This study explores different visions of contemporary London using the tools of cultural and literary studies and comparing works by Iain Sinclair and Will Self. Both indebted to the tradition of psychogeography, these two authors consider the act of walking as the best way to investigate the changes, evolutions and revisions of the city. For both, London is basically an experience where the physical and topographical environment evokes the endless reservoir of films, novels, images, and cultural materials that finds in this city a fruitful source of inspiration. The book features individual chapters devoted to the analysis of Great Apes, Sorry Meniscus, London Orbital, and The Book of Dave.

During the quarter of a century before the thirteen colonies became a nation, the northwest quadrant of North Carolina had just begun to attract permanent settlers. This seemingly primitive area may not appear to be a likely source for attractive pottery and ornate silverware and furniture, much less for an audience to appreciate these refinements. Yet such crafts were not confined to urban centers, and artisans, like other colonists, were striving to create better lives for themselves as well as to practice their trades. As Johanna Miller Lewis shows in this pivotal study of colonial history and material culture, the growing population of Rowan County required not only blacksmiths, saddlers, and tanners but also a great variety of skilled craftsmen to help raise the standard of living.Rowan County's rapid expansion was in part the result of the planned settlements of the Moravian Church. Because the Moravians maintained careful records, historians have previously credited church artisans with greater skill and more economic awareness than non-church craftsmen. Through meticulous attention to court and private records, deeds, wills, and other sources, Lewis reveals the Moravian failure to keep up with the pace of development occurring elsewhere in the county.Challenging the traditional belief that southern backcountry life was primitive, Lewis shows that many artisans held public office and wielded power in the public sphere. She also examines women weavers and spinsters as an integral part of the population. All artisans -- Moravian and non-Moravian, male and female -- helped the local market economy expand to include coastal and trans-Atlantic trade.Lewis's book contributes meaningfully to the debate over self-sufficiency and capitalism in rural America.

In 1965 Janis Sternbergs made a few playful lines in some sand on his studio table and was struck by the image he had created. A photograph of this confluence of shadows showed what seemed to be a great earth sculpture of vast depth and breadth. So began an art form which united the talents and skills of engraver, sculptor, painter, and photographer. And when Sternbergs added color effects to his images by use of photo-screen process printing, he employed the skills of still another medium -- one in which he is a recognized master.In this book Sternbergs first explains and demonstrates many of the techniques he has developed in producing his dramatic sand "paintings." In a series of illustrations designed to instruct the neophyte sand artist, we see a variety of commonplace tools used to explore the many possibilities of sand as a material for spontaneous work.What one supremely creative mind has done with the medium can be seen in the catalog of Sternbergs's sand images which follows the instructional portion of the book. The 154 black and white photographs not only suggest the range and potential of sand imagery, but attest as well to the imagination and versatility of the artist.

Washington Allston (1779-1843), the first major American artist trained in Europe, produced important paintings, explored sculpture and architecture, and published poetry and art criticism. On his return to America he became influential in the cultural and intellectual life of New England. Allston "knew everyone" and corresponded with many of the leading figures of his day, including Wordsworth, Longfellow, Irving, Sully, and Morse. Nathalia Wright's edition is the most comprehensive work to date on Allston, bringing together all known letters by and to him and describing his principal activities in years for which correspondence is lacking. Allston holds an important place in the history of American culture and European art and has long deserved such a volume, which offers a fascinating view of the world of arts and letters during the early American flowering.

In the hauntingly beautiful sculptures of Tilmann Riemenschneider, the Late Gothic art of Germany achieved its highest expression. Now, for the first time in English, the eminent art historian Justus Bier accords Riemenschneider the extended attention he so richly deserves.Riemenschneider ( ca. 1460--1531) holds a pivotal place in the development of German art. Rejecting the anonymous soulfulness of earlier Gothic sculpture, he created a style reflecting the deeply spiritual character of his time, yet one that also anticipated the humanism of the Italian Renaissance so soon to revolutionize European art.Bier crowns a lifelong study with this reconsideration of Reimenschneider's life and work, with emphasis on works in North American museums. More than 140 photographs illustrate 46 of the artist's major sculptures.

A facsimile edition of Kazimir Malevich, SUPREMATISM 34 Drawings, was published in 1990 by Artists Bookworks accompanied by an introduction to the drawings by Patricia Railing; it is now out-of-print. This 2014 reprint of Malevich’s little book contains a new translation from the Russian and a new introductory text by Patricia Railing, “Reading the 34 Drawings”. The Russian text and plates were scanned from an original copy and the size of this little book conforms to the lithographed Russian edition of 1920.

