Painting Stories explores the accomplishments, struggles, and livelihoods of traditional artisans in Raghurajpur, a village known for its patta chitra painters. In this collection, Helle Bundgaard weaves thirty years of observations and experiences into a tapestry of stories, which together present a poignant image of the lives of Indian craft makers and their personal connections to the art that they create. The painters’ stories are situated in a rich cultural environment and steeped in social relations. For them, painting is more than a livelihood or an aesthetic expression – it is a way of life. Painting Stories is a window into a part of our world rarely seen, reminding us of both our rich diversity and our shared humanity. Written with the painters, students, and laypersons in mind, the book includes a discussion of ethnographic storytelling and resources for ethnographic writing, as well as color photographs that bring the stories to life.
Bob Ross paints a stunning home for his squirrel friend, Peapod, in this delightful nod to a painter icon. This is the sweet story of a painter (Bob Ross) who helps his squirrel friend, Peapod, find the perfect home to live in. Bob paints an actual Ross painting, "Meadow Lake," in this charming tale about helping friends and embracing the serenity of life. Bob, along with Peapod, go through the various steps and processes to painting, including praising those "happy little accidents" that happen along the way.
One of Thailand’s best-known and most highly regarded novels, portraying the romance of a young Thai man and a married older woman ‘In that tranquil and apparently very ordinary picture, I see everything unfolding. Every scene, every part, from the beginning to the final act’ Nopporn, a Thai student studying in Japan, is tasked with hosting a distinguished old family friend and his new wife, the beautiful, aristocratic Kirati. Despite their difference in age and status, and the social constraints of the day, Nopporn and Kirati are inexorably drawn to each other, and love starts to bloom. A stirring portrayal of youthful romantic obsession, and later attempts to come to terms with the frailty of passionate feelings, Behind the Painting also shows the constrained lives of many women of the time. First published in 1937, it is one of Thailand’s best-known and most beloved novels. Translated by David Smyth
A thrilling, eye-popping look at true crime in the billion-dollar art world. The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe. Increased prices and globalization have introduced new levels of fraud and malfeasance into the art world--everything from "artnapping," in which an artwork is held hostage and only returned for a ransom, to forgery and tax fraud. However, the extent of the economic and cultural damage that results from criminality in the global art scene rarely comes to light. The stories of high-stakes, brazen art crimes told by art experts Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm are by turns thrilling, disturbing, and unbelievable (the imagination for using art to commit crimes seems boundless). The authors also provide a well-founded analysis of what needs to change in the art market and at museums. From the authors of False Pictures, Real Money (about the Beltracchi art forgery case), Art and Crime includes a chapter on art owned by Donald Trump. It is a thoroughly researched, explosive, and highly topical book that uncovers the extraordinary and multifarious thefts of art and cultural objects around the world.
“Written in prose so clear that we absorb its images as if by mind meld, “The Last Painting” is gorgeous storytelling: wry, playful, and utterly alive, with an almost tactile awareness of the emotional contours of the human heart. Vividly detailed, acutely sensitive to stratifications of gender and class, it’s fiction that keeps you up at night — first because you’re barreling through the book, then because you’ve slowed your pace to a crawl, savoring the suspense.” —Boston Globe A New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice A RARE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING LINKS THREE LIVES, ON THREE CONTINENTS, OVER THREE CENTURIES IN THE LAST PAINTING OF SARA DE VOS, AN EXHILARATING NEW NOVEL FROM DOMINIC SMITH. Amsterdam, 1631: Sara de Vos becomes the first woman to be admitted as a master painter to the city’s Guild of St. Luke. Though women do not paint landscapes (they are generally restricted to indoor subjects), a wintry outdoor scene haunts Sara: She cannot shake the image of a young girl from a nearby village, standing alone beside a silver birch at dusk, staring out at a group of skaters on the frozen river below. Defying the expectations of her time, she decides to paint it. New York City, 1957: The only known surviving work of Sara de Vos, At the Edge of a Wood, hangs in the bedroom of a wealthy Manhattan lawyer, Marty de Groot, a descendant of the original owner. It is a beautiful but comfortless landscape. The lawyer’s marriage is prominent but comfortless, too. When a struggling art history grad student, Ellie Shipley, agrees to forge the painting for a dubious art dealer, she finds herself entangled with its owner in ways no one could predict. Sydney, 2000: Now a celebrated art historian and curator, Ellie Shipley is mounting an exhibition in her field of specialization: female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. When it becomes apparent that both the original At the Edge of a Wood and her forgery are en route to her museum, the life she has carefully constructed threatens to unravel entirely and irrevocably.
Have you learned your colors and shapes? Now it's time to learn patterns! Stripes, polka dots, plaid, chevron, and more are featured in this first-ever patterns concept book that provides readers with the vocabulary to name what they see in the world around them. The ten most prevalent patterns are presented first as a single element (This is a circle ...), then as a pattern (... a lot of circles make polka dots!). Conceived by educators and illustrated in vivid candy-colored hues, this pitch-perfect introduction to patterns will engage the artistic, mathematical, and linguistic parts of every young child's mind.
Virginia Woolf’s collection of writings on visual arts offer a whole new perspective on the revolutionary author. Despite wide interest in Woolf’s writings, and in the artists and art critics in her Bloomsbury Group circle, there is no accessible edition or selection of essays dedicated to her writings on art. This newest edition in David Zwirner Books’s ekphrasis series collects her longest essay on painting, “Walter Sickert: A Conversation” (1934), alongside shorter essays and reviews, including “Pictures” (1925), and “Pictures and Portraits” (1920). These formally inventive texts reveal the centrality of the visual arts to Woolf’s writing and vision. They show her engaging with contemporary debates about modern art and are innovative in their treatment of ideas about color and form, including in response to the work of her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, who designed many of her book cover jackets. In these essays and reviews, Woolf illuminates the complex and interdependent relationship between the artist and society, and reveals her own shifting perspectives during decades of social and political change. She also provides sharp and astute commentary on specific works of art and on the relationship between art and writing. An introduction by Claudia Tobin situates the essays within their cultural contexts.
