Thames&Hudson

Situated just south of St Petersburg, the Russian imperial residence of Tsarskoye Selo is now more than three hundred years old. Occupied by the Nazi forces in 1941, Tsarskoye Selo saw its treasures plundered and many of its interiors left derelict. This book deals with this imperial residence.

Drawing inspiration from tradition, Coco Chanel was never the slave of everyday formulas or mere market values. This book presents her work from the direct re-creations of the 1932 Collection to the newest interpretations of comets and stars, plumes and feathers, and Chanels signature flower, the camellia.

Travelling through the history of art from the 15th till the 20th century, The Unfinished Painting is an ambitious survey of works of art by Old and Modern Masters including Van Eyck, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rubens, David, Manet, Cezanne, Matisse and Mondrian that have remained deliberately or unintentionally unfinished, and that are usually marginalized in traditional art history. They remain incomplete for various reasons: illness or death of the artist; political turmoil forcing him to flee; disagreements with the commissioner or dissatisfaction with the artistic result. However, from the 16th century onwards, artists started to use the non finito as a tool of expression. Unfinished pictures therefore gained a certain reputation in the romantic era, when they were thought to offer the spectator a glimpse of artistic genius. In the 20th century, these paintings were discovered by cubists, expressionists and abstract painters who were fascinated by their rough and incoherent appearance, often unaware of their history. This book follows the creative process of some fifty such paintings, offering a new perspective on the history of Western Art.

Classic modern design never goes out of style: it is merely retired or subtly adapted to its given place and time. Having surveyed handwritten, new vintage, and new ornamental tendencies in type and lettering, graphic-design guru Steven Heller now turns his encyclopedic gaze on Modernism. New Modernist Type reveals how a graphic language of simplicity and economy has impacted contemporary design. Hundreds of examples by international designers are grouped into three thematic chapters: Old Modern (when the machine age influenced graphic design), Playful Modern (wit, humor, and transformation), and Meta Modern (typography as icon and symbol). An historical introduction places today 's tendencies in context, and the reference section features a list of designers websites.

An insider's tour through the exceptional contemporary interiors of Rio, a vibrant creative hub and one of the hottest destinations on the planet. Rio de Janeiro is an iconic city of vibrant contrasts: youthful energy and grand traditions, luxuriant vegetation and innovative architecture. Its unique lifestyle is diverse and culturally rich, and the city is home to some remarkable modernist and contemporary homes alongside aging colonial gems. Lenny Niemeyer opens the doors of an insider's Rio through a tour of over twenty-five private homes, most presented here for the first time: a colonial-era mansion in Rio's artistic quarter surrounded by lush gardens; a private apartment with stunning views and a fabulous collection of modern art; sleek contemporary houses that blur the boundaries of interior and exterior — featuring warm wood-based design, floor-to-ceiling glass walls, shaded swimming pools, and furniture from Brazilian modernist designers such as Oscar Niemeyer and Sergio Rodrigues. Eyes turn toward Rio as it prepares to host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. This insider's visit will be a revelation for those who already know the city and for anyone seeking to discover its rich design heritage, cuisine, and unique way of life.

Andrei Tarkovsky was a Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor and film theorist. He directed the first five of his seven films Ivans Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror and Stalker in the Soviet Union, but left for Italy in 1982, where he shot Nostalghia. His last film, Sacrifice, was produced in Sweden in 1985. His work is characterized by spirituality and metaphysical themes, very long takes, an absence of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and his own distinctive style of cinematography. He is today considered one of the 20th centurys most important filmmakers. This book collects film stills and documentary photographs from each of the films, exploring the cinematographic side to his oeuvre.

Tim Walker is one of the most visually exciting photographers of our time. This book showcases many of his most dazzling images his daydreams turned into photographs, dating from around the last seven years of his career. Some of the biggest names in fashion and contemporary culture are here: Alber Elbaz sporting a pair of rabbit ears; Agyness Deyn in the sand dunes of Namibia; Alexander McQueen and a memento mori of skull and cigarettes; Helena Bonham Carter poised with Ray-Bans and a Diet Coke; Stella Tennant in a pink cloud among the rhododendrons of an English country garden The singer and musician Kate Bush contributes a foreword and Walker himself an afterword, as well as illuminating his pictures throughout with personal observations. This exceptional and beautifully designed overview of a career caught in mid-flow reveals just how much one mans singular vision has influenced contemporary tastes in fashion, beauty, glamour and portraiture.

