BELLAS ARTES

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 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.

In celebration of the world’s favorite animal, we bring you over 400 photographs of or about dogs. With pictures from the 19th century to today, the collection includes works by Man Ray, Eric Fischl, Wolfgang Tillmans, Donna Ruskin, Fatima NeJame, Vincent Versace, and of course Elliott Erwitt and William Wegman. Together, their pictures, unique in style but united in canine affection, are testimony if ever there was one that dogs are not only best friends, but also pure photographic inspiration.

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.

Produced with the Yves Saint Laurent museums in Paris and Marrakech, this book examines how flowers served as the designer’s muse throughout his life and work. Yves Saint Laurent’s passion for flowers and gardens was the source of endless inspiration. From a thousand and one rose buds to sprigs of lily of the valley, from an avalanche of bougainvillea to delicate poppy blooms, and from sheaves of wheat to majestic lilies, he metamorphosed nature in his creations. Employing flowers as a palette of patterns and techniques, he adorned women in floral appliqués, prints, and embroideries.

"Es peligroso ser un hombre honesto". —Michael Corleone, El Padrino IIIComo fotógrafo especial en los platós y los exteriores de la trilogía El Padrino de Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Schapiro tuvo la oportunidad excepcional de presenciar el trabajo de actores legendarios en algunas de sus interpretaciones más memorables. Schapiro inmortalizó a Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall y Diane Keaton en fotos que desde entonces se han convertido en imágenes emblemáticas, reconocibles al instante e imitadas hasta la saciedad. Reunidas por primera vez en este libro están las mejores fotografías de Schapiro de las tres películas de El Padrino, cuidadosamente reproducidas a partir de los negativos originales. Con ensayos y entrevistas que cubren la trilogía en su integridad, este libro contiene más de 300 imágenes a color y en blanco y negro. Las imágenes de Schapiro nos llevan tras las escenas de esta epica e inimitable saga cinematográfica, revelando el proceso de trabajo del director, captando las atmósferas y las personalidades involucradas y proporcionando interioridades de cómo se hacía la historia del cine.