The art world has become a point of contention within a range of debates and yet, strangely enough, while art criticism has been discussed at length, very little is said about art critics. Following in the footsteps of Lionello Venturi’s History of Art Criticism, in the current volume Lorente provides an updated reassessment of the great art critics from the Enlightenment down to the turn of the millennium. Conceived as a didactic handbook with a recommended bibliography at the end of each chapter, this concise work tells the history of a profession in permanent crisis, while also paying homage to its most influential practitioners in different cultural contexts.

The present volume shows the archaeological thinking as a form of art, revealing the poetics of the archaeological imagination. It shows that, in their work, archaeologists, without being inspired by contemporary artists, use creative methods, and their analysis of the art of the Past goes beyond the material culture of the art objects, into the realm of the mental processes of creation. Consequently, the purpose of this book is to present the archaeological research functioning as a sort of artistic creation, proposing new perspectives on the archaeological imagination. It offers an exploration of the creative processes, the possibility of finding inspiration in experientiality, and the approach to the act of creation as a subject for archaeological research. When analysing the art of the Past, or when using art methods to approach the Past, we are facing an act of creation where imagination, emotion, and creativity combine under the form of an experiential instrument of investigation. The book offers a vision of archaeological research, a means to understand the complexity of the human nature, and consequently, to approach the human thinking structured on similarity and symbolism, being able to detect cultural and psychological subjects ignored until today, and, at the same time, to offer a series of visions of art, seen from the perspective of archaeology.

Founded as a sovereign Commonwealth in 1901, a dominion in the British Empire, Australia set out immediately to present itself to the world as a nation with a great future. This book relates the untold story of how Australia’s first diplomatic mission was conceived, designed and built. Its international showcase was to be Australia House, a splendid purpose-built building at the Aldwych in the very heart of London, the Imperial capital, and of world trade and prosperity. Commenced in 1913, Australia House was opened in 1918 while the Great War still raged. It is a story of ambitions and achievements – global, imperial, local and personal. ‘This meticulous and engaging study, remarkable for the depth and breadth of its scholarship, shows that the new Federation’s projection of its growing national pride and self-assurance via an imposing stone building was also part of the quest to make of London a city that fully expressed the ambition, achievement and grandeur of empire.’ Frank Bongiorno FRHistS FASSA, Professor of History, Australian National University ‘The story of the building [of Australia House] and the wider context of the Holburn to Strand improvements at Aldwych of which it formed part is here brilliantly told.’ David M. Walker, Dictionary of Scottish Architects

The image is an ontological paradox; it is made of dead matter, yet appears to be alive. For centuries, artists have created images of the living world – images that are static and yet possess the power to bring to life a frozen moment in time. While this tension has constituted a fundamental challenge for as long as theories on the nature of images have existed, recent scholarship has rekindled interest in the question of what images ‘do to us’. Despite the rational discourse of Modernity, we must acknowledge that we view images as half-living entities. Dead or Alive! addresses the perpetual relevance of images’ enigmatic life-likeness. Each of the twelve chapters, written by scholars of art history and visual culture, conveys how the materiality of images generates this powerful effect of animation. Covering a wide range of practices, from early paleolithic stone engravings, medieval tomb sculpture, renaissance death masks and baroque painting to modern fashion, park design, early cinema, robots and bio art, the book demonstrates that the ontological paradox of the image is not limited to a specific historical period or certain types of images, but can be seen throughout the history of images across different cultures.

Since early discoveries of so-called Celtic Art during the 19th century, archaeologists have mused on the origins of this major art tradition, which emerged in Europe around 500 BC. Classical influence has often been cited as the main impetus for this new and distinctive way of decorating, but although Classical and Celtic Art share certain motifs, many of the design principles behind the two styles differ fundamentally. Instead, the idea that Celtic Art shares its essential forms and themes of transformation and animism with Iron Age art from across northern Eurasia has recently gained currency, partly thanks to a move away from the study of motifs in prehistoric art and towards considerations of the contexts in which they appear. This volume explores Iron Age art at different scales and specifically considers the long-distance connections, mutual influences and shared ‘ways of seeing’ that link Celtic Art to other art traditions across northern Eurasia. It brings together 13 papers on varied subjects such as animal and human imagery, technologies of production and the design theory behind Iron Age art, balancing pan-Eurasian scale commentary with regional and site scale studies and detailed analyses of individual objects, as well as introductory and summary papers. This multi-scalar approach allows connections to be made across wide geographical areas, whilst maintaining the detail required to carry out sensitive studies of objects.

