45th Edition – serie

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world.Basquiat’s expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life—so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered “royalty, heroism and the streets.” In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time.First published in an XXL edition, this unprecedented insight into Basquiat’s art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary. With pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches, it offers vivid proximity to Basquiat’s intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist’s life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German-born biologist, naturalist, evolutionist, artist, philosopher, and doctor who spent his life researching flora and fauna from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean. A vociferous supporter and developer of Darwin’s theories of evolution, he denounced religious dogma, authored philosophical treatises, gained a doctorate in zoology, and coined scientific terms which have passed into common usage, including ecology, phylum, and stem cell. At the heart of Haeckel’s colossal legacy was the motivation not only to discover but also to explain. To do this, he created hundreds of detailed drawings, watercolors, and sketches of his findings which he published in successive volumes, including several marine organism collections and the majestic Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), which could serve as the cornerstone of Haeckel’s entire life project. Like a meticulous visual encyclopedia of living things, Haeckel’s work was as remarkable for its graphic precision and meticulous shading as for its understanding of organic evolution. From bats to the box jellyfish, lizards to lichen, and spider legs to sea anemones, Haeckel emphasized the essential symmetries and order of nature, and found biological beauty in even the most unlikely of creatures. In this book, we celebrate the scientific, artistic, and environmental importance of Haeckel’s work, with a collection of 300 of his finest prints from several of his most important tomes, including Die Radiolarien, Monographie der Medusen, Die Kalkschwämme, and Kunstformen der Natur. At a time when biodiversity is increasingly threatened by human activities, the book is at once a visual masterwork, an underwater exploration, and a vivid reminder of the precious variety of life.

Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), was a legend even in his own lifetime. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run.This edition offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio’s entire œuvre with a catalogue raisonné of his works. Each painting is reproduced with recent, high production photography allowing for dramatic close-ups with Caravaggio's ingenious details of looks and gestures.Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggio's artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking naturalism which allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer.

Frank Frazetta has reigned as the undisputed king of fantasy art for 50 years, his fame only growing in the years since his death. With his paintings now breaking auction records (Egyptian Queen sold for $ 5.4 million in 2019) he’s long overdue for this ultimate monograph.Born to a Sicilian immigrant family in Brooklyn, 1928, Frazetta was a minor league athlete, petty criminal and serial seducer with movie star looks and phenomenal talent. He claimed to only make art when there was nothing better to do – he preferred playing baseball - yet began his professional career in comics at age 16. Strip work led him to the infamous EC Comics, then to oils for Tarzan and Conan pulp covers. Both characters were interpreted by many before him, but as he explained in the 1970s, “I’m very physical minded. In Brooklyn, I knew Conan, I knew guys just like him,” and he used this first-hand knowledge of muscle and macho to redefine fantasy heroes as more massive, more menacing, more testosterone-fueled than anything seen before. As counterbalance he created a new breed of women, nude as censorship allowed, with pixie faces and multiparous bodies: thick thighed, heavy buttocked, breasts cantilevered out to there, yet still, with their soft bellies and hints of cellulite, believably real. Add in the action, the creatures, the twilit worlds of haunting shadow and Frazetta’s art is addictive as potato chips.

Flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) devoted himself exclusively to capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as copper engravings, with careful botanical descriptions. The darling of wealthy Parisian patrons including Napoleon’s wife Josephine, he was dubbed “the Raphael of flowers,” and is regarded to this day as a master of botanical illustration. This collection brings our best-selling XL-sized edition to a smaller, more convenient format, still gathering some of the finest color engravings from Redouté’s illustrations of Roses, Lilies, and Choix des plus belles fleurs et quelques branches des plus beaux fruits (Selection of the Most Beautiful Blooms and Branches with the Finest Fruits). Offering a vibrant overview of Redouté’s admixture of accuracy and beauty, it is also a privileged glimpse into the magnificent gardens and greenhouses of a bygone Paris.

