Книги з історії мистецтва

Всебічне та розкішне дослідження, яке відзначає красу та привабливість квітів у мистецтві, історії та культурі

Вирушайте в подорож континентами та культурами, щоб дізнатися про нескінченні способи, якими художники та іміджмейкери використовували квіткові мотиви протягом історії. Завдяки 316 кольоровим ілюстраціям, що демонструють різноманіття квітів з усього світу, «Квітка» охоплює широкий спектр стилів і засобів масової інформації — від мистецтва, ботанічних ілюстрацій і скульптур до квіткових композицій, кадрів із фільмів і текстилю — і дотримується візуально приголомшливої ​​послідовності робіт, незалежно від епохи, продумано поєднаних, щоб забезпечити цікаве та відверте зіставлення між ними. Квітка йде по стопах Plant, Exploring the Botanical World, який Martha Stewart Living назвала «захоплюючим».

Завдяки великим зображенням і доступним текстам Flower пропонує всебічне ознайомлення з темою та включає в себе як улюблені твори, так і приклади, які можуть стати більш дивовижними відкриттями навіть для спеціалістів. Відібрані міжнародною групою істориків мистецтва, кураторів музеїв, ботаніків, флористів, садівників та інших представлені роботи різноманітного кола як менш відомих, так і культових художників та іміджмейкерів, зокрема: Нобуйосі Аракі, Сесіл Бітон, Георг Ерет, Девід Хокні, Горст П. Хорст, Нік Найт, Яйоі Кусама, Леонардо да Вінчі, Роберт Меплторп, Анрі Матісс, Клод Моне, Седрік Морріс, Вільям Морріс, Джорджія О'Кіф, Ірвінг Пенн, Девід Хокні, П'єр-Жозеф Редуте, Рейчел Руйш, Констанс Спрай і Флора Старкі.

Консультативна група: Луген Б. Бруно, д-р Джеймс Комптон, Шейн Конноллі, Анн-П’єр д’Альбіс-Ганем, Селія Фішер, Сьюзен М. Фрейзер, Вікторія Гейгер, Елізабет Хаммер, Дейзі Гельман, Кетрін Гесс, Паскаль Хьортел, д-р Ліза Хостетлер, Ліндсі Інгрем, професор д-р Ханс Уолтер Лак, д-р Фред Г. Мейер, Коллін Морріс, Поллі Ніколсон, Лінн Паркер, Анна Паворд, Гілл Сондерс, Ліндсі Тейлор, Анатоль Чикін і Бетсі Візман

Додаткові тексти: Джованні Алої, Луїза Белл, Луген Бруно, Шейн Конноллі, Клер Коулсон, Луїза Елдертон, Селія Фішер, Даян Фортенберрі, Вікторія Ґейгер, Дейзі Гельман, Паскаль Хьортел, Ліндсі Інґрем, Ганс Уолтер Лак, Фред Г. Мейєр, Елісон Морріс, Коллін Морріс, Поллі Ніколсон, Мікеле Робеккі, Ребекка Роук, Гілл Сондерс, Джеймс Сміт, Ліндсі Тейлор, Девід Трігг і Мартін Волтерс

Про автора:

Книги Анни Паворд включають її всесвітній бестселер The Tulip та The Naming of Names, а нещодавно The Seasonal Gardener, виданий Phaidon. Її колонка про садівництво в газеті Independent у Великобританії тривала тридцять років від запуску газети в 1986 році до останнього друкованого видання. Сьогодні вона пише для Sunday Times і є помічником редактора журналу Gardens Illustrated. Паворд живе в Вест-Дорсеті і був нагороджений золотою медаллю Veitch від Королівського садівничого товариства в 2001 році.

Шейн Конноллі є засновником Shane Connolly & Company Flowers у Лондоні та власником Королівського ордера Його Величності Королеви та Його Високості Принца Уельського.

The perfect subject for a graphic novel, Frida Kahlo's brief life was dramatic and romantic, tragic and painful. In this illustrated 'biography', Vanna Vinci captures the spirit of Kahlo's world in boldly coloured, minutely detailed illustrations. Blending facts and history with dreamlike and surreal sequences, Vinci creates an intimate portrayal of an artist who incorporated her life experiences into her art. Burning love and crushing loss, incredible joy and deep despair - these were all part of Kahlo's life and part of the paintings that are some of the most celebrated art of all time. Filled with images that populated Kahlo's work - monkeys and parrots, traditional clothing and lush gardens - Vinci imbues her text and drawings with an artist's perception and sensitivity. The result is an evocative, fittingly passionate tribute to a legendary figure.

