An examination of the cultural and artistic consequences of post-WWI nationalism in Europe. World War I was a seismic event in Europe whose most concrete ramifications were the sweeping changes made to maps of the continent after 1918. A number of new, independent states were established in the wake of the Armistice, and these tectonic developments found varied expression in the arts, transforming the image of the continent both cartographically and artistically. This new edited collection focuses primarily on how modernism and the avant-garde responded to these geographic changes in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia. The contributors explore the clashes between the national, the transnational, and the cosmopolitan as they played out in diverse artistic genres. In many countries across Europe, the struggle for national independence--which in many cases began in the nineteenth century and culminated only after World War I--had important cultural and artistic consequences, which are only beginning to be understood. This book--copublished with Artefactum--provides a crucial new lens to rethink the methodological tools used to understand the complexity and the multiplicity of avant-garde forms in twentieth-century Europe, encouraging scholars to reconstruct global cultural history without tired nationalistic approaches.
The Period of Yuan dynasty (1279-1368 AD) is an important historic time for both cultural and material exchange between China and other countries, and also for the ceramic industry of Jingdezhen city. This book focuses on 14th century porcelain with underglaze blue painting from this period, the earliest blue-and-white porcelain of China and the world. During that time, along with its interaction with outside craftsmanship and cultures, Jingdezhen's ceramic technology further developed and thus laid a solid foundation for the birth and development of the brilliant blue-and-white porcelain.This book reports Yuan blue-and-white porcelain newly discovered at the Luomaqiao kiln site, which were jointly excavated by archaeologists from Peking University and Jiangxi. The excavation uncovered remains of porcelain production as well as tons of fragments of various porcelain types, which span the Northern Song (960-1127) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
Lying between deserts, mountain chains and seas, Iran developed a fascinating cultural landscape. 360 objects from the time of the first advanced civilisations during the 3rd millennium BC until the end of the Safavid Empire in the early 18th century illustrate the outstanding significance of Iran as the initiator and centre of intercultural exchange. Exquisite artworks from the Sarikhani Collection in London and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin invite visitors to embark on a journey in time through the cultural heritage of Iran. The highlights include the great pre-Islamic empires of the Achaemenids and the Sassanids, the establishment of a Persian-Islamic culture, the masterly artistic achievements of the 9th to the 13th centuries and the Golden Age of the Safavids. They are brought together as in a multifaceted kaleidoscope in the copious illustrations and provide insight into the art of the courts and the urban elites.
A discovery: Polish Symbolism between decadence and a new beginning The turn of the century was a golden age for Polish art. The publication shows about 130 masterpieces of painting from this era between decadence and a new beginning and describes its roots in Polish history, culture and nature as well as the close connections with the European art scene. Polish painting in around 1900 carries us into a world of myths and legends, into dream-like landscapes, old traditions and customers, into the depths of the human soul. In a nation without its own state - until its independence in 1918 Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary - a young generation of artists emerged to renew painting. They gave it a common identity, but joined forces at the same time with the European avant-gardes. Artists featured: Teodor Axentowicz, Olga Boznańska, Józef Chełmoński, Władysław Czachórski, Julian Fałat, Wojciech Gerson, Aleksander Gierymski, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Vlastimil Hofman, Władysław Jarocki, Konrad Krzyżanowski, Jacek Malczewski, Jan Matejko, Józef Mehoffer, Edward Okuń, Józef Pankiewicz, Władysław Podkowiński, Witold Pruszkowski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Kazimierz Sichulski, Władysław Ślewiński, Kazimierz Stabrowski, Jan Stanisławski, Henryk Szczygliński, Włodzimierz Tetmajer, Wojciech Weiss, Stanisław Witkiewicz, Witold Wojtkiewicz, Leon Wyczółkowski, Stanisław Wyspiański
A showcase of eighteen masterworks by one of the world's greatest modern artists. This important publication accompanies a major exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London, of paintings by Edvard Munch (1863-1944). The catalog and accompanying exhibition showcase eighteen major works from the collection of KODE Art Museums in Bergen, one of the most important collections of Munch paintings in the world. The works span the most significant part of Munch's artistic development and have never before been shown as a group outside of Scandinavia. This book explores this group of remarkable works in detail and considers the important role of its collector, Rasmus Meyer. The exhibition and publication include seminal paintings from Munch's early "realist" phase of the 1880s, such as Morning and Summer Night, pivotal works that show the artist's move towards the expressive and psychologically charged work for which he became famous. These paintings launched Munch's career and set the stage for his renowned, highly expressive paintings of the 1890s. Such works are a major feature of the exhibition that includes remarkable canvases from Munch's famous Frieze of Life series, which address profound themes of human existence, from love to death. Munch's powerful use of color and form marked him as one of the most radical painters at the turn of the twentieth century. This fully illustrated publication includes a catalog of the works, with contributions by leading experts in their field from KODE and the Courtauld.