“In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.” —Sebastião SalgadoOn a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old Sebastião Salgado held a camera for the first time. When he looked through the viewfinder, he experienced a revelation: suddenly life made sense. From that day onward—though it took years of hard work before he had the experience to earn his living as a photographer—the camera became his tool for interacting with the world. Salgado, who “always preferred the chiaroscuro palette of black-and-white images,” shot very little color in his early career before giving it up completely.Raised on a farm in Brazil, Salgado possessed a deep love and respect for nature; he was also particularly sensitive to the ways in which human beings are affected by their often devastating socio-economic conditions. Of the myriad works Salgado has produced in his acclaimed career, three long-term projects stand out: Workers (1993), documenting the vanishing way of life of manual laborers across the world; Migrations (2000), a tribute to mass migration driven by hunger, natural disasters, environmental degradation and demographic pressure; and this new opus, GENESIS, the result of an epic eight-year expedition to rediscover the mountains, deserts and oceans, the animals and peoples that have so far escaped the imprint of modern society—the land and life of a still-pristine planet. “Some 46% of the planet is still as it was in the time of genesis,” Salgado reminds us. “We must preserve what exists.” The GENESIS project, along with the Salgados’ Instituto Terra, are dedicated to showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done to it, and preserving it for the future.Over 30 trips—traveled by foot, light aircraft, seagoing vessels, canoes, and even balloons, through extreme heat and cold and in sometimes dangerous conditions—Salgado created a collection of images showing us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in breathtaking beauty. What does one discover in GENESIS? The animal species and volcanoes of the Galápagos; penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the Antarctic and South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators and jaguars; African lions, leopards, and elephants; the isolated Zo’é tribe deep in the Amazon jungle; the Stone Age Korowai people of West Papua; nomadic Dinka cattle farmers in Sudan; Nenet nomads and their reindeer herds in the Arctic Circle; Mentawai jungle communities on islands west of Sumatra; the icebergs of the Antarctic; the volcanoes of Central Africa and the Kamchatka Peninsula; Saharan deserts; the Negro and Juruá rivers in the Amazon; the ravines of the Grand Canyon; the glaciers of Alaska... and beyond. Having dedicated so much time, energy, and passion to the making of this work, Salgado calls GENESIS “my love letter to the planet.”

Scandinavia is world famous for its inimitable, democratic designs which bridge the gap between craftsmanship and industrial production, organic forms and everyday functionality. This all-you-need guide includes a detailed look at Scandinavian furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, metalware, and product design from 1900 to the present day, with in-depth entries on 125 designers and design-led companies.Featured designers and designer-led companies include Verner Panton, Arne Jacobsen, Alvar Aalto, Timo Sarpaneva, Hans Wegner, Tapio Wirkkala, Stig Lindberg, Finn Juhl, Märta Måås-Fjetterström, Arnold Madsen, Barbro Nilsson, Fritz Hansen, Artek, Le Klint, Gustavsberg, Iittala, Fiskars, Orrefors, Royal Copenhagen, Holmegaard, Arabia, Marimekko, and Georg Jensen.

Elected the architectural book of the year by the International Artbook and Film Festival in Perpignan, France, Frédéric Chaubin’s Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed explores 90 buildings in 14 former Soviet Republics. Each of these structures expresses what Chaubin considers the fourth age of Soviet architecture, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990. Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no “school” or main trend emerges here. These buildings represent a chaotic impulse brought about by a decaying system. Taking advantage of the collapsing monolithic structure, architects went far beyond modernism, going back to the roots or freely innovating. Some of the daring ones completed projects that the Constructivists would have dreamt of (Druzhba Sanatorium, Yalta), others expressed their imagination in an expressionist way (Palace of Weddings, Tbilisi). A summer camp, inspired by sketches of a prototype lunar base, lays claim to Suprematist influence (Prometheus youth camp, Bogatyr). Then comes the “speaking architecture” widespread in the last years of the USSR: a crematorium adorned with concrete flames (Crematorium, Kiev), a technological institute with a flying saucer crashed on the roof (Institute of Scientific Research, Kiev), a political center watching you like Big Brother (House of Soviets, Kaliningrad). In their puzzle of styles, their outlandish strategies, these buildings are extraordinary remnants of a collapsing system. In their diversity and local exoticism, they testify both to the vast geography of the USSR and its encroaching end of the Soviet Union, the holes in a widening net. At the same time, they immortalize many of the ideological dreams of the country and its time, from an obsession with the cosmos to the rebirth of identity.

