One of the world's most celebrated and popular artists, J.M.W. Turner was a master painter of light and the elements. This wall calendar features a range of Turner’s atmospheric seascapes, from Tate collections: from the drama of iconic work Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth to the heady heat of The Lighthouse at Marseilles from the Sea. Informative text accompanies each work and the datepad features previous and next month’s views. Printed on FSC-certified paper, with plastic-free packaging, with plastic-free packaging. Read more

Writers Revealed tells the stories of the best-loved writers in English literature, investigating their enduring appeal from the sixteenth century to today through the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. Intimate handwritten manuscripts, letters and notebooks as well as rare first editions of books from the British Library are paired with the National Portrait Gallery’s outstanding collection of author portraits. From William Shakespeare to Zadie Smith, Writers Revealed features over 70 poets, novelists and academics. Each short profile – which provides insight into the writers’ inspirations, struggles, and working practices – is beautifully illustrated with a portrait and manuscript. Readers will enjoy in-depth encounters with some of the world’s most famous writers, including James Joyce, Bernardine Evaristo, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Jane Austen, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Angela Carter, and discover just what it is that makes these individuals so endlessly compelling. Read more

An exceptional introduction to European paintings from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century through one of the greatest collections in the world. This richly illustrated and beautifully designed book offers an ideal introduction to European painting from the 13th to the early 20th century. The National Gallery, London, houses one of the finest collections of Western European art in the world. Its extraordinary range includes exceptional paintings from medieval Europe through the early Renaissance and on to Post-Impressionism, including masterpieces by Leonardo, Hans Holbein, Titian, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Turner, Monet, and Van Gogh. This volume showcases more than 250 of the Gallery’s most treasured pictures, providing an opportunity to make connections across this uniquely representative collection. Paintings are accompanied by numerous details, as well as brief and illuminating texts, providing an informative and visually rich survey of hundreds of years of European painting.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press Read more

This book presents full step-by-step instructions for the making of early 17th-century men’s clothes and accessories in a technically accurate, visually exciting and easy-to-follow format. Twelve garments – all historical pieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collections – are featured: a suit, three doublets and a cloak, as well as a felt hat, an embroidered nightcap and a plain nightcap liner, a pasteboard picadil, a sword girdle and hangers, a pair of mittens and a linen stocking. They have been analysed so that every aspect of the pattern is exact. Scale patterns and precise construction diagrams are accompanied by colour photography of the whole garment as well as an abundance of informative details and X-ray photographs that reveal the hidden structure of each piece, showing the precise number of layers and the types of stitches used inside. The methods and techniques of historical tailoring and plain sewing are shown in detail. The authors have some of the best historical tailoring skills in the world and have worked with world-renowned institutions such as the Globe Theatre in London, creating award-winning costumes for film, stage and television. This book is a unique resource for costume and fashion designers, fashion historians and students. Read more

100 Treasures and Curiosities draws on the extensive collection of Carisbrooke Castle Museum to reveal some of the Isle of Wight's most significant and historic stories, alongside some more unusual tales from the Island's past. Established by Princess Beatrice in 1898, the museum was intended to be 'a treasury of objects illustrative of the history of the island' and in the 125 years since, the museum's collection has grown to comprise of over 35,000 objects, ranging from the everyday to the exotic, from utilitarian to pure novelty. Today, Carisbrooke Castle Museum is a charity-run independent accredited museum and remains dedicated to the Island's rich and varied history. This book offers a unique opportunity for readers to explore the extensive collection in more detail than ever before. Read more

A richly illustrated sourcebook of two-dimensional pattern and three dimensional ornamentation, presenting more than 1,000 historic and contemporary examples from around the world. The wealth of surface pattern and three-dimensional ornamentation in the many objects that enrich our lives is testament to the inventiveness of designers and craftspeople around the globe and throughout history. This richly illustrated, easy-to-navigate sourcebook presents more than 1,000 historic and contemporary examples of pattern and ornamentation from around the world, each one succinctly identified and explained. Arranged thematically, it is unique among pattern books, as it includes examples not only of surface pattern but also of three-dimensional ornamentation and embellishment. Two-dimensional pattern is ubiquitous, no matter what the age of an object or where it was created. From Japanese kimono and William Morris fabrics to Chinese porcelain and contemporary furniture, such works reveal humanity’s unceasing desire to combine pattern with design. Just as prevalent are examples of three-dimensional embellishments that go far beyond the requirements of their practical use: an acrylic handbag has a carved motif of insects and wildflowers, a cobalt-blue pottery ewer has a dragon’s-head spout and an early 19th-century fruit plate is shaped like a seashell. Designers working today are as fascinated and inspired by pattern and ornament as they have always been. This expertly compiled selection will appeal to designers, artists, illustrators and other creatives from all disciplines as well as anyone interested in visual and material culture. Read more

