History

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age

Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.

As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam’s translucent churches to Paulus Potter’s muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch’s cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael’s tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway – and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?

The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before.

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• Some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
• Published to accompany an exhibition at the Royal Academy from 25 November 2023 to 10 March 2024

Best known for their superlative oils on canvas, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and numerous other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists also regularly used paper as a support for works in watercolour, gouache, pencil, tempera and that most elusive of media, pastel. Their practice transformed the status of these works from preparatory studies, to be left in the studio and not shown in public, to works of art in their own right.

With insightful texts by acknowledged experts in the field, this sumptuous book brings together some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Their bold innovations challenged traditional attitudes, radically transformed the future direction of art and ultimately paved the way for later movements such as Abstract Expressionism.

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• The first book (and exhibition) ever to present a focused study on Rubens’ depictions of women, with an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery that will run from October 2023 to January 2024
• This will challenge the popular assumption that Rubens only painted one type of woman
• Instead, it will show the varied and essential role that women played in the artist’s life and work
• A chance for readers to get to know the real man behind some of his most famous works – we meet not only Rubens the artist, but Rubens the father, husband, lover, diplomat, friend
• Includes the latest scholarly developments in subjects such as the identities of Rubens’ sitters, 17th century artistic theory and practice, and Rubens’ treatment of the human body
• Featuring beautiful illustrations of artworks from international and private collections, many of which will be appearing in the UK for the first time in 2023
• Provides a complete catalogue for works in this groundbreaking accompanying exhibition, as well as contextual essays that raise current debates around sexuality, power and feminism

The art of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is synonymous with the female nude, with the term ‘Rubenesque’ first coined in the 19th century to describe a voluptuous female body. Yet remarkably, there has never been a focused study of Rubens’ depictions of women, making this book, and the exhibition that it will accompany, a first.

Bringing together a diverse range of paintings and drawings from throughout the artist’s career and from a range of international lenders, the exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery (October 2023 – January 2024) will challenge the popular assumption that Rubens only painted one type of woman. Instead, it will present a more nuanced view of the varied and essential role that women played in the artist’s life and work, uniting and contributing to recent scholarly developments in subjects such as the identities of Rubens’ sitters, 17th century artistic theory and practice, and Rubens’ treatment of the human body.

Rubens evidently enjoyed painting the female figure, especially in its sensual and unclothed form. But his women are never mere bodies trapped by the male gaze, on the contrary; they are proud and complex heroines, full of character and gravitas. No other male artist has created such potent images of female power, assurance, determination, commitment, and beauty. Providing a catalogue for the works in the exhibition and featuring three introductory essays that contextualise Rubens’ work, this publication will both contribute to the existing corpus of scholarly literature on Rubens and introduce his masterpieces to new audiences, discussing them in the context of current debates around sexuality, power and feminism.

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A sweeping retrospective of Philip Guston’s influential work, from Depression-era muralist to abstract expressionist to tragicomic contemporary master A Wall Street Journal 2020 holiday gift guide pick Philip Guston―perhaps more than any other figure in recent memory―has given contemporary artists permission to break the rules and paint what, and how, they want. His winding career, embrace of “high” and “low” sources, and constant aesthetic reinvention defy easy categorization, and his 1968 figurative turn is by now one of modern art’s most legendary conversion narratives. “I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything―and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?” And so Guston’s sensitive abstractions gave way to large, cartoonlike canvases populated by lumpy, sometimes tortured figures and mysterious personal symbols in a palette of juicy pinks, acid greens, and cool blues. That Guston continued mining this vein for the rest of his life―despite initial bewilderment from his peers―reinforced his reputation as an artist’s artist and a model of integrity; since his death 50 years ago, he has become hugely influential as contemporary art has followed Guston into its own antic twists and turns. Published to accompany the first retrospective museum exhibition of Guston’s career in over 15 years, Philip Guston Now includes a lead essay by Harry Cooper surveying Guston’s life and work, and a definitive chronology reflecting many new discoveries. It also highlights the voices of artists of our day who have been inspired by the full range of his work: Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Thematic essays by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin trace the influences, interests and evolution of this singular force in modern and contemporary art―including several perspectives on the 1960s and ’70s, when Guston gradually abandoned abstraction, returning to the figure and to current history but with a personal voice, by turns comic and apocalyptic, that resonates today more than ever.

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• Records the first UK exhibition to include works from Abramović’s entire career
• Accompanying catalogue for the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy from 23 September – 1 January 2024
• An augmented reality app for iOS and Android enables readers to watch films of Abramović’s original performances while reading the book

Over the past half century, Marina Abramović has earned worldwide acclaim as a pioneer of performance art. This handsome new book records the first UK exhibition to include works from her entire career. Re-performances of some of her best-known and most radical pieces appear alongside new and recent work. An augmented-reality app for iOS and Android enables readers to watch films of Abramović’s original performances while reading the book.

