Rizzoli (RCS MediaGroup)

The recipient of the 1998 Turner Prize, Chris Ofili is one of the most important artists working today. Ofili began to garner attention in the mid-1990s with his intricately constructed works that combine beadlike dots of paint, collaged images from the popular media, and natural, if unusual, materials such as elephant dung. Ofili created a unique iconography that married African artistic and ritual practices with Western art-historical traditions and contemporary hip-hop culture. Throughout his career, Ofili has explored themes of race, birth, death, seduction, and salvation on both a religious and a personal level. His most recent body of work employs Trinidadian myth and folk traditions to reinterpret age-old Christian beliefs. This extraordinary book is the first to examine the full scope of Ofili's artistic development over the last two decades. Extending beyond his painterly practice, the book surveys Ofili's work in watercolor, graphite drawing, and sculpture. Literary and historical parallels from contributors David Adjaye, Thelma Golden, and Okwui Enwezor explore the ways through which the artist has grasped his times with a palpable sense of history and intellectual curiosity.

The paintings of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) have come to be regarded as representative of the birth of a pictorial style whose originality and form would eventually lead to a profound new painting aesthetic that brought together human, personal, and natural elements. Largely influenced by Camille Pissarro, this unique and independent painter sought to examine his love of nature which he shared with his impressionist colleagues, with his desire to explore his surroundings through form, passionate use of color, and a measured brushstroke. Reproduced in this illustrated volume is a large selection of Cezanne's groundbreaking masterpieces, as well as depictions of subjects he was most fond of painting.

A leading member of the impressionist movement, Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) exhibited regularly at the annual Salons, where he strove to enliven an establishment that had become stodgy with academic and history painting. Renoir's paintings of Parisians engaging in leisurely pasttimes, enjoying their dejeuner under a pergola or beside the Seine at an open-air cafe, sailing, swimming, picnicking, and dancing at one of the many halls in towns outside of the city, are imbued with a sense of conviviality and joie de vivre that was wholly new to the Salons. Renoir was enchanted by his subjects: whether friends, lovers, patrons, collectors, or family members, his portraits are characterized by gesture, expression, and a soft palette full of light, conveying a sense of pleasure in observation and always the charm of the individual portrayed. Brought together here are some of this prodigious artist's most significant canvases, including the luminous Le Moulin de la Galette, Luncheon of the Boating Party, and La Grenouillere.

Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) is deservedly the most famous creator of the stunning gold, silver, and jewel-studded treasures of imperial Russia. Perhaps because of the popularity of his Easter eggs, Fabergé’s skilled competitors have been largely overlooked. Fabergé and the Russian Master Goldsmiths tells their story and features their masterpieces as well as Fabergé’s. Today, the creations of the Russian master goldsmiths are dispersed throughout the world. A broad sampling of masterpieces from the great Russian collections, as well as from private and public collections, are depicted here in nearly 300 full-color illustrations, a number of which are published here for the first time.

Jeffrey Bilhuber returns with a second book after Design Basics, his successful debut volume. In a lavish new format, the media-savvy designer for tastemakers and celebrities presents his most recent projects from coast to coast. Bilhuber views luxury as essential to every life well-lived, a way of appreciating and sharing our joy in existence, not the exclusive purview of the few. The designer encourages the reader to seek, aspire, and revel in luxury at home, however simple or adorned: from the embrace of the perfectly tufted reading chair to an heirloom vase cradling freshly cut garden roses to a dazzling chandelier that makes light dance. In seven chapters filled with charming anecdotes and lovely observations, the designer—whom Hamish Bowles has likened to a twenty-first century Billy Baldwin—explores the idea of luxury as life’s abundance reflected in a home’s varied elements: Discovery, Passion, History, Ornament, Grace, Comfort, and Delight. Each project discussed evokes the many qualities of a distinctively American luxury practically expressed and fully enjoyed at home: beauty, family, refinement, and hospitality. Within these, the reader gleans insight from Bilhuber’s inimitable style and learns that luxury is about cultivating a state of mind as much as it is about the objects with which we surround ourselves.