Villa Albani Torlonia, with its collections, the Italian garden, and the hemicycle of the Kaffeehaus, is a sublime testimony of that particular antiquarian taste which came to the fore in the mid\-eighteenth century, that for which Rome became a favourite destination on the Grand Tour. The classicist dream of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692 1779), was preserved thanks to the Torlonia family, who purchased the villa in 1866, enlarging the collection and the gardens and restoring the most important cardinal residence of the eighteenth century. More than 300 images by the great Italian master Massimo Listri recount the history of this extraordinary cultural heritage for the very first time. An immersive journey leads the reader between its collections of ancient masterpieces. Statues, bas\-reliefs, and fountains are ensconced between the various buildings and gardens of the villa in a composition of environments, landscapes, and works of art forever waiting to be discovered. Read more

Divine blueSensual redDeathly greenGlistening goldThese four colours tell the story of art in a way that few other elements can. From the pigments used to make them - sometimes wildly expensive, like ultramarine, or dangerously toxic, like emerald green - to the varied and changing meanings applied to them, these colours grant us access to fascinating stories, both of individual works of art and the world in which they were created. Read more

This catalogue brings together leading figures from a generation of thrilling figurative artists of African origin. The more than 20 artists shown in this catalogue are based on the African continent and across the diaspora. They explore complex questions of identity, aesthetics and art history. Through compelling portraiture their work invites interrogation of how the Black figure has often been misrepresented or overlooked in the Western painting tradition. Read more

With over 70 acres of picturesque landscape, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a must for all visitors. This delightful wall calendar celebrates the beautifully delicate yet accurate botanical watercolours of British plants by Charlotte Cowan Pearson, an outstandingly talented amateur artist born in 1837, examples of whose paintings are held in an album in the RBGE's Library. Informative text accompanies each work and the datepad features previous and next month’s views. Printed on FSC-certified paper, with plastic-free packaging. Read more

"The pots in this book are snapshots of time, thought and emotion that have endured through thousands of years of human progress. It's mind-blowing, don't you think?" - Keith Brymer-JonesReligion. Humour. Trade. Sex. Folklore. Creativity. Pots can tell us more about the lives of the people who made and used them than any other artefacts. From the most rough-hewn clay bowl that tells us how bread was baked over 5,000 years ago in Iraq, to ethereally beautiful porcelain used for religious rituals, and from a lewd Renaissance novelty dish to a sleek contemporary vessel inspired by traditional African techniques, Around the World in 80 Pots is a fascinating tour across time and place.From the Ashmolean Museum's unparalleled collection, and with a foreword by contemporary potter Keith Brymer-Jones, these beautiful examples tell the story of humankind's oldest craft. Read more

A must-own coffee table book for fans of Kettle’s Yard, created by the founder of the house Jim EdeFacsimile copy of the original 1984 publication with black and white photographs as selected by Jim Ede, with introduction by Sir Alan BownessAn inspirational resource for artists, designers, curators and interior stylists A Way of Life has been put together as lovingly as Kettle’s Yard itself. It takes the form of a guided tour; you enter the door and venture through the house, taking in the rooms one by one, seeing the light play on glass, china, wood, stone and canvas, and seeing how the art and the living-space bring each other alive. A series of remarkable black and white photographs catches the spirit that Jim Ede was trying to evoke, and the text comments on them in his own words. The visit is interwoven with Jim Ede’s account of earlier attempts to create the same wholeness in earlier houses in London and France. He has also placed in the spaces and intervals of the book his choice of poetic texts; an anthology which indicates the spirit in which he has worked. Three influences animate this unique book: the sense of the way of life that Jim Ede created at Kettle’s Yard, the spirit of the house itself, and the gentle but persistently creative spirit of the man who put it all together and then put together this book as the record of his creation in his own words. Originally published in 1984. This edition (reprinted in 2021) contains the introduction by former director of the Tate Sir Alan Bowness first included in the 1996 edition. Read more

