A screaming crab-eating macaque going cheap at Spanish market, a Kemp's ridley sea turtle on an Alabama beach attached to a discarded beach chair by the neck, a young male lion poisoned in Kenya's Masai Mara. Wildlife Photography has surged in importance as our environment becomes more threatening and the lives of thousands of species are endangered. These 100 glorious photos have been selected from 48,130 entries in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2019, and every one is a small masterpiece. The entries are judged blind so that an amateur photographer could scoop a prize, but in fact the winners are usually veterans with long experience and expertise. This reflects that fact that behind a good wildlife picture there are often months of preparation and hours or even weeks of patient waiting for the subject to appear in the desired context. Animal behaviour came to the foreground in this competition, and there was also an increase in entries from distant regions such as Mongolia, Tajikistan and China, possibly reflecting increase in access to equipment. The grand-title winner is Yongqing Bao, a Tibetan from China, whose image of a young marmot in the moment of realising that a fox was about to pounce is a haunting reminder that these photos reflect the savagery of nature. The portfolio award went to Stefan Christmann of Germany with his elegant and rather touching image of emperor penguins mating in an icy landscape. A blank sheet of snow also dominates the winning image for a young photographer's portfolio: Jérémie Villet of France got frostbite while recording two male Dall's sheep huddling together for warmth, having started out in territorial combat. Other striking images include bright orange algae weaving a tapestry on a Monterey cypress tree, and a large bull hippo snatching a calf from its mother with a view to killing it, probably in order to relieve overcrowding. The cover image of a puma attacking a guanaco in Patagonia had a happier ending with the escape of the prey. A Weddell seal, a juvenile jackfish travelling inside a jellyfish, and a garden of eels in the Philippines are some of the stunning shots of sealife. 160pp, over 100 large colour images on glossy paper, biographies of photographers and scenario descriptions of all the entries. 25.5cm square.
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Who painted Guernica? In which museum can La Joconde be seen? How many arms has the Venus de Milo? What is Rodin's first name? Which Dutch painter was inseparable from his wife Saskia? Which art movement was born in England in the mid 19th century? What is the name of the world's oldest auction house? These multiple choice questions are accessible to all ages from 14 years and up, designed for 2-8 players, 150 question cards, one dice and one rule book including a glossary of the main artistic movements. 12.3 x 8.5 x 12.4cm box set.

Step into a world of star-crossed lovers, magical winds, mischievous giants, and trolls, through some of the most exquisite illustrations in publishing history. In this gorgeous abridged edition, Taschen revives the most ambitious publication project of beloved Danish artist Kay Nielsen, one of the most famous children's book illustrators of all time. The 10 tales included are: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Blue Belt, Prince Lindworm, The Lassie and Her Godmother, The Husband Who Was to Mind the House, The Three Princesses of Witheland, The Giant With No Heart in His Body, The Widow?s Son, he Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Princesses in the Blue Mountain. First published in 1914, 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' is a celebrated collection of fairy tales gathered by legendary Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe on their journeys across Norway in the mid-19th century. Nielsen's illustration edition of Asbjørnsen and Moe's tales is considered a jewel of early 20th century children's literature, highly sought-after by art and book collectors worldwide. An original signed copy of the book sold at auction in 2008 commanded the highest price ever paid for an illustrated children's book. This finely crafted volume presents ten of the original fairytales, and restores the artistry of Nielsen's images to their original splendour. Featuring 41 enchanting illustrations, including many enlarged details from Nielsen's rare original watercolours, lovely fonts used, the decorative mono panelling on the text pages and book illustration from the era, this is so much more than a book of folk tales. The book has small details picked out and used as chapter headers and comes with three accompanying essays, illustrated with dozens of rare and previously unseen artworks by Nielsen, that explore the history of Norwegian folktales, Nielsen's life and work, and how this masterpiece came to be. New from Taschen. With ribbon bookmark, 23.5 x 30.5 cm, 168 pages.