The French have a legendary sense of style that is synonymous with a joyous, sophisticated way of life, joie de vivre. Elegant and witty, French chic — a clever mix of classic and contemporary — sums up de Dampierre’s design sensibility. Using Edith Wharton’s The Decoration of Houses as a model, she provides advice on how to achieve this distinctive look. The fascinating French decorative history of such architectural elements as windows, fireplaces, and doors, along with basic design principles, is given to provide the origins of the essence of chic. Stunning photography of her home — from the striking entrance hallway with its leopard-pattern carpeted staircase to the sensual master bedroom enlivened with charming toile wallpaper and the resplendent gardens dotted with topiaries — captures the designer’s personal invocations of the best of French chic and empowers the reader to duplicate the experience at home. French Chic is the perfect guide for creating vibrant living spaces with flair.

Country living evokes bucolic landscapes and picturesque villages—rolling Connecticut countryside, verdant farmland, the sun-drenched hills of Malibu—and the architecture that echoes these idyllic settings. These houses, ranging from family estates to weekend retreats, are the personal homes of decorators and tastemakers, including Jonathan Adler, Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, and Steven Gambrel. The properties exemplify varied design perspectives and provide fresh ideas about how country living is ideal for creative expression. This inspiring medley ranges from Tony Duquette’s exotic pavilion-style California home to a charming New York Victorian, a modernist Palm Springs desert getaway by Neutra, a nineteenth-century Gothic cottage on Shelter Island, and an eighteenth-century Connecticut house. Along with design ideas for interiors, the book also covers the garden and pool areas. Since outdoor entertaining is an integral part of country living, a section devoted to tabletop display is included. These beautifully photographed inspirations encourage the reader to explore the design opportunities in the country guided by the best interior designers.

Frank Lloyd Wright presents a stunning overview of the work of this towering American genius, encompassing the entirety of Wright’s long and extraordinarily prolific career. From his earliest work, such as the Home and Studio in Oak Park, IL, of 1889, to the wonderfully evocative textile block houses of Los Angeles of the mid-1920s, to such seminal masterpieces as Fallingwater, of 1935, in the Pennsylvania wilderness, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, of 1956, in New York, the book offers an extraordinarily abundant trove of architectural riches. Featuring more than a hundred discrete works, from the well known to the obscure, expertly discussed in the text of highly respected Wright scholar Kathryn Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright weaves a gorgeous tapestry that will engage the mind and delight the eye.

The glamour and excitement of the world of haute jewelry is beautifully explored in the inaugural edition of Jewelry International.

Creating your dream house — a prospect as exciting as it is daunting. Michael Smith, a favorite among celebrity clientele, reveals the method of his design magic. Offering thoughtful ideas and practical advice, the designer walks the reader through his process, from the gathering of resource material (from magazines and iconic films to something as simple as a shell or a swatch of vintage fabric), expertly pairing simpler and grander elements (or inexpensive with more extravagant objects), perfecting the editing process, to knowing when a room is finished. Detailing the nearly encyclopedic range of styles he culls from to create his signature style, the designer describes recent examples of his work, beginning with a modest and quirkily designed house in Bel Air, Smith redid for himself. Razed, rebuilt, and decorated over the course of five years, the house allowed Smith to experiment and explore ideas freely and the result is a gracious home, as welcoming as it is stylish. In addition to his California residence, twenty other projects are featured, from a New England clapboard to a Malibu villa overlooking the Pacific to a city townhouse. In each, Smith deconstructs the elements which come together to make the ideal home.

The fifth entry in the Morphosis series presents the recent work of Pritzker Prize-winning Thom Maynes multifaceted firm, featuring a large body of built work published here for the first time.

With “McMansions” increasingly giving way to “tiny” houses, the desire to downsize and be more ecologically and economically prudent is a concept many are beginning to embrace. Focusing on dwelling spaces all under 1,000 square feet, TINY HOUSES (Rizzoli, April 2009) by Mimi Zeiger aims to challenge readers to take a look at their own homes and consider how much space they actively use. Ranging from tree houses to floating houses, TINY HOUSES features an international collection of over thirty modular and prefab homes, each one embodying “microgreen living”, defined as the creation of tiny homes where people challenge themselves to live “greener” lives. By using a thoughtful application of green living principles, renewable resources for construction, and clever ingenuity, these homes exemplify sustainable living at its best.

America's Next Top Model is a runaway runway series and must-see television for millions of teens and tweens. Young women of various backgrounds, shapes, and sizes are mentored by today's top fashion stylists and industry experts. With chapters that focus on beauty, health, and education, and filled with tips on hair, makeup, nutrition, and fashion dos and dont's, this is the first and only book that empowers girls to be themselves while pursuing their dreams. Girls will learn the fits that work for their body type, how to take calculated risks with their style, and how to take advantage of their natural qualities. By instructing readers on how to highlight and enhance their own individual features, America's Next Top Model: Fierce Guide to Life also serves as a resource on how to use those assets to become a successful model, including the right way to find an agent, how to put together a winning portfolio, and designers and photographers everyone should know. America's Next Top Model is seen, in its original and localized versions, in more than 120 countries. Published to coincide with Cycle 12 of the show, this is the perfect book for anyone who dreams of being a supermodel.

