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"That said, the book is about far more than the history of photography or even historical record; it’s an act of remembrance and resistance." —AttitudeLOVING: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850s – 1950s (ISBN 9788874399284), was published in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Despite that, the book was available in five languages, the first US printing sold out in six weeks; the response to the book was overwhelming and emotional; and five years and multiple printings later, LOVING remains a best-seller. For LOVING, the collectors drew from 2000 photographs; now, in 2025, more than 25 years after they purchased their first picture, the collection has 4000 images. It seems logical then – even necessary – to publish a new volume with all new photographs from those acquired since 2019. LOVING II continues with more stunning vintage vernacular photographs of romantic male couples, with all the emotional power of the first book in intact. This new selection continues the story of the unadulterated joy – longed for by all of us and recognisable to anyone – of being in love. As with the first LOVING, these photographs and what they convey, whether directly in an embrace or more subtly in a furtive touch, move – in fact change – those who encounter them. Indeed, anyone who has ever loved will identify with the elation – and peace – that these couples share. The collecting criteria have not changed: starting from the earliest years of photography and continuing through the 1950s, the Nini-Treadwell archive includes daguerreotypes, silver gelatins, tintypes, ambrotypes, snap shots, and many more – a historical capsule of a century of photographic technique. The subjects come from all walks of life: soldiers, farmers, students, the young and old, poor and affluent. Their creation happened between loving couples from all around the world. Each photo is the story of two told in an instant.   Image credit: © Nini-Treadwell Inc.

Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850-1950 portrays the history of romantic love between men in hundreds of moving and tender vernacular photographs taken between the years 1850 and 1950. This visual narrative of astonishing sensitivity brings to light an until-now-unpublished collection of hundreds of snapshots, portraits, and group photos taken in the most varied of contexts, both private and public.Taken when male partnerships were often illegal, the photos here were found at flea markets, in shoe boxes, family archives, old suitcases, and later online and at auctions. The collection now includes photos from all over the world: Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Japan, Greece, Latvia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Serbia. The subjects were identified as couples by that unmistakable look in the eyes of two people in love - impossible to manufacture or hide. They were also recognised by body language - evidence as subtle as one hand barely grazing another - and by inscriptions, often coded.Included here are ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, glass negatives, tin types, cabinet cards, photo postcards, photo strips, photomatics, and snapshots - over 100 years of social history and the development of photography.Loving will be produced to the highest standards in illustrated book publishing, The photographs - many fragile from age or handling - have been digitised using a technology derived from that used on surveillance satellites and available in only five places around the world. Paper and other materials are among the best available. And Loving will be manufactured at one of the world's elite printers. Loving, the book, will be up to the measure of its message in every way.In these delight-filled pages, couples in love tell their own story for the first time at a time when joy and hope - indeed human connectivity - are crucial lifelines to our better selves. Universal in reach and overwhelming in impact, Loving speaks to our spirit and resilience, our capacity for bliss, and our longing for the shared truths of love.

Alejandro Merizalde began photographing in Venice in 2008. In his early visits he found the city stiflingly overcrowded, but during a brief winter trip a few years later, the overcast skies and foggy atmosphere allowed him to draw out Venice's legendary beauty without the disruptions of mass tourism. In 2013 he started experimenting with longer exposures to eliminate the distractions of human activity and enable him to concentrate on his architectural compositions. This shift in approach was gradual, but it helped him realise that he was no longer interested in recording iconic features like St Mark’s Basilica, the Bridge of Sighs and the gondola, to name a few. From then on, he dropped the predictable locations and buildings and trained his lens on the Venice lagoon and areas of the city where Venetians actually spend their lives.Text in English, French and Italian.

This volume marks the publishing debut of the Spanish-Argentinian photographer based in Milan, Patricio Reig, and introduces one of the artist’s preferred subjects: the female portrait.Patricio Reig prints and sets his images on special oriental paper, folded over and over, and finally dipped in a bath of coffee and sodium thiosulfate. He has found the result intriguing ever since his very first experiments: fortuitous coffee stains become scars that denote each photograph, and consequently every story they tell. As he himself says: “A portrait is not the recording of a single identity, but rather the layering of many elements. For this reason, the image may be fragmented, pieced back together, or even folded over, and yet it never loses its essence.” Text in English, French and Spanish.