More than any other French Impressionist, painter Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) observed and depicted the many men in his life, including his brothers and friends, employees, and the workers and bourgeois in his Parisian neighborhood. Male subjects feature prominently in some of his best-known works, such as The Floor Scrapers, Man at His Bath, Young Man at His Window, Boating Party, and Paris Street, Rainy Day. The originality of his paintings of men are fully explored for the first time in this catalogue, published to accompany a major international exhibition co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Musee d'Orsay, and Art Institute of Chicago. Alongside paintings, drawings, and photographs, as well as an appendix featuring maps and new biographical research that sheds light on Caillebotte's social network, this volume includes historically grounded thematic essays by curators and leading scholars. By exploring the complex and varied facets of Caillebotte's identity-as son, brother, soldier, bachelor, amateur, sportsman, and so on-these essays pose questions of identity, leaving space for ambiguous and fluid expressions of gender and masculinity-for both Caillebotte and the larger late nineteenth-century French world. Musee d'Orsay October 8, 2024-January 19, 2025 J. Paul Getty Museum Getty Center March 25-May 25, 2025 Art Institute of Chicago TBD, 2025Accompanying a major international loan exhibition, Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men offers a fascinating array of essays that explore complex questions of masculinity and virility in the art of this still enigmatic painter. The book features the wisdom of many seasoned scholars of Impressionism, but it is also noteworthy for the contributions of a new generation of authors, whose fresh eyes and new voices help bring the artist's world vividly to life. - George T.M. Shackelford, Deputy Director, Kimbell Art Museum "The essays inside this beautifully illustrated catalogue offer groundbreaking insights into a dominant, if largely ignored, theme in Caillebotte's work. A major contribution to the existing scholarship on the artist, this book will be a standard reference for years to come."-Marnin Young, author of Realism in the Age of Impressionism: Painting and the Politics of TimeGustave Caillebotte remains the most mysterious core member of the Impressionist movement. This catalogue includes the latest scholarship on the artist by contemporary experts in the field―museum and academic art historians based in France and the United States―bringing fresh readings to Caillebotte’s known work as well as investigations of several paintings only recently arrived in the public sphere. It is spectacularly illustrated with the best of the artist’s oeuvre, definitively establishing the striking singularity of Caillebotte’s artistic achievement. ―Mary Morton, Curator of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art Read more

Silk has long captured the imagination of peoples round the globe, inspiring creativity in the making of luxurious textiles. This major new survey draws on the exceptional collections of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and explores tradition and innovation across the history and geography of silk production, celebrating the ingenuity and skill of designers and makers. Structured by technique, from weaving and knitting to dyeing, printing and embroidery, this compendium showcases a rich variety of artworks, furnishings and clothing, including fashions from recent designer catwalk shows in North America, Asia and Europe. Silk will inform every student, connoisseur and admirer of beautiful textiles.With 620 illustrations in colour Read more

A magnificent catalogue of the V&A's collection of twentieth-century and contemporary British ceramics. Contemporary ceramicists working in Britain, including Rachel Kneebone, Grayson Perry and Edmund de Waal, are part of a broader international group of artists experimenting with clay, considering how it intersects and works in dialogue with other art forms and with culture at large. Recent experimentation with the medium owes much to the rapid evolution of ceramics into an expanded field, and to the work of mid- to late 20th-century potters and their reinvention of ceramics as a radical and contemporary art practice. The pioneering methods and rethinking of form in the work of exponents such as Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Alan Caiger-Smith – whose reference points were drawn from East Asia, Africa, the ancient Mediterranean and the Middle East as much as from their own heritage – continue to influence and inspire contemporary makers. In his introductory essay, Alun Graves, Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provides all lovers of ceramics – collectors, practitioners, historians and those interested in modern and contemporary art and crafts – with the historical context, documenting the medium’s shift into an expressive, and sometimes interventionist, art form. An extensive visual catalogue, Studio Ceramics is the primary reference for 20th-century and contemporary British studio ceramics, and a record of the national collection of British ceramics held at the V&A. Read more

