Антології

Since the radiant years of the Renaissance, the city of Florence has come for many to represent the greatest triumph of the Western cultural tradition. This is the city where humanism was born, where Plato was discussed passionately in the narrow streets, and where men and women first found themselves to be the measure of all things. For more than three centuries Florence nurtured a creative community of astounding, even revolutionary genius. Here, starting in the late 1200s, Giotto painted the grave and powerful frescoes that drew Florence and the world toward a radical new vision of realism, and here, ushering in the dazzling era of the High Renaissance, Michelangelo began his incomparable career as architect, sculptor, and painter. During the intervening years, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo, and hundreds of the most splendidly talented artists in history lived and worked in this small city on the Arno and collaborated in the creation of the great urban museum we know as Florence.

Matching an elegant and sophisticated text by three leading art historians with hundreds of glorious color photographs, The Art of Florence immerses us in a city and a time of unparalleled cultural ferment. This important and uncommonly beautiful publication analyzes the history of Florentine art in terms of the distinctly Florentine and Tuscan influences that shaped it - an approach never before employed in a study of this breadth and complexity. The fascinating and lucid text by Glenn Andres, John Hunisak, and Richard Turner gracefully links Florentine architecture, sculpture, and painting to the rich social fabric and the dramatic political life of the city. Woven into this compelling history is the most luxurious and comprehensive visual documentation available of Florences unrivaled treasures. More than 700 color images and another 854 duotones and architectural drawings have been reproduced with a meticulous care worthy of the Renaissance craft tradition. Joining visual beauty with intellectual rigor in a fashion that truly invokes the spirit of this great city, The Art of Florence presents as rich a vision of human creativity as we can find anywhere outside Florence itself.

They're joyful, they're mischievous, they're full of life and wonder--they're babies! On their very best behavior or their very worst, you'll find it all in The Big Book of Babies, a 384-page collection of more than 230 black-and-white photographs - printed in duotone - that capture the wonder and excitement of babies' first years. The expressions of amazement that come from discovering their new surroundings, the incredible messes they can get themselves into, their irresistable habit of falling asleep in the unlikeliest of places - these are but a few of the reasons babies entertain, delight, and fascinate. From laughter, to tears, to trouble of all sorts, The Big Book of Babies is sure to bring a smile to your face. The images are complemented by J.C.'s own whimsical drawings, and by hilarious stories, touching moments, and excerpts and quotes from the works of such diverse and classic writers as Louise Erdrich, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, and more. The result is a rich source of joy and entertainment for parents-to-be, new parents, empty nesters, grandparents, and siblings to share.

The Golden Hills before the Silicone Valley: Three decades of the world’s most spectacular natural curves Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast.

In The Big Book of Breasts, Dian Hanson explores the origins of mammary madness through three decades of natural big-breasted nudes. Starting with the World War II Bosom-Mania that spawned Russ Meyer, Howard Hughes’s The Outlaw and Frederick’s of Hollywood, Dian guides you over, around, and in between the dangerous curves of infamous models including Michelle Angelo, Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa De Leeuw, Uschi Digard, Candye Kane, Jennie Lee, Sylvia McFarland, Margaret Middleton, Paula Page, June Palmer, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Linda West, June Wilkinson, Julie Wills, and dozens more, including Guinness World Record holder Norma Stitz, possessor of the World’s Largest Natural Breasts.

The 396 pages of this book contain the most beautiful and provocative photos ever created of these iconic women, plus nine original interviews, including the first with Tempest Storm and Uschi Digard in over a decade, and the last with Candy Barr before her untimely death in 2005. In a world where silicone is now the norm, these spectacular real women stand as testament that nature knows best.