Before the foundation of academies of art in London in 1768 and Philadelphia in 1805, most individuals who were to emerge as artists trained in workshops of varying degrees of relevance. Easel painters began their careers apprenticed to carriage, house, sign or ship painters, whilst a few were placed with those who made pictures. Sculptors emerged from a training as ornamental plasterers or carvers. Of the many other trades in a position to offer an appropriate background were ‘limning’, staining, engraving, surveying, chasing and die-sinking. In addition, plumbers gained the right to use oil painting and, for plasterers, the application of distemper was an extension of their trade. Central to the theme of this book is the notion that, for those who were to become either painters or sculptors, a training in a trade met their practical needs. This ‘training’ was of an altogether different nature to an ‘education’ in an art school. In the past, prospective artists were offered, by means of apprenticeships, an empirical rather than a theoretical understanding of their ultimate vocation. James Ayres provides a lively account of the inter-relationship between art and trade in the late 17th to early 19th centuries, in both Britain and North America. He demonstrates with numerous, illustrated examples, the many cross-overs in the ‘art and mystery’ of artistic training, and, to modern eyes, the sometimes incongruous relationships between the various trades that contributed to the blossoming of many artistic careers, including some of the most illustrious names of the ‘long’ 18th century.

Teeming with convulsive energy, raw brush strokes, and Fauvist colors, the paintings of Robert Qualters reflect the multifaceted and kinetic spirit of the artist himself. In these pages, the art historian Vicky A. Clark presents the first in-depth study of the art and life of this iconic Pittsburgh artist. Complemented by over eighty color images, Clark follows Qualters’s development from early childhood sketches through his recent autobiographical work. As she reveals, Qualters is truly a quotidian raconteur, who infuses allegory, narrative, and memory into his paintings of urban landscapes, neighborhoods, lunch counters, and amusement parks. Here, we witness coming of age and sexuality, economic hardship, working-class identities, death and rebirth, and many other themes, both personal and universal. As Clark shows, Qualters’s oeuvre is the culmination of a lifelong artistic journey, recalling a host of influences from Japanese prints to Matisse, Bruegel, and Rembrandt. Throughout his career, and despite the popularity of his contemporaries, many of whom adopted abstract painting, Qualters has maintained a distinctly representational style, keeping a close link to his audience through the power of visual storytelling. Robert Qualters was named Pennsylvania Artist of the Year for 2014, part of the Governor's Awards for the Arts in Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Andrew Carnegie is remembered as one of the worldÆs great philanthropists. As a boy, he witnessed the benevolence of a businessman who lent his personal book collection to laborerÆs apprentices. That early experience inspired Carnegie to create the \u201cFree to the People\u201d Carnegie Library in 1895 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1896, he founded the Carnegie Institute, which included a music hall, art museum, and science museum. Carnegie deeply believed that education and culture could lift up the common man and should not be the sole province of the wealthy. Today, his Pittsburgh cultural institution encompasses a library, music hall, natural history museum, art museum, science center, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Carnegie International art exhibition. In Palace of Culture, Robert J. Gangewere presents the first history of a cultural conglomeration that has served millions of people since its inception and inspired the likes of August Wilson, Andy Warhol, and David McCullough. In this fascinating account, Gangewere details the political turmoil, budgetary constraints, and cultural tides that have influenced the caretakers and the collections along the way. He profiles the many benefactors, trustees, directors, and administrators who have stewarded the collections through the years. Gangewere provides individual histories of the library, music hall, museums, and science center, and describes the importance of each as an educational and research facility. Moreover, Palace of Culture documents the importance of cultural institutions to the citizens of large metropolitan areas. The Carnegie Library and Institute have inspired the creation of similar organizations in the United States and serve as models for museum systems throughout the world.

Against the commonly held opinion that ancient Judaism was an artless culture, this sumptuously illustrated book offers new ways of looking at art in Jewish antiquity. Leading experts, under the editorship of Sarah Pearce, skilfully explore different functions of images in relation to their prohibition by the Second of the Ten Commandments. The visual world of ancient Judaism often reflects a tense confrontation between Mediterranean, artful classical culture and the image-filled, yet law-inspired biblical literature. Readers will encounter a rich collection of objects and texts analysed in different contexts, from Solomon’s Temple to late antiquity. The imageless God of monotheistic Judaism combated the polytheistic cults of Israel’s neighbours with the use of symbols. Figurative, floral and geometrical embellishments of synagogues served as decoration and not for worship. Narrative biblical scenes in the Dura-Europos synagogue played an educational and political role in Jewish society on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Antique Jewish art exercised a profound influence on medieval Islam and even on the modern Western visual world. This book is aimed at both the scholarly world and all readers interested in religion and art.