The exotic, sensuous paintings of Gustav Klimt recall the art of ancient civilisations - their patterns and ornamentation reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics and Egyptian murals with their gold leaf and shimmering colours. This beautifully illustrated book on the life and work of Klimt, one of the most influential artists of the Art Nouveau movement, describes how he first achieved fame as a decorative painter before turning to portraiture and erotic art. Chapters cover The Secession Years, Femmes Fatale, Landscapes and the Later Works and of course his abstract compositions with flattened, glowing surfaces embellished with gold and silver leaf. This technique is perhaps best identified in his two portraits of Adele Bloch Bauer. With features on key works and an easy-to-read timeline, 96 large quality pages, 23.5 x 28.8cm, glowing colour throughout. New full price.
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Expanded and Updated Edition, MIT Press, here's the triumphant return of a book that gave us permission to throw out the rulebook, in activities ranging from play to architecture to revolution. As a design principle, adhocism starts with everyday improvisations: a bottle as a candleholder, a dictionary as a doorstop, a tractor seat on wheels as a dining room chair, a footstool of female stockinged legs. Think Le Drugstore on King's Road or Archimboldo. When this book first appeared in 1972, it was part of the spirit that would define a new architecture and design era - a new way of thinking ready to move beyond the purist doctrines and formal models of modernism. Turned-off citizens of the 1970s immediately adopted the book as a DIY guide. The word "adhocism" entered the vocabulary, the concept of adhocism became part of the designer's toolkit, and Adhocism became a cult classic. Now available again, with new texts by Jencks and Silver reflecting on the past 40 years of adhocism and new illustrations demonstrating adhocism's continuing relevance. But it is also an undeveloped force within the way we approach almost every activity, from play to architecture to city planning to political revolution, the Pluriverse, The authors are brilliant at describing the mix of mechanisms, materials and metaphors which can help communities and cultures keep their stories alive and relevant. Engagingly written, filled with hundreds of pictures and examples from areas as diverse as auto mechanics and biology. 256 page paperback.

A rewarding view of more than five millennia of artistic achievements, this stunningly beautiful Metropolitan Museum of Art publication has been specially imported by Bibliophile. The Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030-1650 B.C.), the second great era of ancient Egyptian culture following the great "Pyramid Age" of the Old Kingdom, was a transformational period during which the artistic conventions, cultural principles, religious beliefs, and political systems formed during earlier dynasties were developed and reimagined. This comprehensive volume presents a detailed picture of the least known of Egypt's three kingdoms yet a time of remarkable prosperity and unprecedented change. International specialists present new insights into how Middle Kingdom artists refined existing forms and iconography to make strikingly original architecture, statuary, tomb and temple relief decoration, and stele. Thematic sections explore art produced for different strata of Egyptian society, including the pharaoh, royal women, the elite, and the family, while other chapters provide insight into Egypt's expanding relations with foreign lands and the themes of Middle Kingdom literature. Statues in their settings, artists and workshops, elite tombs connecting the living and the dead, Thebes during the Eleventh Dynasty, the Pharoah, Royal Women, Courts and Provinces, conquest and colonisation, the supernatural, Abydos and Osiris, excavations and selected archaeological sites, more than 250 objects from major collections around the world are sumptuously illustrated, many with new photography undertaken specifically for this exhibition catalogue publication. Dripping in 365 colour and 42 mono illus, heavyweight quality, six maps, chronology. 24.13 x 3.18 x 30.48cm. 400 pages.
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A lavishly illustrated art compendium and biography of Arthur Barbosa, the artist who, over more than 60 years, provided dust jackets for some of the 20th century's most famous authors of fiction, including Georgette Heyer, Doris Leslie, C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, Joanna Trollope, Graham Greene, Sax Rohmer, Jules Verne, Anthony Powell, Lytton Strachey and, of course, George MacDonald Fraser. Born in Liverpool, he moved to London at the end of the 1920s where he became a noted and respected illustrator and commercial artist. A lifelong friend of Rex Harrison, he also numbered among his friends and acquaintances Cecil Beaton, Frederick Ashton, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Living in London during the Jazz Age and WWII, he grew old in a small Kentish village. He married three times and moved with the movers and shakers in '30s London. An accomplished interior designer, he was also an expert in the esoterica of military uniforms which shows in his splendid colourful artworks, posters for example Scott & Bailey 1922 Diamond Jubilee, murals and adverts as well as prized book jackets for romances and children's books, diversions of young and old on cycling, duelling, Brighton Regent's Resort and page after page of glamorously decorated military men and more recently on bottles of port and sherry from Tescos! Heavyweight tome, 23 x 30cm packed with colour illus. and hundreds of line artworks and engravings on glossy paper. Collector's item. 350 pages.
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A vivid and revealing book focused on the fascinating European journeys of British artist Frances Hodgkins. The much overlooked New Zealand-born Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) arrived in London in 1901 and, by the 1920s, had become a leading British modernist, exhibiting frequently with avant-garde artists such as Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. This book explores Hodgkins as a traveller across cultures and landscapes - teaching and discovering the cubists in Paris, absorbing the landscape and light of Ibiza and Morocco, and exhibiting with the progressive Seven & Five Society in London. See dreamy watercolours of fishermen, a summer garden, Belgian refugees, a hilltown landscape, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire countryside and dozens of intriguing still lifes. Complete with a rich visual chronology of the artist's encounters abroad, alongside over 100 of Hodgkins' key paintings and drawings, the book is an illuminating journey that moves us from place to place through the writings of a number of distinguished national and international art historians, curators and critics: Frances Spalding (University of Cambridge, England), Alexa Johnston (Auckland-based writer and curator), Elena Taylor (University of New South Wales, Australia), Antoni Ribas Tur (Ara newspaper, Spain in the 1930s), and Julia Waite on St Ives, Sarah Hillary on material and technique, Catherine Hammond and Mary Kisler (Auckland Art Gallery Toi oTamaki, New Zealand). 23.5 x 28.5cm, 268 pages. Thames & Hudson, 202 stunning full page colour illus, ephemera and photos.

