BELLAS ARTES

The first illustrated book to chronicle the dramatic 1973 face-off between French and American fashion designers, which left an indelible mark on the fashion industry, launched American designers as a global force, and challenged the cultural norms of the time. Images from the archives of renowned fashion photojournalists Bill Cunningham and Jean-luce Huré—largely unseen until now—capture the behind-the-scenes drama, fabulous clothing, iconic models, and glamorous guests at this historic show.

This book celebrates the 1925 Paris Exposition—at its centenary—a landmark event that shaped twentieth-century design and gave its name to Art Deco. The exposition dazzled over sixteen million visitors during its run, showcasing the pinnacle of French luxury goods and design innovation. Renowned as the preeminent exponent of French Art Deco, Ruhlmann (1879–1933) was recognized for the aesthetic refinement, luxurious materials, and impeccable craftsmanship of his creations. Inspired by eighteenth-century pleasure pavilions, Ruhlmann’s pavilion, L’Hôtel du Collectionneur (The Town House of the Collector), was one of the most admired exhibits at the fair. Conceived as a modern-day Trianon, it was filled with his own sumptuous furnishings together with a meticulous selection of objets d’art by his contemporaries, including Edgar Brandt, Jean Dunand, and Jean Puiforcat.

The earliest forms of human creativity – in carvings, markings, and cave paintings – bear witness to humanity’s engagement with color. Almost as old as these examples is the desire to assign structure, order, and meaning to this universal yet elusive concept, and it is this fascination that unites the works compiled in this expansive edition. Gathering over 40 rare books and manuscripts from a wealth of institutions, including the most distinguished color collections worldwide, The Book of Colour Concepts takes the reader on a chromatic odyssey across four centuries and over 350 images of luscious wheels and globes, painstakingly collated charts, and meticulous diagrams, many of them newly photographed exclusively for this edition.

The Book of Miracles first surfaced several ago and is one of the most spectacular discoveries in the field of Renaissance art. The near-complete illustrated manuscript, created in Augsburg around 1550, is composed of 169 pages of large-format illustrations in gouache and watercolor, depicting wondrous and often eerie phenomena. The mesmerizing images deal with both biblical and folkloric tales, depicting stories from the Old Testament and Book of Revelation as well as events that took place in the immediate present of the manuscript’s author. From shooting stars to swarms of locusts, terrifying monsters to fatal floods, page after page hypnotizes with visions alternately dreadful, spectacular, and even apocalyptic.

From The Crown to Downton Abbey, the country house speaks to our fantasies of rustic splendour, style, and escape. Featuring three hundred photos from the National Trust, this lavish book draws back the curtain on the finest and most important historic homes in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, revealing these great houses' intriguing pasts, grand interiors, and vi-brant reinventions for the enjoyment of modern-day visitors, residents, and armchair travellers. Locations include Knole, Cragside, Castle Howard, Chatsworth, Polesden Lacey, Petworth, Castle Bodiam, Blenheim, Longleat, and dozens more. Illuminating essays by country house expert Jeremy Musson, legendary British author and historian David Cannadine, and contributing writers and scholars provide unique insight into centuries of life in a historic home. This is a rich visual resource for lovers of sumptuous interiors on a human scale, as well as grand exterior architecture and gorgeous landscapes. For Anglophiles, royals watchers, and lovers of the country house lifestyle, architecture, and interior design, this is a magnificent new look at landmark British country houses, the treasures they contain, and how they speak to our fantasies of rustic splendour and escape today.

Frank Frazetta has reigned as the undisputed king of fantasy art for 50 years, his fame only growing in the years since his death. With his paintings now breaking auction records (Egyptian Queen sold for $ 5.4 million in 2019) he’s long overdue for this ultimate monograph.Born to a Sicilian immigrant family in Brooklyn, 1928, Frazetta was a minor league athlete, petty criminal and serial seducer with movie star looks and phenomenal talent. He claimed to only make art when there was nothing better to do – he preferred playing baseball - yet began his professional career in comics at age 16. Strip work led him to the infamous EC Comics, then to oils for Tarzan and Conan pulp covers. Both characters were interpreted by many before him, but as he explained in the 1970s, “I’m very physical minded. In Brooklyn, I knew Conan, I knew guys just like him,” and he used this first-hand knowledge of muscle and macho to redefine fantasy heroes as more massive, more menacing, more testosterone-fueled than anything seen before. As counterbalance he created a new breed of women, nude as censorship allowed, with pixie faces and multiparous bodies: thick thighed, heavy buttocked, breasts cantilevered out to there, yet still, with their soft bellies and hints of cellulite, believably real. Add in the action, the creatures, the twilit worlds of haunting shadow and Frazetta’s art is addictive as potato chips.