Art

I Have Found a Song is a fascinating collection of poems and images published to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. It originated in a commission from Arts Council England for 12 poets to write on the theme of enslavement, which has resulted in a richly diverse selection of new poems. Interspersed with these are elaborate and exciting visual contributions by five artists invited by Enitharmon Editions to produce work on the same theme. The de luxe edition of the book is accompanied by a portfolio of signed original prints, and each artist has also...

In this beautifully conceived artist’s book, the paintings and drawings of Glenn Brown referencing the meteoric career of Ian Curtis and Joy Division are brought together with specially written texts by the novelist Michael Bracewell and the poet Lavinia Greenlaw. Both writers are perfectly attuned not only to the haunting music of Joy Division but also to Brown's artwork. The book begins with Bracewell’s essay, which describes the iconic musical intensity and profound romanticism of Joy Division. His essay is entitled ‘Licht and Blindheit’ from the last Joy Division record to be released during Curtis’s lifetime. Greenlaw’s poetry reflects on the impact of...

Drawing Sir Michael Craig-Martin began making line drawings of ordinary objects in 1978, and has continued to add to this vocabulary of images to the present day. All are of man-made objects, mostly mass-produced, immediately familiar in the contemporary world. They have been at the core of most of his work since 1978. Unlike a drawing produced on paper they do not exist as unique images. As the artist explains: "In the early days I drew each object in pencil on paper and traced it in fine tape on acetate. I then destroyed the pencil drawings. Since the mid-’90s I have drawn directly on a...

The complete text of the pair’s only feature-length film (released in 1981). This hardback book includes all instructions, as well as 900 or so drawings visualising every scene and shot in the film. This extraordinary publication takes the reader on a picaresque voyage through the artists' world. Above all, their own vision of their immediate environment in London's East End. It is a world of extremes, taking in the beauty of nature and the urban landscape, sex and eroticism, religion and spirituality, drunkenness and degradation, fear and human aggression, raucous humour and poetry. Wide in its range of imagery, moods and...

Side by Side is a unique glimpse into the mercurial world that Gilbert & George construct around themselves.  A 'contemporary sculpture novel’, Side by Side functions as a kind of manifesto of their view of life and art. We follow them 'in the Nature', in a playful celebration of the Romantic flâneur as they traverse the English countryside. Also, through 'A Glimpse into the Abstract World', brief but poetically ornate texts are teamed with hand-drawn, abstracted imagery. ‘The Reality in Our Living’ provides the gritty urban flipside to their earlier bucolic idyll and the black-and-white images flesh out the words of the...

Jim Dine’s vivid, candid and detailed reminiscences about his friendship and working relationship with Aldo Crommelynck (1931-2008), the legendary printer of Matisse and Picasso, over a period of more than 30 years are full of affection, humour and layer upon layer of information. In conversations with Marco Livingstone, Dine charts the extent to which his experience of working with Aldo, a man who was not only a great printer but also a skilled draughtsman, enriched his experience of France on every level. From an appreciation of its art and culture, its city life and countryside, to its food and its specialist shops, Dine’s ruminations also...

Texas 1964 represents an amazing discovery.  Duane Michals, one of America’s pre-eminent photographers completed a project in 1964 to depict different aspects of the state of Texas.  Michals recently discovered in his archive ‘Duane’s Texas tempest in a teapot treasure trove’, the whole brilliant and resonant portrait of that celebrated state – captivating black-and-white images published here for the first time. Tender, witty, poignant and truthful, Duane Michals’ Texas 1964 captures a society in some ways unchanged from its first controversial settlement, with its racial divisions and economic and social gulfs, and in others redolent of the new America – commercialised, confident, forward-looking. Texas 1964 has...

Paul Muldoon & Philip Pearlstein It is perhaps the accidental collaborations that can prove the most imaginative and charming, as in this beautifully conceived artist’s book bringing together the Pulitzer-prizewinning poet Paul Muldoon and one of his artistic heroes, the eminent American painter Philip Pearlstein, long revered as one of the modern masters of figurative art. Sparkling new sequences of poems accompany lively watercolours which, as the artist explains, are ‘mostly of terra cotta objects…vessels and fragments of gods, goddesses, and demons from various ancient cultures.’ In his introduction Paul Muldoon sets the scene: ‘When I’d first asked Philip Pearlstein if he...

Paul Muldoon & Philip Pearlstein It is perhaps the accidental collaborations that can prove the most imaginative and charming, as in this beautifully conceived artist’s book bringing together the Pulitzer-prizewinning poet Paul Muldoon and one of his artistic heroes, the eminent American painter Philip Pearlstein, long revered as one of the modern masters of figurative art. Sparkling new sequences of poems accompany lively watercolours which, as the artist explains, are ‘mostly of terra cotta objects…vessels and fragments of gods, goddesses, and demons from various ancient cultures.’ In his introduction Paul Muldoon sets the scene: ‘When I’d first asked Philip Pearlstein if he...

Since its first publication in this format in 2004, Paula Rego’s Jane Eyre has been a firm favourite with art lovers and readers devoted to Charlotte Brontë's celebrated novel who have relished Rego’s deeply imaginative responses to salient incidents in the story. Now redesigned and extended, Rego’s Jane Eyre impresses all over again with its highly dramatic lithographs and carefully chosen texts, tracing Jane’s progress from the shy bookish girl studying Bewick’s History of British Birds and dreaming of the Arctic seas to the confident young woman who survives the dramas at Thornfield Hall and captures the heart of Mr...

Full of the macabre touches and dark humour that have made Paula Rego's reputation, Stone Soup is a new version of the traditional Portuguese folktale by her daughter, the designer and writer, Cas Willing. Typically read to children to encourage cooperation in times of scarcity, the fable has existed in numerous incarnations for centuries. We follow the efforts of a young female traveler in her attempt to save herself from starvation, persuading a suspicious townspeople to supply her with food for her mysterious Stone Soup. All of the thirteen watercolour and ink paintings are reproduced here, bringing together Rego's expressive...