Although many societies in the Congo were once renowned for vibrant masquerades and architectural sculpture, these phenomena have only been studied as living traditions among a handful of peoples, most notably the Pende. Building on the extended fieldwork of numerous researchers since the 1950s, this text offers a unique window into the dynamic performance contexts of both masquerade and architecture in Central Africa. As much as possible, it privileges Pende voices and seeks to understand the inter-relationship between ritual practice and aesthetic form. Attentive to history, the text also shows these artistic practices have responded (sometimes unpredictably) to both colonial and post-colonial pressure. Lavish illustrations feature both iconic and hitherto unpublished masterworks, which have been selected to evoke the full range of Pende expression.

This book is put together like a jewel and contains a carefully chosen selection of around 100 West African combs from one of the world’s largest and finest private collections of sub-Saharan African art. Featuring a hitherto unseen assortment of pieces assembled over a period of more than 60 years, the book also includes an authoritative analysis by Alain-Michel Boyer, who approached this rarely addressed theme in what was his final work, begun almost ten years ago. As well as offering us valuable insights into the cultures that produced these miniature sculptures (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), he explores the way the form itself is approached. These creations transform what is in principle a plain accessory and in the effort to attain pure beauty, they display an aesthetic awareness that raises the adornment of the body to the level of fine art.

On the whole, when one thinks of seventeenth-century sculpture in Rome, one has in mind the wonderful and famous works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, such as the Fountain of the Rivers or The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. The very idea of Roman baroque is commonly identified with the century's great genius. And indeed, the influence of Bernini's work on the sculpture and art in general of the period was, especially in Rome, decisive. However, this domination spread only during the second half of the seventeenth century, and less unequivocally than one might suppose. Other great sculptors, with personalities that were often very different from Bernini's, contributed to making the extraordinary proliferation of Roman statuary extremely complex and varied at that time.This book is aimed especially at students and museum visitors who would like to learn more about the topic and discusses the art in a straightforward and strictly chronological fashion. The narrative begins in the early decades of the seventeenth century with sculpture created by a motley and conspicuously cosmopolitan group of artists. Later, with the growing success of the great masters, commissions began to gravitate around Bernini, Alessandro Algardi, and François Duquesnoy. A new approach to Antiquity went hand in hand with a marked predilection for striking chromatic effects, borrowed from Venetian painting, and a desire to make a strong impact and achieve a particular tone, often with results of surprising originality. Taking the most up-to-date and best founded historiographic observations on the subject we have tried to highlight the workshop relationships between the great masters and the giovani, their pupils or occasional assistants, and in this way put into relief the experimental approach of some of these apprentices, such as Melchirro Caffà or Antonio Raggi, or the ability of certain others, for instance Ercole Ferrata, to fuse the most diverse influences. The book thus aims to show how marble and travertine were used throughout the century to create a whole army of statues that were positioned in the open and in churches, lending modern Rome its truly incomparable new face.

The study of fifteenth-century painting in France was inaugurated a century ago by the exhibition Primitifs français (1904) and has developed considerably over the past few decades, especially thanks to the work of Charles Sterling, Michel Laclotte, Nicole Reynaud, and François Avril. This research has led to the revival of several forgotten figures (Barthélemy d Eyck, André d Ypres, Antoine de Lonhy, Jean Hey, Jean Poyer, etc.) and the reassessment of many centres of artistic production. Linked together, they formed a crucial part of the trade network across Europe. It is this extremely complex artistic geography that this book's three sections attempt to recreate. The first is devoted to the interplay between the French courts and Paris, as a thriving centre of artistic production at the time of the flowering of international gothic (1380-1435). The second examines the spread of ars nova (the illusionist art of Flanders) and its selective adoption in the kingdom of France in the time of Charles VII and Louis XI (1435 1483). The third concentrates on the gradual development of a generally accepted standard form of the French language, based on the model of Jean Fouquet and evolving in parallel to the work of the grand rhetoricians under Charles VIII and Louis XII (1483-1515).

