Filtrer
Rayons
- Littérature
- Jeunesse
- Bandes dessinées / Comics / Mangas
- Policier & Thriller
- Romance
- Fantasy & Science-fiction
- Vie pratique & Loisirs
- Tourisme & Voyages
Support
Éditeurs
Langues
Prix
Paul Holberton
-
Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) is considered one of the greatest and most original American artists of the twentieth century. This richly illustrated and scholarly catalogue accompanies the first-ever museum exhibition of his work in the United Kingdom, opening at The Courtauld Gallery, London in October 2025. The exhibition focuses on one of the most significant aspects of his career: his late 1950s and 1960s paintings and drawings of the (mainly) edible delights of modern America, from cakes and ice creams to burgers and gumballs.
Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life will showcase the ways in which Thiebaud recast the genre of still life for the modern age and created powerful images of American consumer culture in the years of post-war expansion and optimism. It will chart the moment when Thiebaud found his artistic voice, creating a highly original way of painting and drawing in order to express his vision of modern American consumer culture, which he considered to be a vital subject for contemporary painting.
Thiebaud saw his work as continuing the radical legacy of earlier still-life paintings by Chardin, Manet, Cézanne and others. He believed in the importance of commonplace objects that might otherwise be overlooked or considered kitsch. His work turns hot dogs, lemon meringue pies and glossy cream cakes into the stuff of profound modern painting.
The exhibition and catalogue will feature rarely lent works from private collections and major museum collections in the USA, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation. -
This monumental book is the first monograph devoted to the Sienese artist Lorenzo di Pietro, known as Vecchietta (1410-1480).
A painter, sculptor, architect and goldsmith, Vecchietta is a towering figure in the history of Sienese art and, as this book demonstrates, a central protagonist of the Early Renaissance in Italy. His diverse oeuvre across multiple media provides a prism through which to re-evaluate the art of Quattrocento Siena, traditionally misinterpreted as ancillary to Florence.
Vecchietta was one of the few Italian artists of the period to paint an independent self-portrait and the first to design a funerary chapel for himself. He signed and dated most of his work, presenting himself as a sculptor on his paintings and a painter on his sculptures. He is credited with innovations in style and technique that paved the way for the next generation of Sienese artists, most of whom trained in his workshop.
The first monograph on the artist since a 1937 booklet by Giorgio Vigni, the volume subverts traditional expectations about the monograph itself to show how a different art history, capable of capturing the complexity of polymaths like Vecchietta, is not only possible, but necessary. -
Sur le motif : peindre en plein air en Europe 1780-1870
Jane Munro, Mary Morton, Ger Luijten
- Paul Holberton
- 22 Octobre 2020
- 9781911300830
This lavish catalogue presents sketches made en plein air between the end of the eighteenth century and late nineteenth century. It accompanies a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (USA), the Fondation Custodia (France) and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (UK).
In the eighteenth century the tradition of open-air painting was based in Italy, Rome in particular. Artists came from all over Europe to study classical sculpture and architecture, as well as masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque art. During their studies, groups of young painters visited the Italian countryside, training their eyes and their hands to transcribe the effects of light on a range of natural features. The practice became an essential aspect of art education, and spread throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. This exhibition focuses on the artists' wish to convey the immediacy of nature observed at first hand.
Around a hundred works, most of them unfamiliar to the general public, will be displayed. The artists represented include Thomas Jones, John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, Achille-Etna Michallon, Camille Corot, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Johan Thomas Lundbye, Vilhelm Kyhn, Carl Blechen, Johann Martin von Rohden, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Johann Jakob Frey, among others. The sketches demonstrate the skill and ingenuity with which each artist quickly translated these first-hand observations of atmospheric and topographical effects while the impression was still fresh.