Художній музей Сент-Луїса зібрав одну з найбільших і найповніших колекцій картин німецького експресіонізму в Північній Америці. Знову відкрийте для себе визначальний рух сучасного мистецтва через це оригінальне дослідження робіт 25 художників, які охоплюють його знамениту широку арку.

Це перша публікація всесвітньо відомої колекції мистецтва німецького експресіонізму Художнього музею Сент-Луїса, яка включає основні роботи провідних художників руху та менш відомих діячів, яких рідко можна побачити за межами Німеччини. Захоплюючі записи заглиблюються в історію картин, від їх виготовлення до прибуття в Сент-Луїс. Вступ простежує походження колекції до потоку експресіоністського мистецтва, який увійшов у Сполучені Штати під час Другої світової війни. З’являється нова розповідь про ключову епоху сучасного мистецтва.

Про автора:

Мелісса Венатор – помічник куратора відділу сучасного мистецтва Художнього музею Сент-Луїса.

Захоплююча розповідь Сари Сіммонс розміщує Гойю в контексті його іспанської спадщини, простежує величезний вплив його творчості по всій Європі та розглядає незмінну актуальність його мистецтва у двадцятому столітті. Малюнки, олійні картини, фрески, дизайни гобеленів і гравюри передають повний спектр творчості Гойї. Сіммонс спирається на найновіші наукові дослідження та наново відкриті роботи, щоб створити повний портрет цього складного художника, який є абсолютно актуальним і надзвичайно захоплюючим.

Про автора:

Сара Сіммонс — старший викладач кафедри історії та теорії мистецтва в Університеті Ессекса.

Art is for Everybody. The artist as activist

One of the key figures in the New York art world of the 1980s, Keith Haring (1958-1990) created a signature style that blended street art, graffiti, Pop, and cartoon elements to unique, memorable effect. With thick black outlines, bright colours, and kinetic figures, his public (and occasionally illegal) interventions, sculptures, and works on canvas and paper have become instantly recognizable icons of 20th-century visual culture.

From his first chalk drawings in the New York City subway stations, to his renowned Radiant Baby symbol, and his commissions for Swatch Watch and Absolut Vodka, Haring s work was both emblematic of the manic work ethic of 1980s New York, yet distinctive for its social-awareness. Belying their bright, playful aesthetics, his pieces often tackled intensely controversial socio-political issues, including racism, capitalism, religious fundamentalism, and the increasing impact of AIDS on New York's gay community, the latter foreshadowing his own death from the disease in 1990.

In this vivid introduction to Haring's work, we explore the dynamic life and innovative spirit of this singular artist, who spent little more than a decade in the spotlight, but through the accessibility of his visual vocabulary and the strength of his political commitment became one of the most significant artists to emerge from New York's vibrant, downtown community.

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

Following the success of The Empire of Death, which has attracted a global cult following, Heavenly Bodies brings the 'catacomb saints' out of the darkness for the first time

In 1578 a labyrinth of underground burials was discovered in Rome that contained the remains of thousands of individuals assumed to be early Christian martyrs. The bones were disinterred and sent to many Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics that had been destroyed during the Protestant Reformation.

Reassembled by skilled artisans, encrusted with gold and jewels and richly dressed in fantastic costumes, the skeletons were displayed in elaborate public shrines as reminders of the spiritual treasures that awaited the faithful after death. For nearly three centuries these ‘Heavenly Bodies’ were venerated as miracle-workers and protectors of their communities until doubts about their authenticity surfaced in the modern era. They then became a source of embarrassment for the Church and most were destroyed or hidden away.

The book includes arresting images of more than seventy spectacular jeweled skeletons and the fascinating stories of dozens more, accompanied by rare archive material. This is the first time that some of these incredible relics – both intriguing historical artifacts and masterpieces of artistic craftsmanship in their own right – have appeared in a publication, with Koudounaris gaining unprecedented access to photograph in some of the most secretive religious establishments in Europe.

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is a tour de force of original cultural history with deepest resonances for a modern audience fascinated by visual representations of death.

Paul Koudounaris lives in Los Angeles, where he took his doctorate in the art history department of UCLA. His first book, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses, was published by Thames & Hudson in 2011.

Гольбейн при дворі Тюдорів зосереджується на всесвітньо значущій колекції портретів Ганса Гольбейна Молодшого в Королівській колекції.

Це багато ілюстроване видання містить нариси про художника, його наглядачів та історію його роботи в Королівській колекції.

Гольбейн при дворі Тюдорів зосереджується на всесвітньо значущій колекції портретів Ганса Гольбейна Молодшого в Королівській колекції. Ці портрети, малюнки, мініатюри та живопис, датуються майже виключно періодом Гольбейна як видатного художника при дворі Генріха VIII.

