Over 270


70896 NORMAN SAUNDERS by David Saunders


Here, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth, is the ultimate, ground-breaking book on one of the greatest and most prolific illustrators of the 20th century, a man whose artistic contribution to American popular culture grows ever more impressive in retrospect. He was the legendary illustrator of Mars Attacks, Batman and countless Men’s Adventure Magazines, paperbacks and Sci-Fi. His unique artistic vision endured through a century of changing fashions and continues to inspire artists today. This is the world’s first book to present his finest paintings in ravishing reproductions. The artist’s son has written an insightful biography, seasoned with quotes from the artist and his associates, chronicling the frontier childhood and training of an illustrator who rose to the top of his profession and then spent World War II in China painting travel sketches. When Norman Saunders defied the corporate forces of conformity during the McCarthy era, he was relegated to an underground world of subculture publishing, where he painted countless icons for Pre-code Comics and Bubble Gum Trading Cards, until his happy rediscovery by fans in his twilight years. 368 pages 24cm x 31cm in absolutely dazzling colour with over 880 (yes, you read that correctly!) illustrations, of which more than 300 are from original art, including 30 working drawings and 30 reference photos, as well as 30 historic family photos and checklists of all published works.


$39.95 NOW £16


69219 MY CHINESE SKETCHBOOK by Fu Ji Tsang


The artist draws inspiration from the colours of the south of France where he now lives, and from the great classics of Chinese art and literature. He has developed an original pictorial language incorporating watercolour and ink. He leads the viewer on a semi-autobiographical journey through China. We see China’s first village on water, to Taishan, the most sacred of the Taoist mountains. With vibrant depictions of exotic flora and magnificent mystical landscapes and chapters devoted to Chinese music, dance and costumes. 136 large pages in exquisite colour with map. £16.95 NOW £6.50


69220 MY EGYPTIAN SKETCHBOOK by Florine Asch and Christiane Desroches


Exquisitely designed and produced, the cloth binding is embossed with hieroglyphics in this landscape format tome full of beautiful watercolours. As the day breaks spilling warm, honeyed light over Cairo, Florine Asch sets out with her sketchpad, pencils and paintbrushes. In her journey through this ancient and mysterious land she encounters the sandstone hills of Abu Simbel, the Pyramids of Giza, the baroque elegance of Cairo’s grand interiors, a spring in the middle of the desert, sailing boats seen from the terrace of the Old Cataract, Wady Kardassy Temple at Nubia, the Isle of Carr Ibrim, makes a rendition of David Roberts’ two painters, the Temple at Edfu, shops and people all beautifully drawn by her hand. With handwritten captions, quotations and watercolours. £16.95 NOW £6.50


70240 APOCALYPSE by Camille Flammarion From as early as 34 AD, the Christian church was already awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. The more than 100 gorgeous works of art which pack this amazing book reflect humankind’s constant terror under the threat of its own destruction. They range from canvases in 15th century missals through luminaries of the status of Hieronymus Bosch, Titian, William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, Antony Van Dyck and Leonardo da Vinci to the modernist Jackson Pollock, whose The Flame brilliantly portrays cataclysm. The most terrifying, as far as we are concerned, is Salvador Dalí’s The Horseman of Death. Open this book at your peril. 255 pages with plates, mostly in colour, and selected dates of apocalyptic predictions. New publication. ONLY £8.50


70242 EDGAR DEGAS by Natalia Brodskaia Degas championed the Impressionist movement and organised their exhibitions, but unlike his colleagues he was keen to penetrate below the surface and look at the psychology of his subjects. The only sculpture he exhibited in his lifetime was “The Little Ballet Dancer” with her awkward pose and gawky body, and even more realistic is his small bronze of a “Dancer Inspecting the Bottom of her Right Foot”, with its precarious balance and total lack of idealisation. Scenes in the theatre were often taken from unexpected angles under the ghostly upward glow of the footlights, for instance the pastel “Two Dancers Entering the Stage” or the dancers in the background of “Orchestra Musicians”, 1872. Degas’ pastel studies of dancers and women performing intimate details of their toilette, bathing or combing their hair, are evocative of a whole private world. The “Woman Drying Herself” from the 1890s, now in the National Gallery of Scotland, is a superb example of his mastery of pastel. This beautiful book has almost 100 full-page reproductions, many of them in double spread with Degas’ letters on the opposite page. There is also an authoritative introduction to his life and works. New publication. 199pp. ONLY £10


