Royal Academy of Arts – serie

In recent years David Hockney has returned to England to paint the landscape of his childhood in East Yorkshire. Although his passionate interest in new technologies has led him to develop a virtuoso drawing technique on an iPad, he has also been accompanied outdoors by the traditional sketchbook, an invaluable tool as he works quickly to capture the changing light and fleeting effects of the weather. Executed in watercolour and ink, these panoramic scenes have the spatial complexity of finished paintings - the broad sweep of sky or road, the patchwork tapestry of land - yet convey the immediacy of Hockney's impressions. And as in the views down village streets and across kitchen tables that appear alongside them, his rooted and fond knowledge of the area around the East Yorkshire Wolds is always clear. If you know the region, the location of the sketches is unmistakable; if you don't, its features will come to life in these pages.

Rose Wylie OBE RA (b. 1934) lives and works in Kent. She paints from memory, frequently taking her imagery from mass media. Her large works on unstretched, unprimed canvas appear simple at first glance, but close inspection reveals them to be subtle meditations on the nature of visual representation. She regularly brings together apparently disparate images, creating visual rhymes and resonances that coalesce into unified compositions.This new book, the catalogue of a large-scale exhibition at the Royal Academy, brings together leading authorities on Wylie’s work and a host of her unmistakable imagery.

At the beginning of 2020, just as global Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the artist David Hockney was at his house, studio and garden in Normandy. From there, he witnessed the arrival of spring, and recorded the blossoming of the surrounding landscape on his iPad, a medium he has been using for over a decade. Working outdoors was an antidote to the anxiety of the moment for Hockney – 'We need art, and I do think it can relieve stress,' he says. This uplifting publication – produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts – includes 116 of his new iPad paintings and shows to full effect Hockney's singular skill in capturing the exuberance of nature.

Pablo Picasso's artistic output is astonishing in its ambition and variety. This handsome publication examines a particular aspect of his legendary capacity for invention: his imaginative and original use of paper. He used it as a support for autonomous works, including etchings, prints and drawings, as well as for his papier-collé experiments of the 1910s and his revolutionary three-dimensional 'constructions', made of cardboard, paper and string. Sometimes, his use of paper was simply determined by circumstance: in occupied Paris, where art supplies were hard to come by, he ripped up paper tablecloths to make works of art. And, of course, his works on paper comprise the preparatory stages of some of his very greatest paintings, among them Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). With reproductions of more than 300 works of art and additional texts by Violette Andres, Stephen Coppel, Emmanuelle Hincelin, Christopher Lloyd, Johan Popelard and Claustre Rafart Planas, this sumptuous study reveals the myriad ways in which Picasso's genius seized the potential of paper at different stages throughout his career.

"The book is compact, beautifully designed, and includes excellent essays by Linsey Young and Kathleen Soriano, with introductions on each section by the artist, reproductions of each work in the show, as well as others on Cooper and Soriano’s wish list which could not be accommodated." — Printmaking TodayEileen Cooper OBE RA has been consistently successful across her 50-year career, the influence of her art seen in the range and depth of her work as well as in her contribution to art education. Cooper’s artistic experiences – which, in the words of Linsey Young, disrupt the neat patriarchal understandings of women – are brought together in this thoughtfully designed and elegant hardback. Early works are illustrated alongside previously unseen drawings, paintings, prints, ceramics and portraits, many of which will surprise readers. The authors also consider Cooper’s work in relation to the collections of Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, including works by Peter Doig, Paula Rego, Pablo Picasso, Dame Laura Knight and Lotte Laserstein.

The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm according to David Hockney are like no other version you will have read before. Although inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, from Arthur Rackham to Edmund Dulac, Hockney's extraordinary etchings re-imagine these strange and supernatural stories for a modern audience, capturing their distinctive atmosphere in a style that is recognisably the artist's own. Reprinted for the first time since its original publication in 1969, Hockney's book brings together some well-known tales - Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin - with others that are less familiar. Informed by great art of the past, attuned to idiosyncrasies of character and incident, and fresh in execution and content, his illustrations invite us to read each one as if for the first time.

