SKIRA

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1528/30-1569) is one of the best-loved artists in the history of Western art. Famous for having elevated the status of landscape painting until it became a virtually independent genre, he is also considered to be the greatest 16th-century Flemish master of scenes from ordinary life. This volume presents the collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder belonging to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. It features 12 world-famous masterpieces: The Tower of Babel, Peasant Wedding, Peasant Dance, Hunters in the Snow, Children's Games, The Fight Between Carneval and Lent, The Procession to Calvary, The Gloomy Day, The Return of the Herd, The Peasant and the Nest Robber, The Conversion of St Paul and Suicide of Saul.

Skira Mini ARTbooks is a pocket-sized series, conveniently priced, very practical and with lots of images dedicated to single international artists, artistic movements and painting genres. It is published on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio death, the turbulent life and revolutionary masterpieces of a genius: Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio. It offers a new and stimulating opportunity to penetrate the very essence of the terribly natural painter, his revolutionary and astonishing naturalistic criterion.

This title details a fully-fledged Skira Architecture house organ which presents the Skiras point of view on world architecture. It is published annually, only in English, with a very heavy emphasis on the graphic side: from June to June (summer solstice); on sale date: October.The Yearbook includes — Wall paper: a number of double-page spreads featuring about a hundred of the most interesting projects built or designed during the year; Editorial: an essay with a systematic presentation of all news items, problems and key characters; Projects: a selection of 25/30 projects, themes, outstanding people or towns which have displayed significant content or results over the year (each project is sumptuously illustrated and includes a critique by a well-known figure or an interview with the designers); Tools: Index of the Index — a selection of the worlds top architectural journals annual indexes, of international exhibitions and events, of interesting websites, and details about the designers and the institutions mentioned; And, work in progress: a few pictures of major, ongoing projects as a teaser for the next issue.

A catalogue that tries to reveal Warhols personal view on different themes and refines our concept of not only the artist, but of the times in which he lived as well. In appreciating Andy Warhols body of work, one is constantly awed by its sheer volume there is always something new to see. This catalogue comes a step closer to defining the prodigious pop artists legacy. It illuminates Warhols personal connection and engagement with themes such as icons, consumer society, politics, religion, and the self, trying to reveal the autobiographical aspect, the artist in first person behind the pictorial plane, the subjectivity behind the machine.

This monograph charts Ruff s entire career including early photographs and works from all his major projects. Thomas Ruff is one of the best-known and most influential german photographers working today. Ever since the early 1980s, through his works he has investigated the photographic medium, the use that is made of it and the world of contemporary visual culture generally. This volume brings together and comments upon an important selection of over 84 photographic works on the most diverse subjects: house interiors, portraits, architectures, starry skies, nocturnal urban views, along with the recent nudes taken from websites and other images from the Internet, with particular attention to his most recent works, and to the artists relationship with the visual production of the digital era generally.

An essential tool for a deeper understanding of the multifaceted reality of Asian visual arts. A true catalogue raisonné, Contemporary Photography from the Far East presents the works of twenty-one of Asias most important contemporary artists who have made their mark on the international contemporary art scene in the fields of photography, video and film. It features works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Yang Fudong, Cao Fei, Kimsooja, Nobuyoshi Araki, Yasumasa Morimura, Daido Moriyama, Tabaimo, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Ai Weiwei, among others, accompanied by in-depth biographies and artists statements and introduced by critical essays by Filippo Maggia and Taro Amano, Chief Curator at Yokohama Museum of Art.

Novembre is a solo voice in today’s chorus of minimalism. He creates interiors, furniture, designs, and installations by «mixing old and new materials, setting the time zone between Byzantium and Blade Runner.» This book is a comprehensive survey of his designs to date.

George Grosz (1893–1959) was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group. He was born Georg Ehrenfried Groß in Berlin, but changed his name in 1916 out of a romantic enthusiasm for America. Anti-Nazi, Grosz left Germany in 1932, and in 1933 was invited to teach at the Art Students League of New York, where he would teach intermittently until 1955. Over 500 illustrations, drawings, and paintings in this book document the entire output of the artist’s German and American years, including drawings spanning from when the artist was the age of fifteen to his paintings made during his U.S. period. Also included are sketches of stage designs he created between 1919–1954 for theatre pieces by Bernard Shaw, Iwan Goll, Georg Kaiser, Paul Zech, and Jaroslav Kaek, as well as numerous collages. The volume is complete with unpublished photographs from the painter’s private life and two essays by Enrico Crispolti and Philippe Dagen.

Mass culture, popular taste, and kitsch were the inspiration for and provocative themes of pop art, a movement that enjoyed great prominence in the late 1950s and 1960s. This super-condensed book shows the development of pop art, from its roots to its rise in popularity as an art form that celebrated the glamour and hedonism of the newly commercialized Western world.

