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 Sir Stanley Spencer from 1990-2015. Stanley Spencer, arguably one of the greatest British artists of the twentieth-century, is also renowned for his chequered sales history and money struggles. This rigorous study into the prices his work now commands at auctions demonstrates the significance of major sales over the past twenty-five years and the increasing value the market place supon Spencer's paintings. Evaluating general market trends, genres and media amongst other factors, Sophie Hatchwell's investigation provides an invaluable source of information on Stanley Spencer as an artist and the legacy and future of his work within the art market. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction by renowned Spencer specialist Professor Paul Gough, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices.

Described as an artist of “prodigious imagination and intelligence” by the New York Times, Jill Sigman makes art at the intersection of dance, visual art, and social practice. An artist’s book that explores the ability of art to engage and alter our reality, Ten Huts documents a series of site-specific huts hand built from found and repurposed materials, ranging from the mundane (e-waste and plastic bottles) to the bizarre (circus detritus, moose bones, dental molds, and mugwort), in landscapes as varied as industrial Brooklyn and the Norwegian Arctic. Each of the extraordinary huts in this book is a structure, a sculpture, and an emergency preparedness kit which raises questions about sustainability, shelter, real estate, and our future on this planet. An essay by the artist and and five short scholarly pieces provide multiple entrance points to the work and link issues surrounding choreography, waste, environment, and society. Includes essays by André Lepecki (performance studies), Matthew McLendon (art history), Elise Springer (philosophy), Eva Yaa Asantewaa (dance), and Thomas Hylland Eriksen (anthropology). Includes 473 color photographs.

The papers collected in this volume deal with the explorations of Science Fiction, Fantasy and, more generally, the representation of otherness through the narrative construction of fantastic, imaginary, appalling or attractive places, stories and figures. Contributions are arranged in four main sections. The first section (Other spaces, new worlds) deals with Hindi and Arabic Science Fiction. The second section (Constructing forms of otherness) analyses the narrative and psychological mechanisms that give forms to a stereotype or archetypical image of the threatening Other. The third section ((Re)shaping style(s), language(s) and discourse(s) of otherness) is centred on the idea of language as a tool to build up styles, genres and texts, and literature as an escape from disappointing history and a cross-cultural wandering space of narrative ghosts. The fourth section (Circulating fearful otherness) tests the limits and heuristic potential of a philological approach in reconstructing the wide circulation of motifs and characters from antiquity to (post-)modernity.

First published to accompany major retrospective exhibitions at West Cork Arts Centre and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), this full-colour illustrated monograph explores William Crozier’s whole career, taking in the second half of the twentieth century – a key period in the development of British and Irish art. The catalogue is furnished with essays presenting brand new research by renown art historians and curators, Illuminated by unpublished sources and personal memoirs. What emerges is a picture of the continuum that runs through all of Crozier’s work, revealing a fascinating narrative that, far from a story of transformation from darker, earlier imagery into the apparent hedonism of later landscapes, is one of continuity of purpose in Crozier’s mind-set that connects 1950s Britain and Ireland with the concerns of the new millennium. Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, Crozier consciously allied himself and his work with contemporary European art throughout the 1950s and 1960s, towards painters such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung and Nicolas de Staël. The landscape became the source of visceral paintings: For Crozier, ravaged landscapes symbolised the torment and fear of the post-war condition at the heart of existentialism. Only ten years separate these images of traumatized humanity from the luxuriantly colourful works inspired by the landscape of West Cork. His early skill as a colourist reaches its zenith in paintings that capture the essence and appearance of the West Cork landscape in ways immediately recognisable to the viewer, but they are also concerned to capture a landscape during a period of great physical and social change. Crozier believed that when painting the Irish landscape he must, “Tell the truth. Say it simply.”

In this gorgeous book, the acclaimed photographer Rose Eichenbaum captures the spirit, beauty, and commitment of dancers along with the dancers’ own words of wisdom and guidance. More than 250 color and black and white photographs are paired with inspirational quotes from legendary and emerging dancers, including Bill T. Jones, Katherine Dunham, Ann Reinking, Mark Morris, Pina Bausch, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Gregory Hines, Mitzi Gaynor, Desmond Richardson, Rennie Harris, Paul Taylor, Ohad Naharin, Tiler Peck, and many more. Here, words and images explore creativity, art making, the communicative power of the human body, the challenges of balancing everyday life with the physical and practical demands of the dancer’s art, and more. In these intimate portraits, Eichenbaum reveals and celebrates the world of the dancer. Sensual and mesmerizing, these images will entrance dancer and non-dancer alike—as well as anyone who loves fine photography—with their powerful depiction of the human body.