The first publication devoted to the work of Sydney Lee RA (18661949), this fully illustrated and annotated catalogue raisonne of his prints offers a long overdue appraisal of his contribution to British art. Primarily a painter, Lee was widely acclaimed during his lifetime for his virtuosic prints of landscapes, town scenes and historic buildings, executed in a remarkable variety of sizes and media. From the Colosseum in Rome to the summit of Snowdon and the windmills of Kent, he travelled throughout Britain and Europe in search of subjects both epic and picturesque. A leading authority on printmaking and a committed collector of Lees prints, Robert Meyrick here identifies the precise locations of these subjects, and for the first time establishes an accurate chronology of Lees printed oeuvre. In an accompanying essay Meyrick examines the artists reputation, while placing his work in the context of artistic practice in Britain and beyond.

Considered one of the most important religious structures of the twentieth century, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence was regarded by Matisse himself as his greatest masterpiece. He dedicated four years to the creation of this convent chapel on the French Riviera, and the result is one of the most remarkable and comprehensive ensemble pieces of twentieth-century art. Every element of the chapel bears the artist's touch, from the vivid Mediterranean hues of the stained glass windows to the starkly powerful murals; even the vestments and altar were designed by Matisse. This beautifully illustrated volume captures the chapel in exquisite detail, allowing an unparalleled view of this iconic sacred space. With stunning new photography that captures the dramatic effects of the changing light in the building throughout the day, this book is the first to present the experience of being within the chapel exactly as Matisse himself envisaged it. Marie-Thérèse Pulvenis de Seligny's authoritative and insightful text explores the extraordinary story of the chapel's creation, and the challenges faced by the 77-year-old artist in realising his incredible vision.

Lost Futures looks in detail at the wide range of buildings constructed in Britain between 1945 and 1979. Although their bold architectural aspirations reflected the forward-looking social ethos of the postwar era, many have since been either demolished or altered beyond recognition. Photographs taken at the time of their completion are accompanied by expertly researched captions that examine the buildings' design, creation, the ideals they embodied and the reasons for their eventual destruction. Lost Futures covers many building types, from housing to factories, commercial spaces and power stations, and presents the work of both iconic and lesser-known architects. The author charts the complex reasons that led to the loss of these projects' ambitious futures, and assesses whether some might one day be recaptured.

Michelangelo's (1475–1564) "Taddei Tondo," in the collection of the Royal Academy in London, offers a fascinating insight into the master's technical and experimental skill. Joshua Reynolds, the Academy's first president, considered that Michelangelo represented everything that an artist should aspire to, combining technical brilliance with sublime poetical imagination, and the Tondo shows this in scintillating relief. Expertly researched and written by the renowned Renaissance art historian Alison Cole, this book moves through the life of the "Tondo," from Michelangelo's rivalry with Leonardo to the marble's arrival at the Royal Academy and its use in the RA Schools. Finishing with a fresh look at the Tondo's role in revealing Michelangelo's technical experimentalism, Cole explores the importance of finish and what constitutes a finished work of art. Lavishly illustrated and including new photos of the Tondo, this is an enriching exploration of a lesser-known side of the great Renaissance. AUTHOR: Alison Cole is a Renaissance art historian who currently works as a writer and strategic consultant in the arts, digital and cultural sector. She has served on the executive boards of institutions such as Arts Council England, the Southbank Centre and The Art Fund. She is the author of 'Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts' (1995) and has written several books on art history in association with major galleries. Her latest book, published by Laurence King, is a revised and expanded edition of 'Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts'. SELLING POINTS: . A new examination of the Taddei Tondo, the only Michelangelo marble in Britain . Authoritatively written by the renowned Renaissance art historian Alison Cole . Accompanied by new photographs of the tondo taken at its home in the Royal Academy Collections 50 colour images

On Charles II's restoration to the throne in 1660, four of his supporters were provided with plots of land in a leafy suburb of London, on which to build their extravagant town palaces. The only one to survive - built for the poet and courtier Sir John Denham and now situated in the heart of Piccadilly - was to become the home of the Royal Academy of Arts, its exhibitions and its Schools. This important study charts the history of the estate through its various owners, including the 3rd Earl of Burlington, who gave the house not only its name but also its distinctive and influential architecture. In his day, the house was host to leading scholars and celebrities, who met within Burlington's cutting-edge creation, which remains an unparalleled exemplar of the Palladian style in England. Former Director of Collections at the RA, Nicholas Savage examines 350 years of social and architectural history, as well as revealing the next phase in the life of the estate, as the Royal Academy opens up Burlington House as never before in an exciting redevelopment led by Sir David Chipperfield CBE RA to celebrate the institution's 250th anniversary.

