This beautiful book, of paintings by Alice Mumford and poems by Sue Leigh, brings together exciting new work from the two makers. Collaboration is perhaps not the right word for a project in which paintings and poems sit side by side, each illuminating the other. Onlooker and reader are offered another glimpse, another view which may change the experience of looking and reading. The book includes conversations between painter and poet in which they discuss their experience of working in their different media and consider the limitations and possibilities of each. They talk about their sources of inspiration, how they might choose a subject (or does it choose them?), and the process that surrounds the making of their work. What do they share in their creative lives and how do they differ? The work of these two contemporary artists celebrates the intimacy and beauty that can be found in our everyday lives.

This catalogue accompanies a major exhibition of work by British artist Claudette Johnson (b. 1959) at The Courtauld Gallery. A founding member of the Black British Arts Movement, Johnson is considered one of the most significant figurative artists of her generation. For over 40 years she has created large-scale drawings of Black women and men that are at once intimate and powerful.

One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. These days, the studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers - Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack - whose vision for Hollywood helped shape the world of entertainment as we know it.In The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family's humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the American Midwest, to the height of fame and fortune in Hollywood. With unwavering resolve, the brothers soldiered on against the backdrop of an America reeling from the aftereffects of domestic and global conflict. The Great Depression would not sink the brothers, who churned out competitive films that engaged audiences and kept their operations afloat - and even expanding. During World War II, they used their platform to push beyond the limits of the Production Code and create important films about real-world issues, openly criticizing radicalism and the evils of the Nazi regime. At every major cultural turning point in their lifetime, the Warners held a front-row seat.Paying close attention to the brothers' identities as cultural and economic outsiders, Yogerst chronicles how the Warners built a global filmmaking powerhouse. Equal parts family history and cinematic journey, The Warner Brothers is an empowering story of the American dream and the legacy four brothers left behind for generations of filmmakers and film lovers to come.

This book provides a comprehensive guide with detailed explanations, illustrations and photographs of late-7th century to 11th century Anglo-Saxon Churches and stone sculpture. It is divided into four parts.The first part includes an extensive glossary explaining the terms likely to be encountered, it explains Celtic and Roman Church practices and the Synod of Whitby, how Anglo-Saxon churches were established and their plans, and also provides a summary to the settlements of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Hiberno-Norse in England. The second part provides a comprehensive description of the construction and architectural features of extant Anglo-Saxon Churches including their walling, plinths and quoining, archways, doorways, windows and belfry-openings of whatever shape or format or wherever their location. It also explains features such as string-courses, pilaster-strips, pilaster-buttresses, hood-moulding and strip-work. Also included are extant Anglo-Saxon stairways and crypts. Explanations are included on porticus, galleries, the use of rooms in towers, roofs, church seating and other furnishing, balusters and baluster-shafts.The third part provides a comprehensive description of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian Decoration on stonework. It details all the designs and patterns involved including those which also have scenes depicting creatures, beasts, birds, serpents and humans, figures, and scenes from Christianity and Norse Mythology. It explains and provides examples of the stonework on which these designs and patterns appear namely standing crosses, cross-heads, cross-shafts and cross-bases; grave-markers, grave-covers, grave-slabs and grave-memorials and crosses; sarcophagi and shrine chests; wall friezes and wall panels; fonts; and sundials. The fourth part provides an alphabetical list of 183 recommended churches and museums with summarised information on their individual architectural features, and/or stone sculpture. Many of the churches are further expanded in detail in the text in the second and third parts. Also provided is a page and photographic index of all the churches and museums where they are referred to in the text. All the places referred to in the text have been personally visited by the author.

Altdorf’s earliest poems, written during military service and as a prisoner of war, reflected on nature, poetry and art. Beginning a new life, post-war, as an artist, Altdorf explored how the human figure might be depicted through increasingly abstract representations. Similarly, he refined his poetry to create ‘a new, free, melodic’ language’ with ‘a simple, song-like beauty’. Presenting Altdorf’s poetry alongside his art reveals a powerfully interconnected vision shaped but not defined by war: a humanitarian outlook informed by a profound spiritual belief.

