David Trigg – författare

An accessible A-Z guide to best contemporary art made since 2000

A celebration of artworks featuring books and readers from throughout history, for the delight of art lovers and bibliophilesAs every book tells a story, every book in art is part of an intriguing, engaging, and relatable image. Books are depicted as indicators of intellect in portraits, as symbols of piety in religious paintings, as subjects in still lifes, and as the raw material for contemporary installations. Reading Art spotlights artworks from museums and collections around the globe, creating a gorgeous, inspiring homage to both the written word and to its pivotal role in the visual world.

The Penguin Modern Painters (1944-1959) was a groundbreaking series of British art monographs designed to promote the work of contemporary artists to a general readership. In examining the factors that influenced the wartime conception and development of the series, this Element makes a contribution to the understanding of the relationship between publishing and the visual arts during the Second World War. The study argues that the emergence of The Penguin Modern Painters was inextricably linked to the aims of British wartime cultural policy and the ideology of the pre-war adult education movement. The key personalities involved are identified and their multiple and often conflicting motives analysed to provide new insights into the shifting perspectives of Britain's elites regarding the way that art was presented to the public in the 1940s. This Element provides a foundation on which further study of twentieth-century art publishing in Britain might be developed.

A fascinating and uplifting celebration of the joys of spring through several centuries of art. This inspiring book presents some of the most beautiful, transformative, and amusing expressions of spring pulled from the renowned collections of Tate. Divided into key themes – 'Blossom and Blooms', 'Into the Landscape', 'In the Garden', 'Agriculture', 'Rebirth' and 'Uprising' – this book considers how the traditional season of growth and rebirth has influenced artists over centuries. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, illustrations, and installations are accompanied by brief captions adding background detail or additional information about the art, the artists, and their subjects. Spanning several centuries, and featuring a variety of artists from Barbara Hepworth and Patrick Heron to Damien Hirst and Natalia Goncharova, this elegant gift book celebrates the joys of the spring season through art.

Selected as one of the “best art books of 2024” by Martin Gayford, The Spectator.A visual survey featuring a curated chronological selection of 90 artworks from Pop art to now, from the witty and the political to the beautiful and the conceptual. From pioneers Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Lynn Hershman Leeson to contemporary artists Jeremy Deller, Lubaina Himid, Damien Hirst, Kerry James Marshall, MSCHF, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry and many more; a key work by each artist is illustrated and accompanied by a short explanatory text by art historian, David Trigg.As an inescapable aspect of everyday life, money has appeared in the background of art throughout its history within the context of mythological, biblical and historic scenes – from Danaë and the shower of golden coins, to the 30 pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed Jesus. In the last seventy years however, as consumer culture has spread internationally, many artists have given money the centre stage in their work to reflect on various economic, political, social and symbolic concerns that relate to different currencies and formats. In some of these artworks, physical money – banknotes and coins plus cheques and credit cards – is the actual art material, used by artists to question and subvert notions of value or to examine the aesthetics of these quotidian objects. As the world enters an age of decentralised, virtual currencies, artists have been quick to respond to the creative potential of this new economy, from Sarah Meyohas’s creation of her own digital currency, Bitchcoin (2015), to Damien Hirst’s The Currency (2021–22) which offered 10,000 art collectors the choice between owning a physical painting or an NFT – with the corresponding element being destroyed – to explore the boundaries between art and currency, and question ideas of value.An introductory essay sets the scene with an historical overview of money in art, whisking readers from ancient Greek pots and Renaissance paintings by Titian, Rembrandt and Gentileschi, to Dutch genre scenes, still lifes and early twentieth-century Dada collages, and the book opens with a foreword by Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England and current Prime Minister of Canada.