Royal Academy of Arts – serie

With an eclectic practice embracing urban planning, public sculpture and industrial design, Ian Ritchie CBE RA is one of Britains most visionary architects. Published here for the first time, his poems, aphorisms and etchings witness a profound engagement with the built environment. Ritchie writes poetry in order to better understand a project, using words to investigate the particularities or challenges of a site, and the process of composition to bring ideas into focus. His calligraphic etchings imagine the shape or spirit of commissions in simple but powerful strokes. Variably pragmatic and philosophical, often witty, his aphorisms on work and life from the importance of light to the nature and possibility of progress reveal a modernists belief in the potential of architecture to improve society. These are lines of thought, committed to paper before any designing begins. They demonstrate that, for Ritchie, being an architect is many more things besides. Ian Ritchie CBE RA is an internationally acclaimed architect. His built designs include the Leipzig Glass Hall, the Spire of Dublin, the elevator shafts for the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the RSC Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, winner of the RIBA National Award in 2007.

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.

Chris Orr MBE RA is one of Britain's foremost printmakers. In this definitive book he and Robert Hewison explore his remarkable printmaking career, from his early experiments as a student in the 1960s, when he first discovered how etching could enhance his drawing, to his later innovations in lithography, silkscreen and digital printing, and his ingenious use of long-forgotten processes. Hewison also considers the significant contribution that Orr has made to printmaking as a teacher, first at Cardiff College of Art and then in London at Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art, where he was Professor of Printmaking from 1998 to 2008. Illustrated with over 150 of Orr's theatrical, witty and wilfully allusive prints, this book looks for the first time in depth at the gloriously original output of a ceaseless inventor.

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.

Anthony Green's idiosyncratic art is anchored in one central theme: family. It forms the core of his immediately recognisable work, revealing an intrinsic connection between his personal and artistic lives. The pictures in Green's mind have no edges, so his paintings are not contained within a traditional shape. They have irregularly shaped supports, reflecting the unpredictable range of situations and emotions that characterise family life. Green has exhibited across the globe, and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1996. A distinguished and long-serving Royal Academician, Green has exhibited at every Summer Exhibition for the last five decades. He was elected ARA in 1971 and RA in 1977, after winning that year's Summer Exhibit of the Year. He served for some years as Chairman of the RA's Exhibitions Committee. He lives and works in Cambridgeshire.

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 Hispanic Society of America in New York is the vision of Archer M. Huntington (1870–1955). From an early age, Huntington developed an abiding love both of Hispanic culture and of museums and libraries. He resolved to devote his considerable fortune to combining these two passions, and carried out his project so resourcefully that the collections he assembled remain exceptional for their depth and richness, displaying the culture of Spain and Latin America in the broadest sense.Their scope ranges from the prehistoric era to the early 20th century, including antiquities, decorative arts, Islamic works, manuscripts and rare books as well as superb canvases by Old Masters such as El Greco, Velázquez and Goya. This handsome new publication features an introduction to Archer M. Huntington and the Hispanic Society by Patrick Lenaghan, the Society’s Head Curator of Prints, Photographs and Sculpture, and plates and catalogue entries on some of its greatest treasures by the Society’s curators.