At the turn of the 20th century, the American photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) started on his 30 year project to produce a monumental study of North American Indians. Using an approach that was both artistically and scientifically ambitious, he recorded, in words and pictures, the traces of the traditional Indian way of life that was already beginning to die out. With tireless personal commitment Curtis visited 80 American Indian tribes from the Mexican border to the Bering Strait in America and Canada, gaining their confidence through his patience and sensitivity. Tribes include the Apache, Navajo, Mohave, Atsina, Cheyenne, Klickitat, Nez Percés, Haida, Hopi, Yuki, Zuni, Sarsi and Comanche. Totem poles, squaws, cacti, teepees and famous chiefs like Spotted Bull and Little Sioux, Curtis photographed Indian faces, homes, agriculture, dress, warriors, cooking, hunting, clay making, fishing - every aspect of their nature, habitat and lifestyle. His work was printed in 20 volumes between 1907 and 1930 as The North American Indian, but with only 272 copies, originals became extremely rare. This book gathers Curtis' entire American Indian portfolio into one publication, offering renewed access to and appreciation of his extraordinary achievement, which is as much a precious historical document as a triumph of the photographic form. All in quality, atmospheric sepia. New from Taschen. 14 x 4.5 x 20.5 cm, 768 pages, pagemarker.

From the white heat of Victorian industrial and economic activity and the resultant flurry of building activity, churches, charitable institutions, townhouses and country villas, the story moves through the more difficult years for the architectural profession, not found in many company histories. Architecture and design are once again flourishing and here is the story of Charles Rennie Mackintosh who was the third partner of John Honeyman and Keppie, the architectural practice now called Keppie Design. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2004 and in this volume its managing director David Stark explores the development of the practice and its legacy of buildings across the West of Scotland and beyond, including those from the influential Mackintosh years. We learn about Victorian industrialists and their wealth and lifestyles, Kate Cranston and her famous tea rooms, and of lesser known but significant architectural names such as John Keppie and Graham Henderson. There are superb Mackintosh sketches such as for the Liverpool Cathedral 1903, drawings for shops, banks and tea rooms as published in the 1904 edition of Academy Architecture, and proposals and entries into competitions Mackintosh entered such as one obtaining Alexander Thompson Scholarship which allowed him to tour Italy from March through July 1891. As a group, the Immortals did not last long. Francis Newbery realised that Mackintosh, MacNair and two MacDonald sisters had compatible ideas, and by about 1895 they had become known as 'The Four'. This also led to the end of the romance that Mackintosh had with Jessie Keppie. With a brilliant Lineage diagram, packed with colour photos and detailing families like the Paisleys and Copes, Victorian schools, newspaper buildings, the Glasgow School of Art and the Mackintosh legacy, hospitals, further education, and selected projects since 1995. 328 very large very well illustrated pages with decorated endpapers.

Beginning with the work of the master builders of antiquity, Frank Joseph shares his personal investigations into ancient mysteries and paranormal enigmas in America and abroad examining Old World connections with the New World sacred centres. These include similarities between Ohio's Mound City and the pyramids and tombs of the Giza Plateau, ancient American cities of the Sun, China's Great Pyramid, and the possibility of a Templar treasure on Oak Island. He explores modern sacred sites such as Iowa's Grotto of Gems, Tennessee's Greek Temple of the goddess Athena, and Florida's Coral Castle. He investigates pre-Columbian sites and underwater pyramids in the Midwest, Wisconsin's UFO hot-spot, lost Aztec Cities of Gold in Kansas, and giant-built constructions in Illinois and the afterlife. He details how the intriguing acoustics of Newgrange in Ireland are echoed in its spiral carvings, and explores ritual uses of altered states, looking at the practices of Minoan snake handlers, Mayan shamans, and prophets through the ages. Plus EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomena, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and the Ark of the Covenant and extraordinary personalities including Jules Verne, Sir Francis Bacon, Mother Shipton and the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones. 308pp in large well illustrated softback.