This ambitious book examines in great depth the English country house, including Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Georgian, Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian houses. The book covers all aspects of country living and includes famous estates by Vanbrugh, Lutyens, and Adam, as well as smaller, classically English houses and cottages, each a jewel of its period. More than four hundred color and black-and-white photographs from the incomparable archive of Country Life magazine showcase the architectural glory of the English country house. Exterior, interior, detail, and landscape photographs capture the splendor of the homes and their exquisite decoration. Interspersed throughout this handsome book are booklets printed on rich, uncoated paper, with essays from England's foremost architectural historians. In these essays, the reader discovers the history of the social use of the country house, its interiors, its gardens and ancillary buildings, its collections, and the influence of English country house styles in the U.S.

Frank Lloyd Wright's wife, Olgivanna, is famously quoted as saying that My husband seemed to thrive on hardships. From the years 1920 to 1932 Wright's fortunes were at a low ebb; he was plagued by financial, personal, and professional setbacks, but saw the time as one of challenges instead of one of defeat. Unable to find patrons, his imagination led to visionary, often splendid, architectural conceptions that laid the groundwork for the revolutionary architecture he would build in the decades to follow. During this period he designed almost fifty projects, of which only a few were realized, but those few are seen today as among his most important creations. They include the majestic Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, four exquisite textured concrete block houses in Los Angeles, renovations and additions to his beloved home, Taliesin, in Wisconsin, the Octillo Desert Camp in Chandler, Arizona, and his work as design consultant for the lavish Arizona Biltmore Hotel and Cottages in the desert in Phoenix. Rare and unseen photos as well as little-known drawings from this period are on lavish display in this important work on the master architect.

Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward features a lifetime of achievement by this titan of American architecture through newly commissioned contemporary photography, archival photography, and wonderfully detailed drawings of more than 200 projects, including such masterworks as the S. C. Johnson & Sons Administration Building in Wisconsin, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Taliesin West, Wright's desert home in Arizona, as well as less-known projects designed for Baghdad, Iraq, and beyond. The book is richly accompanied by authoritative text from some of the most important Frank Lloyd Wright scholars and writers at work today, and presents a timely reevaluation of the work and life of Frank Lloyd Wright within the context of social spaces, in the spirit of the exhibition.

The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles is a celebration of the design history and craftsmanship behind this simple but efficient two-wheeled vehicle. Featuring fifty classic models built by hand, this book unveils the bicycle's technical evolution within a historical context. Beautifully detailed are early-twentieth-century models with multi-gear systems, mid-century machines where war and postwar economy challenged craft and utility, as well as modern and contemporary bicycles. Featured artisans and brands include La Gauloise, Reyhand, Schulz, Barra, Alex Singer, and Rene Herse. With brilliant full-color images of each model and chronological text detailing the craftsmanship that went into producing these elegant machines, this book will appeal to bicycle enthusiasts and to anyone interested in design.

Who has not dreamed of an idyllic house in the country? Rustic architecture is the expression of an aesthetic concerned primarily with the informal beauty of the natural world. Often set upon craggy peaks, on cliffs overlooking wild seas, beside calm riverbanks, or in the depths of old forests, houses in the Rustic Style engage the eye and rouse the poetic soul by means of picturesque siting, evocative landscaping, asymmetrical architectural compositions, and often wonderful vernacular detail that reveals evidence of handmade work, including uneven floor boards, sloping ceilings, rough-hewn and textured surfaces of plaster, stone, rubble, and wood. In Rustic, Bret Morgan illuminates this much-loved style, giving us the definitive volume on the subject. Comprehensive in scope, Rustic features historically important houses from across America, some small-scale, some larger, from the sublime Ames Gates Lodge of 1881 in North Easton, Massachusetts, designed by H. H. Richardson, to the Arcadian masterpiece Ridge House of 2001, in Spokane, Washington, by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen. A beautifully photographed and astutely written volume, Rustic is destined to become a much-cherished companion for those whose love of the woodlands is matched only by a love of home.