First published to accompany the exhibition, John Golding: Pure Colour Sensation at Piano Nobile gallery, this fully colour illustrated catalogue showcases fifteen years of exceptional paintings by John Golding. Although an acclaimed art historian, Golding considered himself, first and foremost, a painter. His work features in prominent institutions such as the Tate, MoMA, the Scottish National Gallery, the British Council, and the Yale Center for British Art. Golding had numerous one-man shows in the UK and abroad, and also participated in many group exhibitions, including international shows with his close friend Bridget Riley. He was appointed a CBE in 1992 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.The publication presents a survey of works from the 1970s and 1980s, ranging from large scale canvases to both small and large pastels. Golding's work, although abstract, repeatedly returns to the human body. The monumental canvases and the tactile handling of paint through expressive layering of pigment demand a visceral physical reaction from the viewer. Speaking in an interview for Artists' Lives, Golding recollected that his turn to abstraction was in "recognition of what was happening in America in the 1950s…the most important thing going on in painting [of the day]". In his abstract paintings, both intimate and large in scale, Golding sought unadulterated formal brilliance, letting colour and composition take prominence, "so that there is nothing getting between you and the pure colour sensation."Dr David Anfam's introductory essay explores the roots of Golding's abstract work in the early figurative painting he produced whilst living in Mexico. Analysing the influence of the great Mexican muralists during Golding's formative years, Anfam charts the progression of Golding's vision that culminated in the exceptionally accomplished and joyful body of the work produced in the 1970s and 1980s and reproduced in this publication.

Mexican-American life, like that of nearly every contemporary community, has been extensively photographed. Yet there is surprisingly little scholarship on Chicano photography. Picturing the Barrio presents the first book-length examination on the topic. David William Foster analyzes the imagery of ten distinctive artists who offer a range of approaches to portraying Chicano life. The production of each artist is examined as an ideological interpretation of how Chicano experience is constructed and interpreted through the medium of photography, in sites ranging from the traditional barrio to large metropolitan societies. These photographers present artistic as well as documentary images of the socially invisible. They and their subjects grapple with definitions of identity, as well as ethnicity and gender. As such, this study deepens our understanding of the many interpretations of the "Chicano experience."

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.

Foreword by Jonathan GreenFor over fifty years, John and Vivian Hewitt visited galleries, artists' studios, and exhibitions in the United States, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in the Americas, collecting hundreds of paintings, etchings, and sketches. The John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art represents fifty-eight works that celebrate the expression and passion of twenty artists, including Romare Bearden, Margaret Burroughs, Jonathan Green, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Ann Tanksley, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Hewitts believed that sharing their collection with the public would enhance the visibility of artists of African descent and showcase their cultural contributions. The Hewitt Collection was subsequently acquired by the Bank of America and generously donated to The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture in Charlotte, North Carolina. This book contains all fifty-eight works from the collection, exquisitely reproduced in full color. Grace C. Stanislaus provides a text on the significance of the collection that is supplemented by interviews with Vivian Hewitt, David Taylor of the Gantt Center, and art collectors Harmon and Harriett Kelley, and Nancy Washington.

Peter Coker: Mind and Matter is a fully-illustrated catalogue presenting a selection of exceptional works by Peter Coker (1926-2004), bringing together pieces spanning the early 1950s through to the mid-1980s. The first publication focusing on Coker’s works in over a decade, the catalogue will seek to reassess Coker’s contribution to post-war figurative British art. Situating Coker within his contemporary British zeitgeist, Peter Coker: Mind and Matter will also focus on the significance of international artists to Coker’s work, particularly Gustave Courbet and Nicolas de Staël. Undertaking modern day pilgrimages across France, Coker toured the sites favoured by the artists he revered, filtering their influence through the specificity of place. Coker was too talented an artist to mimic, but with acute sensitivity and perception, his vision of the world was constantly altered by the art that touched him. Correspondingly, his mode of depiction was subject to an ever-persistent evolution but with the materiality of paint and the primacy of process always at the heart of his practice. In Coker’s words: “I think when you see exhibitions…you challenge your own thoughts, you refurbish the mind and eye, you are remoulded.”The publication includes an introductory essay, a catalogue of carefully selected works with accompanying descriptions, a chronology, a bibliography, and numerous colour illustrations.

