Ever since Linda Nochlin asked in 1971, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’, art history has been probing the female gaze. Through scholarship and exhibitions, readings have been put in place to counter prevailing assumptions that artistic creativity is primarily a masculine affair. Fifty Works by Fifty British Women functions as a corrective to the exclusion of women from the ‘master’ narratives of art. It introduces fifty artworks by known and lesser-known women – outstanding works that speak out. Fifty commentaries by fifty different writers bring out each artwork’s unique story – sometimes from an objective art historical perspective and sometimes from an entirely personal point of view – thereby creating a rich and colourful diorama. This exhibition does not, however, attempt to present a survey or to address all the arguments around the history of women and art. Anthologies are of necessity incomplete, and many remarkable imaginations are not here represented. Women artists have been set apart from male artists not only to their own disadvantage but also to the detriment of British art. While there were some improvements for women to access an artistic career in the twentieth century in terms of patronage, economics and critical attention – all the things that confer professional status – women had the least of everything. By showcasing just a few of the remarkable works produced, this exhibition draws attention to the fact that a vision of British twentieth century art closer to a 50/50 balance would not only provide a truer account, but also a more vivid and meaningful narrative.

Published to accompany Piano Nobile's exhibition of the same title, Cyril Mann: The Solid Shadow Paintings, is the first book to describe this vivid and art historically significant group of still-life paintings. As well as including a fully-illustrated catalogue of the exhibition, the book describes how Mann's solid shadow style emerged in the early nineteen-fifties. Though Mann spent the rest of his career painting natural light, the solid shadow paintings were made under the glow of an electric lightbulb. After moving into a lightless flat at Old Street, Mann’s pictures began to course with unnatural, electric colour. For the first time, he noticed the line that joins together an object with the shadow it casts. He depicted this line in his paintings as if it were itself a solid object, laid on the table before him beside apples and Pelican paperbacks. Undertaken between 1951 and 1957, Mann's solid shadow paintings were a dazzling interjection in the subdued art world of fifties Britain. This was his most original period and it stands as his lasting contribution to the history of twentieth-century painting. These works have never been displayed together before and the accompanying exhibition to this catalogue will provide an insight into the artist’s radiant formal language.

Connecticut boasts some of the oldest and most distinctive architecture in New England, from Colonial churches and Modernist houses to refurbished nineteenth-century factories. The state’s history includes landscapes of small farmsteads, country churches, urban streets, tobacco sheds, quiet maritime villages, and town greens, as well as more recent suburbs and corporate headquarters. In his guide to this rich and diverse architectural heritage, Christopher Wigren introduces readers to 100 places across the state. Written for travelers and residents alike, the book features buildings visible from the road. Featuring more than 200 illustrations, the book is organized thematically. Sections include concise entries that treat notable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities, emphasizing the importance of the built environment and its impact on our sense of place. The text highlights key architectural features and trends and relates buildings to the local and regional histories they represent. There are suggestions for further reading and a helpful glossary of architectural termsA project of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, the book reflects more than 30 years of fieldwork and research in statewide architectural survey and National Register of Historic Places programs.

This book analyzes the rise of the earliest Greek temples through an innovative phenomenological approach, in which lived experiences are assumed as key tools of investigation. Accordingly, much space is dedicated to exploring the connections that tied the Greeks to their surroundings environment, by surviving records of Greek religion, poetry, art, philosophy and architecture from the archaic times. This framework sheds a new light on the relationship between ‘human’ and ‘divine’ in the ancient Greek world, suggesting that the archetypal structure of temple was devised to facilitate a particular kind of experience, that of the Divine. Such an experience produced a break from ordinary and profane life, allowing a special awareness to be gained. The findings and method of this book enable us to bridge the gap between our present days and that distant era, rediscovering our ancient past as an endless source of inspiration.

Pigments described by the English chemist, Robert Dossie, the French artists' colourman, Jean Félix Watin, and the London-based pigment maker, Constant de Massoul. 18th century European painting saw the introduction of new pigments to the painters’ palettes, from Prussian Blue to the early synthetics such as Patent Yellow. It was a century rich in pigments, the authors of the treatises listing over 150 pigments that could be bought in the shops in London and Paris.