Pop artist, painter of modern life, landscape painter, master of color, explorer of image and perception—for six decades, David Hockney has been known as an artist who always finds new ways of exploring the world and its representational possibilities. He has consistently created unforgettable images: works with graphic lines and integrated text in the Swinging Sixties in London; the famous swimming pool series as a representation of the 1970s California lifestyle; closely observed portraits and brightly colored, oversized landscapes after his eventual return to his native Yorkshire. In addition to drawings in which he transfers what he sees directly onto paper, there are multiperspective Polaroid collages that open up the space into a myriad of detailed views, and iPad drawings in which he captures light using a most modern medium—testaments to Hockney’s enduring delight in experimentation. This special edition has been newly assembled from the two volumes of the David Hockney: A Bigger Book monograph to celebrate TASCHEN’s 45th anniversary. Hockney’s life and work is presented year by year as a dialogue between his works and voices from the time period, alongside reviews and reflections by the artist in a chronological text, supplemented by portrait photographs and exhibition views. Together they open up new perspectives, page after page, revealing how Hockney undertakes his artistic research, how his painting develops, and where he finds inspiration for his multifaceted work.

Following the success of Jazz Covers, this epic volume of groove assembles over 500 legendary covers from a golden era in Black music. Psychedelia meets Black Power, sexual liberation meets social conscience, and street portraiture meets fantastical comic art in this dazzling anthology of visualized funk and soul. Gathering both classic and rare covers, the collection celebrates each artwork’s ability to capture not only a buyer’s interest, but an entire musical mood. Browse through and discover the brilliant, the bold, the outlandish and the incredibly beautiful designs that fans rushed to get their hands on as the likes of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Michael Jackson, and Prince changed the world with their unique and unforgettable sounds. Featuring interviews with key industry figures, Funk & Soul Covers also provides cultural context and design analysis for many of the chosen record covers.

The life and times of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/30–1569) were marked by stark cultural conflict. He witnessed religious wars, the Duke of Alba’s brutal rule as governor of the Netherlands, and the palpable effects of the Inquisition. To this day, the Flemish artist remains shrouded in mystery. We know neither where nor exactly when he was born. But while early scholarship emphasized the vernacular character of his painting and graphic work, modern research has attached greater importance to its humanistic content.Starting out as a print designer for publisher Hieronymus Cock, Bruegel produced numerous print series that were distributed throughout Europe. These depicted vices and virtues alongside jolly peasant festivals and sweeping landscape panoramas. He then increasingly turned to painting, working for the cultural elite of Antwerp and Brussels. Rather than idealizing reality, he bravely confronted the issues of his day, addressing the horrors of religious warfare and taking a critical stand against the institution of the Church. To this end, Bruegel developed his own pictorial language of dissidence, lacing innocuous everyday scenes with subliminal statements in order to escape repercussions.This book is derived from our XXL monograph, which saw TASCHEN undertake a comprehensive photographic survey of the artist’s oeuvre. The result boasts exceptional details and reproductions, unveiling Bruegel’s larger-than-life universe with unprecedented clarity. This volume, in celebration of our 40th anniversary, presents all 40 paintings, accompanied by enlarged details and accessible, immersive texts.