Gallop around the cosmos with Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Doctor McCoy and the USS Enterprise. This celebration of the legacy of the most iconic and beloved sci-fi franchise Star Trek dares to boldly go where no man has gone before. This official poster collection includes 32 removable posters measuring a huge 27.94 x 35.56cm. They include promotional posters for Star Trek the Motion Picture, a stylised 1960s poster of William Shatner's face shouting in black and white with the slogans Star Trek, Obsession, Shatner; Spock making the Vulcan salute hand gesture, the Enterprise orbiting a spectacular mustard and yellow-coloured planet, Kirk in the Captain's Chair looking pensive, and a posed photograph with his crew among the images from the TV series and film franchise. Huge softback.

Art detective Debra Mancoff reveals cryptic symbols used by Leonardo da Vinci, Vermeer and Caravaggio, uncovers layers of meaning in paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso and Dalí, and provides insight into works by Frida Kahlo, Kara Walker and Marina Abramovic. In fact, the latter currently has an exhibition in London where two naked people stand in a doorway and the viewer is invited to walk between them sideways. It is pictured here in the book from its first performance. We shall peer through layers of paint to chart an artist's change of mind or to bring to light another hand's alterations. We shall untangle the bewildering effects of optical illusion and search for hidden identities. We shall consider the results of censorship, read secret symbols and decode the decorum of dress. We shall look at works that were never finished, or were broken or lost, to see if the part can tell us the story of the whole. We see with new eyes Courbet's Man with a Leather Belt, Jasper Johns' White Flag, Velázquez's Las Meninas, Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Edward Burne-Jones's Phyllis and Demophoon, William Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience, Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait and Banksy's Love is in the Bin (originally Girl with Balloon) among the chosen pieces of art and photography such as Cindy Sherman's Sultry Woman in a Black Dress (gazing at something outside the frame). The reflection in the mirror reveals a martini coupe on a table and a jacket hanging on the back of a chair. 240 large pages, hundreds of colour and other illus.
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