Published in association with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this vivid and visually engaging large-format book offers a detailed journey through Hockney’s remarkable life and career. Playful, keen eyed, ever curious, David Hockney is one of our greatest contemporary artists. Published in association with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, and tied to its major 2025 exhibition, David Hockney charts an extraordinarily creative life through images and text in one large-format landscape book. The artworks chosen reflect Hockney’s key themes and preoccupations over the decades, from his early life in Bradford and London through the California era and his later years in Bridlington, Yorkshire, and Normandy, France. Several of the chapters are arranged thematically, ranging from still life and portraits to his much-loved landscapes and stunning designs for opera. A final chapter explores Hockney’s engagement with digital art, particularly on the iPad. Throughout, we see the endless inventiveness, curiosity and creativity that have characterized Hockney’s work over eight decades. To give context to Hockney’s art, this definitive survey features a selection of archival photographs and eye-catching artworks allied to expertly written text by pre-eminent curatorial experts, art historians and critics, including Sir Norman Rosenthal and Sir Simon Schama. Compiled with the full involvement of David Hockney and his studio, and with a large-scale landscape format with a selection of gatefolds that enables the reader to revel in the art, this is the most important book on Hockney’s entire career to date and will appeal to the many fans of the artist’s work across the globe. Read more

** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 **A revelatory portrait of a great museum and the moving story of one guard's quest to find solace and meaning in art'Who would have thought that the outstanding art book of you would have been written not by a curator or an art historian or even an artist - but by a museum guard?' Sunday TimesWhen Patrick’s older brother dies at twenty-six, all he wants is to retreat. So, he does. He quits his job and seeks refuge in the most beautiful place he can think of: New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.All the Beauty in the World recounts Patrick’s time as a museum guard, keeping quiet vigil over some of our greatest treasures and uncovering the Met’s innermost secrets. As his connection to the art and the life that swirls around it grows, so does Patrick – and gradually he emerges transformed by heartbreak, community and the power of art to illuminate life in all its pain, pleasure and hope.'As luminous as the old masters paintings' Daily Mail'Consoling and beautiful' Guardian'Marvellous' Daily Telegraph'A beautiful tale about beauty. It is also a tale about grief, balancing solitude and comradeship, and finding joy in both the exalted and the mundane' Washington Post*New York Times bestseller, Nov 24 Read more

An exploration of a crucial turning point in Italian art, the early 1300s in the city of Siena   In the early 1300s, the city of Siena gave rise to an extraordinary period of creativity and innovation. Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths produced remarkable works whose impact was felt far beyond the city’s walls. From vast altarpieces to portable objects for private devotion, the art emanating from Siena left an enduring legacy.   This book explores a crucial turning point in Italian art when the prestige of painting reached new heights. Siena became the centre of a rich exchange of ideas, as painters took inspiration from marble and ivory sculptures, intricate metalwork, and precious imported silks to enhance the power of their work. Travelling beyond their native city, Sienese artists made their mark across Italy and into northern Europe. Beautifully illustrated and featuring important new scholarship, chapters explore masterpieces by four of Siena’s most illustrious painters―Duccio, Simone Martini, and Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti―alongside objects in other media and from other countries and cultures, encouraging fresh perspectives and dialogues between these groundbreaking works.   Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (7 October 2024–26 January 2025)  The National Gallery, London (5 March–22 June 2025) Read more

Published in the National Gallery’s Bicentenary year, this is the story of how one of the world’s finest collections of paintings was formed by (and for) the people of Britain   For two hundred years the National Gallery has been at the heart of the nation’s life. Established in 1824 and situated in the centre of London with a commitment to free admission, it was conceived as a gallery to be enjoyed by all, while also serving as a place of refuge in times of war and crisis.  The National Gallery: A History tells the story of an institution that holds education, social cohesion, and national heritage at its core, and whose outstanding collection has shaped the art historical canon over two centuries. Special focus on fifteen highlight paintings affords an opportunity to explore changes in taste over the decades, as well as the reactions of visitors to the Gallery’s great works of art.Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Read more