69636 CHAGALL


by Rainer Metzger and Ingo F. Walther The Belarusian painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is widely regarded as epitomising the “painter as poet”. Chagall’s paintings, steeped in mythology and mysticism, portray colourful dreams and tales that are deeply rooted in his Russian Jewish origins. They tell of a world full of everyday miracles - in the room of lovers, on the streets of Vitebsk, beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Heaven and earth seem to meet in a topsy-turvy world in which whimsical figures of people and animals float through the air with gravity-defying serenity. 100 colour illus and a concise biography. 9" x 11½”, 96 pages. ONLY £8


69239 VENICE: Three Volumes Slipcased Set


edited by Alain Vircondelet The three volumes in this exquisitely presented set comprise Venice Lifestyle, Venice Art and Architecture and Venice History, each volume 160 pages measuring over 9" x 12" and packed with colour artworks. The history


volume covers the legendary origins of Venice, the lingering death of the eternal city, from Marco Polo to the tourist city and the challenge of the third millennium. The second volume looks at art and architecture. St. Mark’s Basilica, through its lustre and oft-renovated golden exterior, polychrome marble and vibrant mosaics, exemplifies this zeal. Painters, sculptors and architects have united in an effort to adorn the city. From Bellini’s serene Madonna to Tiepolo’s and Guardi’s mirthful carnivals, from the gothic palaces of the Grand Canal to the elaborate baroque church of the Gesuiti, Venice amazes and astounds. Wagner was inspired by the gondoliers’ songs, Vivaldi was a professor there, and numerous operas were created in the theatres and churches of the city. In the third and final volume we see the market at Rialto with its barges bursting with fruits and vegetables, the trattoria and their displays of spaghetti alla vongole and risotto al nero di seppie, strolls along the alleys overlooked by tourists. Culminating in the carnivale, much colour and glamour is to be seen in this third and final volume in this fabulous box set. £80 NOW £30


69637 MATISSE by Volkmar Essers


Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colours and simple forms. As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter, but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theatre designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors his famed gouache cut- outs. 100 colour illus with explanatory captions and a concise biography. 9" x 11½”, 96 pages. ONLY £8


69638 TOULOUSE-LAUTREC by Matthias Arnold


Today, the painter and graphic artist Henri Toulouse- Lautrec (1864-1901) is considered as one of the most inspired portrayers of human figures. This physically handicapped scion of the old French nobility was fascinated by life around Montmartre, whose cafés, cabarets, dance halls and bordellos presented him with the “theatre of life.” More than any other artist, Toulouse-Lautrec captured the Belle Époque’s pursuit of fleeting pleasure: directly and without flattery, his paintings, lithographs and posters offer a masterly and timeless image of the age. 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions and a concise biography. 9" x 11½”, 96 pages. ONLY £8


70413 THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL: A


Book Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright A landmark in book design, this exquisite reprint is based on the original edition printed in 1896 to 1898 by Frank Lloyd Wright and William Herman Winslow (1857-1934), his publisher. In 1896, he established the tiny Auvergne Press in his Chicago-area home to produce exquisitely beautiful hand pressed editions of books espousing the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Winslow had hired the young architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design his own home. Wright’s all-encompassing concept of architecture included not only designs for building structures but also artful, integrated treatments of interior spaces, furnishings and decorations. The collaboration of the two men produced two exemplary fine-art titles, of which The House Beautiful is the crowning achievement. Each page of the original was photographed and faithfully reproduced to convey the delicate elegance of the book’s original text and artwork, including Wright’s text frames and photographs. In a block capital typeface with fantastically intricate borders, huge capitals, the philosophy of printing is presented in short pithy sentences for us to enjoy as the eye beholds the beautiful capitals and intricate motifs and borders. ‘...a sense worth noting, the very house itself, the mere shell of the home is that - a building of God, not made with hands.’ There is even a facsimile page of the signed limited to 90 copies edition of the book signed by both Wright and Winslow. Photos of Japanese flower designs in addition.