This supercondensed monograph looks at the paintings of Modigliani, known for his stylized portraits with tapering necks, from his debut in Italy to his time in Paris, as well as how the artist was able to merge the heritage of his country with the ideas of the artistic avant-garde and African art.

This book on the art of the twentieth century is published almost ten years after the end of the so-called «short century»—which, in terms of art, was anything but short—and is a valuable tool for reflection. The author has placed a series of works in sequence, accompanied by easy to understand critical commentary. With concise introductions devoted to every significant art movement and more than 400 color illustrations, this volume enables the reader to become familiar with the fascinating and complex world of contemporary art from futurism to pop-art, dada to conceptual. Presented are some of the most famous artists of the twentieth-century—from Arp to Brancusi, Bacon to Basquiat, Gris to Koons, Gaudi to Schnabel, Warhol to Grant Wood—and their greatest masterworks—never before have they been so accessible as they are in this format.

During the 1870s and 1880s, a group of French artists, including Pissarro, Monet, and Renoir, adopted a style of painting and subjects that challenged the art of the Academie Francaise where «official» assumptions about the meaning of painting prevailed. This compact, well-priced survey of the movement features sixty reproductions of some of the most renowned works, and a highly readable introductory text.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989), painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. This pocket-size book tells the history of his art and life, from his early experiments to his great masterpieces, on the twentieth anniversary of his death.

Botero is one of the most popular artists alive today and is exhibited in countless institutions throughout the world. He gained international fame painting corpulent and comical figures who embody the sometimes whimsical tragedy of life. Botero imbues his monumental figures with an overabundant sensuality that reveals a gluttony of human truth from torture to greed, pleasure to despair, absurdity, impassivity, and more. Botero had his first solo exhibit at the early age of nineteen and, by twenty, had been awarded second prize at the National Salon in Bogota. He spent time traveling to study the work of the old masters eventually reinterpreting classic paintings in his gargantuan style.

Art critic, historian, writer, TV presenter, politician and professional provocateur, Vittorio Sgarbi is a prominent figure in Italy's cultural landscape. Controversial, often caustic, and always charismatic, his thought-provoking opinions and writings leave no room for indifference. In this highly readable and well-informed book, Sgarbi covers the life and works of Caravaggio, analyzing the genius's disordered and adventurous existence and the revolutionary greatness of his masterpieces. As Vittorio Sgarbi writes in the book: «The life and work of an artist always end up looking alike; but in Caravaggio's life there was a sense of fun, an enjoyment of burlesque and a lack of propriety that is not reflected even in his in most daring works. In Caravaggio, we had the cohabitation of a sophisticated, intellectual capable of imprinting an ideal turning point in the course of history and the principal character of an adventure story-quarrelsome, overbearing, cursed-as he was portrayed in romantic interpretations. On the other hand, his intemperance cannot be ascribed to the spirit of the times; behavior that we would call extravagant today was instead common in such violent and difficult times. The true greatness of Caravaggio lay in his having shown the other, and indeed authentic side of reality. But these are external elements, psychological reflections that pass from life into art».

A revolutionary movement, founded in 1924 by André Breton, dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams. The surrealist circle was made up of many great artists, including Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joan Miró, René Magritte, and Salvador Dalí.

In this book Francesca Alfano Miglietti offers a collection of everything that has created scandal, enthusiasm, excitement and a sense of participation in fashion, and examines the construction and de-construction of our bodies and our identities, beginning with what we wear and the relationship our clothes have with all that is contemporary. In 44 interviews, previously published in the Italian art magazine Virus, designers and photographers define their concept of fashion. The simple yet extravagant style of Ann Demeulemeester, the multiethnic contaminations of Romeo Gigli, the nihilist and aggressive look of Alexander McQueen, the erotic and ironic play of Anna Molinari, the irreverence and unpredictability of Jean-Paul Gaultier, the audacity of the queen of fashion Vivienne Westwood, and more are discussed and illustrated in this highly-readable and visually delightful book.

Architect and photographer Francesco jodice's artistic research deals with the relations between social behaviour and the transformation of the contemporary urban landscape.

