Taschen

This is the most decorative of diaries. Few artists have created canvases as dazzling as Gustav Klimt. Bring ornament and elegance to your diary planner with this stunning week-to-view spiral diary. Each calendar week features a fresh page for your appointments alongside a sumptuous reproduction from Klimt's repertoire of bejewelled beauties, floral details, and glistening patterns. TASCHEN's Spiral Diaries are beautiful to look at and a joy to use. Every week brings a new picture and a fresh page to fill with your life's events. Useful features include national holidays, year planners, and a lay-flat spiral binding. The title features: spiral-bound with matt PE cover; 53 calendar pages; 56 illustrations; and all international holidays.

About the Series: TASCHEN's Spiral Diaries are beautiful to look at and a joy to use. Every week brings a new picture and a fresh page to fill with your life's events. Useful features include national holidays, year planners, and a lay-flat spiral binding.

About the Series: TASCHEN's Wall Calendars feature 12 big and beautiful reproductions, an elegant layout for the days of the month, and all official holidays for your country.

The dream of a world of peace A world full of color, says Friedensreich Hundertwasser, is synonymous with paradise. With his demonstrations and actions, his manifestos for nature, for more human-oriented architecture and for the improvement of the quality of life and living conditions, Friedensreich Hundertwasser is one of the most fascinating artists of the 20th century. He became a symbolic figure, not only as a painter but also as an architect, ecologist and philosopher, in particular for all those who are searching for a life tuned to the natural and the human. This trade edition consists of the first volume of TASCHEN's limited edition Friedensreich Hundertwasser 1928-2000, and offers a complete presentation of Hundertwasser's work, personality and life, with detailed texts by Hundertwasser's longtime friend Wieland Schmied.

Rock on: From Elvis to Nirvana: the most important record covers in rock history Album art is indelibly linked to our collective musical memories; when you think of your favorite albums, you picture the covers. Many photographers, illustrators, and art directors have become celebrities from their album artworks the best examples of which will go down in history as permanent fixtures in popular culture. Paying tribute to this art form, Rock Covers brings you a compilation that includes 600 remarkable covers, from legendary to rare record releases. Artists as varied as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, The Cure, Iron Maiden, and Sonic Youth are all gathered together here in celebration of the covers that defined their albums. Each cover is accompanied by a fact sheet listing the art director, photographer/illustrator, year, label, and more. Two hundred special records that changed the course of history, for either the band, the artist, or the music genre, are specially highlighted with short descriptions. Five professionals who made and shaped the history of rock share insider information in featured interviews while 10 leading rock DJs seal the deal with top-10 favorite record playlists.

Life in the woods: Creative cabin architecture Ever since Henry David Thoreau's described his two years, two months, and two days of cabin existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a refuge dwelling has seduced the modern psyche. In the past decade, as our material existence and environmental footprint has grown exponentially, architects around the globe have become particularly interested in the possibilities of the minimal, low-impact, and isolated abode. This new TASCHEN title, combining insightful text, rich photography and bright, contemporary illustrations by Marie-Laure Cruschi, explores how this particular architectural type presents special opportunities for creative thinking. In eschewing excess, the cabin limits actual spatial intrusion to the bare essentials of living requirements, while in responding to its typically rustic setting, it foregrounds eco-friendly solutions. As such, the cabin comes to showcase some of the most inventive and forward-looking practice of contemporary architecture, with Renzo Piano, Terunobu Fujimori, Tom Kundig and many fresh young professionals all embracing such distilled sanctuary spaces. The cabins selected for this publication emphasize the variety of the genre, both in terms of usage and geography. From an artist studio on the Suffolk coast in England to eco-home huts in the Western Ghats region of India, this survey is as exciting in its international reach as it is in its array of briefs, clients, and situations. Constant throughout, however, is architectural innovation, and an inspiring sense of contemplation and coexistence as people return to nature and to a less destructive model of being in the world.

The deftness of da Vinci: The drawings of Art History's master genius One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci remains the quintessential Renaissance genius. Creator of the world s most famous paintings, this scientist, artist, philosopher, inventor, builder, and mechanic epitomized the great flowering of human consciousness that marks his era. Leonardo da Vinci The Graphic Work features top quality reproductions of 663 of Leonardo's drawings, from anatomical studies to architectural plans, from complex engineering designs to pudgy infant portraits. All of the drawings, more than half of which were provided by the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, are presented in full-page format. Delve in and delight in the delicate finesse of one of the most talented minds, and hands, in history.