Post-World War II America has often been mythologized by successive generations as an exceptional period of prosperity and comfort. At a time when the Cold War was understood to be a battle of ideas as much as military prowess, the entertainment business relied heavily on subtle psychological marketing to promote the idea of the American Dream. The media of the 1950s and 1960s promoted an idealized version of American life sustained by the nuclear family and bolstered by a booming consumer economy. The seemingly wholesome and simple lifestyles portrayed on television screens, however, belied a torrent of social, economic, and political struggles occurring at the time. By the late 1950s, television writers were increasingly constrained to distract audiences from confronting counternarratives to the Dream. Among the programs that railed against this trend was Rod Serling's television masterpiece The Twilight Zone. Now considered an enduring classic, the allegorical nature of the show provides a window into the many overlooked issues that plagued Cold War America. In Monsters on Maple Street: The Twilight Zone and the Postwar American Dream, David J. Brokaw describes how the TV show reframed popular portrayals of white American wish fulfillments as nightmares, rather than dreams. Brokaw's close reading of the show's sociopolitical dimensions examines how the series' creators successfully utilized science fiction, horror, and fantasy to challenge conventional thinking – and avoid having their work censored - around topics such as sexuality, technology, war, labor and the workplace, and white supremacy. In doing so, Brokaw helps us understand how the series exposed the underbelly of the American Dream and left indelible impressions in the minds of its viewers for decades to come.

When the famous Dutch art historian and connoisseur Frits Lugt (1884-1970) and his wife Jacoba Klever (1888-1969) decided to present their collections in the Hôtel Turgot in Paris, Chinese porcelain ranked among their priorities. They intended to give the French public an impression of Dutch Golden Age interiors and a porcelain cabinet had traditionally been part of Dutch material culture. Lugt started assembling his Chinese porcelain collection when he lived in the Netherlands. After the Second World War, the couple settled in Paris, and Lugt continued to buy from dealers and at auctions in France and England. He acquired a variety of pieces, either made for export or for domestic Chinese use. The result, now permanently exhibited in the Fondation Custodia, is a small but exquisitecollection of high-quality Chinese porcelain, ranging mainly from the 16th to the late 18th centuries. It reflects the Dutch preference for Kraak, Transitional and Kangxi porcelain, but a number of unusual or even unique non-export porcelains are also on display. Almost all of these pieces are decorated in underglaze cobalt-blue. In this catalogue, written by Dr. Christiaan J.A. Jörg, Dutch specialist on Chineseand Japanese porcelain, each of the 125 pieces is described in detail and placed in a scholarly context. Special attention is paid to iconography, inscriptions and marks. A longer, informative essay elaborates on the history of the collection and shorter essays introduce each of the six sections into which the catalogue is chronologically divided. Every object has been photographed and reproduced from multiple angles, including the base.

Harry Dean Stanton (1926-2017) got his start in Hollywood in TV productions such as Zane Grey Theater and Gunsmoke. After a series of minor parts in forgettable westerns, he gradually began to get film roles that showcased his laid-back acting style, appearing in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and Alien (1979). He became a headliner in the eighties - starring in Wim Wenders's moving Paris, Texas (1984) and Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984) - but it was his extraordinary skill as a character actor that established him as a revered cult figure and kept him in demand throughout his career. Joseph B. Atkins unwinds Stanton's enigmatic persona in the first biography of the man Vanity Fair memorialized as "the philosopher poet of character acting." He sheds light on Stanton's early life in West Irvine, Kentucky, exploring his difficult relationship with his Baptist parents, his service in the Navy, and the events that inspired him to drop out of college and pursue acting. Atkins also chronicles Stanton's early years in California, describing how he honed his craft at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse before breaking into television and movies.In addition to examining the actor's acclaimed body of work, Atkins also explores Harry Dean Stanton as a Hollywood legend, following his years rooming with Jack Nicholson, partying with David Crosby and Mama Cass, jogging with Bob Dylan, and playing poker with John Huston. "HD Stanton" was scratched onto the wall of a jail cell in Easy Rider (1969) and painted on an exterior concrete wall in Drive, He Said (1971). Critic Roger Ebert so admired the actor that he suggested the "Stanton-Walsh Rule," which states that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad."Harry Dean Stanton is often remembered for his crowd-pleasing roles in movies like Pretty in Pink (1986) or Escape from New York (1981), but this impassioned biography illuminates the entirety of his incredible sixty-year career. Drawing on interviews with the actor's friends, family, and colleagues, this much-needed book offers an unprecedented look at a beloved figure.