At the intersection of the visual, graphic, and cinematic arts, film posters are a unique and thrilling record of a particular cultural Zeitgeist. This book brings together 250 posters from the Soviet Union of the 1920s and early 1930s to explore the energy and invention of this period, before Soviet Realism became the official art doctrine.Drawn from the private collection of collector Susan Pack, the selection includes the work of 27 different artists. From bold figuration to architectural elements, each artist displays a distinct style and aesthetic, as much as they collectively eschew the glamour of Hollywood for more stark, striking, even challenging images, often marked by unusual angles, dynamic compositions, and startling close-ups.

So rich and unique is traditional Japanese architecture that it’s nearly impossible to improve upon. Yet contemporary Japanese designers and architects keep finding fresh approaches to refurbish and take inspiration from the ways of old. Whether it’s a pristinely preserved traditional house or a sleek modern apartment, the best Japanese homes share a love of cleverly designed spaces and warm materials like wood, brick, and bamboo.From a thatched roof farmhouse occupied by a Zen priest to Tadao Ando’s experimental 4x4 House, from Shigeru Ban’s conceptual Shutter House to a beautiful domestic homage to bamboo, this elegant compendium traverses the multifaceted landscape of Japanese living today.Enriched by 170 brand new, unpublished photographs, this edition takes you on breathtaking journey through the Land of the Rising Sun—complete with a list of addresses, should you wish to undertake this journey to Japan’s most fascinating inns and homes yourself. An insightful glossary of key terms, such as tatami, shoji, and noren, will also help you come to grips with all elements of Japan’s unique aesthetic of Eastern minimalism.

Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp’s 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th century saw ever more fertile exchange between sounds and shapes, marks and melodies, and different fields of composition and performance. In Francesco Spampinato’s unique anthology of artists’ record covers, we discover the rhythm of this particular cultural history. The book presents 450 covers and records by visual artists from the 1950s through to today, exploring how modernism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, postmodernism, and various forms of contemporary art practice have all informed this collateral field of visual production and supported the mass distribution of music with defining imagery that swiftly and suggestively evokes an aural encounter. Along the way, we find Jean-Michel Basquiat’s urban hieroglyphs for his own Tartown record label, Banksy’s stenciled graffiti for Blur, and a skewered Salvador Dalí butterfly on Jackie Gleason’s Lonesome Echo. There are insightful analyses and fact sheets alongside the covers listing the artist, performer, album name, label, year of release, and information on the original artwork. Interviews with Tauba Auerbach, Shepard Fairey, Kim Gordon, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, and Raymond Pettibon add personal accounts on the collaborative relationship between artists and musicians.

It was on a Malibu beach in 1988 that Peter Lindbergh shot the White Shirts series, images now known the world over. Simple yet seminal, the photographs introduced us to Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Rachel Williams, Karen Alexander, Tatjana Patitz, and Estelle Lefébure. This marked the beginning of an era that redefined beauty, and Lindbergh would go on to alter the landscape of fashion photography for the decades that followed.This edition gathers more than 300 images from forty years of Lindbergh’s career. It traces the German photographer’s cinematic inflections and humanist approach, which produced images at once seductive and introspective.In 1980 Rei Kawakubo asked Lindbergh to shoot a Commes des Garçons campaign, one of his earlier forays into commercial photography. Kawakubo gave him carte blanche. The following years brought forth collaborations with the most venerated names in fashion and resulted in a relationship of mutual reverence; Lindbergh’s respect for some of the greatest designers of our time is palpable in his portraits. Among those photographed are Azzedine Alaïa, Giorgio Armani, Alber Elbaz, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld, Thierry Mugler, Yves Saint Laurent, Jil Sander, and Yohji Yamamoto.Widely considered a pioneer in his field, Lindbergh shirked the industry standards of beauty and instead celebrated the essence and individuality of his subjects. He was pivotal to the rise of models such as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Mariacarla Boscono, Lara Stone, Claudia Schiffer, Amber Valletta, Nadja Auermann, and Kristen McMenamy.Lindbergh’s reach also extended across Hollywood and beyond: Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Richard Gere, Isabelle Huppert, Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Brad Pitt, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau all appear in his works. From the picture chosen by Anna Wintour as the cover of her first Vogue issue to the legendary shot of Tina Turner on the Eiffel Tower, it is never the clothes, celebrity, or glamour that takes center stage in a Lindbergh photograph. Each picture conveys the humanity of its subject with a serene melancholy that is uniquely and unmistakably Lindbergh.From the outset of his career, Lindbergh was well-known in the contemporary art world, where his photographs were exhibited in galleries long before they appeared in magazines. This edition features an updated introduction adapted from an interview in 2016, allowing a glimpse behind Lindbergh’s lens, where the photographer recounts his early collaborations, the tenuous relationship between commercial and fine art, and the power of storytelling.