In Knowing and Seeing, muralist Douglas Cooper reflects on his long career as a muralist in various cities around the world. Part memoir and part an examination of his art, Cooper looks back on his half-century career from two points of view. First, through personal anecdotes on site sketches and finished works, and secondly, on the intellectual roots of the works. Though the core ideas of his work began in Pittsburgh, Cooper has exhibited work and produced murals, up to 200 feet long, in Cologne, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle, Qatar, Frankfurt, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC. Memory has been a recurring theme in his art. All of Cooper’s works are driven by a desire to combine his conception of place with his perception of it—knowing and seeing. Knowing and Seeing features personal essays and more than 240 color images, including early Christian and Renaissance paintings as well as contemporary murals and other illustrations of Cooper’s unique work.

Motivated by the inexorable rise of urban-industrial development and the subsequent deterioration of our planet, artists confront the contemporary vulnerability of our natural world, and illustrate the continued relevance of ecology and nature conservation to contemporary artistic practice, and global climate change. In Fragile Earth: The Naturalist Impulse in Contemporary Art, leading artists Jennifer Angus, Mark Dion, Courtney Mattison, and James Prosek make natural elements their medium conceptually and literally. From prints created with eel bodies and moth wings, to ceramic sculpture mimicking coral bleaching, cabinets filled with colorful plastic collected from oceans and rivers, and walls covered with shockingly beautiful, preserved insects, the artwork reflects an artist’s perspective to natural science, these essays and written conversations showcase the persuasive role artists can play in advocating for the preservation of earth.

For the first time, Craigie Aitchison and the Beaux Arts Generation tells the story of Craigie Aitchison’s role amongst the bright young figurative painters of post-war London. Along with Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Euan Uglow, Aitchison belonged to ‘the Beaux Arts generation’: a set of highly talented painters first shown at the Beaux Arts Gallery by Helen Lessore. Under her discerning gaze, the early careers of these five artists were launched and close friendships formed, even as a wild divergence of artistic styles took place. By the time of its closure in 1965, Lessore’s gallery had laid the foundations for the next five decades of British art. The book accompanies Piano Nobile’s exhibition of the same title. A memoir by Susan Campbell provides a first-hand insight into the student days of Aitchison, Andrews and Uglow. Herself a student at the Slade School of Fine Art and an erstwhile visitor to the Beaux Arts Gallery, Campbell contributes a vivid account of these artists and their early careers. The book further includes three definitive texts by Aitchison, Andrews and Auerbach. First published in 1959 and 1960 by the literary arts magazine X: A Quarterly Review, these short essays provide a cogent insight into the three artists’ thinking. The book also comprises a fully-illustrated catalogue of forty-eight works. A first section presents a significant group of works by Aitchison, followed by a second section with paintings, watercolours and drawings by Andrews, Auerbach, Kossoff and Uglow. Many works are drawn from private collections and have not previously been published.

Revolutionary artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857−1907), baker’s daughter from Hartford, Connecticut, biked and hiked from the Arctic Circle to Naples, exhibited from Paris to Indianapolis, trained at the Art Students League, chafed against art world rules that favored men, wrote thousands of pages about her travels and work, taught at Smith College for nearly two decades, but sadly ended up almost totally obscure. In 2012, her confessional letters and hundreds of her paintings and sketches turned up in storage at a Connecticut family’s home. Her first biography reveals her as feisty, funny, self-deprecating, caustically critical of mainstream art, and observant of everything from soldiers’ epaulettes to colorful produce layered on delivery trucks. She was determined to paint portraits and landscapes in her distinctive style. The book reproduces her unpublished artworks.

Acknowledged as the journal of record in its field, American Furniture presents new research on furniture design, use, production, and appreciation. Begun in 1993, this award-winning annual provides a comprehensive forum on furniture history, technology, connoisseurship, and conservation by the foremost scholars in the field. It is the only interdisciplinary journal devoted exclusively to furniture made or used in the Americas from the seventeenth century to the present.

Behind rolling hills, overlooking the fjord and the islands of Southern Funen, you will find Faaborg Museum. With its boldly coloured walls and decorative tile floors made from local clay, the building has quite literally sprung from Funen soil in a symbiosis of local nature and culture. Inside, visitors will find art by the ‘Funen Painters’, created during the period 1880 to 1928 when Faaborg was home to one of Denmark’s pre-eminent artists’ colonies. With their paintings of rural Funen, farmworkers and domestic scenes, the artists Peter Hansen, Fritz and Anna Syberg, Jens Birkholm and Johannes Larsen introduced new subject matter and new methods of painting in Danish art. Faaborg Museum was founded in 1910 by Mads Rasmussen, art patron and manufacturer of tinned goods and preserves. The museum was intended as a celebration of the art created in and around Faaborg. Together with the artists, he commissioned the architect Carl Petersen to create a building to house the museum’s collection – a building that is now acclaimed as a masterpiece of neoclassical architecture and embodies a rare union of art, architecture and design. Faaborg Museum and the Artists’ Colony presents the history of Faaborg Museum, its architecture, collection and artists to international audiences for the first time. Lavishly illustrated, the book features architectural photographs and plans as well as dozens of reproductions of the museum’s art.

