ACR Edition – serie

Buried in deep valleys, there are citadels of ochre earth. Near the sea there are white chalked casbahs and vast tranquil palm-gardens and deserts of coloured sands run into soot black mountains. Pungent and bustling souks offer spices and potions to ward off malevolent spirits. Slender arched doorways open out into darkened alleys. Scented mint tea is served in pattern-draped tents. The sky is as clear as ever over the Sahara. This is the Moroccan South - a legendary land, sumptuous and austere. This series presents a fascinating chronology of the spread of Islamic art in the form of 12 Exhibition Trails in 11 countries. The programme is based on the unique idea of visitors viewing exhibitions without the works of art being transported - discovering artefacts in their natural environments and within their cultural and historical context. Each trail is presented and written by experts who live in the specified areas and are accompanied by beautiful illustrations. Text in French. Also Available:Paris Plaisir ISBN:9782867701139 £55.00Lebanon: The Phoenician Pearl ISBN:9782867701443 £55.00

Of all the world's great cities, Paris is perhaps the one that marks its visitors and inhabitants the most, both in their discovery of the city, and their memories. With its many monuments, it is also a fabulous theatre where adventure, chance meetings, and the unexpected have fascinated the painters, poets and photographers that we meet in the pages of this book. While its history is ancient, and very long, its present is lively and attractive. This is a history of Paris that invites readers to wander in the city, to discover it. It presents the major events of the city, together with the most charming examples of daily life in its streets, which is always vibrant. It shows its crowds, who are delighted to find all the odours of the world, all the colours of life, and the marvels of everyday that are seen in this city. We also meet those writers who have praised Paris, such as Victor Hugo, Jacques Prevert, Gerard de Nerval and Léon Paul Fargue, and all those who have immortalised the city in their paintings, from the anonymous painters of the Renaissance up to the Impressionists. This is an intelligent history of Paris, but also friendly, entertaining, accessible, to whet your appetite for the city, and to arouse your curiosity.Also Available:Lebanon: The Phoenician Pearl ISBN:9782867701443 £55.00Le Sud Marocain ISBN:9782867700569 £55.00

It had been a desert, its dunes languorously meeting the lapping sea which has played its part in world trade since the beginning of time. There had been the gold and spices from nearby India, and the petroleum of today, extracted from its sands or brought from elsewhere, from off the shores of its coasts. It is difficult to imagine that these seven Emirates have a history, as understood in Western canons. Here, the past seems to have been dug away with excavators, drowned in concrete, built over with metropolitan motorways. This does not prevent it from seeming to surge forth at the slightest provocation, at the smallest of solicitations. Proud of what the world acknowledges as his country's achievements, the most insolent of Emiratis grows less arrogant when recalling his father's fathers. Fathers who, hardly more than four decades ago, were Bedouins, traders, camel drivers, almost all pearl fishers.It is in this way that this modern history was written. Twenty centuries of hard seasonal migration of their livestock, intensive trade, fierce competition, destructive setbacks and creative imagination forged mentalities that have made this desert into one of the richest and most envied places in the world. What seems a modern miracle is no more than the culmination of an ancient culture having survived mishap and change to forge a modern economy.Contents: A History going back to Antiquity; Abu Dhabi, Where Business Has Replaced Vanished Industries; The Activities of the Other Emirates; The Challenge of the Seven Families; Islam According to the Emirates; Immigration; The Emirates: Abu Dabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman; Umm al-Qaywayn; Ras al-Khaimah; Fujairah; The Future of the Emirates.