Swiss artist HR Giger (1940–2014) is most famous for his creation of the space monster in Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror sci-fi film Alien, which earned him an Oscar. Yet this was just one of the most popular expressions of Giger’s biomechanical arsenal of creatures, which consistently merged hybrids of human and machine into images of haunting power and dark psychedelia. The visions drew on demons of the past, as well as evoking mythologies for the future. Above all, they gave expression to the collective fears and fantasies of his age: fear of the atom, of pollution and wasted resources, and of a future in which our bodies depend on machines for survival. Following the SUMO-sized monograph which was begun shortly before the artist's unexpected death, this affordable anniversay edition pays homage to Giger’s unique vision. The book shows the complete story of Giger’s life and art, his sculptures, film design, and iconic album covers as well as the heritage he left us in his own artist’s museum and self-designed bar in the Swiss Alps. In an in-depth essay, Giger scholar Andreas J. Hirsch plunges into the themes of the artist’s oeuvre while an extensive biography draws on contemporary quotes and Giger’s own statements.

From the legendary Tank Girl to live-action animations with Gorillaz, a Chinese contemporary opera to an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, artist Jamie Hewlett is one of the most energetic figures of contemporary pop culture.With influences ranging from hip hop to zombie slasher movies, Hewlett emerged in the mid-1990s as co-creator of the zeitgeist-defining Tank Girl comic. With then-roommate Damon Albarn, he went on to create the groundbreaking cartoon band Gorillaz. The award-winning virtual pop group of animated characters is a truly global phenomenon. Gorillaz have topped charts around the world, toured the globe from San Diego to Syria, and picked up hundreds of millions of streams and record sales along the way.Since then, Hewlett has continued to collaborate with Albarn on projects including an elaborate staging of the Chinese novel Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en, complete with circus acrobats, Shaolin monks, and Chinese singers. In 2006, he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and in 2009, Hewlett and Albarn won a BAFTA for their animated Monkey sequence for the Beijing Olympic Games. In 2015 The Suggestionists, an exhibition of prints at the Saatchi Gallery in London, demonstrated an exciting new direction in Hewlett’s practice.This special edition celebrating TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary updates Hewlett’s first major monograph with around 30 brand new pieces. The book illustrates his thrilling creative journey with more than 400 artworks from the Tank Girl era through Gorillaz and up to the present day. Through stories, characters, strips, and sketches, we trace Hewlett’s exceptional capacity for invention and celebrate a polymath artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, or to be pigeonholed into a particular practice.

