This book's stunning photos are presented in four sections, each of which challenges the viewer to a greater awareness of human diversity and resilience. "Frontiers" represents the isolated, remote and wild places "where people and nature co-exist and collide"; "Conflict" explores areas scarred by war; "Heritage" discovers how different cultures and ancient ways of life continue in spite of modernity; and "Community" seeks to understand how society is bonded together and humanity thrives. The author sees his photography, collected round the world over a period of ten years, as part of a wider method of storytelling, unfiltered and sometimes deliberately chaotic. Many of the images were captured at high altitudes, in inaccessible valleys, in jungles, deserts and war zones. Fisherwomen with baskets in Botswana seek to feed their families in precarious conditions, sharing the landscape with herds of elephants, while a beautiful sunset in Sudan captures a moment of serenity for the Mundari people who escaped with their cattle to the Sudd swamps on the Nile to get away from the war. High in the Pamir mountains of Afghanistan, a group of women and girls, frontier nomads in the Wakhan Corridor, are pictured milking their yaks. "Conflict" includes the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Palestinian Protesters burning tyres on the West Bank, and on a different continent a patrol of heavily armed rangers in the Congo, with the task of protecting some of the world's last mountain gorillas and forest elephants against the poachers who do not hesitate to kill humans as well as wildlife. "Heritage" features the Golden Temple of Amritsar by night and an atmospheric night-time street scene in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, home to ancient temples and ornate doorways. Illustrating "Community", a group of San children in Botswana are pictured with a large egg they have foraged, representing an almost extinguished hunter-gatherer way of life on the edge of the Kalahari desert. Walking the length of the Nile, the author finds the Nubians among the most hospitable people in the world. 224pp, colour photos on every double spread.

Sourced from specimen books dating from around 1700 onwards, this exquisite collection of ornamentation used by printers covers a range from the mid-16th century to the 21st. The simplest kinds of ornamentation are lines and borders, but these can often be broken up with decorative units known as "flowers", whose origins lie in the culture of the east, particularly the work of Arabian craftsmen who established workshops in Italy. Renaissance classicism gave way to Baroque exuberance, and then in the 19th century an invention known as "stereotyping" enabled images to be reproduced very cheaply, leading to an explosion of ornament with realistic details such as trains and animals. The sections of this book represent different types of ornament. Natural Forms includes the stylised running tulip motifs Art Nouveau, as well as classical acanthus leaves and stylised Rococo floral swags. Geometrical Forms are particularly associated with the Modernist movement and include the running squares and triangles designed by Paul Nash for the Curwen Press in the 1930s and a Bauhaus logo designed by Moholy-Nagy in 1923. In the early 20th century Ravilious, Bawden, Freedman and Nash, all working for the Curwen Press, developed an iconic modern range that respected traditional motifs. The section on Wreaths and Scrolls introduces the mass-production of stereotyping seen at its most successful with motifs such as a paddle steamer, a billiard table, a range of comic faces, a windmill and a man smoking a cigar. A final section on "ingenious art" starts with the influence of designers in the Art Deco period and moves on to the modern digital age. 240pp, over 700 illustrations in monochrome and pink.

Every time you send an email you have a choice of hundreds of fonts, and this exquisite collection focuses on fonts that are based on handwriting or cursive script. Over 300 examples are collected in the book, and an accompanying CD gives you a free download of 122 to use for your own special purposes, for instance invitations, posters, or business cards. Each font has a page to itself where the whole alphabet is displayed in upper and lower case, followed by numerals and the most common punctuation marks. Finally a whole sentence showcases the font by using every word in the alphabet: "Forsaking monastic tradition, twelve jovial friars gave up their vocation for a questionable existence on the flying trapeze." Many of the fonts are accompanied by illustrations in which they feature on posters and book covers. The different styles of script are classified according to the way they are produced, for instance "Italian and French Italics", "Brush and Swash" or "Decorative and Freestyle". One of the most popular cursive fonts today is Mistral, illustrated here by a specimen sheet from 1957. The bold and assertive Ballpark is accompanied by an advertising poster for a DKW motorbike from 1938, while the whimsical and spidery LainieDaySH is illustrated by a book cover for a 1992 novel Margaret in Hollywood. ITC Zapf Chancery was used for the 1979 edition of The Amorous Adventures of Fanny Hill, while Pablo, a typeface of 1995, is based on a 1906 letter of Pablo Picasso to Leo and Gertrude Stein. Xiparos is inspired by the crabbed script of a German manuscript of 1206, while FranciscoLucas Llana comes from a writing manual of 1540 by Palatinus. Fonts can be works of art, and a gorgeous New York Times magazine cover from 2009 uses Volupia, created in 2005, in an abstract swirl incorporating the names of contributors. 14.6 x 22cm, 496pp, index of designs, numerous colour illustrations, CD.
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Since software programmes have come to dominate offices and studios, the pencil has become a symbol for creative freedom and the modern creative's ultimate fetish. This book presents a unique collection of close-up pictures of pencils from some of our foremost artists, designers, writers, architects and musicians. Here is Philippe Starck's stylish black and red, Paul Smith's is a classic jewel-like thing worth £3000 (a present from Jonathan Ive), William Boyd's is nicely aged and rusty, while Anish Kapoor's is sculpted into a mini ArcelorMittal Orbital tower. Other celebrated pencils of leading creatives are from Dave Eggers, Tracey Emin, Christian Louboutin, James Dyson and Cindy Sherman. There is a short interview with David Bailey and the hat designer David Schilling, make-up artist Michèle Burke and British industrial designer Sebastian Bergne, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park and English cartoonist and illustrator Sir Quentin Blake. There is the pink rubber tip of author Louis de Bernières' pencil, and many quotes like 'The pencil lets us talk without words' and 'I used my pencils until they almost disappear.' Sculptors, fashion designers, here is the HB, 4B and 2B and not 2B, close up and very personal on these beautifully coloured and exquisitely designed 144 pages. Foreword by William Boyd.