The exhibition and the catalogue will be organized thematically, reviewing, as contemporary artists did, motifs as trees, rocks, water, volcanoes, and sky effects, and favourite topgraphical locations, such as Rome and Capri. The catalogue will present numerous unpublished plein air sketches, and contains much original scholarship on this relatively young field of art history. -
This book looks at the art and material culture of Ancient Egypt in a new way - by finding out who made it and how. The making of various kinds of Egyptian art was dictated by the different materials used: stone, ceramics, faience and glass, metalwork, jewellery, paint, linen, basketry, wood, papyrus and cartonnage. Each of these media is examined in turn, and the exquisite workmanship and knowledge of individual makers is here revealed and celebrated. The book accompanies a major exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Fully illustrated and full of new research, this book will appeal to enthusiasts and scholars alike. It approaches a familiar subject from a fresh angle, focusing on the artists and makers. The many scholars involved also reveal their personal appreciation and understanding of the different media that they have studied or, frequently, restored, seeking to get to the heart of the methods of the ancient craftsmen, whose work they have learned to respect and admire. These scholars have been aided, of course, by modern technology, which gives a holistic analysis of these objects that now are some 4,000 years old but which can now often be 'read' very nearly in their entirety. Almost
100 different objects are presented and discussed for their typical or unusual features.
Besides the editor's introduction, there is an essay on the difficulties of talking about individual artists in Ancient Egypt by Alessio delli Castelli and Dimitri Laboury, and conversations with contemporary makers working with the same materials today in much the same way as artists would have done in Ancient Egypt. -
Paris 1924 : sport, art and the body
Caroline Vout, Christopher Young
- Paul Holberton
- 14 Juin 2024
- 9781913645601
Ce catalogue apporte un nouveau regard sur les jeux Olympiques de Paris 1924, souvent
considérés comme les premiers Jeux internationaux. De leurs origines dans la Grèce
antique à leur transformation moderne en événement visuellement puissant à l'échelle
mondiale, les jeux Olympiques ont conservé leur place unique dans le monde du sport
et de la culture. Le livre, qui a été publié pour coïncider avec les jeux Olympiques de
Paris 2024, accompagne une grande exposition au Fitzwilliam Museum.
L'été 2024 verra le retour des jeux O lympiques à Paris un siècle après avoir été ville
organisatrice. Les Jeux de 1924 furent sans doute les premiers vrais Jeux internationaux,
les premiers à diffuser des émissions de radio en direct et les premiers à accueillir
un village olympique. Ils associèrent compétition d'art et événements sportifs, et
cédèrent trente-cinq médailles à la Grande Bretagne, notamment au sprinter de
Cambridge, Harold Abrahams, du renommé Chariots of Fire. Ce catalogue explore les
jeux Olympiques d'une perspective visuelle en enquêtant sur les tensions entre le urs
débuts classiques et leur représentation en 1924 et à travers l'ère moderne. Comment
les jeux Olympiques de 1924 ont ils été influencés par la culture visuelle de l'époque
Et comment, à leur tour, ont-ils influencé les arts? De moulage s en plâtre des statues
d'athlètes du Vème siècle avant J.C au cinéma holl ywoodien, et des portraits classiques
des protagonistes à l'art plus abstrait, ce catalogue rassemble peintures, sculptures, films,
photographies, posters, lettres, médailles et autre s souvenirs pour raconter l'histoire
d'une entreprise sportive qui a tout autant reflété qu influencé son temps. Questions de
genre, race et classe, ainsi qu'une exploration de la célébrité et de la place du spectateur,
montrent que le débat autour du sport était aussi complexe et capital dans le passé qu'il
ne l'est aujourd'hui.
Le catalogue d'exposition offre aux lecteurs l'opportunité d'explorer en détails
quelques uns des thèmes fondamentaux du spectacle. Il comprend des essais rédigés par
des spécialistes dans les domaines des lettres classiques, de l'histoire de l'art, de l'histoire
de France, de l'histoire du sport et de la médecine, chacun d'entre eux se concentrant
sur des thèmes essentiels de l'exposition et des protagonistes clés de l'histoire des Jeux.
Le large éventail d'art attirera les fans de classicisme, modernisme, cubisme, surréalisme
et futurisme, ainsi que d'Art déco, tandis que le sujet fera également écho aux amateurs
de sport et puisera dans l'enthousiasme de tout ce qui touche aux jeux Olympiques en
2024 -
Cosmologies and biologies : Siamese Manuscripts of Death, Time and the Body
Justin McDaniel
- Paul Holberton
- 15 Janvier 2025
- 9781915401151
This is an important and ground-breaking study of rare Siamese manuscripts of two kinds, biological and cosmological. Beautiful in themselves, they are produced under unusual conditions and no one of these manuscripts is like another, though they draw on a common pool of rituals, actions and stories. This fascinating publication closely examines and contextualizes a collection of 30 of the most striking and visually unique manuscripts of this kind known, in or outside Thailand.