The Face Magazine: Culture Shift celebrates The Face’s most iconic portraits from 1980–2004. It explores the magazine’s role in the evolution of style photography and its international and enduring impact on visual culture. The Face is the original, definitive, style bible – a ground-breaking magazine that has radically disrupted youth culture in Britain and beyond since its launch in 1980. Known for its striking design, bold, inclusive content and innovative photography, the magazine has launched the careers of many leading photographers, writers, designers, stylists and models. The Face Magazine: Culture Shift includes portraits of iconic sitters including Kate Moss, Annie Lennox, Kurt Cobain, Iggy Pop, Snoop Dogg, David Bowie, Ewan McGregor, Madness, The Sex Pistols, and Kylie Minogue. It features the voices of some of the key contributors to the magazine and celebrates the ongoing legacy of the magazine’s imagery in British art, design and culture. It showcases striking portrait photographs from the likes of Miles Aldridge, Elaine Constantine, Corinne Day, David LaChapelle and Juergen Teller, alongside selected covers from the print magazine. Read more

This beautifully illustrated book is the first full-length critical study to focus on the works of fine artist and printmaker, Tirzah Garwood (1908-1951), wife of artist Eric Ravilious.Tirzah Garwood (1908–1951) proved herself an artist of rare talent, in a life tragically cut short by illness, yet little of her work has been seen in public since her Memorial Exhibition in 1952. Written by James Russell, author of the bestselling Ravilious (2015), this beautifully illustrated book is published to coincide with the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious, the first exhibition to explore the full range of Garwood’s achievements. A witty observer of the human condition, Garwood made her first breakthrough as a wood engraver of rare ability while still in her teens. After marrying Eric Ravilious she became a devoted mother to three children. During this period she took up paper marbling and quickly achieved renown for the dazzling originality of her decorative papers. In her early thirties she suffered the double blow of a breast cancer diagnosis and her husband’s death on active service in World War II. Undaunted, she wrote her autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield and began creating a series of strange, beautiful oil paintings and collaged constructions. In Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious her work is, for the first time, given the public showcase and critical examination it deserves, revealing Garwood’s development of a distinctive ‘sophisticated naive’ approach that subtly transformed innocent subjects to unsettling effect. More than ninety works by Tirzah Garwood – including books, studies and ephemera, almost exclusively from private collections – are accompanied by artworks by Eric Ravilious that set the context in which the artists worked together, exploring the shared interests and techniques of this remarkable creative couple. Read more

'Paradise haunts gardens', writes Derek Jarman, 'and it haunts mine.' Jarman's public image is that of a film-maker of genius, whose work, dwelling on themes of sexuality and violence, became a byword for controversy. But the private man was the creator of his own garden-paradise in an environment that many might think was more of a hell than a heaven - in the flat, bleak, often desolate expanse of shingle that faces the Dungeness nuclear power station. Jarman, a passionate gardener from childhood, combined his painter's eye, his horticultural expertise and his ecological convictions to produce a landscape which combined the flints, shells and driftwood of Dungeness; sculptures made from stones, old tools and found objects; the area's indigenous plants; and shrubs and flowers introduced by Jarman himself. This book is Derek Jarman's own record of how this garden evolved, from its earliest beginnings in 1986 to the last year of his life. More than 150 photographs taken since 1991 by his friend and photographer Howard Sooley capture the garden at all its different stages and at every season of the year. Photographs from all angles reveal the garden's complex geometrical plan, its magical stone circles and its beautiful and bizarre sculptures. We also catch glimpses of Jarman's life in Dungeness: walking, weeding, watering, or just enjoying life. Derek Jarman's Garden is the last book Jarman ever wrote. Like the garden itself, it remains as a fitting memorial to a brilliant and greatly loved artist who, against all odds, made a breathtakingly beautiful garden in the most inhospitable of places. It will appeal to all those who are themselves practising gardeners, as well as the legions of admirers of this extraordinary man. Read more