Це багато ілюстроване видання містить нариси про художника, його опікунів та історію його роботи в Королівській колекції, а також серію записів про окремі твори – розглядаючи як витвір мистецтва, так і особу представленого наглядача, і використовує, де це можливо, голоси того періоду (як це можна знайти в листах, віршах, адміністративних записах і дипломатичних рахунках), щоб оживити світ англійського двору шістнадцятого століття.

Про автора:

Кейт Херд є старшим куратором гравюр і малюнків Royal Collection Trust. Її попередні публікації включають «Георг IV: Мистецтво та видовище» (2019), «Перші георгіанці: Мистецтво та монархія» (2014) та «Високий дух: Комічне мистецтво Томаса Роулендсона» (2013).

Тепер доступний у компактному виданні за привабливою ціною, це щедро ілюстроване, багатогранне дослідження імпресіонізму простежує зародження, розвиток і глобальний вплив цього руху.

Імпресіонізм, один із найвідоміших і найпопулярніших стилів у світі мистецтва, також є одним із найскладніших. У цьому розкішному огляді Норберт Вольф приділяє увагу всім аспектам імпресіонізму: його історичним попередникам, сучасним суперникам і рухам, які він надихнув. Понад 200 широкоформатних репродукцій цілих робіт і виділених деталей знайомлять читачів з естетикою та технікою імпресіоністів. Вулф проводить проникливі паралелі між цими картинами та іншими сучасними творами музики, фотографії та літератури. Простежуючи поширення руху з Франції до решти Європи та Північної Америки, цей том висвітлює головних героїв, які відіграли ключову роль у розвитку імпресіонізму. У ній згадуються не лише французькі піонери — Клод Моне, Гюстав Кайботт, Едуард Мане, П’єр-Огюст Ренуар, Каміль Піссарро та інші, — але й Макс Ліберман, Ловіс Корінф, Джон Сінгер Сарджент, Мері Кассат, Вільям Мерріт Чейз і Джеймс Макніл Вістлер тощо. Розкішне та авторитетне, це широке дослідження моменту в історії мистецтва розкриває роботи та ідеї, які здивують навіть найдосвідченішого шанувальника.

Про автора:

Норберт Вольф — історик мистецтва та письменник із Мюнхена. Він опублікував кілька книг із Prestel, зокрема Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Impressionism, and The Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Painting, а також монографії про Альбрехта Дюрера та Тиціана

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Погортати книгу Impressionism. Reimagining Art на сайтi видавництва.

Abstract Beginnings. A pivotal portfolio in the history of art

Throughout his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky transformed not only his own practice, but the course of art history itself. This essential guide traces Kandinsky’s rich repertoire to present the painter, engraver, teacher, and theorist credited with the first modern abstract painting and with one of the keenest theoretical minds of 20th-century art.

Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color and line and is today credited with creating the first purely abstract work.

As much a teacher and theorist as he was a practicing artist, Kandinsky’s interests in music, theater, poetry, philosophy, ethnology, myth, and the occult, were all essential components to his painting and engraving. He was involved with both the influential Blaue Reiter and Bauhaus groups and left a legacy not only of dazzling visual work, but also of highly influential treatises such as Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Key tenets included the connections between painting, music and mystical experience, and the purification of art away from material realism and towards an emotional expression, condensed in particular by color.

This book presents key Kandinsky works to introduce his repertoire of vivid colors, forms, and feelings. Tracing the artist’s radical stylistic development, it shows how one painter’s progression paved the way for generations of abstract expression to come.

The author

Hajo Düchting studied art history, philosophy, and archaeology in Munich, where he gained his doctorate in 1981 with a thesis on Robert Delaunay’s Windows series. After working in museum and adult education, he moved on to teaching posts and guest professorships at the universities of Munich, Kassel, Leipzig, Saarbrücken, and Mainz. Düchting has published numerous articles on the art of the modern era, color theory, and the teaching of art, and has authored a number of TASCHEN titles, including Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Georges Seurat.

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

The Boy King’s Journey through the Underworld. Tutankhamun’s royal voyage into paradise, as told by ancient Egyptian treasures

Since the ’90s, Sandro Vannini has created complete photographic reproductions that reveal murals and artifacts in unprecedented detail. Marking the centenary of Howard Carter’s first expedition and a series of international exhibitions, this comprehensive guide combines contemporary understanding of ancient Egyptian afterlife with Vannini’s super high-resolution photography to cast an enthralling light on the voyage the pharaoh was thought to make after death.

