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Magritte in 400 images offers a selection of the most iconic paintings by René Magritte, along with a multitude of lesser-known jewels from his expansive oeuvre. The novel choice of works will surprise and delight readers as they continue to uncover ever more facets of the master Surrealist, from his unique gouaches to his painted bottles.

Spanning seven chapters, this book brings together the myriad aspects of Magritte’s pictorial vision. Beginning with his first forays into abstract painting in the 1920s, navigating his search for solace in his Sunlit Period, as well as his brittle ‘Vache’ Period, before finally moving on to his Surrealist masterpieces of the 1950s and 1960s, it gently guides the reader through Magritte’s world.

Each chapter opens with a summary of the artistic stakes at play during that period and Magritte’s place in them, immersing the reader in the contemporary artistic milieu. The 400 reproductions of Magritte’s work are complemented by a unique selection of historical photographs. Alive with images and information, this compact gem is a must-have for all art enthusiasts and connoisseurs.

Published in conjunction with a major exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with the Menil Collection, Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 focuses on the breakthrough surrealist years of René Magritte, creator of some of the 20th century's most extraordinary images. 

Bringing together nearly 80 paintings, periodicals and early commercial work, it offers fresh insight into Magritte's identity as a revolutionary painter and surrealist artist. Beginning in 1926, when Magritte first aimed to create paintings that would, in his words, challenge the real world and concluding in 1938 a historically and biographically significant moment just before the outbreak of World War II the publication traces central strategies and themes from this seminal period, particularly those of displacement, transformation, metamorphosis, the misnaming of objects, and the representation of visions seen in half-waking states. 

The publication also presents new conservation research on Magritte's materials and techniques, and an illustrated chronology outlining significant moments in the artist's life during this significant period, including travel, connections with other surrealist artists and writers, contributions to journals, and important exhibitions and reviews.

Christian Rex van Minnen’s art is challenging, intriguing, and disturbing. His provocative paintings depict the dynamic attraction and repulsion of mankind, often leaving the viewer deep in contemplative euphoria. Since his first solo exhibition in 2009, his work has been shown extensively around the world, garnering a cult following of admirers who are deeply moved by his honest paintings, that often reflect the artist’s own thoughts about the fragile male ego and what it means to identify as a white American man.

Van Minnen’s first foray into showcasing his delightfully complex work, Massa Confusa: The Art of Christian Rex van Minnen is a deluxe art book filled with beautiful paintings that raise questions around our identity while also bringing out the grotesque from within all of us.

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Botticelli makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation

The Florentine painter Botticelli personifies the Golden Age of the early Renaissance. Best known for The Birth of Venus and Primavera, Botticelli painted with an expressive poeticism that eschewed formal realism. He used line and colour to gorgeous effect, creating some of the most beloved and familiar images of all time. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details-allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline and suggestions for further reading.

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Monet makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation.

Monet’s dazzling depictions of flowers, sunsets, fields, and oceans, in which line and shape are suggested through pure color, changed the way we perceive our natural surroundings. His numerous series, in which he depicts the same object at varying times of the day and in different seasons, pushed the limits of representational art. His final series of water lilies are considered to have ushered in the abstract movement of the twentieth century. Overflowing with images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details, allowing every aspect of the artist’s technique and oeuvre to be appreciated. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Jan van Eyck makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation

As a 15th-century Flemish painter who spent most of his life in Bruges, Van Eyck was revered for his innovative manipulation of oil paint. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details, allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist’s technique and oeuvre.

Like Dreamers Do. The lyrical mark-making of a modern maestro

Explore the lyrical seven-decade career of Catalan-born Joan Miró, a towering figure of 20th-century art, whose highly individual style reflected Surrealist, Dadaist, and abstract elements in dazzling colors and unique symbolic narratives. From automated drawing to sculptures made of gas, this modernist legend abandoned categorization and approval in favor of his own dreamlike worlds.

With a career spanning seven decades, Catalan-born Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a polymath giant of modern art, producing masterworks across painting, sculpture, art books, tapestry, and ceramics, and embracing ideologies as varied as Fauvism, Surrealism, Dada, Magic Realism, Cubism, and abstraction.

Over the course of his prodigious output, Miró evolved constantly, seeking to eschew categorization and the approval of “bourgeois” art critics as much as he pursued his own dreamlike worlds. Emerging into the public spotlight in the early 1920s, he first experimented with Fauvism and Cubism before developing a distinctive style of symbols and pictograms, arranged in elusive visual narratives, with frequent reference to Catalan life. As his career progressed, Miró moved towards Surrealism, and, despite never fully identifying with the movement, emerged as one of its most celebrated practitioners with techniques including automated drawing, Lyrical Abstraction, and Color Field painting. In later years, he diversified his media further, working with ceramics, textiles, and even proposing sculptures made of gas.