From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of japonaiserie that first enthralled France and, later, all of Europe—but often remains misunderstood as an “exotic” artifact that helped inspire Western creativity. The fact is that the Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon of which there exists no Western equivalent. Some of the most disruptive ideas in modern art—including, as Karl Marx put it, that “all that is solid melts into air”—were invented in Japan in the 1700s and expressed like never before in the designs of such masters as Hokusai, Utamaro, and Hiroshige in the early 19th century. This volume, derived from the original XXL monograph, lifts the veil on a much-loved but little-understood art form by presenting the most exceptional Japanese woodblock prints in their historical context. Ranging from the 17th-century development of decadent ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” to the decline and later resurgence of prints in the early 20th century, the images collected in this edition make up an unmatched record not only of a unique genre in art history, but also of the shifting mores and cultural development of Japan. From mystical mountains to snowy passes, samurai swordsmen to sex workers in shop windows, each piece is explored as a work of art in its own right, revealing the stories and people behind the motifs. We discover the four pillars of the woodblock print—beauties, actors, landscapes, and bird-and-flower compositions—alongside depictions of sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, or enticing courtesans—rock stars who populated the “floating world” and whose fan bases fueled the frenzied production of woodblock prints. We delve into the horrifying and the obscure in prints where demons, ghosts, man-eaters, and otherworldly creatures torment the living—stunning images that continue to influence Japanese manga, film, and video games to this day. We witness how, in their incredible breadth, from everyday scenes to erotica, the martial to the mythological, these works are united by the technical mastery and infallible eye of their creators and how, with tremendous ingenuity and tongue-in-cheek wit, publishers and artists alike fought to circumvent government censorship. As part of our 40th anniversary series, this edition compiles the finest extant impressions from museums and private collections across the globe in a lightweight, accessible format, offering extensive descriptions to guide us through this frantic period in Japanese art history.

Only 20 paintings and eight drawings are confidently assigned to Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) but in their fantastical visions they have secured his place as one of the most cult artists in history. 500 years on from his death, his works continue to inspire scholars, artists, designers, and musicians, death metal band names and designer dresses.This edition offers the complete and haunting Bosch world in one compact format. Through full spreads and carefully curated details, we explore the full reach and compelling inventions of the artist’s genius as well as disturbing imagination. We encounter his hybrid creatures, his nightmarish scenarios, his religious and moral framework, and his pictorial versions of contemporary proverbs and idioms. Along the way, art historian and Bosch expert Stefan Fischer reveals the most important themes and influences in these cryptic, mesmerizing masterpieces.

A book that gets under the skin in every sense, containing hundreds of vivid photographs of intricate anatomical waxworks, created more than two centuries ago to astounding levels of accuracy. The models were intended to advance medical understanding at a time when scientific curiosity and intellectual fervor were sweeping Europe. Housed in Florence’s La Specola museum, which opened its doors in 1775 to visitors of all social classes—itself a visionary notion at the time—, the specimens have served as both educational tools and objects of public fascination ever since.Each model is a unique fusion of art and science, meticulously crafted to reveal the hidden wonders of the human body. From detailed musculature to finely rendered organs, they serve as a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, names like Gaetano Giulio Zumbo and Clemente Susini, who achieved incredible accuracy centuries before body imaging technologies came about. An extended essay on the history of the collection and the museum explains how the models were commissioned and produced—some required as many as 200 corpses for reference—and each chapter has a text explaining the human anatomy in lay terms. Today, La Specola’s collection offers a rare glimpse into the ambition and artistry of a past era, when society began pursuing knowledge with zeal and sharing it widely. This compelling book invites all fans of natural history to marvel at these relics of our scientific heritage, treasures that continue to inspire for their beauty, realism, and enduring contribution to human understanding.

At first glance, Walton Ford’s large-scale, highly detailed watercolors of animals recall the prints of 19th-century illustrators John James Audubon and Edward Lear. A closer look reveals a complex and disturbingly anthropomorphic universe, full of symbols, sly jokes, and allusions to the ‘operatic’ quality of traditional natural history.In this stunning but sinister visual universe, beasts and birds are not mere aesthetic objects but dynamic actors in allegorical struggles: a wild turkey crushes a small parrot in its claw; a troupe of monkeys wreaks havoc on a formal dinner table; an American buffalo is surrounded by bloodied white wolves. In dazzling watercolor, the images impress as much for their impeccable realism as they do for their complex narratives.First available as a signed and limited volume, this updated edition of Pancha Tantra is the most comprehensive survey of Ford’s oeuvre to date, with more than 20 new works. It features dazzling details, an in-depth exploration of his visual universe, a complete biography, and excerpts from his textual inspirations: from Indian folktales and the letters of Benjamin Franklin to the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and Audubon’s Ornithological Biography.

