Artist Architect

Capturing history was Jonathan Alpeyrie's job, but he never expected to become a news story himself. For a decade, the French-American photojournalist weaved in and out of over a dozen conflict zones. But, during his third assignment to Syria, Alpeyrie was betrayed by his fixer and handed over to a band of Syrian rebels. For 81 days, he was bound, blindfolded, and beaten. Over the course of his captivity, Alpeyrie kept his spirits up and strived to see, without his camera lenses, the humanity in his captors.

Socialist, philosopher, and poet William Morris (1834 - 1896) was at the center of the design renaissance of the 1880s, not only because of his celebrated hostility to aspects of machine culture, but because of his success as a designer and businessman whose work had enormous influence on the next generation of artists, craftsmen, and designers.

Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. A total of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his Great Uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined.…

A visit to a museum can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In eleven essays—each framed around a specific theme—he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art. Perry is a disarmingly charming tour guide to museums large or small. He makes even all art approachable and accessible. Along the way, he weaves in personal stories, from his own artistic journey as a painter to the days when he could sleep in his beaten-up VW Bus in the Louvre’s parking lot.

Julia Cameron has transformed the creative lives of millions, showing them that creativity is their uniquely human birthright. But long before the tools of The Artist’s Way changed the conversation around creativity, Julia developed and used them in her own life. Floor Sample is the story behind an artistic life—detailing Julia's years in New York, her time as a writer for Rolling Stone, her turbulent marriage to Martin Scorsese, and her painful struggle with alcohol, which ultimately led her to recovery and the methods that would form the backbone of The Artist’s Way.

Das abenteuerliche Leben der Sehnsuchtsbilder von Caspar David Friedrich – mitreißend erzählt von Florian Illies. Kein deutscher Maler löst solche Emotionen aus wie Caspar David Friedrich: Seine abendlichen Himmel sind bis heute Ikonen der Sehnsucht, er inspirierte Samuel Beckett zu "Warten auf Godot" und Walt Disney zu "Bambi" – Goethe jedoch machte die rätselhafte Melancholie seiner Bilder so wütend, dass er sie auf der Tischkante zerschlagen wollte.

Before Picasso became Picasso—the iconic artist now celebrated as one of France's leading figures—he was constantly surveilled by the police. Amidst political tensions in the spring of 1901, he was flagged as an anarchist by the security services. Though he soon became the leader of the cubist avant-garde, and became increasingly wealthy as his reputation grew worldwide, Picasso's art was largely excluded from public collections in France for the next four decades.

Solitude is the inspirational core for many writers, artists, and thinkers. Alone with our thoughts, we can make discoveries that matter not only to us but to others. To be solitary is not only to draw sustenance from being alone, but to know that our ultimate responsibility is not only to our partner or our own offspring, but to a larger community. Fenton Johnson's lyrical prose and searching sensibility explores what it means to choose to be solitary and celebrates the notion that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling.

Pierre-August Renoir, leader of the 19th-century Impressionist movement, spent his entire life perfecting his style. Rejected for decades, he depended on friends for a place to stay and money for painting supplies. Renoir lived in poverty until his 40's, and when he was finally discovered and hailed as a great artist, his health began to fail him. Still, Renoir never gave up his passion for painting. His need to create beauty was the driving force of his life, and throughout rejections and deteriorating health, Renoir retained an optimism that is reflected in his paintings.

Written between 2015-16, with color images of well-known old masters and contemporary art as well as some of the Bergers’ own drawings and watercolors, Over to You is an informal back and forth not unlike the ping-pong games father and son used to play in the barn of their house. It begins when John—who is in a Parisian suburb—sends Yves—who is in Haute Savoie—an envelope of reproductions of art that have moved him. And so they begin to reveal their thoughts looking at a Goya, Watteau, Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Durer, Caravaggio, Manet, and Euan Uglow, among many others.

What do you do when your world ends? At 28 years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her - one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog - and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.

Jean Renoir's career almost spans the history years of cinema - from the early silent movies, to the naturalism of the talkies, committed cinema, film noir, Hollywood studio productions, the Technicolor-period comedies and fast television techniques. His film The Grand Illusion remains one of the greatest movies about the effects of war.

A rich, penetrating memoir about the author's relationship with a flawed but influential figure—the painter Lucian Freud—and the satisfactions and struggles of a life lived through art.

In Drawn Testimony, Rosenberg brings us into the high-stakes, dramatic world of her craft, where art, psychology and courtroom drama collide. Over the course of her legendary career, Jane has had a front row seat to some of the most iconic and notorious moments in our nation's recent history, sketching everything from Tom Brady's deflate-gate case, to John Lennon's murder trial to cases against Ghislaine Maxwell, John Gotti, Harvey Weinstein and most recently, the indictment against former President Donald Trump.

Vincent van Gogh’s paintings look utterly unique - his vivid palette and boldly interpretive portraits are unmistakably his. Yet however revolutionary his style may have been, it was actually built on a strong foundation of paintings by other artists, both his contemporaries and those who came before him. Now, drawing on Van Gogh’s own thoughtful and often profound comments about the painters he venerated, Steven Naifeh gives a gripping account of the artist’s deep engagement with their work.

Here is Jon Krakauer's portrait of the iconoclastic architect Christopher Alexander, whose revolutionary human-centered approach has shaken the foundations of modern architecture. Krakauer delves into Alexander's life and career, from his theories on a timeless "pattern language" that could be used to create buildings and towns that were simultaneously more livable and more beautiful, to his belief that architecture is correctly viewed as a powerful social instrument; from his on-site drafting techniques to his design process that, like a cocoon, shapes a building from the inside out.

Artorian's stroll onto Earth is cut short by a dagger in the back. Dealing with an unjust loss, he's torn between mourning what was lost and plotting a deviously calculated revenge. An eye for an eye, a stab for a stab. It's time to roll up those sleeves, whip out the master plan, and get down to crafting the narrative.

The inspiring stories of five people who changed history, including Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the Mona Lisa; Christopher Wren, who rebuilt London; Antoni Gaudí, who built the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona; Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish painter; and Frida Kahlo, the famous Mexican female artist.

This combination of serious artistic engagement with warmth and clarity of prose revels in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity, and community.

Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s most famous artists, and his paintings are among the world’s most valuable. The archetypal starving artist, Vincent died aged just 37 years by his own hand, poor, isolated, and, in his eyes, a failure. Yet, in Vincent’s life story we can see the evolution of a boy becoming a man becoming a great artist, whether his contemporaries could see it at the time or not.