The sensual curve of the hip. The disturbing pucker of a scar. The magnetic pull of the lashed eye. In this book, William A. Ewing presents an archive of over 360 photographic images of the body - beautiful, bizarre, sometimes brutally revealing - reflecting many years research and selection in museums, libraries and private collections throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Photography has intensified our obsessive attraction to images of the body for at least 150 years. This book reveals a long tradition of photographing the nude, looking at the many different ways it has been depicted in the photographer's art: the full figure nude; the body in fragments; the body as an object of sexual desire and in the realm of dam, fantasy and obsession. Also included are bodies scrutinised by medical and anatomical photographers, and those celebrated by photographers of sport, dance and fashion. Most of the greatest names in photography are represented here: Nadar, Muybridge and Roger Fenton from the earliest days of the medium; later Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and Man Ray; and from our own time John Coplans, Robert Mapplethorpe, Barbara Kruger, Pierre Radisic and many others. Today, in the age of the supermodel and the super-athlete, consciousness of both the private and the public body has never been greater. From 19th-century erotica to the sexual politics of the 1990s, this book in a special slipcased edition provides a rich archive of bodily forms, male and female, and a record of the camera's infatuation with the human figure. William A. Ewing is a renowned authority in the field of photography. His many books include "The Fugitive Gesture" (1987), "Flora Photographica: Masterpieces of Flower Photography" (1991) and "Breaking Bounds: The Dance Photography of Lois Greenfield" (1992) - all published by Thames and Hudson.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris houses one of the greatest collections of twentieth century photography in the world. This book comprises a comprehensive catalogue of the collection, 350 photographs by 283 of the most famous artists and photographers to engage with the medium – from Drtikol, Abbott, Strand, Evans, Brancusi, Rodtchenko and Abbott, via Alvarez Bravo, Man Ray, Boubat and Klein, to Mapplethorpe, Sherman, Struth, Gursky and Goldin. The book is comprised of 6 sections, each introduced by a short essay, and proposes a new history of photography through the collections of the Centre Pompidou.

The Day After Tomorrow takes readers on a journey to bear witness to the environmental destruction that is currently plaguing our planet; from a forest in West Virginia devastated by mountaintop removal mining, to a region in Florida left in ruins by the phosphate mining industry, J. Henry Fair presents hard evidence that our unchecked consumerism is leading the way in the destruction of our planet, one natural resource at a time.

Primarily through the use of aerial photography, Fair captures spellbinding vistas of pools of toxic hog waste, streams of paper mill runoff, and the remains of hollowed-out mountains. These environmental abstractions lure the viewer in with unique asymmetrical shapes and striking colors; however, fascination quickly turns to horror, as the viewer realizes what lurks beneath the surface of the image.

Fair is a consummate environmentalist and after years as a corporate and portrait photographer he turned his lens on the industries that sustain us - oil, fertilizer, coal, and factory farming, to name a few - eager to uncover the dirty little secrets that he knew were well hidden there. It turns out the secrets, and the “dirt” they produce, are far too large to hide. For example: the factory farming industry is responsible for one of the largest environmental disasters in history, wherein a hog waste lagoon burst, causing 25 million gallons of highly toxic sludge to flood the New River in North Carolina, killing ecosystems, animals, and infecting water supplies. Just before Christmas in 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant was responsible for sending a billion gallons of coal ash waste into the Tennessee River; this spill was 40 times larger than the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Coal ash is toxic, containing a laundry list of hazardous substances such as uranium, mercury, lead, and arsenic. These are only two examples of the endless calamity we inflict on our environment daily. Now is the time to take action and make change.

More than anything else, The Day After Tomorrow is a call to arms. Our planet dies a little bit every second, and this trend will continue unless we take responsibility. Fair’s images reveal the calamitous effects of our consumer culture’s insatiable appetite for natural resources. Forests are being wiped-out, water supplies polluted and/or drained, animals and humans are dying, but for what? These stunning and tragically beautiful images, in conjunction with an essays by one of America’s leading environmental defenders, provide indisputable evidence that the way we eat, commute, and manufacture is collectively destroying the Earth, and we must change the way we live if we expect our planet to survive.

This book represents the work of every LIFE magazine staff photographer from the 20th century, as well as a handful of others closely affiliated with the magazine, including Alfred Eisenstadt, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, Eugene Smith, and Joe McNally. THE GREAT LIFE PHOTOGRAPHERS presents the most iconic images of the past century, as well as little-known gems from the LIFE archives. Many of these images are markers of the major milestones of history--the first pictures from inside the womb or from outer space, Robert Capas falling soldier, and memorable scenes from Tiananmen Square. Defining celebrity portraits of Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson are also featured. This startingly rich collection of both color and black-and-white photographs is a vivid fulfillment of Henry Luces charge: To see life; to see the world....To be amazed!

The best work of every LIFE magazine staff photographer, as well as that of a handful of others closely affiliated with the magazine, is on display in this book. Here are portfolios by over 100 great photographers, including Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, W. Eugene Smith, Robert Capa, Ralph Morse, Nina Leen, Harry Benson, Philippe Halsman, and, most recently, Joe McNally's memorable work for LIFE in the aftermath of September 11.

Here are Capa’s pictures from the D-Day landing, Mydans’s of MacArthur striding ashore, Bourke-White’s evidence of the Holocaust, David Douglas Duncan’s Korea, Larry Burrows’s Vietnam, Ralph Morse’s chronicle of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Here are intimate, defining – and revealing – portraits of celebrities, from Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe to the Beatles and Michael Jackson.