Paris – a photographic book with the city as its theme – takes an abstract approach to depicting the city, while retaining a direct relationship with reality. It is part of the tradition of modernist photography, but it distinguishes itself by the perfect appearance of digitally retouched images.Shadows play a key role in simplifying reality, dissociating locations from their classical visual representation. The economy of form thus created enables the depiction of Paris to be radically transformed, going beyond the customary descriptive task of photography.At first glance, the viewer perceives the overall contrast of the image, with only the light lines standing out against the shadows. As the eye gradually adapts, the details in the shadows become apparent, introducing a second way of reading the photograph and enriching the way it is perceived. Paris is thus viewed anew, moving from shadow to abstraction.Text in English and French.

Laure Pigeon (1882-1965) is one of the leading figures in Art Brut (Outsider Art), along with Aloïse Corbaz and Adolf Wölfli. The Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne probably possesses her entire oeuvre, amounting to over 400 works, including writings, notebooks, small-scale drawings and an extensive series of large compositions in blue ink. These are all part of the corpus of works acquired by Jean Dubuffet, the historic collection around which the museum was founded. In 1978, the Collection de l’Art Brut held the first and only monographic exhibition dedicated to this artist. A new exhibition in 2025 has now been devoted to her exclusively. It offers a representative selection of her striking graphic work, spanning a period of 30 years.Like Madge Gill, Jeanne Tripier, Augustin Lesage and Raphaël Lonné, Laure Pigeon too was a member of the spiritualist fraternity – men and women who feel “selected” to receive messages from the hereafter and claim the deceased are responsible for their creations. The spiritualist’s hand is therefore guided and merely executes what the spirits dictate.The catalogue, in French and English, includes essays by several authors and a large number of colour illustrations.Text in English and French.

Slavko Kopač. Hidden Treasure. Informal Art, Surrealism, Art Brut accompanies the exhibition Slavko Kopač. Hidden Treasure (Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence, 12th September – 13th November 2025). With an introduction by Bernard Blistène, honorary director of the Centre Pompidou and advocate of the acquisition of twelve of Kopač’s works into the museum’s collection, the book explores a multifaceted artist, deeply connected to Surrealism, Informal Art, and Art Brut. A key collaborator of Jean Dubuffet and the first curator of the “Collection de l’Art Brut”, he played a fundamental part in its promotion and configuration. His magical, totemic universe captivated the Surrealists and led to a collaboration with André Breton. At the same time, critic Michel Tapié included him in Un Art Autre (1952), recognising his originality within the Informal Art movement. He used painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, collage, and art books to explore materiality, intertwining reality and fantasy. The volume features contributions by leading international scholars and an extensive iconographic repertoire, including previously unpublished works and archive documents.Text in English, French and Italian.

An elegant photographic book highlights BFF’s new headquarters. Viale Scarampo, in Milan, saw the inauguration in 2025 of the BFF Banking Group’s new headquarters, a building whose transparent airiness and environmental and social sustainability ensure it provides an entirely original contribution to the city’s skyline. Designed by OBR (Open Building Research), the structure places the accent on the brightness of its interior and does not seek to compete in height with the skyscrapers of the nearby City Life district. The book is organised in a series of alternating photographs and text, drawing attention not only to the architectural features and the building’s functional characteristics, but also to the aim of creating a working environment that is intimately linked to its surroundings, in contrast to the traditional view of corporate architecture.Casa BFF is not only the headquarters of a B2B bank, it is also a building that embraces the neighbourhood and the city as a whole, starting with the museum it houses, which is accessible to all and contains the BFF Collection of post-war Italian art. Here the visitor will find works by Valerio Adami, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri, Lucio Del Pezzo, Lucio Fontana, Gianfranco Pardi, Mario Schifano, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Giò Pomodoro and Emilio Tadini. The Bank inaugurated the museum with an exhibition dedicated to Enrico Baj’s series of 40 etchings inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The book does full justice to the exhibition spaces, as well as to the works that hang on the building’s walls.Text in English and Italian.