In The Miserable Lives of Fabulous Artists, Chris Orr turns his humorous gaze on some of the most famous - and fabulous - artists of the past. With over 30 new works, accompanied by Orr's captions, artists from Edward Hopper to Pablo Picasso find themselves in weird and wonderful situations. Edvard Munch holidays at the seaside, John Constable RA is disturbed at his easel by frolicking nudists and there's an unfortunate incident in Barbara Hepworth's studio... No one can escape Orr's imagination: Walter Sickert is distracted from a spreadeagled model by a fly in his soup, Dame Laura Knight RA is caught shoplifting, and Frida Kahlo enjoys a fry-up. Each image is packed with detail to pore over, and the book concludes with notes from the artist, accompanied by preparatory drawings for the finished work. This new collection, published to coincide with an exhibition of Orr's works at the Royal Academy of Arts, is a charming romp which affectionately pokes fun at well-loved artists.

From the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, the Royal Academy of Arts in London has occupied a prominent, occasionally controversial and always individual position in the art world. Its Annual Exhibitions, now known as the Summer Exhibitions, have seen artistic reputations rise and fall, and its enduringly popular international loan exhibitions have helped to shape the public's appreciation of the visual arts. Packed with illustrations, this brief introduction to the Academy's 250-year story considers how its homes and some of its characters have made it what it is.

At first glance, there may appear to be more to separate Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Bill Viola (b. 1951) than to unite them: one, the great master of the Italian Renaissance; the other, the creator of state-of-the-art immersive sound and video installations. And yet, when Martin Clayton showed Viola Her Majesty The Queen's unsurpassed collection of Michelangelo drawings at Windsor in 2006, parallels began to emerge. This book presents a new perspective on both artists' works. Stills and sequences from ten key video pieces by Viola are reproduced alongside fourteen of Michelangelo's presentation drawings, as well as the Taddei Tondo, the only Michelangelo marble sculpture in the UK and a treasure of the Royal Academy's collection. Texts by Martin Clayton examine how existential concerns - the preoccupation of many Renaissance artists, not least Michelangelo - are explored in Viola's often profoundly moving video installations, while Kira Perov provides insight into Viola's working processes.

In 1964 Lucian Freud set his students at the Norwich College of Art an assignment: to paint naked self-portraits and to make them 'revealing, telling, believable... really shameless'. It was advice that the artist was often to follow himself. Visceral, unflinching and often nude, Freud's self-portraits give us an insight into the development of his style as a painter. The works provide the viewer with a constant reminder of the artist's overwhelming presence, whether he is confronting the viewer directly or only present as a shadow or in a reflection.Essays by leading authorities - including those who knew him well - explore Freud's life and work, and analyse the importance of self-portraiture in his practice and the intensity that he maintained when studying his own.

In October 2018 Cornelia Parker's Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) lands in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. This meticulous and unsettling installation - first shown on the roof of The Metropolitan Museum of Art against the skyline of New York's Central Park - is half stage set, half sculpture. The work, which draws on archetypal images of American culture such as the red barn and the infamous Bates motel from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, will now be seen against a backdrop of Burlington House's neoclassical buildings. Cornelia Parker was elected a Royal Academician in 2009. She has since had solo shows at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, and the Frith Street Gallery, London. She is well known for her installations, including Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), a reconstruction of an exploded shed, which now forms part of Tate's collection. Generously illustrated with supporting imagery and installation shots, this book comprises a conversation with the artist and a text on the work's installation in London. Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) will be on display in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from October 2018 to March 2019.

The artist Humphrey Ocean RA has painted portraits of Sir Paul McCartney and Philip Larkin, among many others. But alongside these prestigious commissions, he has always returned to drawing the simpler things in life: our 'alluringly unnatural world', as he puts it. The result is this idiosyncratic and charming collection of birds, all rendered in Ocean's unique style. With a species to discover on every page, this book is the perfect gift for any keen ornithologist, aspiring twitcher or dedicated listener to Tweet of the Day.As well as birdwatching around his home and studio in South London, Ocean regularly visits his sister, who is a nun in Nairobi and has loved birds all her life. There, he paints Kenyan birds such as the Eurasian bee-eater, the Bulbul and the Flycatcher that are 'local, a bit like our garden birds so nothing overly exotic, but of course to me they are'. They join the familiar gulls, thrushes and tits of the gardens, parks and hedgerows of the UK in this beautifully produced collection.