Short biographical profiles, along with portraits of all the photographers, accompany the portfolios making the book an indispensable reference.

Magnum Photos and the Cinémathèque française asked the ten Magnum photographers Abbas, Antoine D’Agata, Bruce Gilden, Harry Gruyaert, Gilles Peress, Gueorgui Pinkhassov, Mark Power, Alec Soth, Donovan Wylie, and Patrick Zachmann to create original works in response to the work of a film director who has influenced their own vision. In making this work the photographers utilise a mix of media: prints, projections, film stills, audiovisual material, multimedia, written notes, soundtracks, publications, etc., explaining the reciprocity between these two interwoven disciplines whereby each, in its own way, explores the domain of the visible.

The great improvisational American jazz musicians of the mid-20th century inspired a generation of photographers to develop a looser, moodier style of visual expression.

Covering six decades of performers -- from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to John Coltrane and Miles Davis -- this unique collection is as much a comprehensive catalogue of jazz greats as it is a salute to the photographers who captured them. The images here provide a simultaneous look at jazz, photography, and America from 1935 into the 1990s with images of jazz legends such as:

Charlie Parker
Sonny Rollins
Dizzy Gillespie
Ella Fitzgerald
Louis Armstrong
Jon Faddis
Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Wallace Roney
Charles Mingus
And more!

About the Author:

Lee Tanner, a leading authority on jazz photography, has selected works -- by such noted jazz photographers as Herman Leonard, Bob Willoughby, Milt Hinton, and Bill Claxton--that are iconic, candid, explosive, and intimate.

In 2004, Tanner received the Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Excellence in Photography from the Jazz Journalists Association. In 2010, he was presented with the prestigious Lucie Award for Achievement in Documentary. The Lucie Awards are given annually to honor the work of master photographers. His curation makes this one-of-a-kind coffee table book of jazz photography a must-have addition to any jazz aficionado's library and the perfect gift for any fan.

Defining Moments. Shots from the world’s greatest collection of Polaroid images

The unique tones and spontaneity of Polaroids have made them a beloved photographic format for decades. Brimming with all the warmth and nostalgia of a family album, this ode to the instant camera presents hundreds of images from the Polaroid Corporation’s own collection. A chronicle of the experimental and innovative ways Polaroids have defied the digital age.

The Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest portfolio of Polaroid images in the world. Begun by Polaroid founder Edwin Land and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection now includes some 23,000 images by hundreds of photographers throughout the world, including pieces by the likes of David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and Jeanloup Sieff.

The Polaroid Book dives into these archives, paying tribute to a medium that continues to defy the digital age. Like an oversized Polaroid film pack, this collection curates works by luminaries and unknowns alike, celebrating the boundless possibilities that develop inside the white borders of the original instant photograph.

Features:

- more than 250 works from the Polaroid Collections
- an  essay by Polaroid’s Barbara Hitchcock on the beginnings of instant photography and the collection’s history
- a chapter featuring the various types of Polaroid cameras.

The author:

Barbara Hitchcock is the director of cultural affairs for the Polaroid Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts. She is responsible for acquiring artistic photographs for Polaroid and managing its travelling exhibitions and multi-million dollar art collections. She has curated several national exhibitions and currently collaborates with the Photography Collection Committee of the Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge.

The editor:

California-native Steve Crist's TASCHEN titles include André de Dienes's Marilyn, William Claxton's Steve McQueen, and The Polaroid Book.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

For the first time, the Russian news agency TASS has opened its complete photographic archives to create an unprecedented and uncensored look at the last 100 years of life in the Soviet Union and the new Russia.

Featuring more than 300 astonishing photographs — many never before published — these images capture the daily life of a people through the dramatic sweep of Russian history, from royalty to revolution and the rise and fall of communism. Illuminated by informative essays and extended captions that provide context on the times and the photographs, this is the definitive visual record of Russian history as seen through Russian eyes.

About the Author:

Peter Radetsky is the author of six books and has written and developed a dozen international museum exhibitions, with long experience chronicling Russian life and history.

The nude has always particularly captivated artists and viewers, with the depiction of the human body a classic exercise in all forms of fine art. This fascination in no way waned with the arrival of a new art form – photography. In fact, it has undoubtedly contributed both to the exploration of human anatomy and morphology as well as to the collective erotic imagination. Taken from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day, a selection of more than 300 photographs guides the reader through countless variations in the depiction of the nude, each with their own aesthetic, political, social, artistic and formal implications, through the works of major photographers. The volume concludes with an index of artists and biographies of the main photographers.