‘Drawings’ is a collaborative venture combining two exhibitions that have been timed to coincide: British Drawings: 1890-1990 at Sotheran’s and Drawings 1990-2022 at Purdy Hicks Gallery. Both shows emphasise the importance of drawing to artists of the last 120 years: though many of the artists have used myriad other art forms, they have invariably returned to the honesty of drawing, time and time again.The artists reflect their times. The artists from 1890-1980 are very much associated with strong schools of thought. One school in particular, the Slade School of Fine Art, dominates. Its rigorous process of drawing underpins much that we see, but is of course interpreted differently artist by artist. There was most definitely a British School, and in terms of drawing its greatest, though largely unacknowledged, triumph can be found in the remarkable works produced by the artists of the British School at Rome with their use of drawing techniques dating back to the Renaissance. This catalogue contains outstanding examples by Winifred Knights, Evelyn Gibbs, Anne Newland, Thomas Monnington, Robert Austin, Alan Sorrell and Reginald Brill. Slade student Winifred Knights exemplified the teachings of Henry Tonks, (Professor of Fine Art at the Slade from 1918 to 1930), with her observation of nature and meticulous methodology, working through endless studies, which were in turn painstakingly transferred to create finished works. Gilbert Spencer, another of the Professor’s students, recalled how Tonks talked of dedication, the privilege of being an artist, that to do a bad drawing was like living with a lie, and he proceeded to implant these ideals by ruthless and withering criticism. I remember once coming home and feeling like flinging myself under a train, and Stan telling me not to mind as he did it to everyone.Methodology aside, many of the artists in this catalogue share common traits – an obsession with the minutiae of nature, an unbreakable attachment to landscape, an immersion in the narrative tradition, and an inability to resist humour and affection for the quirky and mundane.

This publication has been developed from ideas first presented at the international symposium Late Hokusai: thought, technique, society, held at the British Museum in May 2017. The symposium was organised to enable specialists in a range of disciplines relating to early modern Japan to view and consider the critically acclaimed exhibition Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave, then being presented at the British Museum. The exhibition brought together representative works by the artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760−1849) in the various media in which he worked – colour woodblock printed, woodblock-printed illustrated books, brush paintings on paper or silk, and brush drawings − that were produced between the age of 61 and his death aged 90. Building on the themes of the exhibition, authors from the UK, Europe, Japan and USA have engaged with late Hokusai from a variety of perspectives, both intrinsic and extrinsic to his life and works. Essays have been grouped within the broad categories of ‘thought’ -- Hokusai’s intellectual concerns and the ways his art brought these to life; ‘technique’ – how the artist pursued excellence in a wide range of media, within a commercialised art market; and ‘society’ – dimensions of cultural interaction and patronage. A fourth section on ‘legacy’ looks at how stories of Hokusai have been as much generated by 130 years of scholarship, as they have by his works themselves. Challengingly, faked paintings and printed works have both contaminated and supported those stories. This innovative approach provides new insights into the work of one of the world’s most celebrated artists and suggests many new avenues for Hokusai research.

Artists and travel have for centuries been intertwined where the desire to explore beyond the confines of one’s home has provoked a truly astonishing outpouring of creativity, much of which was captured through drawings and prints. Comprising over 100 such works, Connecting Worlds: Artists& Travel will be the first exhibition to approach the subject through the lens of artists’ experiences of travel from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, before the establishment of the railroad and use of photography as a means of recording changed these experiences deeply. A collaboration between the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Katrin Bellinger Collection, London, the exhibition will include works by major artists, lesser known professionals as well as amateurs, mostly from Northern Europe, amongst them Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Wenceslaus Hollar, Zacharias Wagner, Valentin Klotz, Maria Sibylla Merian, Angelika Kauffmann, Franz Pforr, Augusta von Buttlar, Julie von Egloffstein,Ludwig Richter, and Friedrich Preller the Elder. Divided into three sections, “On the road”, “Destination Rome”, and “Dresden”, the exhibition begins by exploring artists on the road and what they regarded as important to record in sketchbooks and individual sheets. The second section looks at Rome as one of the most important destinations for Northern travellers, with its incomparable remains of antiquity and as the seat of the Catholic Church that celebrated its religious and administrative life through processions and public spectacle. The journey ends in Dresden, as a centre for collecting, cultural exchange and glamorous festivities, ambitiously competing with other international courts since the time of Augustus the Strong. A different kind of travel, made possible by collecting images and stories of landscapes, flora, fauna, and cultures previously unknown in Europe, is explored. This section closes with the story of the IndonesianRomantic artist Raden Saleh, who first visited Dresden in 1839, and was warmly welcomed by the Saxon court. The richly illustrated catalogue will feature essays by an international panel of experts addressing such topics as the uses of artist sketchbooks across time, written and visual accounts of travel in books and prints, encounters with the Ottoman world, travel and collecting at the Saxon court.