John Ruskin once said 'When we build, let us think that we build forever', and this book is a superb gallery of the timeless beauty of classicism. There are essays from writers and scholars such as Creating the Private Arcadia by Jeremy Musson, Music and Architecture by David Watkin and On Mathematics and Symmetry by Robert Chitham. Also the language of classical architecture and classical ornament. From the architects are essays including Swimming Against the Tide, Tradition and Invention, the Arabesque in Classical Architecture and Design, Development and the Analytique. From the craftsmen and artisans is The Importance of Joinery in the Classical Home, Metalwork: The Jewellery on a House, The Centrepiece of a Room, Decorative Painting and Gilding: Classical Origins and Exotic Influences, The Permanence of Stone, Ornamental Plasterwork and The Beauty of Handmade Bricks. By then we have reached page 129 and The Projects themselves including Robert Adams A New Country House, Henbury Hall, A Park Avenue Apartment, A Classical Pool Pavilion by Curtis & Windham Architects, Farmlands, Hollywood Regency, A Cotswold Manor House, A Georgian Country House, A Regency Villa, A Georgian Manor, A Colonial House, A Greek Revival Country House, A Neo-Classical Penthouse and one of John Simpson's earliest commissions, Ashfold House in Sussex whose inspiration can easily be found in the work of Sir John Soane. There are four distinct façades on a symmetrical Palladian square plan with a triumphal arch entrance, a glazed bow window and stucco with stencilled classical decoration reflecting that of Soane's own house at Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. With each there are details and scale, and composite order, the name of the architects and the location, together with quotes, hundreds of colour images of the 25 classically-inspired homes in the US and Great Britain. 256 large pages, 24.3 x 24cm. Sheer luxury, we can ask ourselves time and again ?Who lives in a house like this?? and dream on.
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Born in 1541 in Crete, El Greco lived in an island under the control of the Republic of Venice since 1204 and left his native island in 1567. He spent ten years travelling before he settled in Toledo, Spain, in 1577 where he died in 1614 having established himself and developing a reputation for his art. His portraiture work, immortalising the faces of his friends and patrons of the intellectual elite, his final style is known for his whirling, elongated figures outlined in black, his cool palette, dominated by blue and grey illuminated by supernatural rays of light, and his broad brushstrokes, possibly due to his visual impairment. El Greco was the first Master of the Spanish Golden Age. Here is Christ on the Cross, Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple depicted in a glorious double gatefold page with close-up details to compare easily alongside, The Fable and lift the flap to see a gatefold in the vertical direction. Further gatefolds show individual portraits or studies for such artworks as St Peter and St Paul, The Assumption of the Virgin and The Penitent St Mary Magdalene. This glorious small publication has just 56 pages but these nearly double up with the many gatefolds. Published in conjunction with El Greco Exhibition in Paris October 2019-February 2020. 12.5 x 17.5cm.