Since it was established in 1824, the National Gallery has become a beacon for London's visitors and residents alike. From its inception in John Julius Angerstein's home in Mayfair to its current home in Trafalgar Square, it has expanded both its collection and its footprint to become one of the world's leading galleries. This book features photographic portraits by David Dawson and Mary McCartney in addition to photography of the Gallery by Massimo Listri. It brings together over 200 of the Gallery's paintings, which were made between the 13th and 20th centuries, including memorable masterpieces from both the famous and the forgotten. These pages tell the history of painting in the Western European tradition through the National Gallery's collection. You’ll go on a visual journey through the centuries, with works by Duccio, Van Eyck, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Vigée Le Brun, Gainsborough, Morisot, and Matisse, to name just a few. Punctuating this story are contributions by and photographic portraits of 25 cultural figures, such as Frank Auerbach, Alvaro Barrington, Edward Enninful, David Hockney, Kim Jones, Damian Lewis, Sahara Longe, Chris Ofili, Ai Weiwei, Rachel Whiteread, Annabelle Selldorf, and Flora Yukhnovich, among others. Read more

Presents new photography of the Sistine Chapel, one of the most-visited places in the worldText in English and Italian The images in this volume are the result of the photo shoot carried out in the Sistine Chapel between December 2015 and January 2016. New technologies have made it possible to achieve spectacular results, ensuring a more faithful and accurate reproduction of the Sistine masterpieces. The use of innovative Gigapixel technology has allowed achievements in life-size reproductions of the frescoes and an until now unpublished reading of the entire decoration of the Sistine, restoring its clarity and original colour. Text in English and Italian. Read more

William Morris’s interests were wide-ranging: he was a poet, writer, political and social activist, conservationist and businessman, as well as a brilliant and original designer and manufacturer. This book explores the balance between Morris’s various spheres of activity and influence, places his art in the context of its time and explores his ongoing and far-reaching legacy. A pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris (1834–1896) is one of the most influential designers of all time. Morris turned the tide of Victorian England against an increasingly industrialized manufacturing process towards a rediscovered respect for the skill of the maker. Morris’s whole approach still resonates today, and his designs are popular and much admired. Published to mark the 125th anniversary of Morris’s death, this book includes contributions from a wide range of Morris experts, with chapters on painting, church decoration and stained glass, interior decoration, furniture, tiles and tableware, wallpaper, textiles, calligraphy and publishing. Additional materials include a contextualized chronology of Morris’s life and a list of public collections around the world where examples of Morris’s work may be seen today. This study is a comprehensive, fully illustrated exploration of a great thinker and artist, and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of design.With 668 illustrations in colour A Crafts Council Best Craft Book of the Year Read more

Published to accompany an exhibition at the MAXXI Museum, Rome, 19 June 2019-12 January 2020Text in English and Italian Maria Lai (Ulassai, September 27, 1919 - Cardedu, April 16, 2013) is without doubt one of the leading figures in the history of contemporary Italian art. Not only on account of the content of her works, but also thanks to the diversity of her artistic approach, ranging as it does across many media - public art, embroidery, weaving, sculpture, drawing, and writing: all are grist for her poetics. The book is published to coincide with the exhibition at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, which is presenting to the general public over one hundred works by the Sardinian artist, from the early 1960s to her very last works, and explores the various themes dear to the artist with the contributions of experts in their fields: the locations, the creation, and publication of art books, her public art events and her relationship with the written word and her own writing. Her entire oeuvre is distinguished by its powerful visual impact, revealing a 'way of doing art' that is nothing other than an instrument of thought. The book's structure reflects the exhibition's own sections, arranged by theme, whose titles are paradigmatic of Lai's oeuvre as a whole: Essere è tessere. Cucire e ricucire; L'arte è il gioco degli adulti. Giocare e raccontare; Disseminare e condividere; Il viaggiatore astrale. Immaginare l'altrove; L'arte ci prende per mano. Incontrare e partecipare. Text in English and Italian. Read more