Brittle Beauty presents a superlative private collection of European porcelain – radical, rare and in many cases unique pieces assembled over thirty years. Lavishly illustrated and insightfully researched, the book showcases eighty vessels and sculptures, and includes accounts of their patrons and former owners, many as eccentric as the works themselves. One striking attribute of porcelain is its reflective glaze. Mirror-like in a wider sense, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th Century European Porcelain examines the context in which this porcelain was created – including cultural, political, topographical and ceremonial aspects. It also looks at related materials such as silver, textiles and glass. The 18th century was the golden age of porcelain in Europe, which had previously been dependent on precious imports from the Far East. The discovery of the formula for hard-paste porcelain in Dresden in 1709 inspired the establishment of manufactories throughout the Continent. However, its popularity was not purely commercial: porcelain – with its meld of art and science, beauty and intellect, East and West – became a symbol of Enlightenment culture for every princely court. Oriental motifs and European forms were synthesised with deceptive subtlety; later, creations of pure fantasy emerged, often based on travellers’ accounts of exotic lands. Familiar Occidental themes such as nature, hunting or archaeology were paralleled by ironic narratives of love and vanity. Porcelain, with its fragile allure, is uniquely expressive of the human comedy, yet its destiny has often been brutal and tragic. This book features essays from several eminent scholars. It also showcases a wealth of stunning imagery from Sylvain Deleu, who expertly photographed the pieces, many for the first time.

From sculpture to woodcuts, glass design to poetry, the work of German artist Egon Altdorf crossed boundaries. ‘Making culture behind the barbed wire’ was how Altdorf endured wartime captivity, inspiring a life dedicated to art that was innovative, spiritual and redemptive. Exhibiting in London alongside sculptors Barbara Hepworth, Lynn Chadwick and Reg Butler at the Unknown Political Prisoner exhibition (1953), he adopted an increasingly abstract approach, rooted in Biblical symbolism yet embracing different faiths, notably in designs for the outstanding interior of Wiesbaden’s new synagogue. Exploring Altdorf’s work in ten interdisciplinary chapters, this book illuminates the still-overlooked contribution of artists who reshaped postwar existence: the lost generation.

Alastair Gordon (b.1978, Edinburgh), is an artist based in London. This, the first major monograph of the artist’s career, includes over 160 paintings, drawings and documentational photographs, along with notes by Gordon himself. The book introduces this accomplished and engaging new voice in British painting.Gordon’s paintings bring the historic languages of genre painting and the quodlibet into a contemporary discourse that pushes the boundaries of realism, figuration and illusionism to focus on everyday moments. His work often elevates seemingly ordinary objects – feathers, matchsticks, postcards – allowing them to speak to wider concerns of beauty, truth, life and death. The documented works, produced between 2012 and 2023, include paintings made in oil or acrylic on MDF, wood, ‘found’ wood, gesso panel, paper, canvas and occasionally linen. Each is distinctive for its style and for the recurring motifs Gordon selects such as masking tape, paper ephemera and repeated, subtly different studies of the same subject. Gordon’s texts describe how objects found mud larking on the banks of the River Thames, shoes from the London City Mission and rags and papers discarded from art students’ studios have been depicted in paintings, incorporating the histories and stories of each item (and each person) into his work. The book also features recent works influenced by rural landscapes and parkland.An introduction by Julia Lucero, Associate Director of Nahmad Projects, London, emphasises the importance of nature and of meditation within Gordon’s practice. Specifically, Lucero brings out the idea of the ‘axis mundi, that metaphysical and mystical connecting point where heaven meets Earth’. She explores the significance of quodlibet, a seventeenth-century trompe-l’oeil painting technique that Gordon favours, rendering brushstrokes invisible and affording everyday objects new significance, even ‘profound value’. Humble objects such as a matchstick or paper aeroplane might be elevated to the realms of the divine. An essay by Jorella Andrews, Professor of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, describes the influence of Gordon’s time on a research residency in the former studio of Paul Cézanne at Les Lauves on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence. His experiences there proved pivotal to the direction of his practice, in which both the ‘visual misdirection’ of quodlibet and the qualities of wood have become central. Andrews brings art historical texts and works of art into relation with Gordon’s paintings, making comparisons between subject, form and approach. Andrews’ text further details the recent synthesis of two sides of Gordon’s work: precise illusionism combined with looser observations made in the natural landscape.Edited by Alastair Gordon Studio, designed by Herman Lelie, printed by EBS Verona and published in 2023 by Anomie Publishing, London, the publication has been generously supported by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson through Fieldstead and Company.