One of the most eclectic, celebrated and influential figures of the second half of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol is an emblem of American culture of the sixties and seventies. The Andy Warhol Show sheds light not only on the revolutionary role that Warhol played in art but also his influence on graphic design, communication and fashion. Introduced by the editors Gianni Mercurio and Daniela Morera, the exhibition catalogue includes new essays by Bruno Bischofberger, Victor Bokris, Ronald Feldman, Glenn ‘O Brien and a critical essay by Demetrio Paparoni. The main nucleus of works reproduced in this striking catalogue is impressive: in addition to the 200 paintings which span his entire career, the book showcases a rich collection of photographs, graphic works and drawings, including Warhol’s early illustrations for fashion magazines. The fundamental themes of the Warhol aesthetic can be seen here in some of their most representative examples: the beauty-success-power myth (portraits of Marilyn, Liz Taylor, Elvis Presley, Jaqueline Kennedy, Mao); consumerism (Campbell’s Soup, Brillo Box, Dollar Sign); advertising, serial repetition of an image, the tragic symbols of catastrophe and death (Suicide, Electric Chair); portraits of artists, dealers, friends such as Leo Castelli, Keith Haring, Dennis Hopper; the passage through abstract art (Camouflage, Shadows); collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente; and The Last Supper, Warhol’s final series of works.

Trompe-l'oeil, a French term meaning to trick, the eye, describes a painting that deceives the spectator into thinking that the objects in it are real, not merely represented. To successfully fool the eye of the viewer, trompe-l'oeil artists choose objects, situations and compositional devices using as little depth as possible. A heightened form of illusionism, the art of trompe-l'oeil flourished from the Renaissance onward. The discovery of perspective in fifteenth-century Italy and advancements in the science of optics in the seventeenth-century Netherlands enabled artists to render objects and spaces with eye-fooling exactitude. Both witty and serious, trompe-l'oeil is a game artists play with spectators to raise questions about the nature of art and perception.

NPI (New Photography In) is the title of a series dedicated to new emerging photographers at an international level, all of whom are well-known artists between the ages of thirty and forty. Each volume in The New Photography In series is dedicated to emerging young photographers from different countries throughout the world. The first title of this series, New Photography in Britain is dedicated to seventeen emerging English photographers. This publication was created in collaboration with the Royal College of Art in London and explores three main topics: the artist world, their personal feelings towards their world, and their relationship with the world around them. The artists included in this book many of whom have shown their work in important galleries such as Victoria Miro or Maureen Paley, as well as in the collections of the Saatchi Gallery and the Tate Modernare. Artists include Lucy Levene, Lisa Castagner, Sarah Pickering, Anne Hardy, Esther Teichmann, Gareth McConnell, Melissa Moore, Suzanne Mooney, Harold Offeh, Sophie Rickett, Annabel Elgar, Danny Treacy, Kirk Palmer, Becky Beasley, Bianca Brunner, Simon Cunningham, and Heiko Tieman.

Many of the architects responsible for modern-day Rome — such as Hadid, Fuksas, Baldeweg, and Meier — have reached international stature. Many contemporary Italian architects — such as King Roselli, Labics, and IaN+ — use Rome as a lab for testing their ideas. While some might note the weakness of the residential sector in attracting architectural quality, it is hard to escape the growing attention paid to public spaces and infrastructures. This volume surveys Rome's varied architectural landscape and contains over forty projects and a map, demonstrating how the geography of the city is evolving, and how quality can be found both in the center and on the edge of town.

A fascinating analysis of the styles, techniques, and subjects in which de La Tour worked introduces the master of the nocturnes to a general audience. Georges de La Tour played a particular role in the history of art. Although today he is recognized as one of the most celebrated and beloved French painters, after his death in 1652 he sank into complete oblivion. Three centuries had to pass before historians rediscovered him. Then, little by little, from 1915 onwards, scholars reconstructed his works, his career, and his life. Starting out from an analysis of two of the artist's masterpieces, St. Joseph the Carpenter and The Adoration of the Shepherds, and through a series of well illustrated and accessible essays, rich in information and historical references, some of the greatest international historians and art historians cover almost his entire output, models, and sources of inspiration, as well as his iconography and technique.

The myths and legends of Saint Petersburg come to life in this spectacular book that recounts the story of the city's first century in existence, from Peter I's decision to build a port on the inhospitable shores of the Neva in 1703 to the death of Catherine II in 1796. Featuring over one hundred and sixty objects and works of art — religious art, paintings, tapestries, porcelain, furniture, ceremonial regalia, jewelry and costumes, tableware, as well as sculpture, sketches, plans and models of the city, and more — from the prestigious collections in the Hermitage Museum and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. The book offers a fascinating panorama retracing the imperial splendour of a city that is a legend and focuses on four major themes of Imperial Russia: Holy Mother Russia and the religious context into which Peter I was born. Peter the Great, man of science, who introduced into Russia a large number of scientific instruments featured in the volume. Saint Petersburg: having founded a town that was to be just a port, Peter transformed it into his capital, regulating its construction and planning. Plans, models, sketches, drawings, engravings and paintings tell the story of this masterly creation. Catherine II, woman of the Enlightenment came to the throne in 1762. Paintings, engravings and watercolours in luminescent shades illustrate the final transformations of Saint Petersburg during her reign, the splendour of life at court, and her extraordinary collection.