These manuscripts are religious in nature, containing several genres of Buddhist texts including liturgical, narrative, historical, grammatical, psychological, ritual, and magical material, but, compared to other Thai and other South-East Asian examples they are particularly strong in the realms of medical, biological and cosmological Thai thought. A recurrent feature is the story of Phra Malai, a monk whose travels to various heavens and hells are described and illustrated. A number of rare medical manuscripts serve to reveal how mythology, biology, astrology, physiognomy and pharmacology are blended together in the pre-modern Siamese/Thai tradition.
These and other such illuminated manuscripts were produced in 18th- and 19th- century Siam (as Thailand was then known) and are richly illustrated both with delightful and evocative depictions of the Buddha, Hindu deities, Bodhisattvas, nuns, monks, and laypeople, and with some grotesque and terrifying ones - they attest to a particular interest in corpses and their implications among some of their readers.
The author, who has both lived the Buddhist life in Thailand and researched in Thai monasteries, has an extensive knowledge not only of the history but of the dynamic of Thai religion, studying not just older texts but continuing rituals and contemporary media. He was inspired to write this book by the very great value he saw in these particular manuscripts, a most unusual collection amassed with a discriminating eye.
The book consists both of an explanation and a detailed catalogue of this collection of exemplary manuscripts and of a fascinating introductory essay discussing the belief systems and activities they represent. -
Lapis and gold ; exploring chester beatt's ruzbihan qur'an
Elaine Wright
- Paul Holberton
- 23 Mai 2018
- 9781912168040
The Chester Beatty Library's 16th-century Ruzbihan Qur'an-produced in the city of Shiraz in southwest Iran-is one of the finest Islamic manuscripts known. In terms of both materials and workmanship, it is exquisite: lapis lazuli and gold, the two most expensive pigments available, are used on every page, while the rendering of the decoration is exceptionally fine. This is the most detailed and comprehensive study of any Islamic manuscript-and it is well worthy of such scrutiny.
Praised in a 16th-century account as one of the finest calligraphers of his time, Ruzbihan Muhammad al-Tab'i al-Shirazi would have produced numerous Qur'ans during the course of his career, but only five signed by him have survived. Much of the study of this, surely his finest manuscript, is focussed on understanding the processes and procedures involved in the production of the manuscript and thus on gaining an insight into the problems faced by Ruzbihan and the other artists and how they resolved them. Certain surprising and never-before-seen techniques of production and 'tricks-of-the trade' have been uncovered. A large portion of the information presented is the result of very close examination, under high magnification, of the manuscript's 445 folios (890 pages). Many of the reproductions included are of minute details of the decoration that are difficult, or even impossible, to see with the unaided eye.
The book follows the order in which work on the manuscript would have progressed, beginning with an examination of Ruzbihan's calligraphy, the various scripts he used to copy the text and the problems he faced, such as the spacing of the text and his errors and omissions. Additions, such as marginal notations, recitation marks and decorative devices indicating the divisions of the text, all of which guide the reciter in his reading of the Qur'an, are also considered.
Although the manuscript's renown has traditionally rested with the name of its calligrapher, it is equally the quality, extent, diversity and complexity of its superb decorative programme-the work of a team of highly skilled, yet anonymous artists and artisans-that sets the manuscript apart from most other 16th-century Persian Qur'ans.
Fittingly, therefore, the bulk of the study focuses on this aspect of the manuscript. Major aspects of the illumination, such as its lavish beginning, middle and end illuminations, are examined as well as more minor elements such as the 'rays' that emerge from the frontis- and finispiece; even the tiniest of details are revealed, such as what are, in the book, termed 'squiggles and eyes', hidden amongst the illuminations and a challenge to find for the even the most eagle-eyed viewer. However, while many of the secrets of the production of the manuscript were revealed, many mysteries remain. Chief among these is the startling change in aesthetic evident in the illuminations of the final ten openings of the manuscript. Why such as change was undertaken-and then halted-is not known. As was increasingly revealed as study of the manuscript progressed-and as the reader of the book will quickly come to realise-Chester Beatty's Ruzbihan Qur'an is an intriguing and very special manuscript.