The painter Hermann Stenner (1891-1914) was one of the outstanding talents of the 20th century. It is impressive to note that he achieved his rapid artistic development and distinct pictorial language during just five years of study and creative work. His remarkably extensive oeuvre is being rediscovered today following his death at an early age during the First World War. Stenner was born in Bielefeld and belonged to the circle of Westphalian Expressionists as well as the "Hölzel Circle". His career began very promisingly. After attending the painting class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, he transferred to Adolf Hölzel and became the latter's master student in 1912. The following year Stenner was already participating in important exhibitions in Germany and abroad; his works were shown beside those of artists like Egon Schiele and Max Slevogt. In 1914, only a few months before he died in the war, he executed the cycle of wall paintings in the entrance hall of the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne - now destroyed - together with Oskar Schlemmer and Willi Baumeister.
Sticky Pictures examines and celebrates the evolving work of Montreal-based artist Janet Werner. In her paintings, Werner builds a constellation of spatial and figurative explorations drawn from fashion magazines and art history to create collage-like composite figures that slip easily between articulations of beauty, gender, psychology and emotion. Werner's painterly operations are both unsettling and seductive, revealing the conditions of perception and looking as passageways to understanding the intensity of the world at hand. Werner's unique combination of abstraction, fictional portraiture, and the rich history of painting are explored in Sticky Pictures through texts by art and media historians, as well as an interview with the artist. Janet Werner's work has been featured in international solo exhibitions from New York to Los Angeles and as far away as Cape Town. Her work was included in the Prague Biennale in 2003 and is featured in the collections of the Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec, Musee d'art contemporain in Montreal, The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, the University of Lethbridge, Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts in San Francisco, and numerous private and corporate collections. Werner lives and works in Montreal.
The first book to feature Jacob Lawrence's Nigeria series, this richly illustrated volume also highlights Africa's place as a global center of modernist art and culture This revelatory book shines a light on the understudied but important influence of African Modernism on the work of Black American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000). In 1965, a New York gallery displayed Lawrence's Nigeria series: eight tempera paintings of Lagos and Ibadan marketplaces that were the culmination of an eight-month stay in Nigeria. Lawrence's residency in Nigeria put him in touch with the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, an international consortium of artists and writers in post-independence Nigeria that published the arts journal Black Orpheus. The book and accompanying exhibition place the Nigeria series alongside issues of Black Orpheus and artwork created by Mbari Club artists, including Uche Okeke, Jacob Afolabi, Susanne Wenger, and Naoko Matsubara. Diverse essays explore the influence of Africa's post-colonial movement on American modernists and developing African artists; the women of the Mbari group; and the importance of art publications in circulating knowledge globally.
