Francis Bacon. Books and Painting HUK(Thames&Hudson)

Neutral hues, an ill-fitting man's suit and wiggling locks of cut hair supplant Frida Kahlo's (1907-54) usual lively color palette, indigenous Mexican dress and long plaits in Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940). Nevertheless, the painting remains unmistakably Kahlo's. In the wake of a divorce from artist Diego Rivera, Kahlo turns to her favorite genre, self-portraiture, to express her deepest emotional and psychological urges. Inscribed with the lyrics of a popular song that translate as "Look, if I loved you it was for your hair. Now that you're without it I no longer love you", the work oscillates between evocations of a popular culture shared by many and unflinching forays into the private sphere. Curator Jodi Roberts essay, too, moves between the public and the private as it situates Kahlo's painting in the context of the Mexican Revolution's legacy, the Surrealist tradition and the artist's own life to explore the ways in which Kahlo constructed and reconstructed her own identity

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, Edouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold and Kehinde Wiley

Great works of art cannot be fully understood in a single encounter. This is perhaps even truer for modern artworks that may not immediately make sense to, or even appeal to, the casual observer. Viewing an artwork? whether it is a painting, sculpture, installation, video, or photograph? as a whole is one method of interacting with it, but a deeper understanding can only be gained by analyzing it in detail • Modern Art in Detail: 75 Masterpieces spotlights the finer points that even connoisseurs may miss. The book includes all the minutiae that a quick glance will almost certainly fail to reveal, including subtle internal details. Susie Hodge writes intelligently and informatively about relevant external influences on the artist?everything from global political events to groundbreaking movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Primitivism, and even scientific and mathematical theories

Fulfilling a need for an accessible, affordable introduction to a subject of sustained and growing significance in contemporary culture, this volume in the World of Art series redefines contemporary Chinese art in the last forty years since the end of China's Cultural Revolution, placing it in the context of unprecedented cultural, political and urban transformation • This book offers neither an art historian's chronological review of Chinese art in post-Mao China, nor does it join the debate of previous terminologies coined by art critics; instead, it provides the most up to date understanding of contemporary Chinese art through original research and informed curatorial perspectives on the selected representative work, including painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, installation, video, performance and participatory art

The first-ever translation of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead of Sobekmose-fully illustrated and explained by a leading Egyptologist, offering fascinating insights into one of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world • The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose, in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, is one of the most important surviving examples of ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead. Such "books"-actually papyrus scrolls-were composed of traditional funerary texts, including magic spells, which were thought to assist the deceased on their journeys into the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians believed in an underworld fraught with dangers that needed to be carefully navigated, from the familiar, such as snakes and scorpions, to the extraordinary: lakes of fire to cross, animal-headed demons to pass, and the ritual Weighing of the Heart, whose outcome determined whether or not the deceased would be born again into the afterlife for eternity

A beautiful and dynamic new way of looking at the work of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest painters, inventors, and scientists of all time • Experience the most famous Renaissance artist and inventor in a brand-new way. Courtney Watson McCarthy has crafted many brilliant pop-up books, featuring artists like Antoni Gaudi? and Salvador Dali?, and Leonardo Pop-Ups is the most dynamic yet. McCarthy showcases a variety of pop-ups showing off Da Vinci's many talents; beyond his famous Renaissance paintings, Da Vinci has also been called the father of paleontology and architecture, and has been credited with the inventions of such diverse machines as the helicopter, the parachute, and the tank • Featuring many of Da Vinci's most enduring artworks, both as illustrations and pop-ups, including The Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper, and, of course, the Mona Lisa, Leonardo Pop-Ups also includes Da Vinci's self-portrait, an overview of his architectural designs, and inventions such as a flapping ornithopter

Asia is home to more than half the world's population, and learning about the art of its many cultures helps readers understand the visual world that surrounds us. This book tells the story of the simultaneous development of artistic techniques, styles and ideas across East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, exploring the ways these regions were often dynamically interconnected with each other, and with places beyond Asia • It covers the full breadth of Asian art history, with almost 500 artworks from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia and Southeast Asia; including areas often under-represented in other books on the subject, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia • Authors Lee and Hutton are active teachers, writers and speakers who engage with art history as a progressive field that promotes cross-cultural understanding

This full-career retrospective on the work of photographer Vivian Maier brings together a selection of key works from throughout her life and career • When Vivian Maier's archive was discovered in Chicago in 2007, the photography community gained an immense and singular talent. Little- known during her lifetime, Maier is now recognized as one of the great American photographers of the twentieth century. Born in New York in 1926 to an Austro-Hungarian father and French mother, she lived in France several times in her youth and worked as a governess in New York and Chicago for much of her adult life. It was during her years as a governess that she took many of the photographs that have made her posthumously famous. Now the subject of films and books, Maier lived in relative obscurity until her death in 2009

Loaded with hundreds of photographs of high-end homes and interiors, these gorgeous books is a treat for lovers of residential architecture and a resource for people planning to build their own house • Featuring some of the world's most aesthetically creative and environmentally conscious residential design and construction, this gorgeous collection reflects homes with a deep reverence for their natural and cultural contexts, from coastal dwellings to contemporary urban dwellings and mountain cottages With 30 leading pioneers of the green movement, this informed overview spotlights architects from such firms as Christopher Wright, Coates Design Architects, Nathan Good or Robert Hutchison

Unperson is one of the first photo books of North Korean Defectors. The 15 intimate portraits and the stories of the brave people who decided to take that chance to flee to South Korea. The road to South Korea is dangerous and can take years with the many different borders of Mongolia, Laos, Thailand, and China. The people fleeing are filled with the fear of being arrested and sent back to labour camps. Once they arrive in South Korea, they often struggle to find a new identity, lost between their North Korean past and South Korean future. Tim Franco travelled to the crossing points, aiming to capture the diversity of landscape that is the background of North Korean defection. He chose to use an 8x10 camera with Polaroid film to capture each defector

A major publication on Hokusai's remarkable late work, incorporating fresh scholarship on the sublime paintings and prints the artist created in the last thirty years of his life • An acknowledged master during his lifetime, Hokusai created sublime works during the last thirty years of his life, right up to his death at the age of ninety. Exhibitions since the 1980s have presented his long career as a chronological sequence. This publication, which will coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum, takes a fresh approach based on innovative scholarship: thematic groupings of late works are related to the major spiritual and artistic quests of Hokusai's life • Hokusai's personal beliefs are contemplated here through analyses of major brush paintings, drawings, woodblock prints, and illustrated books

From the turn of the century S-bend silhouette to celebrity couture of the new millennium and the evolution of streetwear, this comprehensive survey explores significant developments in fashion from 1900 to the present day. Fashion historians Amy de la Haye and Valerie Mendes focus on key movements and innovations in style, and explore trends through the work of some of the world's most original and influential designers and couturiers. Chapters are organized around crucial shifts in tastes and major world events, and exciting advances in fashion are placed within their socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts • International in scope with colour illustrations throughout, this edition includes updated text as well as a new chapter that discusses some of the defining features of fashion in our time: the industry's proactive embrace of age, gender and race diversity, and it's ongoing efforts to combat labour exploitation and encourage global sustainability