-
Inspired by the recent identification of a third autograph version of Gainsborough's masterpiece The Cottage Door, this book examines the significance of the multiple versions of designs that the artist produced during the 1780s. It demonstrates that without the pressure of exhibiting his work annually at the Academy and without a string of sitters waiting for their finished portraits, Gainsborough's work became more personal, more thoughtful. This study of the last phase of the artist's work is a totally fresh interpretation of not only The Cottage Door but other key works such as Mrs Sheridan and Diana and Acteon.
Gainsborough's creative energies changed around 1780. He became restless and wanted to promote his landscape painting more effectively. He started to paint coastal scenes using an innovative painting technique to depict the water and he embarked on a series of 'fancy' pictures that he would position him as a descendant of an Old Master tradition. He was never happy with the constraints of the Royal Academy and he was at odds with the dictatorial opinions promoted by its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Removing himself from the Academy enabled him finally to do what he wanted.
He began to turn to portrait compositions that he had developed and refined over a number of years. With subtle alterations they could be made suitable for a variety of sitters. The subtlety of his skilled observation was less easy to accommodate in standard-sized full-length canvases and in these portraits he sometimes resorted to rhetoric gesture that fought against the closely observed likenesses in his best portraits. The margin between 'fancy' pictures and portraits became blurred and the categorization of some of these paintings changed while they were on the easel. Always finding composition difficult, rather than begin something new he often revisited earlier designs that had pleased him. He would paint them again and make slight changes of tone and emphasis that would radically change the concept and intention of the design. The subject matter in some of his late paintings veers towards the autobiographical and shows a certain rift between him and his family.
Hugh belsey is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art with the task of writing the definitive catalogue of portraits by Thomas Gainsborough.
-
Deaf, dumb and brillant ; Johan Thopas, masterdraughtsman
Rudolf E.O Ekkart
- Paul Holberton
- 1 Mars 2014
- 9781907372674
Until recently, the Dutch draughtsman Johan Thopas, who was born in 1626 both deaf and dumb, was only known to a small group of connoisseurs, dealers and collectors. However, his remarkable, subtle and technically refined portrait drawings on parchment deserve a wider audience. This handsome publication, the first devoted to his work, will prove to be an eye opener for many art lovers.
Beginning with his earliest works (two beautiful miniatures of 1646 in the Fondation Custodia in Paris), Thopas produced incredibly refined drawings, usually with lead point on parchment. He had an almost magic control of the lead point, and his sense of texture and the way he was able to achieve this with minimal means is astounding, setting him apart from other draughtsmen in the Dutch Golden Age. Thopas was also able to capture brilliantly the characters of his sitters - such as the sulky husband and trouser-wearing wife in the 1684 companion pieces in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Apart from lead-point drawings, Thopas made several drawings in colour, on parchment and on Japanese paper. In most cases these drawings were done after life, although we do know that the large commission he received from the Bas- Kerckrinck family in Amsterdam included several drawings that were done after existing portraits. Furthermore, he produced at least one brilliant copy after a painting by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Venus, Mars and Cupid, and even a painting, portraying a dead child. He must have made more paintings and certainly more drawings than the seventy we know today (all of which are catalogued and illustrated here). In this exhibition his only known painting and the one mythological drawing are accompanied by thirty of his most beautiful portraits, from private collections in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as well-known museums and print rooms, such as the Albertina in Vienna, the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, the Städel in Frankfurt or the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
The author of the catalogue, Prof. Dr Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, is regarded as the most important connoisseur in the field of Dutch sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraiture and the author of many important monographs and other publications in the field of Dutch portraiture. He was Director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague between 1990 and 2012 and gained momentum as Chairman of the Committee that carried his name and proved responsible for the return of many looted works of art that were returned to the heirs of many Jewish collectors in The Netherlands.
-
Accompanying a landmark exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, this book examines the remarkable drawings made by Dürer as a young man from 1490 to 1495, especially those made during his journeyman years, or Wanderjahre - considered the final part of a craftsman's training - and a second shorter trip which immediately followed and seems to have brought the artist to Italy. These trips form the framework for the book, which focuses on the young artist's figure studies and has at its heart the Courtauld Gallery's double-sided drawing of a Wise Virgin and Two studies of the artist's left leg. This superbly ambitious work serves as a springboard to explore in depth the role of drawing at this stage of Dürer's career. It allows us to address a series of crucial questions: how Dürer formed 'his hand', how he responded to artistic challenges presented by contemporary and earlier art (both on a stylistic and an iconographic level), how his pursuit of professional success was linked with the quest for an individual artistic identity, and how the strategy of recording his own creative achievements in drawings dovetails with his claim for a new status for the artist in his city.
