morris to write his epic poem «The Earthly Paradise». «Southwold — An Earthly Paradise» is a collection of vividly written essays that take the reader through the evolution of the town from a mediaeval fishing community, prosperous enough to build a magnificent church, to its modern identity as a popular, yet unspoilt, holiday town. However its history is a troubled one. The sea, despite its changing moods has been the only constant in a past in which fire, famine and plague have devastated the town. A rich treasure of silver and silver gilt lies on the bottom of the coast of Southwold. It is a reminder of one of the fiercest fights in British history. The Battle of Sole Bay was fought against the Dutch in 1672 and the bloody confrontation is fully described and illustrated with contemporary paintings and drawings. The greatest genius of English literature, William Shakespeare heads an extraordinary cast of writers to have visited Southwold, including Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, Walter de la Mare, George Orwell, P. D. James and Esther Freud. J. M. W. Turner, one of Britain's most celebrated artists, is known to have visited Southwold on many occasions and Geoffrey Munn has, for the first time, identified a number of drawings of Southwold by Turner. Whistler, Sickert, Wilson Steer, Spencer, and Damien Hirst have all followed in Turner's footsteps. The text is lavishly illustrated with their work and all the 160 plates are in colour.

British flower painting has its own unique, if relatively recent, history, but it can only be judged in the light of the wider history of the subject and by comparison with other, particularly European, countries. The first chapter of «A History and Dictionary of British Flower Painters», therefore, sets the scene with a brief introduction to floral art world wide before the next four chapters concentrate on British flower painting in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over ninety colour plates illustrate these five chapters. The Dictionary gives the biographical details of more than 970 British flower painters from 1650-1950 including their specialities, awards, exhibitions an bibliographical details. The work of many is illustrated in black and white.

The English House reviews the changes in style that can be seen in domestic architecture in England from Norman times to the present day. Written for the interested layman rather than only for the architectural historian, it is how the house and its rooms were used and the way in which owners past and present lived in these properties which is the main subject of this book. The book is divided into fifteen chapters by date from 1000 to 2000 AD. Within each period the main characteristics of the houses are analysed and examples discussed and illustrated, concentrating both on well-known and less familiar structures. Starting with Norman houses, an introduction describes how the rooms in such houses were used and embellished and this is followed by a chapter dealing with early mediaeval buildings, showing how local variations can be recognised. The third chapter deals with the high mediaeval period and is followed by Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean houses. A chapter is devoted to the Carolean peri.

Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910) is one of the most neglected figures in late nineteenth-century design. In exploring Day's dual career as an industrial designer of extraordinary range and versatility and a major writer and critic, this well-illustrated book restores his place among the influential figures of his time. Day's relationships with colleagues William Morris, Walter Crane, W.A.S. Benson and others situated him in the vortex of developments of design in Britain. Design historian Joan Maria Hansen examines Day's work as a prolific industrial designer whose mastery of pattern, colour, ornament and superb draftsmanship resulted in tiles and art pottery, clocks and furniture, wallpapers, textiles, stained glass, and interiors of remarkable diversity and beauty. Day embraced modern technology. His views on the role of the designer for industry, along with his unshakable belief that a marriage of design and industrial processes was essential to produce beautiful furnishings for the majority of people, reveal him to be startlingly modern in his attitudes and practice in the changing world of industrial production. Today collectors prize Lewis F. Day's clocks, furniture, tiles and art pottery, and books — which he both wrote and designed — and reproductions of his patterns for wallpapers and textiles are enjoyed by enthusiasts. Day's textbooks on design continue to influence designers, and his magazine journalism provides insightful and balanced commentary on developments in late nineteenth and early twentieth century design. This book — the very first full treatment of this major figure — is the definitive reference on Day's life and work and is an invaluable reference for collectors and dealers, decorative arts professionals, designers, business historians and enthusiasts of late nineteenth and early twentieth century design.

This is the first comprehensive book on Venetian mosaics of the nineteenth century. It illustrates work by both the Salviati Company and the Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company. A carefully researched work, Venetian Glass addresses the revival of the art of Venetian mosaic making in the mid-nineteenth century and discusses the complicity of both Antonio Salviati and Sir Austen Henry Layard in that revival. It is a comprehensive work, illustrating Salviati's earliest surviving mosaics, the 1860 mosaic decoration of the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore and continuing through his company's last commission, the Stanford Memorial Church in Palo Alto, California.The recovered art of Venetian mosaic in the late-nineteenth — and early twentieth-century is now seen as one of the most important aesthetic achievements of the Victorian-Edwardian era. Neglected and unappreciated for decades, surviving mosaics are being cleaned and restored worldwide. Whether highly visible monuments in major cities or small achievements of Venetian manufacturers are now treasured for the splendid masterpieces they are.

The ultimate pictorial reference work for both enthusiasts and collectors of Tiffany. There is a comprehensive index that cross references the firm's original model numbers to the illustrations.

Reviews the changes in style that can be seen in domestic architecture in England since Norman times. Written for the interested layman rather than only for the architectural historian, this book is about how the house and its rooms were used and the way in which owners lived in these properties which is the main burden of the argument.