'From 1964-66 Ossie Clark and his designs were frequently on the fashion pages of Vogue and other journals, and his girlfriend Celia Birtwell's prints were used for a Simon Massey collection... Janice Wainwright was also featured by Anne Batt of the Evening News, modelling her own 'gold lamé pants' with pop singer P. J. Proby (himself notorious for splitting his skin-tight trousers on Ready, Steady, Go) to prove that 'five of London's swankiest restaurants' would admit such a couple.' Swinging through the sixties and the entire second half of the 20th century, here is a history of the Royal College of Art 1948-2014. The worldwide influence of four charismatic and powerful women in charge of the college's School of Fashion changed the face of British and international style. Through their rigorous determination to produce nothing but the best, and the top-level design stars who emerged as the result, they have been largely responsible for the story of British and International fashion. Each individual professor after Madge Garland complemented the work of her predecessor. Janey Ironside, the sparkling innovator, put a modern spin on the stable foundations and was a brave and rigorous pioneer in an age of considerable resistance. Joanne Brogden consolidated what both the others had done, shepherding the school successfully into a competitive commercial world, ready for high-level industry. When Professor Wendy Dagworthy took over in the final decade of the 20th century, she took the school into a new era of British design excellence in ready-to-wear clothing. The book celebrates how the professors established links for their students between the College and famous brands such as Burberry, Kenzo Givenchy, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld and Max Mara. Chapters cover their personal lives, drinking problems, shows, marriages, London life, designer-dressmakers, 60s style, RCA takeover, galas and glamour and royalty, Lady Di's dress, the post-punk rebellion, designers to the rock stars and resignations and surprise departures. Superbly illustrated with full page and dozens of other colour photographs, rare black and white photographs, fashion stills, posters and design sketches. 230 heavyweight pages, 21 x 26cm.
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The silhouette as an art form reached the height of its popularity in the late 18th and 19th centuries, demanding considerable skill and dexterity from the artist, while the act of having a silhouette made was a performative process that enhanced the sitter's importance. The medium also raises interesting theoretical questions about the way we perceive negative space. Leading experts to shed light on the surprisingly complex historical, political, and social underpinnings of this ostensibly simple art form. This book is largely based on an exhibition of American silhouettes in the Washington National Gallery, which includes a well-known painting by the UK's 18th century master Joseph Wright of Derby, The Corinthian Maid, in which a young woman traces the silhouette of her sleeping lover on a nearby wall. In 1803 Charles Willson Peale installed the "physiognotrace" machine in his museum in Philadelphia, where a likeness could be mechanically created quickly and cheaply. Women and African Americans were often excluded from the privileged group of self-made men pushing the industry forward, but two of Peale's best cutters were disadvantaged people, with the mixed race Moses Williams specialising in studies of Native Americans, and Martha Ann Honeywell born without arms and manipulating the silhouette cutter with toes, mouth and a stump of an arm. Martha has a chapter to herself, including a discussion of her belief that the tiny patterns in the cosmos revealed the divine nature. A major silhouettist of the mid-19th century was Auguste Edouart, who specialised in full-length portrait silhouettes, a fashion he brought with him when he emigrated to America from France. Many of his silhouettes were sold as lithographs, generating a far bigger income, and among his sitters was John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. The exhibition also featured the work of four contemporary silhouette practitioners. Particularly striking are the cut-outs of Kara Walker depicting often brutal scenes from antebellum plantation life, exposing the inequity of power and exploitative relationships between master and slave. Kristi Malakoff, Kumi Yamashita, and Camille Utterback - all take the silhouette to unique and fascinating new heights. 182pp, reproductions on most double spreads.
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The church steeple is the glory of the English landscape and for over a thousand years has evolved a grandeur and a beauty unrivalled in Europe. It is the icon of every parish. These exquisite line drawings celebrate some of the finest medieval buildings to survive, each parish church tower and spire a testament to the architectural and artistic achievements of England in the Middle Ages. The 16 distinctive individual cards are blank for every occasion and printed on quality card and include St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, Ludlow Shropshire, Southwold Suffolk, Chipping Camden Gloucestershire and St Michael Coventry among them. Elegant, simple, 16 white envelopes and in a lidded box for safe keeping.

Tim Walker's photographs have been entrancing the readers of Vogue for over a decade, the V&A Museum and the NPG. Pour yourself a cuppa tea and join the journeys of Miss Marple-types eloping to Egypt in head-to-toe tartan or jetting off to Mars on a flying saucer. A special twinset collection of characterful photographs of real grannies accompanied by short, gently humorous verses by Kit Hesketh-Harvey. The volume is delightfully populated with Lawrence Mynott's drawings of lively old ladies - spirited, stylish, sweet like Lucinda with her hat addiction, Kitty whose knitting skills are second to none and our late Her Majesty the Queen. It is a whimsical vision of rose-printed, feline-filled arcadia where fur coats, tiny pooches, yummy cakes, walking sticks, glasses and grey hair are matched with great style in this alphabet with M for Mink and H for Hat etc. The book has a fashion photographer's genius touch and beautiful shots of grannies doing things that they love with great style. A Thames & Hudson luxury publication, 148pp, 20.3 x 27cm, two volumes slipcased.