A selection of seventy exceptional seventeenth-century Dutch drawings. This beautifully illustrated catalog presents a selection of exceptional seventeenth-century Dutch drawings from the Peck Collection in the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Featuring many previously unpublished and rarely exhibited works, the catalog brings together examples by some of the best-known artists of the era, including Rembrandt, Jacques de Gheyn II, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and Frans van Mieris. The collection was donated to the museum in 2017 by the late Drs. Sheldon and Leena Peck. The transformative gift is comprised of over 130 largely seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch and Flemish drawings, establishing the Ackland as one of a handful of university art museums in the United States where northern European drawings can be studied in depth. Drawn to Life presents seventy works from this exceptional and diverse group of drawings amassed by the Pecks over four decades. Featuring new research and fresh insights into seventeenth-century drawing practice, the catalog and accompanying exhibition celebrate the creativity and technical skills of Dutch artists who explored the beauty of the natural world and the multifaceted aspects of humanity. Meticulously researched and written by Robert Fucci, Drawn to Life introduces both scholars and drawings enthusiasts to the depth and beauty of the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum.
A groundbreaking examination of modern African artists and their relationships with American artists and cultural institutions in the mid-twentieth century Between 1947 and 1967, institutions such as the Harmon Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and historically Black colleges and universities collected and exhibited works by many of the most important African artists of the mid-twentieth century, including Ben Enwonwu (Nigeria), Gerard Sekoto (South Africa), Ibrahim El-Salahi (Sudan), and Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia). The inventive and irrefutably contemporary nature of these artists' paintings, sculptures, and works on paper defied typical Western narratives about African art being isolated in a "primitive" past. Providing an unprecedented examination of the complex connections between modern African artists and American patrons amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War, this fascinating volume reveals a transcontinental network of artists, curators, and scholars that challenged assumptions about African art in the United States and encouraged American engagement with African artists as contemporaries.
Stirring paintings, colourful picture collages made from countless scraps of paper, moving photo collages - the art of Tammam Azzam (*1980 in Damascus) is multi-faceted, political and topical. The publication provides a comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of the Syrian artist and describes his career over the past 20 years. Twenty years of the life and work of Tammam Azzam - from Syria and Damascus via Dubai to Delmenhorst and Berlin, where the artist has lived and worked since 2018. The volume Bilder ohne Namen / Untitled Pictures traces Tammam Azzam's life and his art, from the early reduced paintings via the digital photomontages and the large-format pictorial collages to his latest acrylic pictures. Azzam's iconic pictorial inventions engrave themselves into our memory.
Collected articles on Iranian art from the Qajar dynasty. The thirteen articles in this volume were originally given as presentations at the symposium of the same name organized in June 2018 by the Musée du Louvre and the Musée du Louvre-Lens in conjunction with the exhibition The Empire of Roses: Masterpieces of 19th Century Persian Art. The exhibition explored the art of Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the nation was under the rule of the Qajar dynasty. The symposium set out to present research on previously unknown and unpublished objects from this rich period of art history. This volume, published with the Louvre Museum in France, is divided into four sections. The first, "Transitions and Transmissions," is dedicated to the arts of painting, illumination, and lithography. The focus of the second section, entitled "The Image Revealed," also considers works on paper, looking at new themes and techniques. "The Material World" examines the use of materials such as textiles, carpets, and armor. The articles in the final section discuss the history of two groups of artifacts acquired by their respective museums.
There is surprisingly little, and certainly nothing comprehensive, written about the contemporary Russian scene now. What appear in the West are mostly reports about so-called 'dissidents', not about what is happening in this vast culture, taken as a whole. Too often, these reports seem to be primarily inspired by a desire to demonstrate Western cultural and political superiority. The aim of Russian Art in the New Millennium is not to support any one cause, but to look at the situation as it now exists objectively and to give as wide and truthful a view as possible. Russian art during the period under review - the last two decades - has been evolving rapidly and in many directions. Hence there are sections on digital art, landscape paintings, graffiti, religious art and others. Furthermore, in addition to the continuing influence of the traditional centres for art - Moscow and St Petersburg - a number of provincial Russian cities have developed distinctive art worlds of their own. Russian Art in the New Millennium attempts to discover this terra incognita and to encompass this extremely various, but also intensely national art scene in Russia in one volume.