Romans attached nuanced implications to color-terms which went beyond their literal meaning, using these terms as a form of cultural assessment, defining their social values and order. By analyzing the use and color words in specific contexts, we can gain greater insight into the Roman mind.

This is the first study to investigate the sources of the creative processes in the painting of Kazimir Malevich, from Neo-Primitivism to Suprematism, 1911-1920. These sources are found in 19th century scientific investigations into optics, especially those of Hermann von Helmholtz, the artist adapting the laws of optical light and colour and the laws of optical structures of seeing in space and in depth to his painting. Malevich’s creative processes culminated in his non-objective canvases, Suprematism, between 1915 and 1920, the painting of pure seeing.

This work contains illustrations of the thirteenth century Byzantine New Testament at the Rockefeller-McCormack collection in Chicago with a full description of its text, provenance, and the artistic and theological significance of the miniatures.

At one time, sardines were an inexpensive staple for many Americans. The 212 photographs in this elegant volume offer a striking document of this now vanished industry. Generations of workers in Maine have snipped, sliced, and packed the small, silvery fish into billions of cans on their way to Americans' lunch buckets and kitchen cabinets. On April 15, 2010, Stinson's Seafood, once the home of Beach Cliff Sardines, shut down the packing line that had made the name world famous. Begun in 1927, Stinson's empire eventually included sardine canneries spread along the Maine coast and a fleet of ships to supply them. With this closing, however, the end of the entire sardine industry in Maine had finally arrived. Photographer Markham Starr was privileged to spend several days at the Stinson factory in Prospect Harbor, one month before it was dismantled, emerging with a collection of remarkable images that transform the parts of the cannery into works of art and capture the resilience of the workers faced with the loss of jobs many had held for decades. This book includes a short essay, and shows the heartland of Maine at its finest.

The murals that were produced in this country in the twentieth century remain as one of the great inventive achievements in modern British art. Highly original in their approach to design, balancing varying degrees of modernity or tradition, they demonstrate the creative drive of their makers and contain singular expressions of the aesthetic, personal and social concerns that typify the ages from which they come. Some are celebrations of simple human pleasures, perhaps to decorate a refreshment room, an ocean liner or a dining room. Others are intended to be the highest expressions of their art, ambitious allegorical or decorative compositions that like the frescoes of theRenaissance would speak through the ages to later generations. The individuals and committees who commissioned them similarly believed they would both represent the best that Britain had to offer and mark the high accomplishment of contemporary society, elevating the public and private spaces they occupied and inspiring moral purpose.This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘British Murals & Decorative Painting 1910-1970’ which took place at the Fine Art Society - London (13 February - 9 March 2013) in association with Liss Llewellyn Fine Art. It coincided with the Sansom & Co publication British Murals & Decorative Painting 1920-1960.

British Murals & Decorative Painting 1920-1960 is illustrated with a series of specially commissioned photographs that record some of the least-known but most remarkable murals in Great Britain. The majority of these have never been reproduced in colour before.The book is divided into two sections. Part one seeks to define mural and decorative painting within its historic context. Alan Powers’ survey of the major events and significant dates describes the background out of which the mural revival of the early twentieth century emerged and the role played by its main patrons, artists, art schools, and institutions. It offers important re-interpretations of some of the best-known schemes and draws attention to some of those which deserve to be better known, arguing for a more inclusive view of twentieth-century British art and with it a more developed understanding of the role of murals in the lives of the artists who produced them.Part two of the book consists of 15 essays – written by experts in the field – which provide in-depth case studies of selected works, as well as considering the careers of specific artists as muralists. This section gives a special emphasis to murals which are less well-known and in many cases have only recently been rediscovered.As a consequence of remaining out of the public domain murals often end up being written out of the accounts of the lives of the artists who created them – not withstanding the fact that for sheer size and scale it might be assumed that they counted amongst the most ambitious projects they ever undertook. The book seeks to highlight the importance of murals and decorative painting as part of the untold story of twentieth-century British Art. So long as these works are poorly documented and largely unprotected they will remain a part of Britain’s artistic heritage which is undervalued and at risk.