A glimpse through the keyhole of history: From the earliest nude daguerrotypes to experimental nude photography The history of nude photography is the history of people s fascination with the topic. Indeed, the photographic depiction of the human body is the only subject that has enthralled photographers, theoreticians and consumers over such a long period more than 150 years. No other motif is as prevalent as this one during all the phases of development comprising the history of photography, no other is present, whatever the technique, and is a subject of discussion within the context of nearly all aesthetic movements. Nor has any other pictorial topic produced such a variety of specialities as the nude: from the ethnological interpretation of the body to the glamour shot, from nudist photography to the pin-up of today. No other photographic field of application has inspired as much desire as it has awakened official wrath. 1000 Nudes offers a cross-section of the history of nude photography, ranging from the earliest nude daguerrotypes and ethnographic nude photographs to experimental nude photography. The period of time spanned by this work is from 1839 to roughly 1939, from the medium s infancy to the end of the classic modernist period. Content-wise, the book pays tribute to the full range of pictorial approaches, from the manually elaborated artistic nudes of the turn of the century, enveloped in layers of theory, to the obscene postcard motifs which had not the slightest artistic pretension and were intended to exert a maximum effect on the buyer s wallet. All the pictures shown are taken from the late Uwe Scheid s collection, which was one of the world s largest and most important collections of erotic photography.

Winsor McCay (1869-1934) was one of the key figures in the American entertainment industry at the beginning of the 20th century. As a comic artist, his influence was inestimable: he set standards in narrative technique, panel layout, and graphic refinement that still apply today. His virtuoso play with perspective, color, and narrative levels influenced many artists after him and, over the years, has lost none of its appeal. He was also one of the most important trailblazers in animated film: beginning in 1911 — one and a half decades before Walt Disney — McCay defined standards for animated films that would remain relevant for decades to come. Additionally, he toured the United States with his own stage show, in which he combined reality and illustrated fiction for vaudeville audiences in an astonishing way. Though McCay was a master of illusion, he never shied away from revealing the hidden mechanics behind the magic to his audience. TASCHEN's sumptuous Winsor McCay: The Complete Little Nemo 1905-1927 collects, for the very first time, all 550 episodes of Little Nemo in Slumberland — the iconic comic strip in which a little boy's fantastic and surreal dreams come to life — in full, glorious color and in the original large format in which they first appeared in the comic supplements of the major American Sunday newspapers. In his extensive accompanying text, illustrated by historical photographs and documents, comics expert Alexander Braun describes Winsor McCay's life and places his work within the cultural history of the U.S. media and entertainment industry shortly after the turn of the 20th century. This publication is a tremendous monument to one of the most innovative pioneers of comics that no comics fan will want to miss.

Curate your home: Print Set Robert Doisneau This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Doisneau s work. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.

Imagination ablaze: Dante, Blake, and epic visions of heaven and hell Celebrated around the world as a literary monument, The Divine Comedy, completed in 1321 and written by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is widely considered the greatest work ever composed in the Italian language. The epic poem describes Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, representing, on a deeper level, the soul's path towards salvation. In the last few years of his life, Romantic poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827) produced 102 illustrations for Dante's masterwork, from pencil sketches to finished watercolors. Like Dante's sweeping poem, Blake's drawings range from scenes of infernal suffering to celestial light, from horrifying human disfigurement to the perfection of physical form. While faithful to the text, Blake also brought his own perspective to some of Dante's central themes. Today, Blake's illustrations, left in various stages of completion at the time of his death, are dispersed among seven different institutions. This TASCHEN edition brings these works together again, alongside key excerpts from Dante's masterpiece. Two introductory essays consider Dante and Blake, as well as other major artists who have been inspired by The Divine Comedy, including Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Dore and Auguste Rodin. With a close reading of Blake's illustrations, and 14 fold-out spreads to allow the most delicate of details to dazzle, this is a breathtaking encounter with two of the finest artistic talents in history, as well as with such universal themes as love, guilt, punishment, revenge, and redemption.