Following the runaway bestsellers This is New York and This is Paris, Universe is pleased to reissue another title from M. Sasek's beloved and nostalgic children's travel series. Like the other Sasek classics, This is Edinburgh is a facsimile edition of the original book that is still timely and current in every way. The stylish, charming illustrations, coupled with Sasek's witty, playful narrative, make the book a perfect souvenir that will delight both children and their parents, many of whom will remember it from their childhood. The brilliant, vibrant illustrations have been meticulously preserved, remaining true to his vision more than forty years later and, where applicable, facts have been updated for the twenty-first century, appearing on a This is... Today page at the back of the book. M. Sasek has captured the very spirit, pride, and grandeur of one of the noblest places on earth in This is Edinburgh, first published in 1961. Sasek is right at home in Scotland, with its famous sights, unique character, and iconic traditions of kilt and tartan, pipes and pipers, whisky and haggis.

Like the other Sasek classics, this is a facsimile edition of the original, first published in 1966. The illustrations have been meticulously preserved and the facts updated for the twenty-first century. The charming illustrations, coupled with Sasek's playful narrative, make perfect souvenirs that will delight both children and parents. This is Greece captures the flavor and tradition of the birthplace of Western civilization. There's Athens, with its spectacular views of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, temples, theaters, and marketplaces; architecture-renowned Corinth; Mycenae, inhabited since 3000 B.C.; Olympia, home of the gods; Delphi, famous for its legendary oracle; and the beautiful isles. There's also modern-day Greece, where life is lived on street corners, in squares, and at tables amid reminders of the past.

First published in 1961, This Is Venice presents indelible impressions of romantic, watery Venice, where under a brilliant blue sky Sasek the gondolier navigates the winding canals to visit such famous and glorious landmarks as the Palazzo Grassi, Piazza San Marco, Doges Palace, and the Accademia di Belle Arti. Full color.

Famous for the «bias cut», Madeleine Vionnet's sophisticated approach to couture remains a pervasive influence today. Eschewing artificial and restrictive padding and stiffening, she liberated the female form with designs that integrated movement and comfort into women's fashion. She also championed unusual fabrics that were luxurious and sensual yet simple and modernchiffon, silk, crepe de chine, gabardine, and satin. Her most revolutionary creationsthe handkerchief dress, cowl neck, and halter topcling to and seamlessly move with the wearer. Vionnet's principles of elegance, movement, architectural form, and timeless style continue to inform contemporary fashion. This lavishly illustrated book showcases Vionnet's daringly original designs worn by 80 internationally famous models photographed especially for this book alongside original patterns and archival images by such icons as Horst and Steichen.

One of the great pioneers of fashion photography, Norman Parkinson is famous for his sense of style and glamour. Heralded as one of the true innovators in his field, he pushed the boundaries of the day by bringing the model out of the studio and onto the street. He set the model against unusual and daring backdrops, such as the gritty working-class districts of London, and was a seminal influence on subsequent generations of fashion photogaphers. Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour is a lavish portrait of Parkinson's long career from the 1930s through the 1980s. In a unique collaboration with the Norman Parkinson archives in London, his iconic photographs for Vogue, Queen, and Harper's Bazaar are reproduced alongside a trove of previously unpublished fashion work. The classics of Parkinson's career are also shown here, providing the full breadth of his career. This exciting and definitive look into Parkinson's illustrious legacy is sure to rank among the most important publications on fashion and photography.

Stanford White (1853-1906), arguably the most celebrated American architect of his day, was the visionary genius of the illustrious architecture firm McKim, Mead & White. A defining figure of the Gilded Age, White lived an extravagant life, which ended prematurely in a sensational death. His celebrity as a result was such that perceptions of the man have to some degree distracted attention from an extraordinary body of work. Now, more than a century since his passing, the enduring quality of White's architectural legacy becomes ever more apparent as the circumstances of his life and death fade to the background. In acknowledgment of this legacy, Stanford White Architect comprehensively explores White's sumptuously rich oeuvre — from the residences he designed for himself and his wife, Bessie, both at Box Hill in Saint James, Long Island, and at Gramercy Park in New York; to the extraordinary and opulent houses he designed for others, such as Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Payne Whitney House in New York; to those works beyond the residential, including such masterpieces as Newport Casino Theatre in Rhode Island, the Century Association in New York, and the no longer standing Moorish fantasy cum pleasure pavilion Madison Square Garden. Stanford White Architect will serve for generations to come as a vivid testament to a resplendent life in architecture.