£18.95 NOW £7.50


70946 JAPANESE PRINTS by Catherine David


An unbelievably heavy, deliciously beautiful, exquisitely produced heavyweight tome, 446pp measuring an unusually shaped 12" across by nearly 17" tall. Oxford scholar Catherine David spent three and a half years as Assistant Curator in the Asian Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She devoted much of her attention to its superb collection of Japanese prints and created several displays, published and spoke about the collections and played a key role in organising the Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e from the V&A that toured to seven museums in Japan 2007-2008. Her monumental tome covers landscapes and city scenes, the natural world, beauties and erotica, entertainment and festivals, literature, poetry and art, children, tales and myths. Here is Hokusai, Toyokuni, Hokkei, Hiroshige, Shigemasa, Utamaro, Shunsen and among our favourites, the geisha ladies as depicted by Mizuno Toshikata. With text in three languages. Superb quality and value for money with hundreds of colour full page examples. New full price publication.


ONLY £49 Bibliophile Books Unit 5 Datapoint, 6 South Crescent, London E16 4TL TEL: 020 74 74 24 74


book reviews


64465 THE NABIS by Albert Kostenevich Pierre Bonnard was the leader of the group of Post- Impressionist painters who called themselves ‘The Nabis’ based on the Hebrew word for prophet. Influenced by Odilon Redon, Puvis de Chavannes, popular imagery and Japanese woodblock printing, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vallotton and Denis to name the most prominent members revolutionised the spirit of decorative technique during one of the richest periods in French painting. Although the increasing individualism of their work often threatened to weaken their unity, the Nabis were above all a group of close friends. The artwork presented in this no-expense-spared 200 page volume varies between Bonnard’s guilelessness, Vuillard’s ornamental and mysterious works, Denis’s soft languor and Vallotton’s almost-bitter roughness. Delicious colour full page artworks on nearly every page. 9½” x 11". ONLY £9.50


69547 ANGUS MCBEAN PORTRAITS


by Terence Pepper


Many of the greatest stars of stage, screen and the music scene eagerly grasped the privilege of being shot by one of the most revolutionary, avant-garde and influential portrait photographers of the 1930s to the 1950s. As they did for Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and


Marlene Dietrich, McBean’s images could make a star’s career. Only Angus would think of photographing Vivien Leigh as Aurora, Goddess of Dawn by fastening tufts of wired cotton clouds directly to her dress, or show Frances Day in a lobster pot washed up on a rock, juxtaposed with a disembodied hand holding up a mirror. David Ball, who became McBean’s partner and life-time companion, and whose physique and young athletic build made him a perfect model, appeared in several of his most memorable Christmas cards, reproduced here, in the playful guise of putto or angel. Mae West, Maria Callas, Shirley Bassey, Gielgud, Olivier and the Beatles all feature. 172 pages 24 x 29mm, bursting with photos in colour and b/w with chronology. First edition. ONLY £17


69065 BAGS: A Lexicon of Style by Valerie Steele and Laird Borelli From the Utility to the Luxury and from the Practical to the Precious - not to mention the Status - here are bags for everyone to lust after. Designer logos appeal to the fashionista and label junkie. In the domain of the uptown heiress are bags fashioned with expert craftsmanship from luxury materials. Hands-free practicality combined with chic are for the sporty types with no-nonsense style. 192 pocket size pages lavishly illus in colour. £9.99 NOW £3


