Stephen Farthing – författare

Ranging from Homer to Picasso, and from the Iranian Revolution to The Wizard of Oz, this spirited and radiant book awakens us anew to the role of color in our livesOur lives are saturated by color. We live in a world of vivid colors, and color marks our psychological and social existence. But for all color’s inescapability, we don’t know much about it. Now authors David Scott Kastan and Stephen Farthing offer a fresh and imaginative exploration of one of the most intriguing and least understood aspects of everyday experience.Kastan and Farthing, a scholar and a painter, respectively, investigate color from numerous perspectives: literary, historical, cultural, anthropological, philosophical, art historical, political, and scientific. In ten lively and wide-ranging chapters, each devoted to a different color, they examine the various ways colors have shaped and continue to shape our social and moral imaginations. Each individual color becomes the focal point for a consideration of one of the extraordinary ways in which color appears and matters in our lives. Beautifully produced in full color, this book is a remarkably smart, entertaining, and fascinating guide to this elusive topic.

An accessible and hugely popular history of art explained through many of the world’s most famous masterpieces. Written by an international team of artists, art historians and curators, this absorbing and beautiful book gives readers unparalleled insights into the world’s most iconic artworks. Art: The Whole Story traces the development of art period by period, with the illustrated text covering every genre, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art and performance art. Cultural timelines are there too, to help to the reader with historical context. Masterpieces that epitomize each period or movement are highlighted and analysed in detail. Everything from use of colour and visual metaphors to technical innovations is explained, enabling you to interpret the meanings of world-famous masterpieces – Mughal miniatures; Japanese prints in the 19th century; the colour theories behind Seurat’s remarkable La Grande Jatte; and why Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was so shocking in its day.

There are few more complete examples of an artist’s record of their own life than the intimately detailed and beautifully produced handmade books that Derek Jarman created throughout his career. Seen together they reveal the story of how he gathered, shaped and made concrete his ideas. Containing poetry, drawings, pressed flowers, photographs, excerpts from scripts and notes, the sketchbooks are part autobiography and part social history, layered and bursting with the energy and creativity not only of this groundbreaking film-maker and artist, but also of London in the 1970s and 80s. Wholly private during his lifetime, these precious books are an intimate pictorial record of the relationship between Jarman’s personal and professional life, revealing the detailed planning and research, and creative and emotional engagement, behind each of his films.

Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks – Deluxe Edition. Edited by Stephen Farthing and Ed Webb-Ingall. With a preface by Tilda Swinton. Featuring contributions from Keith Collins, Christopher Hobbs, Andrew Logan, James Mackay, Jon Savage, Howard Sooley, Neil Tennant and Toyah Willcox. DELUXE SLIPCASED EDITION. INCLUDES THREE PRINTS. Containing poetry, drawings, pressed flowers, photographs, excerpts from scripts and notes, Derek Jarman’s sketchbooks are part autobiography and part social history, bursting with the energy and creativity of this groundbreaking artist. This publication collates the best of Jarman’s sketchbooks to reveal the detailed planning and emotional engagement behind each of his films in more depth than ever before. This deluxe edition is limited to 500 copies, each presented in a cloth-covered slipcase. Each numbered copy is accompanied by three prints reproduced from the sketchbooks, housed in an envelope tipped into the book. The book, which is covered in real blue cloth with gold foil blocking on the spine and in a debossed recess on the frontboard, is c.15% larger than the standard edition. 196 illustrations, 187 in colour, 31.0 x 24.0cm, 256pp, ISBN 978 0 500 517185 . £150.00 slipcased hardback + 3 prints