The scholarly and beautifully illustrated catalogue is introduced with five essays by distinguished experts. Stephanie Buck examines the documentary evidence and attempts to reconstruct the motivations and activities of Dürer's travels as a young man. David Freedberg discusses Dürer's obsessive observation and recording of himself in portraits and in studies of his limbs. These represent the first critical steps in the artist's developing understanding of the body, and of the ways in which its movements could not just show emotion, but rouse the equivalent sense of torsion, tension and pathos in the bodies and minds of his viewers. Stephanie Porras looks at Dürer's copies of drawings or prints circulating in Nuremberg workshops or acquired during the Wanderjahre, which were used as a means of seeking inspiration, of challenging himself to draw more sophisticated figures and dynamic compositions.
Michael Roth asks the question of how the three strands of the art of the line - drawing, engraving and woodcut - structurally correspond in Dürer's work and, consequently, how drawing merges with certain manual aspects of printing. A final essay presents new technical research on Dürer's early drawings undertaken collaboratively in a number of leading collections of the artist's work, and aims to enrich our understanding of the young Dürer's approach to the medium of drawing.
-
John Carr of York (1723 - 1807) était l'un des architectes les plus prolifiques et les plus importants du XVIIIème siècle avec une production de plus de 400 projets dont la plupart furent réalisés. Ces derniers vont de simples entrées aux projets les plus majestueux tels que le grandiose hôpital de Porto au Portugal, le domaine de Harewood House et le village dans le Yorkshire et le Basildon Park dans le Berkshire.
-
Renaissance and Baroque bronzes ; from the hill collection
Collectif
- Paul Holberton
- 17 Février 2014
- 9781907372636
This richly illustrated and beautifully produced scholarly catalogue of the superlative collection of Renaissance and Baroque bronze figurative statuettes from the Hill Collection, accompanies an exhibition of the collection at The Frick Collection, New York opening late January 2014.
Spanning from 1470-1740, the bronzes presented are of exceptional quality and exemplify the development of bronze statuettes from 1470 in Renaissance Italy to their dissemination across the artistic centres of Europe. The Hill Collection is distinguished by rare, autograph masterpieces by Italian sculptors such as Andrea Riccio and Giambologna, and has the most important collection of Baroque bronzes by Giuseppe Piamontini in the world. Its holdings of works by Giambologna and his school is the strongest found in any single collection, with the sole exception of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, and evokes the splendour of the late Renaissance courts, while the richness of the international Baroque is represented by religious themes by Alessandro Algardi, northern bronzes by Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard, and a remarkable assemblage of French 116th-and early 17thcentury bronzes in the classical mode, by Barthélemy Prieur and from the circle of Ponce Jacquiot.
The Hill Collection reveals the range of artistry, invention and technical refinement characteristic of sculptures created when the tradition of the European statuette was at its height.
The catalogue includes detailed biographies of each of the artists represented, and is introduced with essays by the distinguished authors. Patricia Wengraf is one of the world's leading dealers in bronzes, sculpture and works of art, and in her particular speciality, bronzes of the 15th-18th centuries, her knowledge and connoisseurship are of world repute. Denise Allen is Curator of Renaissance Paintings and Sculpture at the Frick Collection. Claudia Kryza-Gersch, formerly Kunstkammer, Vienna, is an independent scholar renowned for her studies of North Italian bronzes of the 16th and 17th centuries. Dimitrios Zikos, Florence, an independent scholar is renowned for his knowledge of the Florentine archives from c. 1550-1740, he has curated many exhibitions at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
-
Living with Architectures as Art : The Peter May collection of Architectural drawings, models and artefacts
Collectif Collectif
- Paul Holberton
- 5 Février 2021
- 9781912168194
Cette magnifique publication en deux volumes fait découvrir aux lecteurs l'une des plus
grandes collections privées de dessins architecturaux au monde. Mettant en valeur des
dessins et des modèles et objets étroitement liés datant de 1691 au milieu du XXème siècle,
ce somptueux pavé inclut à la fois un catalogue et de nouveaux textes provenant d'autorités
expertes. Il fournit un regard intéressant sur ces produits dérivés de formation et pratique
architecturales qui sont souvent très beaux.
