Edward Lucie-Smith – författare

In 1998, TASCHEN introduced the world to the masterful art of Touko Laaksonen with The Art of Pleasure. Prior to that, Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, enjoyed an intense cult following in the international gay community but was largely unknown to a broader audience.In 2009, TASCHEN followed up with the ultimate Tom overview: Tom of Finland XXL, a beautiful big collector’s edition with over 1,000 images, covering six decades of the artist’s career. The work was gathered from collections across the United States and Europe with the help of the Tom of Finland Foundation, featuring many drawings, paintings, and sketches never previously reproduced. Other images had only been seen out of context and were finally presented in the sequential order Tom intended for full artistic appreciation and erotic impact.The elegant oversized volume showed the full range of Tom’s talent, from sensitive portraits to frank sexual pleasure to tender expressions of love and haunting tributes to young men struck down by AIDS, and was completed by eight commissioned essays on Tom’s social and personal impact by Camille Paglia, John Waters, Armistead Maupin, Todd Oldham, and others, plus a scholarly analysis of individual drawings by art historian Edward Lucie-Smith.The only thing missing from Tom of Finland XXL was a widely affordable price tag—until now. The new Tom of Finland XXL is still big enough to work your biceps, and includes all of the original content, but costs a fraction of the original price. You’re welcome.

This compelling and comprehensive survey introduces an exceptionally rich, fascinating and complex art. Edward Lucie-Smith discusses major subjects and issues: Magic Realism, Expressionism and other concepts shared with Latin American literature; the great muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco; the interaction of politics, society and art; the continuing interest in folk art; and the dialogue between avant-garde European and North American movements and ‘indigenist’ thinking in the work of artists such as Wifredo Lam, Matta, Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo. In this revised edition, a new final section presents the leading artists of today, some of whose work in the fields of interactive installation, photography and video art reveals a continent embracing the experimental and the new.

This standard introduction to visual art since 1945 has been revised, updated and redesigned for the first time since 2001. Movements, trends and individual artists from abstract expressionism to the present day are summarized, with detailed coverage of major developments such as pop art, conceptual and performance work, minimal art, neo-expressionist and figurative painting, the YBAs and the globalized art scene of the twenty-first century. A new chapter on art since 2000 includes discussion of work by Banksy and Ai Weiwei, as well as recent trends in art from Russia and Eastern Europe. Writing with exceptional clarity and a strong sense of narrative, Edward Lucie-Smith demystifies the work of dozens of artists, revealing how the art world has interacted with social, political and environmental concerns. Nearly 300 images of key artworks range from the paintings of Jackson Pollock via graffiti from 1980s New York and land art of the 1970s to contemporary painting from China and video from Japan. The book is as global in its reach as art has become in the 21st century.

In this classic survey, now updated and with full-colour images throughout, Edward Lucie-Smith introduces the art of Latin America from 1900 to the present day. He discusses in detail major figures such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as dozens of less well-known artists. Those who spent their lives in exile, and artists from Europe and the US who lived in South America, such as Leonora Carrington, are all included in this broad, comprehensive view. The artists featured here have sought for indigenous roots and a local tradition; explored abstraction, expressionism and new media (video, installation, performance); entered dialogue with European and North American movements, while insisting on reaching a wide popular audience for their work; and created an energetic, innovative and very varied art scene across the continent today. A new chapter extends the discussion into the twenty-first century, summarizing key trends and most notable figures of the last two decades. A constant theme is the embrace of the experimental and the new by artists across Latin America.

Endlessly entertaining and informative, Sussex Writers & Artists is a collection of crisp and concise biographies of writers and artists with a Sussex connection. Over the centuries a substantial number of the nation's foremost creative figures have had their lives and work touched by the shaping spirit of Sussex. There have been some surprisingly varied reactions: Blake hated the place, Kipling fell in love with it, Bell, Grant and the Woolfs turned it into a place of literary pilgrimage and John Constable just came for a holiday. Whether it's Beardsley, Belloc or Blake, Edward Lucie-Smith animates their lives and work in a riveting set of illuminating and revealing stories.