Racines | Roots is a vibrant art book reflecting the unique vision of a passionate collector and entrepreneur. Garance Primat unveils a selection of works drawn from the heart of her aesthetic and spiritual journey. For her, art is a life-sustaining force: deep roots nourish our being and link us to nature, allowing us to flourish like a tree.Born into a family responsive to nature and art, she has honed her eye through contact with different cultures during her travels, particularly in Australia and the United States, where she became aware of how everything in the realm of nature was interconnected. This quest inspired her to acquire the Domaine des Étangs in Charente Limousine.With its ability to question the world and shape the future, contemporary art occupies a special place in her eclectic collection, interacting with modern art from around the world, minerals and wisdom-bearing objects. Garance Primat invites us to trust her sensibility as we explore the universal, where words struggle to grasp the interconnectedness of living things. An original message emerges from the “root” of things, awakening a shared consciousness. This book, built around the etymology of seven key words linked to nature and the universe, is an invitation to let ourselves be carried away by the senses and discover the invisible links that unite us.      Text in English and French.

The Swiss family-owned banking group CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique SA has been putting together its own art collection for over fifteen years. Modern and contemporary African art is one of its major themes.The works in this catalogue (paintings, sculptures, photographs) span about a century (1929-2025). All were created by artists who were born, or spent part of their lives, in sub-Saharan Africa. The growing success of the African artists of today undoubtedly stems from the artistic legacy of their ancestors, whose dazzling colours reflect a profoundly original worldview that addresses social and environmental themes. Missionaries and a few colonial administrators with an eye for art identified a number of interesting artists in the 1920s.Although African art – in the Congo, Kenya, and South Africa in particular – developed throughout the 20th century, recognition only came in the 1960s. The creation of art schools in the continent's major cities promoted cultural re-appropriation through new types of expression based on an encounter between traditional African forms and modern aesthetic sensibilities emerging in the new conurbations. Artistic movements burgeoning at the turn of the millennium confirmed and reinforced the vitality of this art. It was a period that saw dynamic figures come to the fore on the global art scene. Contemporary artists turned their attention to the “Black Atlantic” and the African-American communities it explored. Africa is now able to send its own message to the world. As a result, nearly 80 artists are represented in the “Au-delà des Apparences” (More than Meets the Eye) exhibition at the Musée Rath.

Inspired by the teachings and research of Patricia Fortini Brown, a renowned scholar of Venetian art and history, these beautifully illustrated essays by leading scholars address topics ranging from painted Venetian narrative cycles of the late 15th century to the rebuilding of the Campanile in the early 20th century. This book was derived from papers given at the Giorgione Symposium held at Princeton University on the occasion of Fortini Brown's recent retirement. The superb study offers new reflections on artists as diverse as Andrea Mantegna, the Bellini family, Giorgione, Pietro Lombardo, Paolo Veronese, Andrea Palladio, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Campi Flegrei, near Naples, is a seismically active landscape that attracts, stimulates, and challenges. It seduces the soul, engages perception, and demands to be interpreted rather than merely registered.People have chosen to live amongst these unique geological and volcanic features, weaving the fabric of human occupation and taming a land in perpetual transformation, one of the harshest yet most enchanting environments. Mankind has matched its own impermanence against the earth’s inevitable and unrestrained convulsions, in the process hewing out some of the most glorious examples of human endeavour, such as Cumae, the oldest Greek colony in the Western Mediterranean, the bustling Roman port of Puteoli, and the “dolce vita” savoured in the baths and villas dotted around the Bay of Baiae.Luigi Spina has been exploring this land since 2020, delving into the complex, stratified geography. Key landmarks include places of memory (archaeological sites, monuments, landscapes), which, like true benchmarks of perception, outline the path towards an understanding of a world that links nature, ancient ruins, and the overwhelming presence of mankind. Balanced between mimicry and contradiction, the Campi Flegrei landscape is now blanketed by a dense urban sprawl, where the ancient and the contemporary coexist in a kind of precarious equilibrium, generating a complex socio-cultural state of affairs that is challenging to govern.Spina explores and photographs places such as the Dragonara Cave, the Piscina Mirabilis, the Theatre of Misenum, the Flavian Amphitheatre at Puteoli, the Temple of Apollo on the shores of Lake Avernus, and the Temples of Venus and Diana, as he wanders through the hills above Baiae, finally heading towards Cumae.