Through his vivid colors, dreamlike fantasies, and enigmatic symbols, this book brings together the numerous strands of Miró’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre to introduce his fascinating career, its interaction with major modernist movements, and how it made him into a modernist legend.

The author:

Janis Mink studied art history at Smith College and gained her doctorate in Hamburg under Martin Warnke. She is presently a writer and curator.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

A new concise history of modern painting, offering an indispensable reference to the complexities and characteristics of this medium.

While acknowledging the legacy of Herbert Read’s classic 1959 study A Concise History of Modern Painting in the World of Art series, academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundation of modern art much earlier than Read, at the emergence of Romanticism and the dawn of the industrial age. Structured loosely chronologically by period, the focus is as much on individual artists as well as movements, with works discussed within a broader context - stylistic, historical, geographical, and gender and ethnic frames - themes that recur throughout the chapters. Generously illustrated, the global and diverse range of artists featured include William Blake, Édouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold and Kehinde Wiley.

This guide also includes an Appendix in the form of questions the reader might like to ask in relation to the artists and the ideas discussed - in order to reconsider the works from a contemporary perspective.

About the Author:

Simon Morley is a visual artist and Assistant Professor in the College of Arts, Dankook University, Republic of Korea. He has lectured at such museums as Tate, The National Gallery, Hayward Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and Camden Arts Centre, and has contributed to numerous publications including Third Text, World Art, the TLS, The Burlington Magazine, Art Monthly, The Art Newspaper, Contemporary Art and the Independent on Sunday.

Discover the dramatic life and work of Amedeo Modigliani, a pioneer of modern figurative painting

Amedeo Modigliani experimented with sculpture and drawing, but is primarily known for his paintings of nudes and portraits characterized by elongated figures, faces, and necks. He began painting in his youth in Italy before moving to Paris in 1906, during the height of the avant-garde movement. Influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Cezanne, Modigliani developed his own unique, uncharacterizable style. His nudes upended traditions at the time due to their immodesty, candid sexuality, and ability to convey the subject's personality. Because of the works' scandalous nature, Modigliani had very little success with his paintings while he was alive. This volume features stunning full-page illustrations of Modigliani's works, along with information about his life, including his bohemian, over-the-top lifestyle and his untimely, tragic death. Featuring some of Modigliani's best-known works, this book gives an insightful and comprehensive overview on the artist known for modernizing figurative painting.

About the Author:

Olaf Mextorf is an art historian currently working for museums. He already published books on Oscar Schlemmer, Vincent van Gogh and others.

Spot on: Amedeo Modigliani in an exciting joint catalogue

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) moved to Paris as a 22-year-old art student and is regarded as probably the last true bohémien in Montmartre. The exhibition catalogue to mark the 100th anniversary of his death shows him for the first time as a leading member of the avant-garde who carried the revolution of Primitivism well into the 20th century.

Modigliani’s famous nudes, unusual portraits and unique sculptures are contrasted with works by Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncusi and André Derain as well as artefacts from so-called “primitive” cultures. In doing so the volume focuses in particular on Modigliani’s lifelong study of the art of Primitivism, which also interested the artist friends who influenced his work. Some 100 works are on view, including numerous main works by Modigliani from the great museums and most important private collections from America to Asia.

This magnificent boxed-set features stunning, accordion-fold, color reproductions of Monet’s essential works, accompanied by a separate booklet with a background and descriptions of each painting.

Fans of Impressionism will delight in seeing some of their favorite works presented in generously sized accordion fold pages, which bring Monet’s representations of nature to exquisite life. Arranged chronologically, this volume helps readers appreciate the achievements of a long and fruitful career. Natural beauty, color and light were the object of Monet’s incessant research, and he never lost sight of what was essential to him — the truth of his sensations. From the faithful transcription of the landscape in his early days to the gestural drawing of the final water lilies at Giverny, this book allows us to follow and understand the evolution of his creativity. The themes of Monet’s work (the seashore, the Seine, gardens, the seasons) are discussed, as well as the techniques he used, such as the decomposition of light and color through the brushstroke; the use of repetition and series to better reflect atmospheric variations; and the progressive dissolution of forms, which led to him being considered the precursor of abstraction. Packaged in an elegant slipcase, this volume reflects the beautiful artistry and timeless traditions that are embodied in the artworks themselves.

New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting by Robert Zeller offers a sweeping exposition of both historical Surrealism and its legacy in the world of contemporary art. It demonstrates the many ways in which the most significant art movement of the last century continues to be relevant today, featuring an international selection of contemporary artists whose compositions and studio practice reveal its influence.