The Mountains in Art History is the first English-language work to focus on the mountains as subject matter and source of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration for painters. This collection of original essays is written entirely by Wesleyan University students of art history. The essays examine how artistic representation of mountains has varied through the lens of specific depictions in English and American literature, and consider how images of mountains functioned in conjunction with religion, the sublime, and Romanticism. These essays by student authors adeptly ruminate on works by individuals such as William Wordsworth, John Frederick Kensett, Alexander van Humboldt, Emil Nolde, and Arnold Fanck. Includes an introduction by professor Peter Mark and a helpful appendix of the course syllabus and narrative description.

Trisha Brown re-shaped the landscape of modern dance with her game-changing and boundary-defying choreography and visual art. Art historian Susan Rosenberg draws on Brown’s archives, as well as interviews with Brown and her colleagues, to track Brown’s deliberate evolutionary trajectory through the first half of her decades-long career. Brown has created over 100 dances, six operas, one ballet, and a significant body of graphic works. This book discusses the formation of Brown’s systemic artistic principles, and provides close readings of the works that Brown created for non-traditional and art world settings in relation to the first body of works she created for the proscenium stage. Highlighting the cognitive-kinesthetic complexity that defines the making, performing and watching of these dances, Rosenberg uncovers the importance of composer John Cage’s ideas and methods to understand Brown’s contributions. One of the most important and influential artists of our time, Brown was the first woman choreographer to receive the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “Genius Award.”

This book is published on the eve of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the launch of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee and the iconic War Pictures by British Artists series. The scheme, devised by Kenneth Clark, played a vital role in both how the war was perceived at the time and how it has been perceived by future generations. The WAAC initiative also changed the course of the careers of the 400 artists whom became involved, 37 of whom were salaried. Brian Foss’s introductory essay gives a fascinating account of the origins of the scheme and its aims and evolution. Using the format established in the War Pictures by British Artists’ publications the chapters are organised into 8 sections, (as per the eight books in the original series). Alongside the work of the better known Official War Artists this publication will also include examples of work by less well know (unofficial) war artists adding resonance to the remarkable story of War Pictures by British Artists. The book is completed by an appendix providing a statistical analysis of how many artists were involved, who they were and what they produced.

The Dutch painter Barend Graat lived his entire life in Amsterdam and worked as an artist from 1645 until 1709. He produced drawings and paintings, well over a hundred of which are currently known. He was trained by his uncle Hand Bodt as a landscape and animal painter but developed and a genre and historic painter as well. Also he produced many portraits of wealthy Amsterdam merchants (mostly) and their families. This monograph consist of five chapters and a catalogue raisoné. Six appendices contain all relevant documents with regards to Graats life and work. The first three chapters discuss the life and work of the artist. Chapters 4 and 5 present his oeuvre and etchings. The catalogue raisoné presents all known artworks in the form of paintings, drawings and etchings. TEXT IN DUTCH

Now in its fifteenth year of publication, Ceramics in America is considered the journal of record for historical ceramics scholarship in the American context and is intended for collectors, historical archaeologists, curators, decorative arts students, social historians, and contemporary potters.

Rare Light is a collection of essays exploring little known facets of the life and career of a major American Impressionist painter. J. Alden Weir (1852–1919) painted some of his finest canvases while living in Windham in eastern Connecticut’s picturesque “Quiet Corner,” and this rural location played a crucial role in Weir’s artistic development. The four essays that comprise this book offer in-depth contextual information about the architecture, culture, environment, and history of the region, allowing us to see Connecticut as it appeared in Weir’s lifetime. Interweaving photos, paintings, and letters—some never before published—Rare Light documents the artist’s sense of Windham as a place for social gatherings, physical and psychic rest, and art making. Taken together, the essays celebrate the interconnectedness of art, architecture, family, history, and place. Includes essays by Charles Burlingham Jr., Rachel Carley, Anne E. Dawson, and Jamie Eves.