This A3-format title brings together a selection of 50 exhibition posters designed by Werner Jeker (Les Ateliers du Nord, Lausanne) presented at the Collection de l’Art Brut between 1976 and 2026. This renowned Lausanne-based German-Swiss graphic artist has worked with the museum since it opened and is also responsible for the layout of this publication. The Collection de l’Art Brut would like to take advantage of this project to show its appreciation of this fruitful collaboration spanning five decades.Text in English and French.

Swiss Art Brut 1945–2026 is being published to coincide with an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Collection de l’Art Brut (Swiss). It brings together a wide range of works from the Lausanne museum’s collection that were created by Swiss artists or artists who worked in Switzerland. With Switzerland as the common thread, this publication and the accompanying exhibition highlight the close and lasting ties between the originator of the concept of art brut Jean Dubuffet and this country. Indeed, it was this close bond that led him to donate his collection of outsider art to the City of Lausanne in order to ensure its preservation and the public’s access to it.The book includes a foreword by writer Metin Arditi and a presentation by Sarah Lombardi, director of the museum and curator of the exhibition, followed by Jean Dubuffet’s own handwritten notes recounting his trip to Switzerland in search of extra-cultural works in the summer of 1945. This previously unpublished document is reproduced here in facsimile. Other authors provide further analyses of the works: Michel Thévoz, the museum’s first director; Lucienne Peiry, who succeeded him until 2011; Andreas Steck, president of the Aloïse Corbaz Association; and Astrid Berglund and Eleanor Philippoz, respectively curator and outreach coordinator at the Collection de l’Art Brut.

One of the first people in Europe to consider the gifts which the Aztec ruler Montezuma gave to Hérnan Cortés as works of art was Albrecht Dürer: 'Nothing I have yet seen has given me such joy as the objects brought to the king from the new gold countries [...] Some pieces display an extraordinary skill; I have been astonished by the ingenuity of the inhabitants of those far distant lands,' he wrote. It was 1520 and those works had been sent to Brussels. The five centuries that have passed since the beauty of these objects was first noticed seem not to have been enough for the ancient cultures of Latin America to be fully understood. This catalogue of pre-Columbian art is a fresh attempt to examine and come to terms with artworks produced by a section of mankind that came to the attention of Europeans only after the voyages of Columbus and other explorers. It illustrates the collection of pre-Columbian art of Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue, one of the few collections of its kind in Italian hands: over 150 pieces from Mesoamerica and South America, an extraordinary corpus of objects which give testament to the excellence achieved by ancient artists. But it also tells the story of certain rare objects which belonged to the Medici Collection, one of Europe's greatest treasures. Among these are two atlatls, spear-throwers covered in gold-leaf from the Aztec or Mixtec cultures, a Taíno necklace dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and a Teotihuacan stone mask. These objects are accompanied by pieces from private European collections and a number of significant artworks from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. Essays by leading scholars and archaeologists, such as C. Phillips, C.F. Baudez, J.M. Hoppan, J.J. Leyenard, F. Kauffmann Doig, C. Cavatrunci, D. Domenica, and M. Polia, weave both scientific and humanistic interpretations of Amerindian thought. The Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue Collection of masterpieces of ancient Latin American cultures is part of a huge and broad-ranging hoard of objects gathered over a period of almost fifty years.

Headrests are simple, utilitarian objects. Widely used across Africa, they are predominantly found in the eastern, central, and southern part of the continent. Also known as neckrests or pillows, headrests are valuable and very personal objects which are indispensable to everyday life. They are made to sleep on, to rest the neck, to sit on, and to protect the elaborate coiffure of their owners. At first sight, they appear to be devoid of any symbolic content. This functional utility has confined them through history to the realm of mere objects. Headrests are not that simple, though. They transcend their material purpose to become something more. In many instances, their design, inherent beauty, technical mastery, and uses give them a multi-purpose value and a multi-layered meaning. They are objects with ritual and magical intent concealed inside their utilitarian function. Headrests can be flaunted as status symbols that differentiate chiefs from ordinary people, rich from poor, diviners from healers, farmers from shepherds, and sedentary from nomadic. The volume features full-colour pictures of very rare and fine headrests that have never before been published. Short texts introduce selected pieces among the 230 works that have particularly interesting, well-documented backgrounds. This book is a journey through ethnicity, anthropology, aesthetics, creativity, tradition, and spirituality. A journey to a part of Africa that materialises through a simple artefact that sometimes dreams to become art: a dream that starts with resting the neck on a piece of wood.

