Poems of pure imagination

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Susanna Brown

"The first major book to celebrate the entire career of legendary fashion photographer Horst P. Horst. The first comprehensive book on Horst P. Horst, this richly illustrated survey accompanies a retrospective of the photographer's career, spanning fashion, nudes, portraiture, interiors, and art, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. For an incredible six decades, Horst's work graced the pages and covers of Vogue, beginning in the 1930s alongside luminaries such as Cecil Beaton and George Hoyningen-Huene. With equal admiration for the physical ideals of classical sculpture and the surrealism of Salvador Dali, Horst crafted some of fashion's most iconic images. Newly researched essays follow the photographer as he captured--and mingled with--the great thinkers, designers, and muses of his day, among them Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel. Known first as a master photographer of French and British couture, Horst also left his mark on interior and lifestyle photography with his work in House & Garden. This survey traces a career remarkable for its range, daring, and depth."--

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Lou Ann Walker

Discusses the work of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and describes how he develops a painting from original idea to finished piece.

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R.B. Parkinson

When was the first chat line between men established? Who was the first "lesbian"? Were ancient Greek men who had sex with each other necessarily "gay," and what did Shakespeare think about crossdressing? A Little Gay History answers these questions and more through close readings of art objects from the British Museum's far-ranging collection. Consulting ancient Egyptian papyri, the Roman Warren Cup's erotic figures, David Hockney's vivid prints, and dozens of other artifacts, R. B. Parkinson draws attention to a diverse range of same-sex experiences and situates them within specific historical and cultural contexts. The first of its kind, A Little Gay History builds a complex and creative portrait of love's many guises.

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Kathleen Nicholson

Now famous for their immediate impact of color, light, and atmostpheric effect, the landscapes of Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) were at first the object of opposing critical claims: from one side the British artist was charged with painting "pictures of nothing and very like," from the other, with allowing too much "content" to eclipse his presentation of nature. Taking this paradox as its starting point, Kathleen Nicholson's richly illustrated book proposes a thorough revision of how we understand the enigmatic artist who revolutionized landscape painting. Advancing the growing interest in Turner's handling of content, without ignoring questions of style, Nicholson shows how Turner used the themes of antiquity to explore the ways natural imagery can embody meaning, and how he came to view interpretation itself as a primary subject. Nicholson maintains that by seeking themes in ancient myth, culture, and history, Turner was able to reinvest nature with new values and concepts, thereby accomplishing a genuinely modern revision of classical landscape in an early nineteenth-century idiom. His inquiry into the nature of meaning, she argues, led him to articulate a narrative that engaged the viewer in "reading" or interpreting both symbolic and purely visual imagery - a narrative that finds its most striking enactment in his 1806 work The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides. Among the first to analyze systematically the themes treated in Turner's early sketchbooks, Nicholson traces the artist's understanding of a given legend, ancient author, or formal source as it developed over time, providing rare insight into the extent and character of his manipulation of subject matter. -- from dust jacket.