Spring Has Sprung!

Leendert Blok: Silent Beauties

Color Photographs from the 1920s

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Text by Gilles Clément.

Leendert Blok experimented with color photography and the use of the panoramic format. In the 1920s, the Dutch photographer worked in close collaboration with flower producers, providing color prints and autochromes for the display catalogues of the various species they cultivated. Blok portrayed flowers as objects of desire, using the Autochrome Lumière technique.
For Blok, photography related above all to the gaze. Muted tones and soft bronze hues reveal a timeless world of flora, in which corolla, petals and buds are sublimated by chiaroscuro. The flowers stand out against a plain dark background, alluding to the famous vanitas genre of the Dutch Golden Age. Tulips, dahlias, daffodils, irises, hyacinths and peonies reveal themselves in all their glorious diversity. Blok's photographs are reminiscent of botanists' slides of yore, immersing us in the immanence of plant life, in which each flower becomes a sculpture.

Leendert Blok (1895-1986) was born in Holland and studied journalism in South Africa before returning to Lisse, near Amsterdam, where he established his Photo Technischbureau company, for which he procured work from nearby horticulturalists, producing their display catalogues while experimenting with panoramic formats and color photography. From 1925, when the use of color photography was relatively rare, he began using the autochrome technique, which involved making composite images from three-color separations on glass plates with potato starches. The resulting images could not be duplicated.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 7.75 x 10.25 in. / 176 pgs / 154 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 10/27/2015
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Catalog: FALL 2015 p. 42   

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ISBN 9783775740371 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CDN $53.95

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Luke Stephenson: An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds

Published by Stephenson Press|YES Editions.
Foreword by Michael Smith.

It all started very innocently I suppose, but then it gradually turned into an obsession .... The first inkling of this obsession came when British photographer Luke Stephenson (born 1983) met an artist who photographed pigeons--side on, against a blank background. Impressed by the simplicity of these images, Stephenson began to photograph birds. His first subjects belonged to the treasurer of the UK Budgie Society, who deemed his portraits "crap" because he had omitted the legs and tails. He subsequently developed an eye for the nuances of bird photography, and, making a specialty of photographing show birds of all kinds, developed the body of work gathered in this volume. While Stephenson's photographs depict these birds with apparent neutrality (against a variety of colored backgrounds), Michael Smith observes in his foreword to this volume that "they live in an overlap between the natural and manmade worlds, and say as much about the culture that created them as they do about nature."

PUBLISHER
Stephenson Press|YES Editions

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6 x 9 in. / 80 pgs / 60 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/28/2014
Out of stock indefinitely

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Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 89   

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ISBN 9780957434103 TRADE
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The Floral Ghost

Published by Planthouse, Inc..
By Susan Orlean and Philip Taaffe.

This one-of-a-kind collaboration between acclaimed author Susan Orlean and celebrated artist Philip Taaffe unites the literary and the visual, the nostalgic and the optimistic, and brings greenery to your bookshelf. Taking inspiration from the rapidly dwindling "flower district" of New York City, Orlean and Taaffe offer tandem musings on the conceit of "the floral ghost." Orlean’s essay, one of her first botanically themed writings since she penned the widely lauded The Orchid Thief, reflects on a poignant moment when she first visited the district in its resplendent heyday. Her text is accompanied by Taaffe’s colorful silkscreen monotypes—a bouquet of paper and ink recalling the unique yet universal nature of time passing and petals fading. An evocative rendering of both the memories of youth and the ephemeral nature of the cityscape, The Floral Ghost makes an elegant gift for every aspiring writer, artist and dreamer who moves to a city to make his or her mark or who admires its mutable glory from afar.
Susan Orlean (born 1955) is the bestselling author of eight books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and Lazy Little Loafers. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. Her 2011 book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, was a New York Times bestseller. Orlean has been a staff writer for the The New Yorker since 1992. She lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York.
Philip Taaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1955, and studied at the Cooper Union in New York. He has exhibited worldwide since his first solo exhibition in New York, in 1982. Taaffe has traveled widely in the Middle East, South America and Morocco, where he collaborated with Mohammed Mrabet on the 1993 book Chocolate Creams and Dollars, translated by Paul Bowles. His work is in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Taaffe lives and works in New York and West Cornwall, Connecticut.

PUBLISHER
Planthouse, Inc.

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.5 x 6.5 in. / 36 pgs / 33 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/22/2016
Out of stock indefinitely

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Catalog: SPRING 2016 p. 27   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780986281495 TRADE
List Price: $22.00 CDN $30.50 GBP £20.00

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Ann Craven: Shadows Moon and Abstract Lies

Published by JRP|Ringier.
Edited by Florence Derieux. Text by Amy Granat, Matt Keegan, Josh Smith, Fraçois Quintin.