Noire Idole is an immersive journey into a sophisticated world, both in terms of the choice of subject matter and form and as regards the way these are given artistic expression. The gear on the set lets the imagination and virtuosity of the craftsmen run riot. None of the objects are fake; they exude a natural perfection whose mirror image is simply reflected back to us.It is also a sensory journey into the shadows, alongside the reclining smoker. The choice of a black background transforms reality. The outlines of the furnishings become blurred, vision becomes clouded, the present is endlessly suspended.At the same time, it is a journey through memory, where drugs are merely a pretext for the narrative. Indochina appears within and between the lines. The author reveals his double loss: a vanished ritual and a dead dream, an unfulfilled French passion. Noire Idole is a collection of texts. A compendium brought together in the name of emotion, cultural exchange, and mutual fascination. The writing is leavened by contemporary pictures in the form of a collection of exceptional, previously unpublished photographs.

Art lovers well know the works of the different groups of peoples generally referred to as 'Guro' who live in the centre of the Ivory Coast. Close to the Wan, Baule, Yaure, and Bete, the Guro have maintained close contacts with their neighbours, and reciprocal influences are apparent in their various artistic creations. Masks have a particular importance that goes well beyond the value attributed to them for their aesthetic qualities on the art market. These objects might even be considered emblematic, having till now allowed those who have defined themselves as Guro to lay claim to this identity. Whereas the French colonisation largely weakened the prestige of those men whose power resulted from their hunting and war activities, the continuation of complex rituals that entailed the use of masks allowed the men to preserve a form of political and religious control. By diversifying the categories of masks between, on one hand, those that receive blood sacrifices to honour spiritual entities, and those, on the other hand, made more for entertainments given at funerals, political demonstrations, and tourist events, the Guro have reinvented, regalvanised, and readapted perfectly integrated rituals to a contemporary society in permanent change.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum houses an extraordinary collection of 'prisoners' objects'. These were made by prison inmates and presented to the ICRC delegates who visited them, as provided for by the Geneva Conventions. For over a century, these objects have borne mute witness to the numerous violent episodes that continue to ravage our planet, from Chile, Vietnam, Algeria and Yugoslavia, to Rwanda and Afghanistan. Made from simple materials - whatever comes to hand in a prison - these objects express the need to escape the world of the jailbird. As a Lebanese inmate puts it, 'Creating is a way of acquiring freedom of expression, it gives us a means to say what we think while everything we see around urges us to keep quiet and to forget who we are.' While some of these works touch us through their simplicity, others astonish us with their beauty or ingeniousness. Each bears the imprint of a personal story loaded with emotion, inviting us on a journey through time and collective history.

Featuring visionary creators from various fields, from art and contemporary dance to architecture and robotics, this lavishly illustrated book reports from the forefront of the crossdisciplinary synthesis that creates new forms of art. The project was initiated by Diana Vishneva, principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater in New York (2005-2017) and the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, and a tireless experimenter known for collaborations that have redefined the future of dance. The book presents interviews with choreographers William Forsythe and Carolyn Carlson; photographer Nick Knight; artists Bill Viola and Olafur Eliasson; architects Toyo Ito and Santiago Calatrava; robotics inventor Raffaello d'Andrea, and other creators who actively stretch the conventional limits of their fields. Included in the volume is a DVD of a film created for this project using state-of-the-art technologies to translate the language of dance into that of cinema.