Celebrities rule the modern world, and close behind them are the paparazzi, fuelling the medias endless fascination with the rich and famous, while they themselves keep a low profile, fading chameleon-like into the background. Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain are two respected photo-reporters, based in Paris but ready to go anywhere in the world for a scoop. They began working together in the late 1970s as contributors to the magazine Paris Match, and by 1986 they had set up a formal partnership, founding the agency Sphinx. Over the decades, they have honed the instincts required to catch the moment when a glance, a pose and a setting are most perfectly matched, capturing movie stars and models, rock stars and royalty. This book presents a selection of their best work from the last 25 years. Packed with striking black-and-white images that hark back to the golden age of photo-journalism, famous challenges us to recognize, appreciate and celebrate a fresh frame of reference through which great photography can be judged.

For many years respected gallerists Peter MacGill, Rudolf Kicken and Edwynn Houk have been collecting Aleksandr Rodchenko's photographs.

Intends to provide those who are looking to start their own collection with guidance on practical matters, including where to buy according to your budget as well as information about different photographic techniques and media, and how to properly store prints.

Pamela Todd's book celebrates William Morris' genius, presenting a thorough overview of his life and career, while setting out his guiding principles so that a modern audience can recreate the Arts and Crafts style in their own homes. A series of Case Studies explores six contemporary houses from a modern London townhouse to a traditional Arts and Crafts home in Massachusetts that have followed and adapted Morris' dicta, brilliantly demonstrating how the style can be applied to our environment today. The book concludes with a comprehensive style-sourcing section, as well as a gazetteer of places to visit for inspiration.

Burning Beauty is a comprehensive summary of photographer David LaChapelle, stretching from the early 1980s to 2012. With more than 200 colour illustrations and four essays, it reflects LaChapelle's entire oeuvre. LaChapelle's imagery has the ability no only to attract our gaze with seductive and remarkable bodies, settings and objects in every conceivable and inconceivable constellation; it also has the capacity to incite reactions that charge our seeing with emotions that engender a relationship between the image and its viewer. His imagery places the viewer in the midst of the turbulent visual culture of the past quarter-century and invites us to a blend of passion, comedy, exaggeration and critical reflection. Published to accompany the exhibition Burning Beauty at The Swedish Museum of Photography in Stockholm, this book offers a unique insight in one of the most important contemporary artists in the world.

detractors alike. She offers the reader a comprehensive trajectory of abstraction — from the radically new pictorial language of Bella and Delaunnay, to the visceral spirituality of Kandinsky and Mondrian, to the geometrically-obsessed artists of the 1930s and 1940s. The author takes us from the origin of the movement during the First World War to the post-World War II Zeitgeist that emphasized personal expression, and finally, the revival of Abstraction practiced by Neo-Geo, among others, in the 1980s. A succinct and deftly written account of abstraction, Moszynska offers both an overview of the philosophy of the movement as well as analyses of the approaches of individual artists.

Includes 30 removable postcards of manga artist and tattooist Jian Yi's coolest tattoo designs to complete, customize, and color in and then send to friends and family.

This collection of 30 motivational postcards from yesteryear provide inspirational ideas on saving money, working safer and smarter and how to survive these tough economic times. It's the ideal gift for 99% of the population!

The authoritative and lovingly-crafted publication takes the reader on a nostalgic visual journey from Madonna's arrival in New York in the late 1970s to the lead-up to her latest album release, MDNA, in 2012, covering all her albums, tours, plays and films, and the occasional husband or boyfriend along the way.

This book celebrates established icons, newly discovered gems and contemporary masterworks that represent the highest expression of Scandinavian design and response to their environment. Fifty projects are featured in detail, ordered according to the way in which different light conditions have imparted particular qualities on the buildings. Henry Plummer treats his subject from a uniquely authoritative perspective in which his words resonate directly with his artfully taken images. Books that give a true sense of the magical light that have shaped great buildings are rare: this is a publication to savour. Nine chapters present established icons, newly discovered gems and contemporary masterworks, according to the way in which different light conditions have imparted particular qualities to buildings. Among the buildings featured are Arne Jacobsens town hall in Arhus, Denmark, Alvar Aaltos Villa Mairea in Finland, Klas Anshelms Malmo Konsthall in Sweden, and many others. Each chapter features an introduction, which traces the nature, quality and cultural history of that aspect of light.