Accompanying catalogue for the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy from 23 September – 1 January 2024.Over the past half century, Marina Abramović has earned worldwide acclaim as a pioneer of performance art. This handsome new book records the first UK exhibition to include works from her entire career. Re-performances of some of her best-known and most radical pieces appear alongside new and recent work. An augmented-reality app for iOS and Android enables readers to watch films of Abramović’s original performances while reading the book.An essential purchase for all followers of Abramović’s extraordinary 55-year career, this important publication brings expert voices into the debate that her groundbreaking art engenders. How far should an artist push herself in pursuit of her work? What role does the audience play in creating a performance? How can performance art outlive the moment in which it takes place?

The Royal Academy's legendary Summer Exhibition has been an annual event since 1769 and is always an occasion for innovation, experiment and debate. But 2020 may prove to be its most extraordinary year yet: prevented from opening in May by the closure of the Royal Academy during the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition this year opens in the autumn. A committee of artists and architects, led by the artistic duo Jane and Louise Wilson RA, will hang over 1,000 works in the galleries of Burlington House, all while navigating the challenges of social distancing, travel restrictions and shielding. The Summer Exhibition Illustrated was first published in the 1870s and presents the highlights of the show, which this year include works by Korakrit Arunanondchai, Karen Kilimnik and Chris Ofili. In their conversation that opens the book, the Wilsons expand on the experience of opening the exhibition in such exceptional circumstances and celebrate the resilience of artistic practice and its power to bring people together. The Summer Exhibition 2020 will run from the 6 October 2020 to 3 January 2021.

Francis Bacon is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A major exhibition of his paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts, planned for 2020 but postponed because of the pandemic, explores the role of animals in his work – not least the human animal.Having often painted dogs and horses, in 1969 Bacon first depicted bullfights. In this powerful series of works, the interaction between man and beast is dangerous and cruel, but also disturbingly intimate. Both are contorted in their anguished struggle, and the erotic lurks not far away: ‘Bullfighting is like boxing,’ Bacon once said. ‘A marvellous aperitif to sex.’ Twenty-two years later, a lone bull was to be the subject of his final painting.In this fascinating publication – a significant addition to the literature on Bacon – expert authors discuss Bacon’s approach to animals and identify his varied sources of inspiration, which included wildlife photography and the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge. They contend that, by considering animals in states of vulnerability, anger and unease, Bacon was able to lay bare the role of instinctual behaviour in the human condition.Images below, left to right:Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Fragment of a Crucifixion, 1950. Oil and cotton wool on canvas, 140 x 108.5 cm. Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Photo Hugo MaertensFrancis Bacon (1909-1992), Study for Portrait (with Two Owls), 1963. Oil on canvas, 198.1 x 144.8 cm. Private collection. Photo Prudence Cuming Associates LtdFrancis Bacon (1909-1992), Man with Dog, 1953. Oil on canvas, 152 x 117 cm. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Gift of Seymour H. Knox Jr, 1955, inv. K1955:3. Photo Prudence Cuming Associates LtdAll images © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2020.

Over the past decade, Frank Bowling has enjoyed belated attention and celebration, including a major Tate Britain retrospective in 2019. This comprehensive monograph, published in 2011, is now available in an updated and expanded edition.Born in British Guiana in 1934, Bowling arrived in England in his late teens, going on to study at the Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney and Derek Boshier. By the early 1960s he was recognised as an original force in the vibrant London art scene, with a style that brilliantly combined figurative, symbolic and abstract elements.Dividing his time between New York and London since the late 1960s, he has developed a unique and virtuosic abstract style that combines aspects of American painterly abstraction with a treatment of light and space that consciously recollects the great English landscape painters Gainsborough, Turner and Constable. In a compelling text the art writer, critic and curator Mel Gooding hails Bowling as one of the finest British artists of his generation.

Renowned for such prominent buildings as London’s Tate Modern, Beijing’s Bird’s Nest National Stadium and 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Herzog & de Meuron sits at the cutting edge of contemporary design. Founded in Basel over 40 years ago, the Swiss architectural practice is now an international partnership with projects across the globe – among them museums, hospitals, skyscrapers, arenas, and private and civic buildings.Produced in close collaboration with the architects, and comprising new texts by leading writers, practitioners and thinkers, this exciting new publication gives an authoritative account of the inner workings of what the New York Times dubbed ‘one of the most admired architecture firms in the world’.