Pont-Aven has lent its name to one of the most famous schools of painting in modern art and is now automatically associated with Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. In 1888, in this Breton village in southern Finistère, the two painters set about inventing the features of a completely new style of painting: Synthetism. Breaking with academic orthodoxy and heavily influenced by Japanese prints, they introduced novel aesthetic principles distinguished especially by a belief in simple forms and the use of colour applied in large patches edged by a dark line. This approach further distanced itself from the art that preceded it in its taste for matt tones and the rejection of traditional perspective.This new book reveals to a wider public the important collection that Alexandre Mouradian amassed in only a few years. The collection reflects its creator's great passion for the artists of the Pont-Aven group, as well as others in Brittany and beyond who embraced the new ideas of Bernard and Gauguin without ever losing their individuality. Whether in painting or printmaking, each of these was able to move beyond the imitation of observed reality to express the deepest aspect of his personality: his emotions. The works selected by the collector eloquently show the international reach of what was not strictly speaking a school, in the full sense of the term. Since the private Paris academies were closed during the summer, artists from all over Europe went to Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu to seek inspiration and 'to dare' like Gauguin.Written contributions by Jean-Marie Rouart of the French Academy and the author and art historian Adrien Goetz, are supported by detailed notes on the works by the museum curator Estelle Guille des Buttes, providing invaluable insights into this exceptional collection.

Born into slavery around 1853-4 on a cotton plantation in Benton, Alabama, Traylor has become one of the most important self-taught artists of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most celebrated African-American artists, along with Thorton Dial and William Edmondson. The story of Bill Traylor's life and work is a remarkable one. It is a story that deserves attention both nationally and internationally. This publication, generously illustrated with full-page high-quality reproductions, provides a close examination of Traylor's recurrent themes, composition schemes, favoured iconography, and contextual information related to the artist's biography, creative process and tools, visual environment, and artistic mindset. Each artwork is considered in a context beyond that of an isolated image and in response to one another, forming a series of intricate and consistent narratives, intriguingly cinematic in its development. The elements of Traylor's biography are the anchors of an individual mythology. Instead of merely being a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor's mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and Blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as 'Dark Town' in Montgomery, Alabama. Text in English and French.

A largely unpublished collection of Japanese Art Brut. A new selection of twenty-five Japanese Art Brut new artists.Following the publication of Art Brut du Japon, co-published in 2008 by the Collection de l'Art Brut and editions Infolio, this catalogue presents pieces by twenty-five new Japanese artists from different regions of Japan, whose works drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and textiles - are largely unpublished. The authors explore the assimilation of Japanese Art Brut into the larger culture from 2008 to the present. As they point out, whereas the notion of mental handicap resides in aesthetic and sociological criteria (these artists are self-taught, and often socially marginalized misfits, draft dodgers, prisoners, psychiatric patients, the elderly, etc. who create outside of the official art system), the condition whether mental or physical is not a criterion in itself. Accompanying an exhibition at Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne from November 30, 2018 to April 28, 2019, this catalogue of new Japanese works expands our understanding of Art Brut in a contemporary albeit different cultural setting.Text in English and French.

Many of Gauguin’s portraits of Breton and Polynesian sitters, as well as his self-portraits, include inanimate objects. Intriguing as these are, the works in Paul Gauguin’s portrait gallery have never really been the subject of a thorough study. This book, first published in English in 2005, fills a gap in the scholarly literature on Gauguin, one of the leading figures in post-Impressionist art, with an in-depth, well-illustrated examination of his portraits. An array of experts on Gauguin’s art reflect on the symbolic attributes his models were endowed with, and the meaning behind the evocative settings he chose for them. The authors explore the many aspects of the artist’s portraits, often in light of the remarks he made about his models, and focus on their importance in relation to his larger oeuvre. This book, which is intended as a standard text in this field, includes essays written by experts in Gauguin’s work, all established scholars and researchers.Text in French.

Bricks, one of the earliest materials associated with both housing and the body, are the subject and object of this publication. In terms of human agency, bricks are the basic unit through which the artist introduces his designs in the landscape. Kaufmann uses this simple, yet tough, material to build up an imaginative world that is not linked solely to the bricks as such, but also to the symbolic charge they possess (the concept of transparency, physical and metaphorical walls, and their associated imaginative world). A total of ten works will be exhibited and Kaufmann himself presents each in the book. The introduction is edited by Anne-Claire Schumacher, who discusses Kaufmann's development and his place in the history of ceramic art and in contemporary art as a whole. This is followed by a contribution by Luca Pattaroni, who views the topic from a socio-political perspective. The five main works set in the park of the Ariana Museum and the continuation into the museum's basement are described and commented by the artist. Text in English and French.