This inspiring book chronicles the most influential ideas that have shaped film since its inception. Entertaining and intelligent, it provides a concise history as well as being a fascinating resource to dip into. Arranged in a broadly chronological order to show the development of film, the ideas include innovative concepts, technologies, techniques and movements. From the silent eras masterpieces to today's blockbusters and art house movies, these highly illustrated pages are a chance to discover or rediscover films from five continents. The milestones that have given Hollywood a hegemony over world cinema are discussed, but so too are subjects as diverse as German Expressionism, auteur theory and Third Cinema. Key ideas such as continuity editing, genre and sound are also fully explored. Each idea is presented through informed text and arresting visuals paying homage to the mediums great classics. We learn why and how the ideas first evolved and what their impact has been up to the present day.

Seen in everything from wedding invitations and birth announcements to IOUs, menus, and diplomas, script typefaces impart elegance and sophistication to a broad variety of texts. Scripts never go out of style, and the hundreds of inventive examples here are sure to inspire today 's designers. Derived from handwriting, these are typefaces that are stylized to suggest, imply, or symbolize certain traits linked to writing. Their fundamental characteristic is that all the letters, more or less, touch those before and after. Drawn from the Golden Age of scripts, from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, this is the first compilation of popular, rare, and forgotten scripts from the United States, Germany, France, England, and Italy. Featuring examples from a vast spectrum of sources advertisements, street signs, type-specimen books, and personal letters this book is a delightful and invaluable trove of longoverlooked material.

This luxurious postcard book collects of the very best cult romance comics covers of the s. From Brides in Love and Romantic Hearts to G.I. Sweethearts and Romantic Adventures there are dozens of uniquely kitsch postcards to send to your beloved. Each postcard includes the title, artist, publisher and publication date on the back.

Van Eyck in Detail opens with a biographical note on the artist and an introductory chapter on the technique of oil painting. Organized by theme, it further encompasses subjects as nature, architecture, daily life, fabrics, glass, jewellery and mirrors, and portraits. Van Eycks concentrated observation of nature formed an integral part of his innovation of the art of painting. He studied fauna and flora in their natural environment under specific light conditions. The accuracy with which he realised a breath taking convincing realism is based on a thorough understanding of structure and visual perception. It looks as if everything, from the foreground to the horizon, reveals itself in minuscule detail. However, when observed under magnification, it becomes clear that much depends on suggestion. Van Eyck anticipated on the phenomenon, understood today, that the brain completes visual observation. The authors explain besides the significance of details, also the technique of painting in oil that the artist improved, allowing him to achieve his innovative artistic results. Finally, the reader receives a number of suggestions for further reading.

Presents the history of jewellery in the age of Victoria. This book focuses on the attitudes of owners to their jewellery and the symbolic weight that it was expected to carry.

This catalogue accompanies the first exhibition dedicated to landscapes by the Symbolists, the innovative movement whose artists took imaginative and emotional approaches to painting and embraced themes such as music, nationalism, science and modernity.The book focuses on major artists of the avant-garde such as Gauguin, Van Gogh, Munch, Mondrian and Kandinsky, and also showcases other inventive artists from throughout Europe such as Hammershoi, Hodler, Khnopff and Gallen-Kallela, who are set alongside the visionary British artistry of Crane, Leighton, Watts and Millais. The works illustrated provide a range of poetic and suggestive interpretations of nature from the period 1880-1910, with essays by acknowledged experts in the field providing a new chapter in the history of landscape painting.

Le Corbusiers development was inextricably connected to the rise of the centurys most popular visual medium: photography. Marking the 125th anniversary of the architects birth in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, this remarkable book traces the many ways in which he used photography to define and disseminate his work and ideas around the world. This unique portrait presents the architect and his work in six chapters, each by an expert in a particular facet of Le Corbusiers work: a photographic biography; his secret travel photographs; the ways in which the architect used photography for promotion; an examination of his approach to the printed page; an overview of his use of large-scale imagery in his buildings and exhibitions; and contemporary photographic interpretations of his work. Because Le Corbusiers buildings are usually shown in a documentary manner, the candid, personal, artistic and often unexpected images that appear in this volume offer new insights and ways to appreciate the facets of the man behind his works.