The interior designer Susanna Biedermann (1943-2007) described herself in her curriculum vitae as a painter as well. The compass of her works is in fact greater still. The book that was edited by her long-term partner Max Alioth and the graphic designer Beat Keusch from Basel begins with the sketchbooks where so many of her creations have their origin. The succession of drawings, watercolours, paintings, murals, objects, photographs, posters, logos, plans, models, builduings and words together give rise to a mosaic which is itself a reflection of Susanna Biedermann's practice of working on several projects simultaneously. Yet what all her many-facetted works have in common is a lightness of touch, a magical quality and a gift for transforming reality. Her many different spheres of interest can all be traced back to her spontaneous fascination with everything around her. Viewed in isolation, her works are simply different parts of a larger whole, which together led to the founding of the Marrakech School of Visual Arts. Text in English, German, French and Arabic.

This book focuses on the production of chairs, discussing the work of Avisse, Blanchard, Boucault, Carpentier, Cresson, Delanois, Foliot, Gourdin and Tilliard and recreates the environment centred around the leading figure Nicolas Heurtaut. Sculptors, gilders and upholsterers are the other professions which contribute to the elaboration of a chair. The book's theoretical section is completed with more technical observations, notably on the art of distinguishing an authentic piece from an imitation. The period covered extends from the end of the regency style to the beginning of neo-classicism (1730-1775). Text in French.

The common denominator linking the artists in this book is that they all went to the Near East or North Africa and painted the experiences drawn from their travels. The "Orient" in question covers a geographic area which spreads from the Balkans through the Maghreb down to Marrakech. Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Sudan were a part of this vast territory as well. This "covering" of the Orient occurred during the 19th century, in between Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt and the First World War.Text in French.

Of all the customs and traditions concerning the lives of oriental women, the harem is probably the most familiar and least understood in the West. Travelling artists, writers and poets let their imagination run unbridled upon this theme, to such an extent that in all the paintings from the early eigtheenth century to the 1940s, reality and imagination are closely intermingled. Beyond the theme of odalisques and almahs, this volume reflects upon the small pleasures of daily life, family and women's work. Over 150 Orientalist painters, both prestigious and less known, are brought together in this book as individual monographs.

The Berber women from Morocco have received wide acclaim for their rugs. They also used their amazing skills to weave traditional costumes, whose ample shapes are reminiscent of the draped garments of antiquity. Many garments, veils and capes reflect the identity of the different groups living on mountains and in valleys. They represent a way of life that is disappearing fast, as contacts with the outside world render it obsolete. Some items of clothing are decorated with designs transferred from mother to daughter, but tradition did not prevent weavers from expressing their own creativity. The book shows a wide variety of designs allowing the reader to discover masterpieces of weaving and embroidery, but also of decoration with henna, a technique only known from Morocco. This book is the first to offer a vast panorama of this exceptional heritage from the Mediterranean coast to the Sahara. Ethnologist Marie-Rose Rabaté and Frieda Sorber, an art historian and textile specialist have, between them researched Berber costume in and outside Morocco for 40 years. As women in a female environment, their invaluable experience has allowed to widen existing knowledge, to collect rare examples, to witness the changing state of textile crafts and to pinpoint the recent apparition of fakes. In and outside Morocco many collectors have shared their collections for study, to help them to define a Berber style of decoration. A wealth of objects was chosen to illustrate the texts, showing a kaleidoscope of colours and designs, including many details. They present an art that remained hidden for a long time, and that almost disappeared before it could claim its place among the world's cultures.Text in English and French.

Shafik Gabr started his collection of Orientalist art in 1993 by acquiring a painting by Ludwig Deutsch entitled Egyptian Priest Entering a Temple. His collection is today amongst the very few in the world to count such a large number of works by the famed Austrian artist as well as some of the finest examples of the greatest masters of Orientalism such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Gustav Bauernfeind and many others. Important for both scholars and art lovers, the Shafik Gabr Collection impresses us with its richness and variety. It includes masterpieces by some of the major nineteenth and twentieth century Orientalists found in private hands today and demonstrates the owner's appreciation of differences as well as similarities in European visions of the versatile and diverse Orient. The selection of paintings in this collection illustrates the owner's evolving taste, his relationship with the world of Orientalism and his interest in its European expression.This Orientalist collection is a harmonious "kaleidoscope" of genres, presenting the Orient through a variety of forms, styles and techniques, and revealing to the European viewer the mysterious East with its bright colours, its exotic and leisurely lifestyle. Over the years, it has become one of the most complete and magnificent tributes dedicated to the world of Orientalism and as such some of the most renowned experts in this field have contributed to this book in order to mark its importance in the art world.Lavishly illustrated, Masterpieces of Orientalist Art: The Shafik Gabr Collection also included essays by distinguished Orientalist scholars.