Ann Craven's serial paintings of moons, birds and abstractions reflect the example of predecessors such as Vija Celmins, Allan McCollum and Agnes Martin, whose standards of precision are inseparable from the physiological rhythms of their lives as applied to their art. Among her contemporaries are Wade Guyton, Kelley Walker and Josh Smith.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8 x 11.25 in. / 64 pgs / 68 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/31/2009
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Catalog: FALL 2009 p. 133   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783905829976 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $47.50

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Pierre-Joseph Redouté: Botanical Artist to the Court of France

Published by nai010 publishers.
Text by Pieter Baas, Terry van Druten, Pascale Heurtel, Alain Pougetoux, et al.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) is the undisputed master of botanical art. His illustrations of flowers represent a unique fusion of botanical precision with artistic elegance. As court artist to Queen Marie-Antoinette and Empress Joséphine, Redouté drew extraordinary flowers and plants from the Jardin des plantes and the gardens of Malmaison, which made him the darling of Parisian society. Napoleon presented his books as gifts to the crowned heads of Europe, and Redouté’s images illustrated the works of the most eminent scientists of his day. His most famous books, Les Liliacées and Les Roses, are among the milestones of botanical literature. Accompanying a survey of his works at the Teylers Museum in the Netherlands, this richly illustrated publication presents a wide selection of Redouté’s books, drawings and watercolors. Several short essays by Dutch and French specialists offer a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of his art.

PUBLISHER
nai010 publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.5 x 10.5 in. / 168 pgs / 248 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 9/30/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 157   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789462080706 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CDN $53.95

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Cecily Brown & Jim Lewis: The English Garden

Published by Karma, New York.

Like nature, only better. Nature with all the awkward bits smoothed out. And then picturesque, like a landscape painting, states Jim Lewis' protagonist, defining an English garden in Cecily Brown's newest book of paintings. An imaginative pas de deux, The English Garden sees British painter Brown (born 1969) and American writer Lewis (born 1963) contribute acutely detailed and darkly sensuous allusions to the traditional 18th-century English landscape garden.
Thirty-nine of Brown's paintings are interspersed throughout this compact hardcover publication as tipped-in images. The largely abstract works, with glimpses of figurative elements, are a dichotomy of warm and subdued strokes of color, each containing an expansive landscape unto itself. Novelist and critic Jim Lewis' story transports the reader to the English countryside and investigates the seductive pull of the natural world in tandem with Brown's paintings. Combining two major voices in contemporary literature and painting, this volume is a truly gorgeous production.

PUBLISHER
Karma, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.25 x 6.75 in. / 72 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/28/2015
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: FALL 2015 p. 128   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781942607038 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $47.50 GBP £30.00

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Color Rush

American Color Photography from Stieglitz to Sherman

Published by Aperture.
Text by Lisa Hostetler, Katherine Bussard.

Today color photography is so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe there was a time when this was not the case. Color Rush explores the developments that led us to this point, looking at the way color photographs circulated and appeared at the time of their making. From magazine pages to gallery walls, from advertisements to photojournalism, Color Rush charts the history of color photography in the United States from the moment it became available as a mass medium to the moment when it no longer seemed an unusual choice for artists. The book begins with the 1907 unveiling of autochrome, the first commercially available color process, and continues up through the 1981 landmark survey show and book, The New Color Photography, which hailed the widespread acceptance of color photography in contemporary art. In the intervening years, color photography captured the popular imagination through its visibility in magazines like Life and Vogue, as well as through its accessibility in the marketplace thanks to companies like Kodak. Often in photo histories, color is presented as having arrived fully formed in the 1970s; this book reveals a deeper story and uncovers connections in both artistic and commercial practices. A comprehensive chronology and examples of significant moments and movements mark the increasing visibility of color photography. Color Rush brings together photographers and artists such as Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, William Christenberry, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Nan Goldin, Saul Leiter, Helen Levitt, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, László Moholy-Nagy, Irving Penn, Eliot Porter, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, Laurie Simmons, Edward Steichen, Joel Sternfeld, Edward Weston and many others, and examines them in a fresh context paying particular attention to color photography’s translation onto the printed page. In doing so, it traces a new history that more fully accounts for color’s pervasive presence today.

PUBLISHER
Aperture

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 288 pgs / 260 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2013
No longer our product

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PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781597112260 TRADE
List Price: $60.00 CDN $70.00

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Emil Nolde: My Garden Full of Flowers

Published by DuMont.
Edited by Manfred Reuther.

This new title in DuMont's themed Emil Nolde series is devoted to the painter's garden and flower pictures. Wherever he settled, Nolde always planted a flower garden. Nolde's garden at Seebüll is a particular focus of this volume, and one of the artist's most marvelous creations, designed as it is around motifs using the initials A and E (for his wife Ada and his own name). A sumptuous compilation, this new edition of My Garden Full of Flowers includes larger plates.

PUBLISHER
DuMont

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 134 pgs / 70 color / 20 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/24/2015
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Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 153   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783832194833 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

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Josè Marìa Sicilia: Fukushima, Winter Flowers

Published by Turner.

In Fukushima, Winter Flowers, Spanish artist José María Sicilia (born 1954) addresses the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The artist converts different sounds and images of the tsunami, like birdsong and recordings of warning messages, into two- and three-dimensional paintings.

PUBLISHER
Turner

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 7.5 x 10.5 in. / 240 pgs / 150 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2014
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 187   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788415832706 FLAT40
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Lois Weinberger

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Edited by Philippe van Cauteren. Text by Martin Engler, Tom Trevor, Philippe van Cauteren.

Working since the 1970s, Austrian artist Lois Weinberger (born 1947) uses plants as starting points for public art projects, drawings and films. At Documenta 10, for example, Weinberger planted a disused train platform with fauna from southern and southeastern Europe, as a metaphor for patterns of migration. This 400-page volume surveys his works.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8.75 x 10.5 in. / 479 pgs / 300 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 6/30/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 181   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775735179 TRADE
List Price: $85.00 CDN $112.50

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