The fantastic and visionary world of Tim Burton, in a rich volume that celebrates his dreamlike and grotesque style, developed over 30 years of great successesPublished to accompany an exhibition at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Turin, 10 October 2023 - 7 April 2024Text in English and Italian The volume accompanies the major exhibition - the first in Italy - that the National Cinema Museum dedicates to Tim Burton (1958). A journey into the visionary universe and creativity of the Californian director through original works of art, photographs, film material - storyboards, costumes, sketches, maquettes - and precious documents, many of which come from his personal archive. The volume retraces Tim Burton’s 30-year production from his beginnings, with Beetlejuice and Batman, up to the recent great success of Wednesday, highlighting the evolution of his singular imagination, which draws not only from the most varied forms of popular culture - such as fairy tales, comics, television films - but also to classic illustrators such as Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Don Martin and Theodore Geisel, to expressionist cinema, to the horror catalogue of Universal Studios and the masters of suspense William Castle and Vincent Price. Likewise, it emerges how ideas, themes and even some images peculiar to his art have flowed into the most iconic films that we today associate with the sumptuous cinema spectacle. Text in English and Italian. Read more

This beautifully illustrated bingo game features 64 species of birds from around the world. Spot all kinds of birds – from the robin to the puffin and the kookaburra to the splendid fairywren – mark them off on your card and bingo! Bird Bingo brings a fun and educational twist to the traditional game as players learn the names and colourings of both their favourite species and weird and wonderful exotic birds. Contains 64 superbly illustrated bird tokens, one board, 12 bingo cards and brightly coloured counters for you to mark up your card, as well as a leaflet containing basic information and a few quirky traits for all of the birds featured. Read more

The experience of engaging with art and history has been utterly transformed by information and communications technology in recent decades. We now have virtual, mediated access to countless heritage collections and assemblages of artworks, which we intuitively browse and navigate in a way that wasn't possible until very recently. This collection of essays takes up the question of the cultural meaning of the information and communications technology that makes these new engagements possible, asking questions like: How should we theorise the sensory experience of art and heritage? What does information technology mean for the authority and ownership of heritage? Read more

Taking you behind the lens during a decade of significant social and political change, discover the remarkable transformation of British photography in the 1980s, and its impact on art across the world. This book traces critical developments in photographic art in the UK, made by a diverse range of photographers in and around the Thatcher era (1976–1993). Rather than presenting a comprehensive history, the publication showcases more than 70 lens-based artists, and reveal numerous small histories, known and unknown, presented by a constellation of image makers, photography journals, photographer collectives, and theorists. Close attention is paid to the intersection between photography and the British Black arts movement, and to the theoretical developments in photography and representation from the perspectives of postmodernism and cultural theory by British scholars from the period. Photographers include Don McCullin, Martin Parr, Ingrid Pollard, Sunil Gupta, Wolfgang Tillmans, Keith Arnatt, Vanley Burke, Sirkka-Liisa Kontinnen, Marketa Luskacova, Joy Gregory, Paul Graham, Ajamu X, and many more key figures. Read more

Founding Director Lonnie Bunch's deeply personal tale of the triumphs and challenges of bringing the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to life. His story is by turns inspiring, funny, frustrating, quixotic, bittersweet, and above all, a compelling read.In its first four months of operation, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture surpassed one million visits and quickly became a cherished, vital monument to the African American experience. And yet this accomplishment was never assured. In A Fool's Errand, founding director Lonnie Bunch tells his story of bringing his clear vision and leadership to realize this shared dream of many generations of Americans. Outlining the challenges of site choice, architect selection, building design, and the compilation of an unparalleled collection of African American artifacts, Bunch also delves into his personal struggles--especially the stress of a high-profile undertaking--and the triumph of establishing such an institution without mentors or guidebooks to light the way. His memoir underscores his determination to create a museum that treats the black experience as an essential component of every American's identity. This inside account of how Bunch planned, managed, and executed the museum's mission informs and inspires not only readers working in museums, cultural institutions, and activist groups, but also those in the nonprofit and business worlds who wish to understand how to succeed--and do it spectacularly--in the face of major political, structural, and financial challenges. Read more