Moreau's life, although the painter himself did not believe so, casts a singular light on a work in which he was far more involved personally that he imagined: he is one of the forerunners and leading exponents of the symbolist trend that prevailed in the late nineteenth century. This movement actually defined itself by the projection onto the canvas of inner sentiments, often those of the artist himself, and which an accurate knowledge of his biography allows us to better understand, a century after his death, now that the restrictions he imposed on his first biographers have given way to time and that the 'private' apartments conserved in the heart of 'his' museum he had so carefully arranged for posterity have been opened to the public. It is now permitted - and possible - to present what is known - and after all quite a lot is known - about the life of the one who called himself the 'worker assembler of dreams'.

Decoration and design as Dora El Chiaty might exclaim: "What else?". It was in Egypt, the country of her birth, that this passion developed and found its full expression, as evidenced by numerous creations showcasing not just a talent, but a genuine gift. Born in Ismaïla, to a Greek family, she arrived in France at the age of eleven as a boarder at Sacré-Coeur de Chantilly, then returned to Cairo to study at the Centre Culturel Français where she passed her baccalaureate. After a short stay in Spain, she studied journalism, advertising and anthropology at the American University in Cairo, where she got a Bachelor of Arts degree. It was there that she got to know her future husband, Hamed El Chiaty, a defining encounter in more ways than one. Indeed, Hamed would soon become an entrepreneur in tourism and would ask the woman who had become his wife to decorate two of the boats he owned on the Nile. Dora, who had always loved art in all its forms, found her curiosity piqued and successfully completed her first two projects with ease, taste and character. This would mark the start of a genuine fascination for the many different sides of this profession - decoration and design - and the starting point for many other commissions which would accompany Hamed's rise through the tourism world, first and foremost in Egypt. Very quickly, it would become a regular occurrence: Dora took charge of the decoration of several sites with extremely tight deadlines (nine to twelve months!) and limited budgets. Between her beginnings and her most recent work there is evidence of development, of neoclassicism tempered with a conscious modernity, never forgetting an enduring reference to Islamic decorative arts. Everything inspires her: from the wrought iron railings in her Parisian pied-à-terre, to the pattern on a scarf or the print on a dress, which we find - modified, adapted, varied - on the velvet of a couch, the arabesques of a carpet or wallpaper, made to measure by remarkable teams of Egyptian artisans. Indeed, in the footsteps of the famous French interior designers of the twentieth century - Ruhlmann, Arbus, Leleu, Quinet, Old and Raphaël - Dora El Chiaty, assisted by a team of more than fifty, creates a large part of the furniture, seats, lights, carpets and textiles of the decors herself.How to describe her style? In the beginning Dora preferred furnishing that drew its inspiration from the forties, with references to the Louis XVI and Directoire styles - their straight and slender lines, and materials typical of the time, like mahogany and bronze. She now leans towards a greater contemporaneity, with which she blends a joyful fantasy, like her nods towards the baroque. An excellent colourist, her favourite shades include all varieties of beige and grey, embellished with a few bright touches, such as the deep reds and bordeaux she particularly favours. What is her dream as a designer and decorator? To have greater resources for her decoration and three years to decorate a hotel! All the decor would not only be created, as always, by Dora El Chiaty, but she would also design every piece of furniture, light and accessory. Knowing her taste and talent, we look forward to her dream becoming a reality.Text in English and French.