Curate your home: Print Set Gil Elvgren, Pin-Ups This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Elvgren s Pin-Ups. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.

Curate your home: Print Set Matisse, Cut-Outs This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Matisse Cut-Outs. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.

A time for greatness. This is Norman Mailer's game-changing coverage of John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. With his Hollywood good looks, boundless enthusiasm, and mesmeric media presence, John F. Kennedy was destined to capture the imaginations of the more than 70 million Americans who watched the nation's first televised presidential debate. Just days after beating out Richard Nixon by the narrowest margin in history, Kennedy himself said, «It was the TV more than anything else that turned tide.» But one man begged to differ: writer Norman Mailer, who bragged that his pro-Kennedy treatise, «Superman Comes to the Supermarket,» had «won the election for Kennedy.» Whether or not that was the case, the article, published in Esquire magazine just weeks before polls opened, did redefine political reporting and New Journalism with Mailer's frank, first-person voice identifying Kennedy as the «existential hero» who could awaken the nation from its postwar slumber and conformist Eisenhower years. Now, TASCHEN reimagines this no-holds-barred portrait of one of America's most revered presidents on his path to the White House, publishing Mailer's essay in book form with over 300 photographs that bring the campaign and the candidate's family to life. These images were captured by some of the great photojournalists of the day — Cornell Capa, Jacques Lowe, Paul Schutzer, Stanley Tretick, Hank Walker — and appear in this volume alongside many never-before-published photos by Garry Winogrand and Burton Berinsky, providing a fascinating look at the man who declared the '60 «a time for greatness.»

In the 1930s, the legendary City of Cinema moved from the silent era to the talking picture. It was a decade of pomp and excess in the motion picture capital, of glorious stardom and megalomaniac directors; a time when politicians and the mob all wanted a piece of the thrilling action. Illustrator Robert Nippoldt and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte have teamed up to pay homage to this remarkable era, sharing amusing stories and anecdotes about the glamour and grit of Tinseltown. It was Hollywood's golden prewar era, and Nippoldt's illustrations bring it back to life.

Life behind the Iron Curtain: Art and artifacts from East Germany For 40 years, the Cold War dominated the world stage. East and West Germany stood at the frontlines of the global confrontation, symbolized by the infamous Berlin Wall, which separated friends, families, and countrymen. But while the world teetered on the edge, life went on in the communist East, as it did in the capitalist West. From the outside, it seemed that life behind the Iron Curtain was gray and dull, but beneath the surface of its faded buildings, it was filled with color, texture and deeply-held convictions. The Wende Museum in Los Angeles, California, named after the period of change following the destruction of the Berlin Wall, was created in 2002 to study the visual and material culture of the former Eastern Bloc. With physical and psychic distance from political trauma and personal attachment, it aims to foster multiple perspectives and interpretations of a pivotal and multilayered history that has continues to shape our world. To commemorate the Museum's 10-year anniversary, this unprecedented and encyclopedic volume features thousands of items from its extraordinary collections, including icons of East German design and political advertisement as well as everyday objects and images from a now-vanished world. Never before has a book included this full a spectrum of art, archives, and artifacts from socialist East Germany: official symbols and dissident expressions, the spectacular and the routine, the mass-produced and the handmade, the beautiful and the ugly, and the funny and the tragic. Accompanying the featured collections are illuminating and provocative texts from scholars and specialists from Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States (Paul Betts, Andreas Ludwig, Josie McLellan, Katherine Pence, Eli Rubin, Jana Scholze, Joes Segal, Edith Sheffer, David Thomson), with themes ranging from the secret police to sexuality, space flight to flight across the border, and from monuments to mental-mapping.