This striking exhibition catalog celebrates the late artist whose deeply emotional works intermingled realism with abstraction to address complex themes of identity, race, and community.American artist Noah Davis (1983–2015) believed ‘painting does something to your soul that nothing else can. It is visceral and immediate.’ Drawing on art history, personal archives, anonymous photography found in Los Angeles’ flea markets, and his own imagination, he compiled a ravishing body of figurative paintings that explore a range of Black life. Alongside his celebrated paintings, Davis made drawings, collages, and sculptures, and co-founded the Underground Museum.This elegantly designed volume documents the span of Davis’s career and attends to his commitment to representation in the art world and community engagement at the Underground Museum. Alongside new scholarship from writers, artists, and musicians like Tina M. Campt, Claudia Rankine, Marlene Dumas and Jason Moran, this catalog features high-quality reproductions of Davis’s more widely-known works as well as previously unseen archival material. A vital resource for understanding the depth and significance of his practice, this beautiful publication reveals how humanity, humor, imagination, and above all, people, were the epicenter of Davis’s work. Read more

Accompanies the Angelica Kauffman Exhibition at the Royal Academy, 1 March–30 June 2024 Internationally renowned, highly educated and very well-connected, Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) led a brilliant career as a pioneering history painter, an innovative portraitist and one of only two women among the founding membership of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768. ‘The whole World is angelicamad’ – thus a Danish diplomat described the effect of her art and personality during her lifetime. Kauffman was admired by Goethe and Herder, and her clients included queens and emperors from across the continent. Her extraordinary life and work are beautifully presented in this handsome volume, which contains her finest paintings and drawings. Read more

'An absorbingly creepy travelogue through the corridors, tunnels and basements of our most famous cultural repository. With Noah Angell as our guide, the British Museum becomes a haunted prison filled with imperial plunder and restless spirits clamouring for attention.' - Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin Of All Witches'Fascinating and illuminating' - Peter Ackroyd'Brilliantly delicate, pointed, shivery... You could read it as a guide to which galleries to avoid - or to where the push for repatriation should be most urgent.' - Erin L. Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York'Achieves a near-impossible marriage between paranormal pop-culture, folklore and hauntology' - Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts'A heady cocktail of history and folklore that leaves a haunting aftertaste... Spine-tingling' - Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The Facemaker'A reader might well do as Angell did himself: come for the delicious ghost stories but stay for a complete takedown of the British Museum project.' The New StatesmanWhat if the British Museum isn't a carefully ordered cross section of history but is in instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot - swarming with volatile and errant spirits?When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new - from overnight security to respected curators - brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters.It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum's contents - unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection's cabinets and deep underground vaults. According to those who have worked there, the institution is heaving with profound spectral disorder.Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world's oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where restless objects are held against their will.It now appears that the objects are fighting back. Read more

Discover the imaginary worlds of Victor Hugo, one of France's most famous writers, with his rarely-seen works on paperPublished to accompany an exhibition at the Royal Academy, 21 March - 29 June 2025 The novelist, poet and politician Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a towering figure in French 19th-century public life. The author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame became a symbol of the French Republic's ideals of equality and freedom during his long exile in the Channel Islands. His ink-and-wash visions of imaginary castles, monsters and seascapes may be less well known than his writings, but they inspired Romantic and Symbolist poets, many artists, including the Surrealists; Vincent van Gogh compared them to 'astonishing things'.This handsome book – the catalogue of an exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Paris Musées – Maison de Victor Hugo and the Bibliothèque nationale de France – includes new texts by leading authorities on Hugo and reproductions of many of his finest works on paper, from early caricatures and travel drawings to dramatic landscapes and experiments in abstraction. 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

Holbein’s Ambassadors is one of the most famous paintings in the National Gallery.It is also one of the most intriguing. Laden with hidden symbols and mysteries, the work has been the subject of intense debate among historians during the five centuries since it was created.Here Tracy Borman unpicks the secrets of this enigmatic artwork, painted during a turbulent time in English history as Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church in order to marry the young Anne Boleyn. From Holbein’s experiences as a German-Swissémigré who rose to a position as the ‘King’s Painter’, to the two French ambassadors’ troubles at court, this book illuminates the fascinating story behind a masterpiece of the Tudor era. Read more

From the migrations out of Africa by our earliest ancestors to the latest voyages into space, an incredible team of historians, travellers and explorers brings to life seventy of humanity’s most remarkable journeys.With hundreds of evocative photographs, paintings, illustrations and portraits, plus specially commissioned maps, this volume is for everyone who is fascinated by the stories and personalities of those who were there first, who explored the unexplored and who set out into the unknown, bringing alive the romance and sheer thrill of travel in a way no book has done before. Read more