In 2018 the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts will celebrate its 40th anniversary. Opened in 1978, the building was both Sir Norman Foster’s first public commission and a new paradigm in museum design. The Sainsbury Centre forms part of one of the last, great phases of modernism, combining structural integrity and precision engineering with a radical approach to the integration of services. The publication will be released to coincide with the opening of Superstructures: The New Architecture 1960-1990, a major exhibition that will situate the Sainsbury Centre within its historical context and will explore architecture’s fascination with new technology, lightweight structures, building techniques and engineering solutions that emerged in the post-war decades, eventually redefining the spaces of culture, work, travel and living. Contents of the book include essays by Jane Pavitt and Abraham Thomas, curators of the show, and an interview to Sir Norman Foster conducted by Jonathan Glancey. An extensive photo essay will feature a range of unpublished photographs of the building under construction.

Many voices today call for a profound rethinking of European identity. If we wish to answer their call, however, it is necessary to start with a reconsideration of the notion of boundaries, particularly as they are at work in the Mediterranean region. The knowledge and cultural values of the Mediterranean may be the driving force able to overcome the impasse from which Europe seems unable to free itself. This volume focuses on the opportunity to employ Mediterranean knowledge and cultural values as a stimulus for the review of European policies, in the interest of creating a solid bridge between different cultural legacies and over the daunting challenges of our shared future. This means being able to stay – simul – outside and inside the borders, within and beyond the “un”- limit; looking for an image of Europe which finally stops thinking about the Mediterranean as its internal vulnus, as its lesion and contamination. This volume suggests how it is possible to think both inside and outside of borders, combining the ‘foreign’ forces of promiscuity, exchange, latency, expectancy and hope, with a ‘domestic’ circulation of thought and knowledge, in the interest of a defense of all cultures and of an egalitarian recognition of the right to dignity.

ACE Report 41, The Cemetery of Meir Vol. IV: Tombs of Senbi I and Wekhhotep I, by N. Kanawati and L. Evans, is now available. The volume is devoted to the Middle Kingdom tombs of B1 and B2, which belonged to local ruler Senbi I and his son and successor Wekhhotep I. Presenting a full description of both tombs and illustrated with extensive colour plates and line drawings, Report 41 contains a wealth of information about the art and funeral practices of Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty.

Alan Sorrell’s archaeological reconstruction drawings and paintings remain some of the best, most accurate and most accomplished paintings of their genre that continue to inform our understanding and appreciation of historic buildings and monuments in Europe, the Near East and throughout the UK. His famously stormy and smoky townscapes, especially those of Roman Britain, were based on meticulous attention to detail borne of detailed research in collaboration with archaeologists such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Cyril Fox and Sir Barry Cunliffe, who excavated and recorded his subjects of interest. Many of his reconstructions were commissioned to accompany visitor information and guidebooks at historic sites and monuments where they continue to be displayed. But archaeological subjects were not his only interest. His output was prodigious: he painted murals, portraits, imaginative and romantic scenes and was an accomplished war artist, serving in the RAF in World War II. In this affectionate but objective account, Sorrell’s children, both also artists, present a brief pictorial biography followed by more detailed descriptions of the genesis, research and production of illustrations that demonstrate the artist’s integrity and vision, based largely on family archives and illustrated throughout with Sorrell’s own works. So influential were Sorrell’s images of Roman towns such as London, Colchester, Wroxeter, St Albans and Bath, buildings such as the Heathrow temple and the forts of Hadrian’s Wall, that he became known as the man who invented Roman Britain.

Three texts by two Italian Renaissance painters – Leonardo da Vinci and Gian Paolo Lomazzo – and a compendium of the 53 standard pigments commonly found on artists' palettes for painting in oil on panel and on canvas as outlined by the writer, Raffaello Borghini, make up this 16th century collection of pigments. Leonardo's studio advice on the use of colours for capturing light and dark picks up this theme from Italian 15th century and classical painting and lays the foundation for this practice as it would develop in European painting. The plates are of works by Titian found in the National Gallery in London, whose pigments have been identified and matched to the paintings.