The Japanese artist Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889) was celebrated for his exciting impromptu performances at calligraphy and painting parties. Dynamic, playful and provocative, Kyōsai delighted his audience with spontaneous and speedy paintings of demons, skeletons, deities and Buddhist saints. These were often satirical, reflecting a time of political and cultural change in Japan. Among his most charming and inventive works are his brilliant depictions of animals, which humorously play the roles of protagonists of modern life. Kyōsai’s important place in Japanese art is here explored in depth by Sadamura Koto, a leading authority on the artist, in this catalogue of the exceptionally rich holdings of the Israel Goldman Collection.

At the beginning of 2020, just as global Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the artist David Hockney was at his house, studio and garden in Normandy. From there, he witnessed the arrival of spring, and recorded the blossoming of the surrounding landscape on his iPad, a medium he has been using for over a decade. Working outdoors was an antidote to the anxiety of the moment for Hockney – 'We need art, and I do think it can relieve stress,' he says. This uplifting publication – produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts – includes 116 of his new iPad paintings and shows to full effect Hockney's singular skill in capturing the exuberance of nature.Text in French.

The Franco-Swiss photographer Hélène Binet (b. 1959) is renowned for making images that express an intimate experience of architecture. Using a combination of analogue and digital techniques, her photographs are both a representation and a discovery of her subjects, all of them buildings that break the mould, pushing daringly at the boundaries of their time. In this selection of some ninety of her photographs – ranging from the baroque London churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Jantar Mantar Observatory in Jaipur through to buildings of contemporary architects Le Corbusier, Peter Zumthor, John Hejduk, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid – her work is revealed in all its subtlety and quiet sensitivity.

Over his long and successful career David Remfry MBE RA RWS has achieved a mastery of watercolour that few have matched. Unusually for the medium, he works on a large scale and often focuses on people, exploring the dance hall and the nightclub in breathtaking images that are at once beautiful and edgy.This book is the first full-length monograph devoted to the artist's watercolours. Its author, James Russell, is well known for his writing on 20th-century British artists. Russell brings his scholarship, humour and fascination for people and their lives to his study of Remfry’s career, tracing the evolution of a remarkable talent, looking in depth at the most significant works and placing Remfry in the context of both the British watercolour tradition and international contemporary painting. This is at once a glorious art book and an intimate portrait of city life.Having spent 20 years living and working at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, Remfry has a following on both sides of the Atlantic. New Yorkers – often in party mode – feature in many of his watercolours, and his recollections of people and places add colour to the text.

The Lammermuir Hills have been an important trade route between Scotland and England for generations, as well as an effective barrier when necessary.Drawn by the long history of south-eastern Scotland and the many conflicting elements in play in its natural environment – among them wind farms, pylons, forestry plantations, grouse moors and sheep – the distinguished Scottish painter and printmaker Barbara Rae CBE RA has made numerous studies of these wild expanses.This handsome volume reproduces a wide selection of her intensely colourful images with accompanying photographs and maps, and texts by the art critic Duncan Macmillan, Emeritus Professor of the History of Scottish Art at the University of Edinburgh, and Maureen Barrie, who worked for many years at National Museums Scotland.

"Monet, van Gogh and Cezanne feature in a pleasurable Royal Academy show that demonstrates why the Impressionists remain the world's favourite set of artists." — IndependentBest known for their superlative oils on canvas, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and numerous other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists also regularly used paper as a support for works in watercolour, gouache, pencil, tempera and that most elusive of media, pastel. Their practice transformed the status of these works from preparatory studies, to be left in the studio and not shown in public, to works of art in their own right.With insightful texts by acknowledged experts in the field, this sumptuous book brings together some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Their bold innovations challenged traditional attitudes, radically transformed the future direction of art and ultimately paved the way for later movements such as Abstract Expressionism.

David Remfry MBE RA has long been fascinated by the relationships that develop between dogs and their owners. In this charming new book, his deft portraits in watercolour and gouache reveal the mutual understanding and sympathy of these partnerships. Many of his portraits are accompanied by sketches from the artist's many notebooks alongside brief accounts by his sitters of how dog and owner came to find each other. Remfry's lively watercolours and sketches illustrate such celebrities as Ethan Hawke (and Nina), Susan Sarandon (and Penny and Rigby) and Alan Cumming (and Honey). Some of the sitters were Remfry’s neighbours at the iconic Chelsea Hotel in New York.