Eva Rossetti – illustratör

A non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art. How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark... How do you get at one of the world’s most powerful governments by smashing an old vase? How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today's global multi-billion dollar art world? This graphic novel answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works. Against a backdrop of armed conflict and rapid societal change, this book tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchamp’s repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelan’s taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: canned excrement, a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood. The story moves from Paris to New York and London, and then captures the geographical spread of a rapidly globalizing cultural scene by jumping to events in Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Beijing, and culminating in Miami – and in the ether, everywhere and nowhere, on the internet. Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet or inspire each other across the generations and decades. Over a period of 100 years everything changes – and yet the cry of ‘It’s not art!’ never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions – and inspire anew.

Gertrude Stein and the Lost Generation: A striking portrait of the woman behind the legends. Paris, the 1920s. At 27 Rue de Fleurus, writers, painters and intellectuals gather around an extraordinary woman who seems to know everyone who matters. Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and Braque all pass through her salon. Yet while the artists and writers around her would become cultural icons, Gertrude Stein herself was too often overshadowed by the legends she helped create. This graphic biography brings her back to the centre of the story. Born in Pennsylvania in 1874 into a wealthy Jewish family of German origin, Stein moved to Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century and settled in Paris, where she lived with her brother Leo and, later, with Alice B. Toklas, her lifelong partner. Together, Stein and Toklas created one of the most celebrated salons of the modernist era, a meeting place where literature, painting, ideas and radical new ways of seeing the world collided. Valentina Grande and Eva Rossetti draw a vivid portrait of a woman who stood at the crossroads of modern literature, avant-garde art, American expatriate culture and changing ideas about gender and freedom. Rather than reducing Stein to the glamorous circle she inspired, Grande and Rossetti ask a sharper question: why did so many of the people around her become legends, while Stein herself was so often pushed to the margins of the story? Translated from the Italian by Monica Meneghetti

Gertrude Stein and the Lost Generation: A striking portrait of the woman behind the legends. Paris, the 1920s. At 27 Rue de Fleurus, writers, painters and intellectuals gather around an extraordinary woman who seems to know everyone who matters. Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and Braque all pass through her salon. Yet while the artists and writers around her would become cultural icons, Gertrude Stein herself was too often overshadowed by the legends she helped create. This graphic biography brings her back to the centre of the story. Born in Pennsylvania in 1874 into a wealthy Jewish family of German origin, Stein moved to Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century and settled in Paris, where she lived with her brother Leo and, later, with Alice B. Toklas, her lifelong partner. Together, Stein and Toklas created one of the most celebrated salons of the modernist era, a meeting place where literature, painting, ideas and radical new ways of seeing the world collided. Valentina Grande and Eva Rossetti draw a vivid portrait of a woman who stood at the crossroads of modern literature, avant-garde art, American expatriate culture and changing ideas about gender and freedom. Rather than reducing Stein to the glamorous circle she inspired, Grande and Rossetti ask a sharper question: why did so many of the people around her become legends, while Stein herself was so often pushed to the margins of the story? Translated from the Italian by Monica Meneghetti

These women changed art forever - told in colourful graphic novel form, this is the story of four pioneers of feminist art: Judy Chicago, Faith Ringold, Ana Mendieta, and the Guerilla Girls.Each made their mark in their own powerful way. Judy Chicago made us reassess the female body, Faith Ringold taught us that feminism is for everyone, Ana Mendieta was a martyr to violence against women, while the Guerilla Girls have taken the fight to the male-dominated museum. This graphic novel tells each of their stories in a unique style.