Showing titles in Artists, Architects & Photographers

Pierre-August Renoir, leader of the 19th-century Impressionist movement, spent his entire life perfecting his style. Rejected for decades, he depended on friends for a place to stay and money for painting supplies. Renoir lived in poverty until his 40's, and when he was finally discovered and hailed as a great artist, his health began to fail him. Still, Renoir never gave up his passion for painting. His need to create beauty was the driving force of his life, and throughout rejections and deteriorating health, Renoir retained an optimism that is reflected in his paintings.

In less than a decade, the prodigious painter Jean-Michel Basquiat went from a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star at the peak of the heady, excessive 1980s art boom. A legend in his own lifetime, Basquiat was a fixture of the downtown scene, full of rock music, couture fashion, outrageous art, and heady drugs. Along the way, Basquiat was involved with several of the time's most infamous personalities, from Keith Haring and Andy Warhol to his brief romantic fling with Madonna.

" Peut-être n’éprouverait-il plus jamais de passion comme celle qu’il avait sentie pour Peter, mais il restait la perfection de l’amitié, la beauté des cyprès sur les collines et la joie que donnait le travail. Et s’il oubliait Peter, s’il réussissait à vivre sans lui, ce dernier ne reviendrait-il pas ? Personne n’était attiré par la tristesse et la mélancolie. Mais par la gaieté, la force, le bonheur, oui. " Né en 1937 en Angleterre, David Hockney a secoué le monde de l’art avec une vitalité et une liberté qu’aucun chagrin n’a su entamer.

A few years ago, Erica Heller realized how universal the longing is for one more moment with a lost loved one. It could be a parent, a sibling, a mentor, or a friend, but who wouldn't love the opportunity to sit down, break bread, and just talk? Who wouldn't jump at the chance to ask those unasked questions, or share those unvoiced feelings?

Mitchell Burns never wanted to be a miner. Growing up in a Queensland coal mining town with parents in the industry, pursuing his passion for photography just didn't feel like an option. So, he went in the only direction he knew – straight into the mines.

In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the listener on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos.

Man Ray (1890-1976), a founding father of Dada and a key player in French Surrealism, is one of the central artists of the 20th century. He is also one of the most elusive. In this new biography, journalist and critic Arthur Lubow uses Man Ray’s Jewish background as one filter to understand his life and art.

A fascinating look into the life of a tortured genius. Using Van Gogh's letters as a primary source, the author discusses the artist's life, his approach to his work, and his mental illness. The letters vividly show the artist's life was no bed of roses. Whereas Van Gogh perfectly knew what was sellable, he continued to produce what he considered as honest, truthful art, regardless of current taste.

Roy Lichtenstein, American painter and pop art icon: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise. Infotainment, education and entertainment at its best!

A fascinating look at the real Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the designer who forever revolutionized the way women look. She was a free spirit, brilliant business woman, and beauty who never found reciprocated love. Madsen, with authority, delves into this fashion doyenne's business and private lives to reveal one woman's extraordinary progress: from orphan to millinery shopkeeper, from lodestar of feminine style to a very rich woman with a closet full of dark secrets.

Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and universal genius: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise. Infotainment, education and entertainment at its best.

A visit to a museum can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In eleven essays—each framed around a specific theme—he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art. Perry is a disarmingly charming tour guide to museums large or small. He makes even all art approachable and accessible. Along the way, he weaves in personal stories, from his own artistic journey as a painter to the days when he could sleep in his beaten-up VW Bus in the Louvre’s parking lot.

Avec une honnêteté désarmante, le "Boss" se livre et, pour la première fois, fait le récit des combats personnels qui ont inspiré ses meilleures chansons. Le livre d'une époque, et d'un véritable écrivain. "Se raconter est une drôle d'affaire. Dans un projet comme celui-ci, l'auteur fait une promesse : laisser le lecteur entrer dans sa tête. C'est ce que j'ai essayé de faire au fil de ces pages." Bruce Springsteen, dans les pages de "Born to Run".

'Thoughts On Art and Life' by Leonardo Da Vinci is a fascinating collection of writings from the great polymath of the Italian Renaissance. There are sections covering the great man's thoughts on life, art, and science. The translator, Maurice Baring trawled the available manuscripts to distil da Vinci's writings on these subjects into a single, accessible tome, which will be of interest to students of da Vinci, the Renaissance, and the history of both art and science.

In this stunning volume, noted art historians Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Christopher Heath Brown discuss the historical, social, and political conditions that shaped Dali's work, identify the impact of Modern as well as Old Master art, and present an unflinching view of the master's personal relationships and motivations.

In Albert & the Whale, Philip Hoare sets out to discover why Dürer's art endures. He encounters medieval alchemists and modernist poets, eccentric emperors and queer soul rebels, ambassadorial whales and enigmatic pop artists. He witnesses the miraculous birth of Dürer's fantastical rhinoceros and his hermaphroditic hare, and he traces the fate of the star-crossed leviathan that the artist pursued. And as the author swims from Europe to America and beyond, these prophetic artists and downed angels provoke awkward questions.

Sie hat die Grenzen der Kunst gesprengt: sich gepeitscht, mit einer Glasscherbe ein Pentagramm in den Bauch geritzt, ein Messer in die Finger gerammt. Sie ist 2500 Kilometer auf der Chinesischen Mauer gegangen, zwölf Jahre in einem umgebauten Citroën-Bus durch die Welt gefahren und hat ein Jahr bei den Aborigines in Australien gelebt. Spätestens seit "The Artist is Present" - ihrer berühmten Performance 2010 im New Yorker Museum of Modern Art - gilt Marina Abramović in der ganzen Welt als Kultfigur.

Tout le monde connaît la tour Eiffel, personne ne connaît Gustave Eiffel. Ingénieur et inventeur de génie, Gustave Eiffel a bâti des édifices sur toute la planète, de la statue de la Liberté au viaduc de Garabit, de la gare de Budapest au pont de Porto. Il a connu la gloire et la descente aux enfers, les têtes couronnées et la prison. La construction de la Tour, clou de l'Exposition universelle de 1889, a constitué une incroyable aventure humaine et Gustave a dû se battre pendant vingt ans pour que son œuvre ne soit pas démolie.

I perioder mellem 2013 og 2017 led forfatteren af svær depression og var tvangsindlagt på en psykiatrisk afdeling, hvor hun gennemgik en række elektrochokbehandlinger. Undervejs i forløbet kæmpede hun med angsten for at miste sin hukommelse og adgangen til sine minder. "Oktoberbarn" er et fortvivlet opgør med det psykiatriske behandlingssystem og på samme tid en krystalklar skildring af afgørende vendepunkter og begivenheder i forfatterens eget liv - barndom, ungdom, ægteskab, forældreskab og skilsmisse.

La renommée de Le Corbusier est telle que son seul nom symbolise une sorte de renaissance architecturale liée à la reconstruction du pays suite à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Créateur d'une écriture nouvelle de la construction de l'espace, sa réflexion s'inscrit dans un début de XXe siècle riche en remise en cause des académismes artistiques hérités du passé.