There are many modalities of historical Surrealism that still maintain contemporary currency: presenting the familiar as unfamiliar and uncanny, the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated imagery, the use of absurdity to critique political or social issues, and the use of erotic imagery in an irrational, non-linear context. Not all the artists brought together in this book self-identify as Surrealist, per se, but each uses some variation of Surrealism in a personal manner.

The book begins with a study of the origins, leadership, participating artists, and major milestones of historical Surrealism. Zeller chronicles the movement starting at the end of World War I and the birth of Dada. The most important players and events emerge throughout the timeline of events — including World War II, and such notable artists as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, and many others — up until the death of its leader Andre Breton in 1966.

Zeller then explores how elements of New Surrealism are being put into practice in the contemporary art world. Section Two offers a survey of 29 contemporary artists who engage in New Surrealism's seemingly unlimited variations of the movement's original themes, including Rosa Loy, Glenn Brown, and Arghavan Khosravi. Section Three features 14 artists, including important contemporary artists such as Inka Essenhigh, Ginny Casey and Anna Weyant, who speak to Surrealism's influence on their studio practice, detailing in their own words how they create a composition from start to finish.

About the Author:

Robert Zeller is a visual artist and writer who received a BFA from a joint program of the Boston Museum School and Tufts University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. Following his bestselling The Figurative Artist's Handbook (2017), New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting is his second book published by Monacelli Studio. He contributed a chapter about Surrealist photography to the exhibition catalog Photography: Real and Imagined (2024), profiling the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and has also written for The Brooklyn Rail and other influential art periodicals and blogs. In 2009, he founded The Teaching Studios of Art, an in-person and online art school devoted to instruction in figurative art. Zeller maintains a studio practice in Brooklyn, New York, and is the recipient of two Posey Fellowships and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He has curated group exhibitions and shown his own work at galleries in the United States and Europe.

Mighty nature: The pioneering forms of Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) was a major figure in modern American art for some seven decades. Importantly, her fame was not associated with shifting art styles and trends, but rather with her own unique vision, based on finding essential and abstract forms in nature.

O'Keeffe s primary subjects were landscapes, flowers, and bones, each explored in successive series over several years. Certain works went on for decades, producing 12 or more variations of an original image. Among these, O'Keeffe s magnified pictures of calla lilies and irises are her most famous. Enlarging the tiniest petals to fill an entire canvas, O'Keeffe created a proto-abstract vocabulary of shapes and lines, earning her the moniker mother of American modernism. In 1946, O'Keeffe became the first female artist to be given a solo show at the MoMA in New York.

This introductory book from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 traces O'Keeffe s long and luminous career through key paintings, contemporary photographs, and portraits taken by Alfred Stieglitz, to whom O'Keeffe was married. We follow the artist through her pioneering innovations, major breakthroughs, and her travels and inspirations in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and, above all, New Mexico, where she was particularly inspired by the majestic landscapes, vivid colours and exotic vegetation.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Portrait of an Artist in the Early Days of Modernism

The incomparable play of light and color in Paul Cezanne’s work was the foundation of his reputation as a forerunner of modernism. From the start he went his own way, and his paintings initially evoked a lack of understanding in art critics of the time, as well as ridicule. Despite his Romantic, Baroque, Impressionist, and finally Classical influences, it is still difficult to ascribe Cezanne to any particular art movement. Still, which specific places left lasting impressions on the scion of a provincial banker’s family? What and who were major influences supporting and advancing his innovative oeuvre? James H. Rubin traces Cezanne’s life and work from A to Z in this brief volume, creating an image of a painter who wanted to transform painting itself. The author—and established connoisseur — succeeds in closely approaching the artist while at the same time maintaining the necessary distance to his inimitable paintings.

Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) was one of the most influential painters in the early days of modernism and has often been described as a pioneer of Neues Sehen, or New Vision. His work still exercises undiminished influence to this day.
James H. Rubin (*1944) is an art historian and professor at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. His research focuses on nineteenth-century European art, especially the history, theory, and critique of French Modernism.

Now available again, this beautiful volume offers high-quality reproductions and the latest biographical information on Paul Klee, who helped pave the way for Modernism.

Readers of this book will find much to discover and relish in Paul Klee’s art. Reproductions of his iconic works as well as those that are more rarely exhibited are featured alongside in-depth biographical information that looks beyond his many artistic achievements to explore the life and times of the artist. Photographs of Klee and his circle, as well as entertaining and enlightening anecdotes, offer a multifaceted perspective on a groundbreaking artist and the events that helped shape his colorful and imaginative work.

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Пролистать книгу Paul Klee: Life and Work