Philipp Rudolf Humm is a German/Belgian artist living in London. Humm started out to become an artist, yet got rejected by the Berlin Akademie. After completing a BA in Philosophy in Germany and an MBA at the IMD in Switzerland, Humm went on to have a successful corporate career, while continuing to work as an artist in his leisure time. On moving to London in 2012, he immersed himself fully into the art world. Initially pursuing painting alongside a demanding day job, Humm left the world of business to be a full-time artist in 2015. He has since studied painting at the London Fine Art Studios and sculpture at the Fine Art Academy in Florence. Humm’s works are narrative figurative paintings; he works in collections, each of which is based on a theme. He combines contemporary styles with academic and old masters’ techniques. Thematically, his work is influenced by his early studies of philosophy, where he specialised in existentialism, particularly the work of Heidegger and Sartre. In his practice, Humm is engaged with ideas of humanism, existential questions, consumerism and the impact of technology upon the human condition. The critic Edward Lucie-Smith, who has written extensively on Humm’s work, says: ‘[His] paintings succeed, very often, because they offer the viewer an echo chamber, one that resounds with cultural references, ancient and modern. This description of how they work is a paradox in itself, since paintings are essentially things made to be seen, not to be heard, not to be listened to … One of [the paintings’] most salient common characteristics, however, is the desire to communicate thoughts and ideas in the most efficient way possible. I think there can be no disagreement that this, in fact, is exactly what they do.’

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar focuses on the importance of being connected with the eternal self,particularly in our modern world where, he believes, people lose themselves more and moreevery day. The artist trusts that by being one with the eternal self, any individual can start toexperience an evolved state of existence and become truly whole. One of the artist’s messagesbehind this body is that when people who are connected with their eternal self come togetherin harmony with a unified goal, they bring a positive change to the world. Oneness Wholenessis a result of the artist’s seven year search on the path of this evolved state and by pairingpractice with much research and guidance by masters of meditative and energy balancingpractices, he was able to reach a higher state of being. The artist practices this ideology ona daily basis and found the importance of bringing this into his artistic practice in order toinform his audience about the importance of being truly connected with oneself and to beworking with others to bring forth a constructive energy and change.

As London evolves into a Babylonian-style city of lofty towers, the artist Anna Keen has been inspired to paint this London Metamorphosis. While each new edifice heads to the heavens, the exposed entrails of these vast construction sites strangely resemble ruins. Her large canvases are enriched with details stemming from patient observation and on-the-spot sketches, and from voyages around the city made by helicopter, boat, road and on foot. Like the eighteenth-century artist J.M Gandy, who simultaneously painted London in ruins and in construction, Anna Keen takes us just beneath the surface of the metropolis, to where the emotional landscape lurks and to where the soul of London is heading. London-based art historian Edward Lucie-Smith has followed Anna Keen's painting since 1995 in Rome.

There is surprisingly little, and certainly nothing comprehensive, written about the contemporary Russian scene now. What appear in the West are mostly reports about so-called ‘dissidents’, not about what is happening in this vast culture, taken as a whole. Too often, these reports seem to be primarily inspired by a desire to demonstrate Western cultural and political superiority. The aim of Russian Art in the New Millennium is not to support any one cause, but to look at the situation as it now exists objectively and to give as wide and truthful a view as possible. Russian art during the period under review – the last two decades – has been evolving rapidly and in many directions. Hence there are sections on digital art, landscape paintings, graffiti, religious art and others. Furthermore, in addition to the continuing influence of the traditional centres for art – Moscow and St Petersburg – a number of provincial Russian cities have developed distinctive art worlds of their own. Russian Art in the New Millennium attempts to discover this terra incognita and to encompass this extremely various, but also intensely national art scene in Russia in one volume.

There is surprisingly little, and certainly nothing comprehensive, written about the contemporary Russian scene now. What appear in the West are mostly reports about so-called ‘dissidents’, not about what is happening in this vast culture, taken as a whole. Too often, these reports seem to be primarily inspired by a desire to demonstrate Western cultural and political superiority. The aim of Russian Art in the New Millennium is not to support any one cause, but to look at the situation as it now exists objectively and to give as wide and truthful a view as possible. Russian art during the period under review – the last two decades – has been evolving rapidly and in many directions. Hence there are sections on digital art, landscape paintings, graffiti, religious art and others. Furthermore, in addition to the continuing influence of the traditional centres for art – Moscow and St Petersburg – a number of provincial Russian cities have developed distinctive art worlds of their own. Russian Art in the New Millennium attempts to discover this terra incognita and to encompass this extremely various, but also intensely national art scene in Russia in one volume.