69568 GOLDEN AGE OF SPAIN: Painting Sculpture


Architecture by Joan Sureda


Here are the awe-inspiring masterpieces of Spanish painting, sculpture and architecture from 1492 to 1659, when Spain was the richest and most powerful country in Europe. They encompass such


works as the glowing Virgin of the Immaculate Conception by José de Ribera, the renowned, tragic Ecce Homo in carved and polychromed wood, the intricate marble doorway in La Calahorra Palace, the Conquest of Tunis tapestries, woven in gold, silver, silk and wool, in the Palacio Real Madrid, the monumental monastery, El Escorial, that was the seat of the Spanish monarchy, and an amazingly detailed close-up photo of the renowned Las Meninas which has made us appreciate Goya’s portrait even more. This period was marked by the exuberance of baroque and the paintings of Zurbarán, Murillo and El Greco, and culminated in a blaze of glory with the paintings of Diego Velázquez. 304 pages 30 x 25mm in eye-dazzling colour with many double page spreads and minutely detailed close-up photos. £40 NOW £19


70323 A POCKETFUL OF APARTMENTS by Janelle McCulloch


Here is an extra special peek inside the most grand penthouses and loft apartments from St. Paul’s in London to SoHo in New York, and Sydney Harbour to the Far East. It is a pocket sized version of 50 of the World’s Best Apartments, an irresistible book showcasing some of the most spectacular apartments in the world. Many have spectacular vistas of cities like New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro as backdrops. There are floor plans and ideas for even the most compact interiors, whilst others are absolutely palatial, book-lined, and incorporate materials like Batieg limestone and oak plank floors, Venetian plaster walls, lacquer cabinets, brushed stainless steel, limestone, bluestone countertops, walnut-stained cherry cabinets in the library, marble floors or sumptuous fabrics. For each there is a write up plus three pages of gorgeous glossy colour photos. 283 pages. £9.99 NOW £4


70245 1000 PAINTINGS OF GENIUS


Joseph Manca


1000 paintings covers a surprising number of artists and canvases, and most of the world-famous pictures are here including the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, Turner’s “Rail, Steam and Speed” and Picasso’s “Guernica”. There are also many masterpieces which may


be less familiar to the non-expert, such as the 15th century artist Schongauer’s “Madonna at the Rose Bush”, the superbly atmospheric “Storm by the Banks of a Lake” by the 18th century French master Valenciennes, or the modern Romanian Corneliu Baba’s striking 1981 canvas “The Mad King”. Each century has a general introduction, starting with the 13th and taking the story up to the present with the works of living painters such as Frank Stella and Georg Baselitz. Every painting has details of its date, size, medium and provenance, and is also labelled as belonging to a particular school: for instance Pietro Perugino, Raphael’s master who painted the life of Christ in the Sistine Chapel, belongs to the High Renaissance. New publication. Fully illustrated in colour, timelines. 16 x 21cm, 543pp. ONLY £16


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Art and Architecture


70940 ART NOUVEAU: Jugendstil by the Scala Group


600 pages of sheer luxury, this tremendously heavyweight tome has glorious full page colour images on every huge page measuring 11½” square. Art Nouveau is rooted in the phenomenon that was secessionism, an international art movement that spread through the US and Europe between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries whose artistic language rejected styles of the past, preferring instead to take its inspiration directly from nature. Three important magazines Jugend, Pan and Ver Sacrum all promoted this new artistic trend. In Germany it was known as Jugengstil, Sezessionstil in Austria, Modernismo in Cataluña, Modern Style in Great Britain, Liberty in Italy and Art Nouveau in Belgium and France. The style swept through all sectors of the arts and the production of objects - architecture, painting, sculpture, furnishings, graphics, design, the art of glass and jewellery. Artists looked for coherent designs to adorn space and involve themselves with every last detail of home furnishings. It meant that sleek lines and decorative elements inspired by nature endowed things as varied as kitchen utensils, door handles, metro stations, flower vases and even furnishing fabrics with an entirely new shape, look and colour. Here are dozens of examples just from Gustav Klimt alone, many rarely reproduced in book form, and often with full page zoom-in details to expand our knowledge. Here are posters, book covers, illustrations and designs, hundreds upon hundreds, all in colour and glorious