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) remains a quintessential Renaissance genius. The perfect companion to the Leonardo Graphic Work edition, this book is a compact catalogue raisonné of all of the artist’s masterful paintings.Drawn from our best-selling XXL edition, the book traces the artist’s life and work across 10 chapters, presenting all known paintings and drawing on his letters, contracts, diary entries, and writings to explore the man behind such groundbreaking artworks. From Virgin of the Rocks to Virgin and Child with St. Anne to the ever-beguiling Mona Lisa, you’ll find some of the finest treasures of the Louvre, Prado, and National Gallery, London here, as well as Leonardo works lost to time, but no less startling in their precision and poise.

From Azzedine Alaïa, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood, more than a century’s worth of fashion greats are celebrated in this new edition of Fashion Designers A–Z. An accessibly priced and updated volume features photographs of hundreds of garments selected from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) museum's permanent collection. Elegant gowns from the turn of the century, Mondrian-style minimalist chic, and everything inbetween. Each of these works of art is chosen not only for its beauty but also for exemplifyingthe unique philosophy, skill, and aesthetics of each of the featured designers. In her introductory essay, the museum’s director and chief curator, Valerie Steele, writes about the rise of the fashion museum and the emergence of the fashion exhibition as a popular and controversial phenomenon. The foreword is contributed by international style maven Suzy Menkes, texts by the museum’s curators help shine historical light on each label and garment pictured, and beautifully drawn portraits by the artist Robert Nippoldt pay homage to the creators behind them.

The Case Study House program (1945–1966) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the postwar building boom. The program’s chief motivating force was Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, a champion of modernism who had all the right connections to attract some of architecture’s greatest talents, such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen. Highly experimental, the program generated houses that were designed to redefine the modern home, and had a pronounced influence on architecture—American and international—both during the program’s existence and even to this day. TASCHEN brings you a retrospective of the entire program with comprehensive documentation, brilliant photographs from the period and, for the houses still in existence, contemporary photos, as well as extensive floor plans and sketches.

Since TASCHEN released The Great American Pin-up, international interest in this distinctly American art form has increased exponentially. Paintings by leading artists such as Alberto Vargas, George Petty, and Gil Elvgren that sold for $ 2,000 in 1996 are going for $ 200,000 and more today. Pin-up—drawings, paintings, and pastels of an idealized female face and figure intended for public display—was produced between 1920 and 1970 for calendars, magazine covers, and centerfolds. The majority of original paintings were discarded by publishers and calendar companies after printing, making the surviving art that much more precious.This attractively priced edition showcases the top 10 names in the game. Each chapter opens with a reproduction of an original calendar or magazine cover by that artist. The reproduction quality of the paintings, pastels, and preparatory sketches that follow—largely sourced from the original art—invites the viewer to trace the brushstrokes, while the exquisite period calendars, vintage prints, and original model photos document the artists’ creative process. Much of these ephemera were photographed on-site at the historic Brown & Bigelow Company, home to the world’s largest archive of vintage pin-up calendars.

Small Houses is a tribute to the endless artistic inventiveness of architects and ingenuity of perception of the familiar and known concepts. It is also a conscious pivot towards sustainability and reduction of impact on the environment as well as a daring attitude of change in lifestyle. As humanity faces inevitable pressures such as climate change, an increase in population, and strain on resources, these solutions are helping shape what the world may look like in the future.Whether in the dense urban areas of Tokyo, the wilderness of Australia, the woods of Canada, or a rooftop in Ecuador, this is the world of Small Houses. The one common point they share, is that they all have an area of no more than 100 square meters. Spanning 25 countries such as Brazil, Hungary, South Korea, Netherlands, USA, Japan, and Australia, described here there are houses designed by 54 architects, including Takeshi Hosaka’s Love2 House, Aranza de Ariño’s Casa Tiny, and the work of Jakub Szczęsny, Charles Pictet, Lada Hršak, BIG, and Fran Silvestre. This is a journey not only through recent evolutions in architectural design and creativity, but it is also a step toward a more sustainable world.