The sources of pigments used in European painting are found in classical antiquity, 1st. century B.C. to 1st century A.D. The over 40 pigments in use were described by Vitruvius, Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, complemented by 3rd

The Art of Asger Jorn is the first major work about one of Denmark's most important painters, Asger Jorn (1914-1973). It is not a typical biography depicting the outline of his life. Rather, the book sheds light on Jorn's artistic production: Who he was inspired by, which artistic movements he was in contact with, and - not least - what his paintings depict. This is also the focus of The Art of Asger Jorn in which Lars Morell, a Danish historian of ideas, analyzes Jorn's paintings. The author concludes that Jorn's paintings do not depict anything specific. Indeed, it is as if Jorn seized them in the midst of transformation, where the subject is turning into a new subject. Morell finds that the paradoxes and transformations characteristic of the works were influenced by the ever-changing nature of Jorn's own life. Asger Jorn was born in Denmark, but spent the majority of his artistic life abroad with workshops in both Paris and the Italian city of Albissola, famous for its skilled ceramic artisans. While abroad he discovered his great connection to the Nordic culture, and through his work with ceramics, he gained the necessary experience to liberate the colours of his paintings. While first and foremost a painter, he refined this artform by interacting with a variety of other art forms. The Art of Asger Jorn is thus not just a book about a single artist's work, but also a book about the mindset of modern art.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists - Walter Sickert, David Bomberg, L.S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer and Francis Bacon & Lucien Freud. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work.

Polish journalist Pawel Pieniazek was among the first journalists to enter the war-torn region of eastern Ukraine and Greetings from Novorossiya is his vivid firsthand account of the conflict. He was the first reporter to reach the scene when Russian troops in Ukraine accidentally shot down a civilian airliner, killing all 298 people aboard. Unlike Western journalists, his fluency in both Ukrainian and Russian granted him access and the ability to move among all sides in the conflict. With powerful color photos, telling interviews from the local population, and brilliant reportage, Pieniazek’s account documents these dramatic events as they transpired.This unique firsthand view of history in the making brings to life the tragedy of Ukraine for a Western audience. Historian Timothy Snyder provides wider context in his superb introduction and explores the significance of this ongoing conflict at the border of East and West.

Published to accompany the exhibition at Piano Nobile that concentrates on the years after the Second World War when Bomberg became an influential teacher at the Borough Polytechnic, the fully illustrated catalogue Bomberg / Marr: Spirits in the Mass will be the first examination of the personal and creative bonds uniting these two pioneers of modern British painting. Both artists endeavoured to strip the external world to its bare essentials. Often using powerful organic tonalities, Bomberg and Marr worked toward a vigorous expression of their subjects through an architectural and analytic, yet fraught and unstable formal construction. Alongside other much-admired students at the Borough Polytechnic such as Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, Marr sought out what Bomberg described as 'the spirit in the mass': a sense of immanence, of intangible significance held in the painter's communion with the shifting solidity of the physical world. Presenting a discerning selection of major works, Bomberg / Marr: Spirits in the Mass will place Marr, for the first time, in his rightful place as not just a pupil of Bomberg's but a peer. Through these rarely exhibited landscapes, self-portraits, and still lifes from private collections and Marr's personal collection, this cayalogue aims to achieve a fuller appreciation of both artists.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Sophie Hatchwell, academic at Bristol University, focuses on the sales history of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, two titans of modern art. Both controversial, revered, and celebrated in their lifetime, this publication will explore how their work has fared at auctions since 1990. Comparing the fortunes of both, Sophie Hatchwell examines how genres, media, significant sales and exhibitions, and their deaths have impacted upon the value of their work individually. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices. This edition on Bacon and Freud marks the fifth and final publication of the Nobile Index series. To celebrate its release, a commemorative edition comprising all five publications, on Sickert, Bomberg, Lowry, Spencer, and Bacon and Freud will be produced.