photographs of the most luxurious furniture by Eugene Gaillard and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Liberty sofas and mirrors, Alphonse Mucha’s exquisite stained glass in situ in an interior and dozens of examples of Tiffany glass like his Hibiscus and Parrots to Hoffmann’s more functional sleek glasses. Exquisitely produced by Scala.


ONLY £29.50


68698 FRA ANGELICO by Diane Cole Ahl


Born in Mugello, Tuscany, as Guido di Pietro, Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455) was given his infamous title by his Dominican Order. They called him Angelicus pictor (angelic painter), on account of both his skill and piety. Dedicating his life and talent to the service of God, the friar painted altarpieces, frescoes and manuscripts of supreme beauty for over four decades. He is today one of the most celebrated painters of the early Italian Renaissance, whose works still resonate with religious sensitivity, and was formally beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In 240 10"×11½” pages of heavyweight paper, it presents all of Fra Angelico’s most famous works, mostly full page or double page spread, and sets them all in their full historical and cultural context. There are appendices featuring digital reconstructions of the churches and priories where his altarpieces and frescoes were originally created, mini- biographies of important people in his life story, a life chronology and context of events plus a glossary with map. 166 colour reproductions. First time discounted. £39.95 NOW £25


69578 NOBLE DREAMS, WICKED PLEASURES: Orientalism in


America, 1870-1930


edited by Holly Edwards A rare exhibition catalogue packed with armchair orientalism where we may enjoy the beautiful artworks of Henry Siddons Mowbray, Turkish cigarette advertising for Fatima Cigarettes with a veiled beauty,


Omar Cigarettes with a big jolly, turbaned Arab, travelogue posters, orientalism in fashion, harem envy, the artwork of Maxfield Parrish, tableware, vases, furniture, paintings, caricatures and contemporary photographs. The book explores complex American attitudes towards the Near East. It is a gorgeously illustrated volume looking at Orientalist stereotypes by some of the country’s most important high art painters of the 19th century - Frederic Edwin Church, John Singer Sargent, landscapes and market scenes of Samuel Colman and Louis Comfort Tiffany, Henry O. Tanner and others. 12" x 9" large softback, 224pp. £39.95 NOW £17.50


70014 SPLENDORS OF ANCIENT PERSIA by Henri Stierlin


Now, thanks to recent discoveries, experts can reach back to prehistoric times and examine the art of Persia prior to the Arab conquest and the dominance of Islam, that is, up to the middle of the 7th century AD. In addition to strictly Persian sites, the book also examines monuments built in Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia and along the Upper Euphrates, making incursions into the eastern kingdoms in the vicinity of the Indus river. This comprehensive selection also includes the local kingdoms of Marlik, Urartu, Luristan and that of the Scythians, as well as the immense Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus and Darius who, interestingly, employed Greek architects and sculptors from Ionia. Both text and illustrations feature breathtaking masterpieces such as the gold treasures and palaces of Persepolis and the ceramics of Northern Iran. The book ends with the architecture and sculpture of Hatra and the rock reliefs of the powerful Sassanian dynasty that was the enemy of Rome and Byzantium. 280 pages 26cm x 36cm teeming with glorious colour photos, with map, chronological index and glossary.


£30 NOW £20


67323 ART NOUVEAU by Gordon Kerr 80 full page photos of masterpieces of Art Nouveau design, with a short general introduction to familiarise the reader with names such as Tiffany, Liberty, Lloyd Wright, Sullivan, Mucha, Siegfried Bing and others. It also outlines the development of the style which included swirling organic forms on the one hand and the geometric


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