An essential purchase for all followers of Abramović’s extraordinary 55-year career, this important publication brings expert voices into the debate that her groundbreaking art engenders. How far should an artist push herself in pursuit of her work? What role does the audience play in creating a performance? How can performance art outlive the moment in which it takes place?

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Walead Beshty is a carefully curated guide to key bodies of work by the acclaimed conceptual artist presented in collaboration with Thomas Dane Gallery in London, Turin and Naples.

One of today’s leading conceptual artists, Los Angeles-based Walead Beshty (b. 1976, London) works across photography, sculpture and words. Beshty’s art is expansive and best described as an ongoing conversation, to which this monograph is his next articulation. Through a deconstructing lens, Walead Beshty explores every exhibition and project the artist has presented in collaboration with Thomas Dane Gallery in London, Turin and Naples. The monograph offers a guide to some of the artist’s key bodies of work.

Uncovering processes is central to Beshty’s art. He deliberately incorporated marks made by oxidation and human touch into his FedEx copper works and Copper Surrogate works, as well as photographing the many individuals involved in his exhibitions in Industrial Portraits. The work that has gone into this substantial new monograph, which features contributions from publisher Francis Atterbury, book designer Billie Temple and Thomas Dane partner Francois Chantala, is, quite literally, laid bare. Also presented is an insightful essay by leading professor of Juridical Sociology at Univer¬sity of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Carlo De Rita.

Adopting a semiotic approach to books as ‘not just a thing you hold, but something held in common’, Walead Beshty embraces the archetypal format, tropes and conventions of a traditional – if unorthodox – book, employing printing and publishing practices seldom seen in contemporary bookmaking. It reflects on what an artist’s monograph might represent as it explores the contingencies that allow art to function. Walead Beshty is itself another carefully curated exhibition of his work.

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• Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton from 5 April to 28 August 2023
• The collaboration between the two artists, legends of the New York avant-garde, through more than a hundred of their joint works

In the spring of 2023, Fondation Louis Vuitton will be holding Basquiat x Warhol… Painting 4 hands, the most important exhibition ever devoted to the collaborative work of these two artists. The exhibition will feature more than 100 jointly signed paintings, in addition to individual works by Basquiat and Warhol, and works by other major artists (Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf, etc.) in order to recreate the New York downtown art scene of the 1980s.

From 1984 to 1985, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) and Andy Warhol (1928–1987) jointly produced about 160 paintings, some of the largest in their respective careers. A genuine artistic dialogue of style and form had developed between them that dealt equally well with crucial issues such as the integration of the African-American community into the narrative of North America, a continent where Warhol was a major manufacturer of icons.

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A unique survey of 350 artworks by a global and diverse array of LGBTQ+ artists – many underrecognized and overlooked – from the last 50 years

Though the Stonewall Riots might now be shorthand for the start of the gay rights movement, so much of art and culture has been ‘queer’ since the beginning of time. In About Face, art historian and curator Jonathan D. Katz explores this concept head-on, curating a tapestry of works that connect historical threads and reveal how gender and sexual identity have been interwoven by artists contemporaneous to and since Stonewall. With more than 350 artworks by over 40 LGBTQ+ artists across nationalities and generations, and original texts by artists and scholars, About Face is as stunning as it is important.

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The first publication dedicated to artists’ zines in North America, a revelatory exploration of an unexamined but thriving aesthetic practice

Copy Machine Manifestos captures the rich history of artists’ zines as never before, placing them in the lineage of the visual arts and exploring their vibrant growth over the past five decades. Fully illustrated with hundreds of zine covers and interiors, alongside work in other media, such as painting, photography, film, video, and performance, the book also features brief biographies for more than 100 zine-makers including Beverly Buchanan, Mark Gonzales, G.B. Jones, Miranda July, Bruce LaBruce, Terence Koh, LTTR, Ari Marcopoulos, Mark Morrisroe, Raymond Pettibon, Brontez Purnell, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Kandis Williams. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, this expansive book, bound as a paperback with a separate jacket, focuses on zines from North America, celebrating how artists have harnessed the medium’s essential role in community building and transforming material and conceptual approaches to making art across all media since 1970. 

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2024 Michael Jackson A3 Calendar. Each month features iconic images of Michael Jackson also known as the King of Pop. There is also plenty of room for all your notes and appointments in the large monthly date panels provided.

Product Dimensions: 420 X 297 MM

Danilo is the leading publisher of officially licensed calendars, diaries, greeting cards, gift wrap and gift bags in the UK. We are a family run company that’s been operating for more than 40 years. Our licenses range from baby to adult. All the paper we use is responsibly sourced and we only work with suppliers and manufacturers that meet our stringent ethical requirements.

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