Honor Titus (born 1989) is an American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. A self-taught painter, Titus is deeply influenced by his creative past as a musician and poet. Titus’s paintings, often suffused with a sense of romance, are embedded with nostalgic references to a simpler time and feature dark, luminous jewel tones. His works often depict faceless figures in minimal urban landscapes, reflecting the isolation that stems from metropolitan anonymity. Titus’s simplified compositions and striking patches of colour are inspired by Les Nabis while his flat, decorative surfaces echo the graphic hyperrealism of artists inspired by American advertising, such as Alex Katz.This, the artist’s first trade monograph, presents new and recent works, including a body of work presented in his 2022–3 solo exhibition at Timothy Taylor, London, Bourgeoisie in Bloom. Here Titus expands on the themes of ritual, class and nostalgia that have characterised previous work, incorporating debutante balls in which young adults are presented to society. Favouring bright panels of colour, Titus evokes traditions of cultural formality, using precise brushwork to delineate details of old-world glamour such as the tilt of a bow tie and the line of a ballgown. A foreword by artist Henry Taylor considers his first encounters with Titus’s work and their continuing friendship. Taylor describes the biographical factors that inform the subjects Titus paints, including music, referencing the first solo show of the artist’s work held at Henry Taylor Gallery in Chinatown, 2020. A text by Durga Chew-Bose brings the themes of nostalgia and memory into the field of discussion. Anecdotes relayed to Chew-Bose bring forward real experiences in relation with his work. The artist’s own words illuminate filmic, musical, photographic and romantic influences on the paintings, while dwelling, lastly, upon his studio space. Klaus Ottmann’s text reflects philosophically and sociologically on Titus’s oeuvre, bringing key art historical reference points into the discussion. Ottmann’s contribution draws connections to key works of literature and criticism that contextualise his work. Published following the exhibition Honor Titus: Bourgeoisie in Bloom at Timothy Taylor, London, 17 November 2022 – 14 January 2023, the publication has been edited by Chloe Waddington, designed by Joe Gilmore, and co-published in 2023 by Timothy Taylor and Anomie Publishing, London.Honor Titus (b. 1989, Brooklyn, NY) is a self-taught American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Recent solo exhibitions include Honor Titus: Bourgeoisie in Bloom, Timothy Taylor, London, United Kingdom (2022–3); Spotlight: Honor Titus, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2022); Honor Titus: For Heaven’s Sake, Timothy Taylor, New York, NY (2021) and Honor Titus: Goodness Gracious, Studio Henry Taylor, Los Angeles, CA (2020). His work has been part of numerous group exhibitions, including IRL (In Real Life), Timothy Taylor, London, United Kingdom (2021); Parallel Worlds, Nassima Landau, Tel Aviv, Israel (2021); and I will wear you in my heart of heart, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2021); and (Nothing but) Flowers, Karma, New York, NY (2020), among others. His work is represented in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina; Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada; The Bunker Artspace, Palm Beach, Florida; and the Longlati Foundation, Shanghai, China. Titus has been featured in publications including Art in America, Artnet, Frieze, GQ, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, and Town & Country.

Kenneth Draper (b.1944) is one of the most innovative artists of his generation. For over six decades he has worked equally with sculpture, painting and drawing. He describes himself as an ‘abstract artist working from the landscape’, reflecting the spirit of places where he has lived, worked or travelled, from London’s urban landscape to India, the United States, northern England, France, Egypt and Menorca. Born in Derbyshire, Draper studied at the Royal College of Art, rapidly establishing a place in the London art scene. He was the youngest artist to exhibit in British Sculptors ’72 at the Royal Academy, having held his first solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery three years earlier. Colour, always an integral aspect of his sculpture, came to the fore in works inspired by a visit to India, in large pastel drawings, and in three-dimensional works exploring gravity, illusion and structural ambiguity. Draper’s recent works on paper range from enigmatic, interior-focused studies in pencil to dazzling colour pieces that further blur the boundaries between the drawn and the constructed. Kenneth Draper: On the Edge of Sculpture is the first monograph to address the full range of an artist whose legacy is a fearlessly exhilarating exploration of landscape and the forces of nature.