Lars Johnsson lives on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. He is an artist, author and ornithologist, and started painting birds at the age of four, and is celebrated as one of the world's leading wildlife artists. With him we meet the Chiff-Chaff, Bullfinch, Great Black-backed Gulls in stormy waters, Eurasian Wigeons and Curlews sunbathing, buzzards and crows, Golden Eagle, Greenfinch and the all-knowing White Gyrfalcon captured masterfully in watercolour. Plus elder-flowered orchid, trees and foliage, sky and sea as authentic locations for his avian subjects. His unique style is based on a deep understanding of birds and an extraordinary power of observation, and his paintings are executed directly in or based on sketches and studies made in the field. This gorgeous book uses not only the thoughts of the artist himself, and his descriptions of those habitats where he finds most of his inspiration - the Sea, Shorelines, Coastal Meadows and Arctic tundras - but also essays by a leading wildlife sculptor to convey something about the brilliance of Jonsson's work. Here are his early works, sketchbooks, watercolours, oil paintings, lithographs and ornithological projects to dazzle readers with his genius. Here too are descriptions of how he manages to capture his subjects so that they appear to leap off the page. We loved his piece about trying to portray the Wood Sandpiper. Apparently, this bird is constantly busy foraging, and usually hides its feet in the mud. It is also a challenge to get it to show its face and reveal its special facial expressions. 192 pages 30.5cm x 24.5cm in living colour.

Best known for his nonsense verses such as "The Owl and the Pussycat", Edward Lear was a talented natural history artist at a time when knowledge of the natural world was expanding rapidly following the work of explorers such as Charles Darwin. He published his comic poems under a pseudonym, regarding painting and natural history studies as his real work. A self-taught artist who became instructor to Queen Victoria, Lear started depicting birds as illustrations to limericks, learning artistic techniques from his much older sister Ann, who had a small income from commercial art. Supported by the newly formed Zoological Society, Lear's book on Parrots in 1832 was the first in English to focus on a single family of birds, earning him widespread praise for accuracy and originality. The book's colour plates are spectacular, rivalling the more famous ones by artists such as Audubon in America. Lear's illustrations were popularised by the new invention of lithographic printing which gave his parrot monograph wide circulation and caused a stir among naturalists. As a member of a vibrant British natural history community Lear knew Darwin's illustrator John Gould, and the author speculates that he might have assisted Gould with the creation of Darwin's plates. Another naturalist, Lord Derby, kept a large number of Australian mammals at Knowsley Hall, where Lear was a frequent visitor, and among the mammals he painted there were many from Australia, including a wallaby, possum, and kangaroos. In Lear's later career he travelled to the Mediterranean and middle east and became renowned for his landscapes. This fascinating study covers not only the work of Edward Lear but also artists he influenced such as Beatrix Potter or contemporary natural history painter Elizabeth Butterworth. Foreword by David Attenborough. 225pp, softback, 18.4 x 26cm, more than 200 of Lear's strikingly beautiful illustrations of animals, plants, and landscapes.

At the height of his fame as a portrait painter Lucian Freud could pick and choose his sitters, rejecting Jerry Hall's "plastic glamour" but completing a magnificent full-length military portrait of his old friend Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles. The second volume of this roller-coaster biography opens in 1968 with Freud on the brink of stardom but not quite there yet, still attracting lower prices and less publicity than his friend and rival Francis Bacon. In the opening chapters Freud pursues his model Jacquetta Eliot down to her ancestral place in Cornwall, reporting that "they ate off solid silver plates, even shepherd's pie". He changes his agent after discovering that Bacon has advised the Marlborough Gallery that Freud's work is overpriced. Freud's colleague Frank Auerbach also had a Jewish refugee background and their friendship developed as Francis Bacon faded. Painting out of the window is something Freud did when life was stressed and his back garden paintings from Gloucester Terrace, following the death of his father, are a highly prized departure from portraiture in their detailed depiction of urban decay. Freud admitted that he was irritated by Stanley Spencer ("I thought his paintings were suburban") but acknowledged that they had something in common. When Jacquetta became pregnant, her husband Peregrine accepted the child and the affair with Freud ended soon after. Meanwhile Sonia Orwell suggested bumping off Bacon's lover, but reason prevailed. Freud was a compulsive gambler and at least one bookie was paid with a portrait. The search for models was not always easy, and Feaver interviews Freud's daughters about the experience of being painted nude. Andrew Lloyd Webber was keen for Freud to paint his wife and "even threatened me with theatre tickets". The performer Leigh Bowery was introduced to Freud in 1986 and he in turn introduced his friend Sue Tilley, the fleshy benefits supervisor of several iconic canvases, paintings which startle by their physical realism - and he has tattooed swallows at the base of Kate Moss's back. Never a dull moment in this astonishing life. 568pp, paperback, black and white and colour photos.