Born in Hampstead in 1904, Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was an Oscar-winning stage and costume designer for films and theatre, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter and interior designer. He won awards for his work on My Fair Lady and Gigi and Coco in 1970 and lived in great style in his beautiful home at Ashcombe House near Salisbury. 'Since I was probably wearing fur gauntlet gloves, a cloth-of-gold tie, scarlet jersey and flowing 'Oxford Bags', perhaps it is reasonable to suppose that I was noticeable.' Cecil Beaton had a preference for three piece suits, jackets always a size too small that emphasised the waist, and enlarged shirt collars. Bold colours favoured in the 1920s continued to be in use during the 30s. His diaries reveal a particular fondness for deep reds and greens and a general dislike of white and pale colours. Beaton also favoured the use of blocks of solid colour as is evident in the design of the many hotel suites he was employed to decorate in New York. And the blocks of colour were used for his costume designs in Gigi and My Fair Lady. Huge full page images in both colour and black and white show the interiors of his home, out and about with friends, his felt hats, a self portrait photograph and of course with Audrey Hepburn for the film version, 1964. Pictured in a frayed jumper and flannel trousers, his shirts were made by Excello of New York and his shoes by Lobbs. There are his short nipped in cream woollen jackets from Lanz of Salzburg when he is pictured smoking and concentrating on his costume designs at his desk in the Waldorf Astoria, New York January 1934 and in the same outfit with zebra-print pumps in the studio at his home in Wiltshire. In fancy dress 1935, he is a remarkably beautiful man with an exquisite sense of taste in dress and style. Here he is with Greta Garbo and Gary Cooper, making a film with friends and neighbours in the cast, having fun and partying and being seen. From the moment Beaton arrived at Cambridge University in 1922 wearing evening jacket, red shoes, black and white trousers and a large cravat, to his appearance at Truman Capote's 1970 Black and White Ball, he expressed a flamboyant sartorial nonchalance - a sprezzatura. Now his clothing along with other elements of his wardrobe are at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the V&A London, with whom he worked to select and curate and become a champion of dandyism and vintage clothing. Spectacular showcase publication, 144 very large pages, 23.6 x 31.5cm.
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Modern artists are far from the first to have exploited the power and potential of the self portrait which has become the defining visual genre of our confessional age. Art historian and critic James Hall brilliantly maps the history from the earliest myths of Narcissus and the Christian tradition of 'bearing witness' to the prolific self-image making of today's contemporary artists, the explosion of the genre during the Renaissance, the confessional self portraits of Titian and Michelangelo, Courbet and Van Gogh, the themes of sex and genius in works by Munch, Bonnard and Modersohn-Becker. Comic and caricature, imaginary, key collections such as that of the Medici in Florence, throughout Hall asks why and when artists have chosen to make self portraits and the mindsets of the artists who had created them. Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated, the book features the work or artists including Alberti, Caravaggio, Dürer, Emin, Gauguin, Giotto, Goya, Kahlo, Koons, Magritte, Mantegna, Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt and Warhol in a lively and rich history which contextualises the tradition in relation to the cultural climate of its time. 120 illustrations, many in colour, 288pp in large Thames & Hudson softback.

A major biography of James McNeill Whistler, one of the most intriguing and complex and important of America's artists. The first biography in more than 20 years makes use of the artist's private correspondence to tell the story of his life and work. This engaging personal history dispels the popular notion of Whistler (1834-1903) as merely a combative, eccentric and unrelenting publicity seeker, a man as renowned for his public feuds with Oscar Wilde and John Ruskin as for the iconic portrait of his mother. Revealed here is an intense, introspective and complex man, plagued by self-doubt and haunted by an endless pursuit of perfection in his painting and drawing. 'The biography recounts Whistler's career in chronological order, is generous with detail and keeps psychological speculation to a minimum' - Michael Prodger. There are three thick wedges of plates so that the paintings are on hand to study. 107 illustrations in total, many in colour in this glamorous Yale University Press outsize softback, 440pp.

Rivers are extraordinarily beautiful, from the trickle of a stream at its source and its gentle meandering bends, to the expansive estuaries as they meet the sea. In more than 200 images, learn how to tackle each stage of painting rivers, from inspiration, focus and sketching, to information gathering, planning and painting. The author Rob Dudley is an experienced artist known for his riverscapes and takes the opportunity in this book to share his methods and techniques for landscape and en plein air artists. There are fantastic step-by-step demonstrations for artists to follow as they attempt to paint a boat on the side of a river in 'Woodbridge Workings' or create a sunset at Aveton Gifford. The demonstration for 'Looking Upstream from Greenwich' will show artists how to transport their audience to a London skyline and artists can study the texture of water and stone in 'Butterbrook Cascade'. The guide takes a painter from drawing out the main elements of a scene and applying a 'wash' of lemon yellow and rose to the background, to painting details such as a river bank and reflections of the landscape in the water. The guide not only shows pictures of each step in the painting but also lists the type of paper needed, required materials and equipment such as masking fluid and a palette, and artists? quality watercolours. Learn that it is important to be selective when painting and, if an artist feels the feature may dominate the composition, they can exclude it, such as ignoring a fallen tree in a woodland scene. Discover how to make a brush that creates a watery texture in one swoop using masking fluid and a round bristle. The guide also includes fantastic advice on the necessities for painting rivers, from selecting the perfect brush to paint details and picking out the perfect painting board for stretching paper, to understanding how to mix greens from Windsor blue with lemon yellow, cobalt blue with cadmium yellow, or adding a little burnt sienna to a ready mixed green to create a softer colour. Paperback, 8.8" x 11", colour images, 160pp.