Symmetry and opulence. Art and architecture of ancient Egypt. An ardent admirer of the superb skills of the ancient Egyptian and Oriental artisans, the French Orientalist, author, and artist Emile Prisse d'Avennes (1807-1879) made enormous contributions to the field of Egyptology. As a youth he dreamed of exploring the Orient, and at 19 began his travels, by visiting Greece, Palestine, and India. Over the next 40 years he travelled to Syria. Arabia, Persia, and lived for some time in Egypt and Algeria. Prisse d'Avennes explored Egypt disguised as an Arab, using the name Edris Effendi. A student of ancient Egyptian and Islamic cultures, he later wrote in his History of Egyptian Art: «I have selected the most elegant models, those whose shape gives a very exact idea of the taste and luxury of this period, when Egyptian artistry was at its most brilliant.» In 1844 Prisse d'Avennes travelled from Alexandria to France, where, three years later, he published Les Monuments egyptiens. The volume contains 51 plates — mainly chromolithographs, but also some color plates — based on drawings made during his years in Egypt. After again visiting North Africa, he returned to Paris in 1860 with the fruits of his numerous journeys — hundreds of folio drawings, photographs, sketches, plans, and 400 meters of bas-reliefs. Fascinated by the symmetry, complexity and opulence of Egyptian and Arabic art, he drew from his vast collection to create compilations of art and architecture, based on his study of original documents and historical, social, and religious context. His beautiful album of Egyptian art was published in its entirety in Paris in 1878 as L'Histoire de l'art egyptien containing 159 stunning plates. For this publication, these splendid illustrations of architecture, sculpture, paintings, and industrial arts, brilliantly conveying the history and variety of ancient Egypt's art and culture, are reproduced in facsimile and for the first time published together.

Sparkling tales for a special season: Stories of winter from around the world Despite its chilly weather and barren landscapes, wintertime has inspired some of the most magical and heartwarming stories in history. Around the world, this season of celebration, frost and snow, religion, tradition, and adventure has produced such classics as Clement Moore s Twas the Night Before Christmas, and such colorful tales as the account of a pre-Christmas Posada parade in Mexico City. TASCHEN S Wintertime Tales pays homage to this rich variety of winter storytelling with fifteen tales dating 1823 1963. Featuring authors and illustrators from the United States, Scandinavia, Japan, Poland, Latvia, and Germany, it includes stories such as the merriment of a snow day, skiing for the first time, getting ready for Santa Claus, losing one s mittens, and the Chinese New Year. Each tale has been chosen for its inspiring artwork and soulful plot, resulting in a carefully-curated collection of adventure, community, and world culture. The perfect addition to those evenings of hot cocoa, marshmallows, and blankets, this heartwarming book is sure to enrich appreciation of a particularly special season, and to capture imaginations of young and old alike, even if it's too cold to play outdoors.

Get personal, get posting. Postcard Set Impressionism. We all know how much people like a card through the mailbox. Make someone's day with this set of 100 postcards, carefully selected from the TASCHEN archives. Elegantly packaged in a bespoke cardboard case, with a ribbon to pull up the cards, this collection covers the most important works of Impressionism. Flick through and find something perfect for friends, family and acquaintances old and new. And if you love one so much you can't bear to send it, fear not! The collection features two copies of fifty different designs. The Artists included are: Cezanne, Degas, Monet, and Renoir.

Get personal, get posting: Postcard Set Magic We all know how much people like a card through the mailbox. Make someone s day with this set of 100 postcards, carefully selected from the TASCHEN archives. Elegantly packaged in a bespoke cardboard case, with a ribbon to pull up the cards, each collection covers the most important works of Magic. Flick through and find something perfect for friends, family and acquaintances old and new. And if you love one so much you can t bear to send it, fear not! The collection features two copies of fifty different motifs.

Get personal, get posting. Postcard Set Gil Elvgren, Pin-Ups. We all know how much people like a card through the mailbox. Make someone's day with this set of 100 postcards, carefully selected from the TASCHEN archives. Elegantly packaged in a bespoke cardboard case, with a ribbon to pull up the cards, this collection features the sassiest girls from Gil Elvgren's Pin-Ups. And if you fall in love with one of these sweethearts, fear not! The collection features two copies of fifty different pin-ups-one to send, one to keep all for yourself.

Curate your home: Print Set Grimm, Fairy Tales This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Grimm s Fairy Tales. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.

Curate your home: Print Set Hiroshige This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Hiroshige s work. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.

Curate your home. Print Set Salgado. This inspiring print set offers sixteen designs to transform a blank wall into a personalized display. Each set of sixteen images has been specially selected from the TASCHEN collection as the most loved, and most interesting, examples of Sebastiao Salgado's work. The prints are packaged in a sturdy cardboard box and are suitable either for framing or as a poster.