One of the largest private collections of architectural drawings in the world has been assembled
over 30 years by investor and philanthropist Peter May. Comprising more than 600 sheets that
have all been carefully preserved and handsomely framed, the drawings and related models and
artefacts date from 1691 to the mid 20th century. This handsome two-volume publication will
introduce amateurs and specialists alike to the largely unknown collection. The book includes
a catalogue and innovative texts by leading authorities that present the raison-d'être for the
production and preservation of these sometimes neglected by-products of architectural training
and practice that have been collected off-and-on through history by individuals and institutions.
The architectural sheets acquired for the collection are principally 19th- or early 20thcentury
competition or certification drawings by design students. Others are presentation
drawings for public commissions, reconstruction studies or interior designs. The catalogue is
arranged by category, to demonstrate May's inclination towards specific building types such
as commercial or cultural institutions, train stations and spas, landmarks and monuments,
private and royal residences, and cast-iron architecture. Also included is a category for landscape
designs and garden architecture, reflecting May's experience as a gentleman farmer with a
predilection for building.
Peter May informs the reader about his history as a collector and builder. Maureen Cassidy-
Geiger discusses the formation of the collection and with Basile Baudez introduces the French
system of architectural education, from which some of the finest drawings come. Charles
Hind offers a history of design training in Britain and writes about patterns of collecting and
the market for architectural drawings. Matthew Wells's subject is the history of architectural
models. -
European ceramics circa 1900 - the eidelberg collection at the saint louis art museum
- Paul Holberton
- 22 Mai 2026
- 9781913645939
-
-
-
The performance of art - whistler, wilde, and the ten o'clock lecture
- Paul Holberton
- 22 Mai 2026
- 9781915401229
-
-
'a perfect eye and steady hand' - goldsmithing in tudor & stuart london
- Paul Holberton
- 5 Juin 2026
- 9781917976046
-
French bronzes in the wallace collection
Robert/ Wenley
- Paul Holberton
- 12 Décembre 2012
- 9780900785788
-
The Discovery of Paris charts the remarkable contribution of the British to the iconography of the French capital. Paris had been painted many times before, but never more beautifully than by 19th-century British artists, and very rarely by artists of such high standing in their own countries. There are many similarities between some of their views and those painted later by the Impressionists. Their styles also varied widely, from the crystalline precision of Thomas Shotter Boys, whose superb watercolours will be some of the stars of the show, to the incomparable verve of Turner at his most intense.
With the ending of many years of war, first with the Peace of Amiens of 1802-03 and then after the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Paris became an irresistible attraction for thousands of British tourists, among whom were many painters. Before the French wars, the city had been an important early stop on the Grand Tour, and it quickly re-assumed its key position. As steam-powered transport became available, the Grand Tour, and Paris, in particular, became increasingly popular for the middle classes, as well as the aristocracy. British artists lived in the city and both fuelled and responded to this demand. There was an unprecedented interest in views of Paris, and artists, from the obscure, such as Robert Batty and John Gendall, to the eminent, such as Turner, Bonnington and David Cox, responded to this excitement with an extraordinary range of works, from simple pencil views to the most elaborate watercolours, some for sale and exhibition, but many also for engraving as illustrations in guides and souvenir publications.
Accompanying an exhibition at the Wallace Collection, this in-depth and beautifully illustrated catalogue of 70 rarely seen works (from Tate, the V&A, the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam, amongst others) is introduced with an essay by Wallace curator Stephen Duffy. He begins with an examination of watercolour in Britain in the first half of 19th century, when it enjoyed unprecedented popularity and prestige, and the tradition of urban view painting extending back to the 17th century. British attitudes to Paris, and the differing emphasis and omissions made by artists in their depictions of the city are then discussed. Finally, Duffy looks at Paris in the aftermath of this wave, in the second half of the century, when the most arresting views of this fast-changing city were to be found in photographs and in a variety of other media, very largely in works by native artists - notably Manet and the Impressionists. Earlier in the century, however, when Paris was also changing but at a slower pace, it had been those curious neighbours from across the Channel who had produced some of the finest and most memorable paintings of the city, and in a medium which they claimed as peculiarly their own.
