Art Masters - Böcker

The turbulent life of Vincent van Gogh is a constant source of inspiration and intrigue for artists and art lovers.In this beautiful graphic biography, artist and writer Barbara Stok documents the brief and intense period of creativity Van Gogh spent in Arles, Provence. Away from Paris, Van Gogh falls in love with the landscape and light of the south of France. He dreams of setting up an artists’ studio in Arles – somewhere for him and his friends to paint together.But attacks of mental illness leave the painter confused and disorientated. When his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin refuses to reside permanently at the Yellow House, Van Gogh cuts off part of his ear. The most notorious event of art history has happened – and Van Gogh’s dreams are left in tatters. However, throughout this period of intense emotion and hardship, Vincent’s brother Theo stands by him, offering constant and unconditional support. Stok has succeeded in breathing new life into one of the most fascinating episodes of art history.

An extraordinary and inventive graphic biography, Steffen Kverneland’s Munch explores the relationships and obsessions that drove the artist behind ‘The Scream’. Using text drawn from the writings of Edvard Munch and his contemporaries, this extensively researched and beautifully drawn graphic novel debunks the familiar myth of the half-mad expressionist painter – anguished, starving and ill-treated – to reveal the artist’s neglected sense of humour and optimism. Born out of a life-long fascination with all things Munch, Kverneland’s award-winning seven-year project is the funniest and most entertaining portrait yet of a complex man and a pioneering artist. “Munch is a dazzling use of sequential storytelling… Rarely have I read a more entertaining biography.” The Comics Journal

Genius, eccentric, exhibitionist: there is no shortage of adjectives to describe the great surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Yet this iconic artist and controversial thinker remains a figure shrouded in mystery. Plunging into the Spanish painter’s unbridled, fantastical universe, graphic novelist Edmond Baudoin guides us on the trail of a man known as much for his talent for self-promotion as for his bold and extraordinary work. He emerges with a convincing personal vision of the man behind the artist.Commissioned by the Pompidou Centre, Paris, Dalí is a graphic novel of rare brilliance, which captures in beautifully expressive detail the life of one of the world’s most instantly recognisable painters.

In 1891, Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) arrives on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. In this lush paradise, he is liberated from the concerns of the city-dwelling European. He is free: to love, to sing, and to create. In Copenhagen, Gauguin’s wife enjoys no such freedom. She would rather forget her odious husband and his degenerate artwork. Instead, in a city resistant to the avant-garde, she is tasked with selling a collection of his extravagantly priced Tahitian paintings. When they finally go on sale—in Paris, shortly after Gauguin’s return—sales are catastrophic. For Monet, Renoir, and the rest of the old guard, nothing indicates that these bizarre, visionary works are of any lasting significance.Gauguin: The Other World is a revelatory biography of an artist whose qualities as a man won him few admirers in his own lifetime, but whose talents as a painter would have an enormous influence on the art of Picasso, Matisse, and many more.

Intoxicated by the promise of a promotion, Charles Singular for once allows himself a small extravagance: he buys a bowler hat. But there’s a problem: this is no ordinary hat. This one once belonged to the surrealist painter René Magritte, and by donning it Charles has unwittingly stepped into the artist’s off-kilter world. What’s more, he can’t escape—at least, not until he has illuminated the secrets behind Magritte’s work. What follows is a hallucinatory journey through Magritte’s imaginative landscape, a place where facial features mutate, the crescent moon appears in unexpected places, and answers prove frustratingly elusive.In Magritte: This is not a Biography, Vincent Zabus and Thomas Campi have created a panoramic and revealing portrait of the great surrealist, employing a playfulness and wit reminiscent of Magritte himself.

From the thirty-two canvas Campbell's Soup Cans to the Marilyn Diptych, Andy Warhol's silk-screen prints are the epitome of Pop Art: witty, gimmicky and unafraid of repetition. Obsessed with consumerism and the cult of celebrity, Warhol exalted the "surface of things" – and yet he was a man of deep complexity. In Andy, Typex captures the remarkable life of the king of Pop Art, from his working-class upbringing in Pittsburgh to the dizzying heights of his celebrity. Spanning a period that began with the "talkies" and ended with the advent of house music, it is also a memorable portrait of 20th century pop culture and the stars who defined it: from Elvis to Greta Garbo, Truman Capote to Lou Reed. Taking in Warhol's early career as a commercial illustrator, his relationship with the Velvet Underground and the development of his own instantly recognisable style, Typex's Andy is an exhilarating portrait of a transcendent artist and a master self-publicist. Intensively researched, this 568-page graphic novel--with silver edgestain on the pages—is the first to tell the complete life story of the iconic pop artist.

Frida Kahlo, remembered as one of the most inspiring personalities of the 20th century, was a woman of two intertwined parts: she was both a charismatic and empowered artist exploring themes of resistance, authenticity, cruelty, and suffering, and a more private person whose wounded body caused her a lifetime of pain that underpinned the many successes and disappointments that marked her time in the world. Revealing and exploring these two Fridas, Francisco de la Mora’s graphic biography – completed with the endorsement and support of the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City – vividly documents the landscapes and environments that inspired her, the dreams and nightmares that drove her, and the many people she loved. It is also a joyously beautiful tribute to her life, her work, her home – and her art.“Frida Kahlo’s work has been widely celebrated as representative of Mexican national and indigenous traditions, and for depicting the female experience and form. Overcoming illness, trauma, and physical injury, her iconic life, and the enduring art she made of it, communicate indomitable strength and the constant possibility of change.” — Circe Henestrosa, Educator and Fashion Curator (co-curator of ‘Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving’ at San Francisco’s de Young Museum in 2020).

Reluctant muse and feminist champion… society heiress and rebel refugee… the last of the Surrealists: Leonora Carrington played many roles in her long and extraordinary life. Renouncing her privileged upbringing in pre-war England for the more exciting elite of Paris’s 1930s avant-garde, she comes to rub shoulders (and more) with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí, after embarking on a complicated love affair with Max Ernst. But the demons that have both haunted and inspired her work are gathering, and when the world goes mad with the outbreak of war and the Nazi invasion, Leonora’s own hold on reality collapses into a terrifying psychotic episode of her own. Eventually fleeing war-torn Europe, she emerges into a new and richly creative life in Mexico City, establishing herself as a prodigious painter, writer, and advocate of women’s rights. This new work by the acclaimed partnership of Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot celebrates the life and career of a truly remarkable woman – and artist.

“The only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.”From her days in 1960s New York as a proponent of free love and peace to her current position as internationally recognised Queen of Polka Dots and creator of infinity, Yayoi Kusama’s life is an extraordinary story of triumph over struggle through art. This graphic novel vividly portrays Kusama’s unusual youth and family troubles, her discovery of a new style of painting, her struggles with mental illness, and her rise to international art stardom.For those seeking an introduction to this incredible artist or searching for a fresh take on her story – this is Yayoi Kusama’s life as you’ve never seen it before.