The Militant Muse: Love, War and the Women of Surrealism by Whitney Chadwick - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 15-04-2021 - 256 pages.
Art - Art Reference, History & Theory - The Militant Muse documents what it meant to be young, ambitious and female in the context of an avant-garde movement defined by celebrated men whose educational, philosophical and literary backgrounds were often quite different from those of their younger lovers and companions. Focusing on the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Whitney Chadwick charts five intense, far-reaching female friendships among the Surrealists to show how Surrealism, female friendship and the experiences of war, loss and trauma shaped individual women’s transitions from beloved muses to mature artists. Her vivid account includes the fascinating story of Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe’s subversive activities in occupied Jersey, as well as the experiences of Lee Miller and Valentine Penrose at the frontline. Chadwick draws on personal correspondence between women, including the extraordinary letters between Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini during the months following the arrest and imprisonment of Carrington’s lover Max Ernst at the beginning of World War Two, and the letter Frida Kahlo shared with her friend and lover Jacqueline Lamba years after it was written in the late 1930s during a difficult stay in Paris, marred by her intense dislike of Breton.
Thoroughly engrossing, this history brings a new perspective to the political context of Surrealism, as well as fresh insights on the vital importance of female friendship to its artistic and intellectual flowering.
With 85 illustrations
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume III by FUEL and Danzig Baldaev - Published: FUEL - 2008-10-20 - 400 pages
Popular Culture - Contemporary Culture - This final volume of previously unpublished drawings and photographs completes the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopadia trilogy. Danzig Baldaev’s unparalleled ethnographic achievement, documenting over 3,000 tattoo drawings, was made during a lifetime working as a prison guard. The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes, ranging from violence and pornography to politics and alcohol. A medieval knight is surrounded by the severed heads of his enemies, a naked woman simultaneously services a man and two dwarfs, a crying President Gorbachev grips a human bone between sabre-like fangs, a group of angels drinks vodka with God on a cloud – the meanings of these arresting images are explained to the uninitiated eye. Accompanied by graphic photographs showing the grim reality of the Russian prison system and some of the alarming characters that inhabit it, the illustrated criminals of Russia tell the tale of their closed society.
Walter Crane by Jenny Uglow and Quentin Blake - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 12-09-2019 - 112 pages.
Art - Artist Monographs - Jenny Uglow narrates the story of Walter Crane, an intriguing and most prolific figure not only in illustration, but in political culture more broadly. Uglow expertly weaves a fascinating study of how Crane’s art and politics developed from his childhood love of Pre-Raphaelite painting to the influences of Morris and William Blake on the journals, books, banners, pamphlets and postcards he went on to create as he forged a new style for the international socialist movement. Comprising a staggering range of visual material, Crane’s images became a symbolic code that leapt over linguistic boundaries. This book is a brilliant record of an artist who blended styles and influences like no one before him.
Fashionary Bag Design: A Handbook for Accessories Designers by Fashionary - Published: Fashionary International Limited - 01-12-2016.
Fashion & Jewelry - Fashion & Textiles - Fashionary’s Bag Design encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource for bag designers and bag lovers.
Focusing on the specific needs of bag designers, Fashionary has provided essential information on bag anatomy, manafacturing, materials and much more in one compact, convenient volume.
John Nash: The Landscape of Love and Solace by Andy Friend and David Dimbleby - Published: Thames and Hudson Ltd - 2020-09-17
Art - Artist Monographs - A long-overdue biography and rediscovery of 20th-century British artist John Nash
‘Andy Friend deftly carries the reader into a much-peopled narrative, opening up many insights into the art world at the same time that he gets inside the personal life of John Nash and his wife Christine Kühlenthal.’ Frances Spalding
John Nash was a highly versatile artist who responded to the British landscape with a unique vision that still resonates today. He also created some of the most memorable paintings of the First World War. Over a sixty-year career he produced paintings in oil and watercolour and was also an illustrator, cartoonist, wood-engraver and arguably the finest botanical draughtsman of his era. Unlike his older brother Paul, John received no formal art training, but emerged almost fully fledged into the London art world of 1913. Held in high regard by his contemporaries, Nash was part of a wide network of artist friends, including Walter Sickert, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, Cedric Morris and of course his brother Paul, and he in turn influenced Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden.
John Nash: The Landscape of Love and Solace examines these personal and working relationships, and in particular that with his wife Christine Kuhlenthal. An extraordinary voice in her own right, revealed here for the first time through her letters and journals, Christine’s influence was critical to Nash’s career during a long marriage which also encompassed both partners having many other relationships. Their life story is an extraordinary one, which as this book shows was touched by many hitherto untold events. Drawing on original research and including a foreword by David Dimbleby, this fascinating and long-overdue biography provides a much fuller picture of John Nash and his work than previously and is at the same time an intimate and compelling narrative, embracing love, tragedy and the pursuit of solace.