-
Magnificent marble statues ; british sculpture in the mansion house
Julius Bryant
- Paul Holberton
- 7 Novembre 2013
- 9781907372551
The Mansion House, the palatial city residence of the Lord Mayor of London, is home to one of the capital's finest collections of British sculpture from the 18th and 19th centuries. Forming part of the spectacular setting for official functions, as well as the background to busy offices and the home of the Lord Mayor and his family, the sculpture ranges from handsome chimneypieces and elaborate stuccowork wall decorations to heroic single statues of figures from British literature and history.
Described by the architectural historian Nicolaus Pevsner as "magnificent marble statues", the sculptures are almost unknown to the general public.
Their significance, however, is much greater than as an example of the changing fortunes of Victorian sculpture and of the fluctuating attitudes of the Corporation of London to art patronage. Taken as a whole, the sheer range and variety is exceptional. After the monuments in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral and the galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Mansion House presents the most extensive permanent exhibition of British sculpture in London. It differs from these rival collections in the range of its sculpture, from Palladian chimneypieces carved by City stonemasons and virtuoso Rococo plasterwork by anonymous stuccadors to heroic ideal statues made to rival the greatest works from antiquity and the Renaissance.
The time has come for a fresh appreciation of these "magnificent marble statues". The first book on the sculpture ever published, this beautifully illustrated study reveals the subjects of the sculptures, the stories behind the commissions and the importance of the artists themselves. New photography highlights the qualities of the individual sculptures in their historic settings.
A unique insight to the challenges and delights of living, working and raising a family in Mansion House is given in an introductory essay by the Lady Mayoress, Clare Gifford. The sculptures and architecture are described by Julius Bryant, Keeper of Word and Image at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
This beautifully produced new handbook provides a companion volume to The Harold Samuel Collection, Dutch and Flemish Pictures at the Mansion House (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2012) by Michael Hall and Clare Gifford.
-
Richard Serra ; drawings for the Courtauld
Barnaby Wright
- Paul Holberton
- 7 Novembre 2013
- 9781907372643
Richard Serra is one of the most important and revered artists working today.
Rising to prominence on the New York art scene more than forty years ago, Serra (born 1939) is now celebrated internationally for his unprecedented monumental steel sculptures and for his radical approach to drawing. Richard Serra: Drawings for the Courtauld accompanies the fi rst museum exhibition of Serra's most recent drawings, which mark an exciting new departure for the artist. Made using thick black pigment applied to both sides of a clear plastic sheet, these drawings, which he calls 'transparencies', are extraordinary objects that challenge preconceptions of what constitutes a drawing.
For Serra, drawing has always been an essential way of exploring new creative impulses, materials and working methods. His consistent ambition has been to make discoveries through the process of drawing itself, rather than to execute preconceived ideas. To this end, about two years ago Serra developed the innovative technique by which his 'Drawings for the Courtauld' are made. The forms that emerge are monumental: spiralling, circular or rectangular, they convey a sculptural sense of weight and balance. They also confront basic assumptions about drawing.
Our perceptions of front and back, surface and depth, and most importantly the distinction between the drawn design and the material it is made from, are all challenged by these works.
Serra has long admired The Courtauld Gallery's collection and it is particularly fi tting that these radical new works should be shown for the fi rst time at a museum with such a renowned and rich historical collection of drawings. But it is one of the Courtauld's great paintings, Cézanne's Still Life with Plaster Cupid, c. 1894, which has been a major touchstone for Serra throughout his career. The way Cézanne pushed the boundaries of perspective and space in the painting threw down a challenge for the young Serra that continues to drive him. "I looked at that painting and the hair on the back of my neck stood up," Serra recalled recently. "You realize that someone has extended their vision in such a way that if you are going to make any contribution at all, you have to break new ground." Serra's 'Drawings for the Courtauld' are the latest expression of this life-long pursuit.
-
Paths to reform ; things new and old
Laura Light, David Lyle jeffrey, Sandra Hindman
- Paul Holberton
- 1 Mai 2013
- 9780983854654