Buried in the 14th century BC but unearthed by Howard Carter in 1922, the objects entombed with Tutankhamun are an invaluable window into a long-extinct belief system. Seen today, they create an intricate picture of how the ancient Egyptian people viewed the perilous journey to paradise, a utopian Egypt that could only be entered following the final judgment.

When acclaimed photographer Sandro Vannini started his work in Egypt in the late ’90s, a technological revolution was about to unfold. Emerging technologies enabled him to document murals, tombs, and artifacts in unprecedented detail. Using the time-consuming and strenuous multi-shot technique, Vannini produced complete photographic reproductions that revealed colours in their original tones with vivid intensity. Through these extraordinary images, we discover the objects’ quintessential features alongside the sophisticated and cleverly hidden details.

This comprehensive guide marks the centenary of Carter’s first excavations in the Valley of the Kings. These inestimable works endure through Vannini's photographs in their full, timeless splendour. From offerings and rituals to Osiris and eternal life, Vannini’s portfolio covers all facets of ancient Egyptian culture — but it is Tutankhamun’s unique legacy that dominates these images. With texts by the photographer, captions by specialist Mohamed Megahed, and chapter introductions from scholars in the field, King Tut. The Journey through the Underworld puts much-debated mysteries to rest. The learned yet accessible forewords come from distinguished Egyptologists including Salima Ikram and David P. Silverman. Insightful narratives, resplendent images, and a contemporary standpoint make this title a fitting tribute to the Boy King’s odyssey, illuminating an epoch that spanned an unimaginable 4,000 years.

The photographer

Sandro Vannini started his career as a photographer in 1982, and today lives and works between Italy and Egypt. Active in the latter since 1997, and with special permission to access sites forbidden to the public, he has compiled an extensive visual archive of ancient Egyptian culture. Along the way, he first pioneered techniques that enable the use of leading digital photography in the extreme temperatures in the Valley of the Kings. Vannini’s photographs are among those assisting the work of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in the restoration of artifacts. Since 2016, he has been directing and producing television programs and documentary series in collaboration with Zahi Hawass, and is also the author of several books.

About the series:

TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program — now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) is world famous for his golden, ornamental works, his flowing colours and his sensuous portrayal of women. But where did he find the inspiration for his multi-faceted oeuvre? How well did he know Vincent van Gogh? Did he ever see a picture by Henri Matisse? Large-format comparisons reveal Klimt’s artistic sources.

Modern European art was omnipresent in Vienna in around 1900 – in the Vienna Secession, in galleries, art magazines and private collections. The Viennese artist Gustav Klimt was receptive for the pictorial language of his contemporaries like Alma-Tadema, Minne, Rodin, Toorop, Hodler, Van Gogh, Monet, Khnopff, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler and Matisse, and adapted elements from a variety of artistic styles. The encounter between his works and those of the artists with whom he was associated reveals significant and often surprising parallels.

Artists:
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | Aubrey Beardsley | Ferdinand Hodler | Akseli Gallen-Kallela | Gustav Klimt | Lord Frederic Leighton |  Margaret MacDonald-Mackintosh | Edouard Manet | Henri Matisse | Claude Monet | Edvard Munch | Auguste Rodin | Giovanni Segantini | Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | Kees van Dongen | Vincent van Gogh | Theo Van Rysselberghe | Franz von Stuck | James Abbott MacNeill Whistler et. al.

About the Author:

The Belvedere, Vienna is one of the leading museums worldwide. Its famous art collection includes works ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam is an art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.

Enigmatic and ambiguous in its role as both setting and subject, the landscape has been one of the most important genres in painting for centuries. This dedicated survey spans the late Middle Ages to modern times to bring the evolution of the landscape genre to life through its most critical works, executed by groundbreaking artists as diverse as Titian and Warhol.

As a form, landscapes represent the topography of the natural world as much as our own; reflecting the diversity of earth’s vistas, but also keen indications of developments in representational aesthetics, religious and political history, notions of the sublime and the romantic, as well as the arrival of modernity and the vast changes wrought on the environment by industrialization and urbanization.

Opening this insightful volume is an introductory essay offering a meticulous overview of the genre and its most crucial developments. Luscious double-page spreads on each of the 34 featured artworks include a crisp painting reproduction and an extensive art historical analysis on the masters of the form — including such greats as Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, El Greco, John Constable, Claude Monet, and David Hockney.

About the series:

- Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre series features:
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural, and social events that took place during that period
- a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

Lee Miller not only Man Ray’s muse, but above all a professional in her own right

Model, photographer, muse, the first female war correspondent to report the horrors of the concentration camps liberated by American troops, and 20th-century icon. Lee Miller was all this and much more. She went through life with passion and determination and life repaid her with love and friends, but also with pain and posthumous, or at least tardy, acknowledgement.