In past years, Miquel Barceló has been depicted in various and yet contrasting ways, including the new Picasso, the rebel, the genius, or the joker. This book’s primary goal is to situate the artist within contemporary critical debate, discussing his production during the Postmodern Era and analysing his affinity with Hypermodernity. Through the comparison of Barcelό’s writings, declarations, and works, the study examines the artist’s autofiction, creating a connection between his hyperindividualism (which is discussed in relation to the Hypermodern Era) and the oceanic feeling. The book presents numerous unpublished materials, mostly contained in the artist’s journals or gained during numerous meetings with the artist, providing the reader with a tool to understand Barceló’s art, and also hopefully, the times we are living in.

Following the sell-out 2014 publication ‘Paul Nash: Watercolours 1910 – 1946' this revised and expanded edition has been published to coincide with an exhibition of Paul Nash’s work in New York, May 2019. The fully illustrated catalogue includes major oils as well as watercolours, prints and photographs and examines one of Britain’s most acclaimed artists of the twentieth century. Written by David Boyd Haycock, author of 'Paul Nash' (Tate Publishing, 2002) and the hugely successful 'A Crisis of Brilliance' (Old Street Publishing, 2009), the catalogue charts the whole of Nash's career from his early days before studying at the Slade School of Art, through to his time at the Western Front during World War I as a serving officer and then an official War Artist, and to his mature Surrealist-era works. In this centenary year that marks the official end to the First World War, the publication reflects on Nash’s unprecedented impact on British Art and the lingering contemporary power of his works today. This selection of works is drawn from major museum and private collections, and includes several hitherto unseen works, spanning all the major genres and themes present in Nash’s diverse career.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, upended traditional practices of how art is made and marketed. A key figure in minimalism and conceptualism, he proclaimed that the work of the mind is much more important than that of the hand. For his site-specific work—wall drawings and sculpture in dozens of countries—he created the idea and basic plan and then hired young artists to install the pieces. Though typically enormous and intricate, the physical works held no value. The worth was in the pieces of paper that certified and described them. LeWitt championed and financially supported colleagues, including women artists brushed aside by the bullies of a male-dominated profession. Yet the man himself has remained an enigma, as he refused to participate in the culture of celebrity. Lary Bloom's book draws on personal recollections of LeWitt, whom he knew in the last years of the artist's life, as well as LeWitt's letters and papers and over one hundred original interviews with his friends and colleagues, including Chuck Close, Ingrid Sischy, Philip Glass, Adrian Piper, Jan Dibbets, and Carl Andre. This absorbing chronicle brings new information to our understanding of this important artist, linking the extraordinary arc of his life to his iconic work. Includes 28 illustrations.

Published to accompany the exhibition, Leon Kossoff: A London Life, this fully illustrated catalogue examines the paintings and drawings of one of Britain’s most acclaimed living artists. With a catalogue raisonné of Kossoff’s paintings in preparation, this is an apt moment to consider his oeuvre. The publication brings together masterworks from each period of the artist’s career, demonstrating the unwavering rigour, the nuance and the psychological intensity of his output. The exhibition explores the artist’s working practice and his creative environment. The city of his birth, London has played a central role in his career and many cityscapes will be on display – from Willesden Junction to Christ Church, Spitalfields. His friends and family have also contributed to his vision and the exhibition will reflect on the relationship between the artist and his models. Together, these landscape and figure paintings will present an irrefutable argument for Leon Kossoff’s place in the canon of modern master painters. The publication has an introduction by Jackie Wullschlager (chief art critic for The Financial Times) and essays by Andrew Dempsey and Lulu Norman (writer and translator).

Since the middle of the twentieth century, visual art has displayed an ambivalent nature, torn between the poles of abstractionism and realism, conceptual and postmodern, classicist nostalgia and the violent provocation for its own sake. This essay builds an argument in favour of tracing a different path for the visual arts, in which art might be able to recover its fullness and universality. The artists analysed in this volume – starting with Hopper and Balthus, singled out as precursors – appear to be following this shared path, even though they belong to different generations. Perhaps for this reason, they have for the most part been misunderstood by their contemporary critics. As in the art of Ancient Greece or the Middle Ages abstract tensions that intensify the visual field can bring simple figures to life, radically changing their meaning. This is a “sunniness” that is akin to the Claritas with which Medieval scholastics indicated the splendour of the works of their times. We’ll have to undertake a tireless process of exercising our perceptions, if we wish to be able to grasp its basic aesthetic quality.