Ever since Henry David Thoreau’s described his two years, two months, and two days of refuge existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts, in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a cabin dwelling has seduced the modern psyche. In the past decade, as our material existence and environmental footprint has grown exponentially, architects around the globe have become particularly interested in the possibilities of the minimal, low-impact, and isolated abode.Cabins combines insightful text, rich photography, and bright, contemporary illustrations by Marie-Laure Cruschi to show how this particular architectural type presents special opportunities for creative thinking. In eschewing excess, the cabin limits actual spatial intrusion to the bare essentials of living requirements, while in responding to its typically rustic setting, it foregrounds eco-friendly solutions. The cabin comes to showcase some of the most inventive and forward-looking practices of contemporary architecture, including Renzo Piano, Terunobu Fujimori, and Tom Kundig, all embracing such distilled sanctuary spaces.The book showcases the variety of cabins in use and geography. From an artist studio on the Suffolk coast in England to a bamboo bungalow in Sri Lanka, this collection is as exciting in its international reach as it is in its array of briefs, clients, and situations. Constant throughout, however, is architectural innovation, and an inspiring sense of contemplation and coexistence as people return to nature and to a less destructive model of being in the world.

When Flemish engraver and publisher Theodore de Bry issued the first volume of his America series in 1590, the New World was truly novel for most Europeans. Gleaned from the travel accounts of adventurers like Thomas Harriot, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh, De Bry’s magnificent engravings brought the new continent and its inhabitants to an enraptured audience across the Atlantic.From “Virginia” (today’s North Carolina) and Florida to Central America and down into Patagonia, the first nine volumes of America depict scenery and encounters between Native Americans and Europeans, revealing the latter’s perceptions of the former. Portrayals of European discovery and Native American customs were based on the explorers’ reports as well as De Bry’s own imagination – he himself never traveled to the New World. Although based in Frankfurt, De Bry laid the foundations of the series while in London, collaborating with artists John White and Jacques Le Moyne, whose original watercolors he adapted for the opening two volumes. With his sons, De Bry formed a family enterprise known for exquisite copper engravings and high-quality illustrations unrivaled in their mastery.The legacy of America is profound, coloring Europe’s earliest visions of the Atlantic world. Throughout the following centuries, countless European illustrations would draw inspiration from the spectacular collection. TASCHEN’s edition pays homage to De Bry’s finesse, reprinting all 218 plates from the first nine volumes alongside their respective frontispieces and continental maps. Volumes I to VI are based on the original hand-colored editions held at the John Hay and John Carter Brown Libraries at Brown University in Providence; volumes VII to IX are from the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek in Augsburg, Germany.Exceptionally rare even at the time of completion, De Bry’s hand-colored America can finally be admired by all.

One day in 1945, fashion photographer André de Dienes met an aspiring model named Norma Jeane Dougherty. It was a momentous moment, both for his personal life and his photographic portfolio. Over the next few years, he would be briefly engaged to Norma Jeane, take a number of adventurous road trips with her, and build up a stunning series of portraits which would help launch her modeling, and later movie, career.This collection of de Dienes's photographs and private memoirs offers an intimate picture of Norma Jeane the woman, before she was Marilyn the icon. From their trip to see Norma Jeane’s mother in a mental hospital to Marilyn’s visit a few days before her death, de Dienes's emotion-laden archive, often annotated with handwritten notes, offers a deeply personal account of Monroe's transformation from a sensitive, ambitious girl into a deeply troubled global star.