Through approximately 140 photographs by Lee Miller and Man Ray, some objects d’art, and video documents loaned by Lee Miller Archives and Fondazi one Marconi, this book intends to do justice to this woman as beautiful as she was clever and talented, taking her out of Man Ray’s overpowering shadow. It will reveal a deep but complicated relationship more objectively (Man Ray was first her teacher, then lover, and in the end friend), and document the effect they both had on each other and how it inspired their work.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition in Venice, the volume features texts by the curator, Ami Bouhassane (Miller’s grand-daughter), and Anthony Pen rose (Miller’s son). Moreover it includes portraits by Man Ray of friends and important protagonists of the period (Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí), as well as surrealist shots of Lee Miller in which she seeks to investigate and reveal her soul and torments.

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The exhibition offers a portrait of Surrealism through two of its greatest exponents, with more than 100 photographs, art works and new relevant documentation.

In 1929, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, a young American model often seen in Vogue magazine, arrived in Paris with the intention of becoming a photographer. Uninvited and with no prior introduction, she presented herself at the studio of Man Ray, a noted Surrealist artist and photographer specializing in portraits of contemporary society, insisting that she become his apprentice. The encounter marked the beginning of a life-long relationship. The years 1929-1932 were a time of particularly fertile collaboration, during which the fiercely independent, highly-motivated Lee was soon alternating in the roles of apprentice, photography assistant, lover and muse. After that period, Lee opened and successfully managed her own studio. As prominent figures in avant-garde society (Paris, New York and London) and close friends of such leading artists as Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, and Paul Eluard, Ray and Miller formed part of the early liberal surrealist milieu of the 20s and 30s.

The book, published to complement the Milan exhibition, aims to establish Miller’s remarkable talent as a photographer, setting her on a par with Man Ray, whose work has tended to overshadow hers, and to re-examine the couple’s professional and personal relationship. It also reveals the crucial ways in which Lee Miller inspired Man Ray’s work at that time as well as later, including the discovery of the photographic technique of solarization, which quickly became Ray’s most widely-recognized style. Through a wide selection of their portraits of famous people, their relationship is used as a lens through which to critically re-evaluate and re-interpret the relationship between the two within the Surrealist movement and the broader avant-garde society of Paris between the mid-20s and the late 30s.

About the Author:

Victoria Noel-Johnson is an independent British art historian and curator, specialising in early 20th century European art.

Leonardo da Vinci and Anatomy: all the power and relevance of this great Renaissance mind.

This exhibition catalogue on Leonardo da Vinci the anatomist highlights the mystery of a thought that was both anchored in its time and, combined with a totally new practice (dissection), leading to a new understanding of the nature of life. Da Vinci was not content with a passive description of the human body; he sought to penetrate the secrets of its functioning by first studying the mechanics of humans (bones, muscles, tendons), then the logic of the senses, and finally all the bodily functions (digestion, respiration, blood circulation, reproduction), which made him to use qualitative reasoning.

Contrary to popular belief, Leonardo did not carry out his dissections in secret, but in complete agreement with the political and religious authorities, until his materialistic ideas came into conflict with the pontifical authorities, particularly with regard to embryology.

The originality of the book is to show how Leonardo’s work as an anatomist and his work as a painter are inseparable. The book thus links a work such as the Last Supper in Milan with the knowledge gathered in the medical field.

The book brings together originals or copies of Leonardo’s sheets with objects (anatomical waxes, facsimiles of dissecting instruments), books studied by the artist, interviews with specialists and animated 3D reconstructions.

About the Authors:

Dominique Le Nen is professor at the University of Nantes and orthopedic surgeon.

Pascal Brioist is professor at the University of Tours, historian specialized in Leonardo da Vinci, in la Renaissance and sciences and techniques of the modern era.

The Popstar: When art went Whaam!

American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era.

With his groundbreaking use of industrial production techniques and trivial, quotidian imagery such as cartoons, comic strips, and advertising, Lichtenstein joined contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist to reflect and satirize American mass media and consumer culture. Works such as Look, Mickey! (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and Whaam! (1963), deployed mass production techniques, particularly Ben-Day dots printing, to create a blow-up effect and pixelated dot style, with which Lichtenstein has become synonymous.

This book provides an essential overview of Lichtenstein s career, tracing his earliest Pop statements through to later brushstroke retorts to Abstract Expressionism and reinterpretations of modern masterpieces. We look at his leading position in mid-century modernism, and the ways in which his works both critique and chronicle 20th-century America.

About the series:

Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. 

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