This important book presents the work of the fascinating and singular artist Luigi Pericle (1916–2001). Pericle was a painter, illustrator and scholar, as well as a leading figure in the story of art in the second half of the twentieth century.The artist initially found fame as an illustrator, gaining widespread renown in the 1950s as the inventor of the character Max the Marmot. But his intense, enigmatic and multi-layered paintings increasingly drew the attention of the art world, with works that reflect his personal, metaphysical take on post-war abstraction exhibited at numerous venues in Britain during the 1960s. Pericle then abruptly retreatedfrom the art system, and for the rest of his life continued to paint, write and to study esoteric philosophy in the secluded house he shared with his wife Orsolina on Monte Verit  in the Ticino region of Switzerland. The artist’s work was dramatically rediscovered in 2016 when the contents of his former residence were revealed. The process of restoring, cataloguing and researching his vast oeuvre is ongoing, and is overseen by Ascona’s Archivio Luigi Pericle, with which the exhibition has been organised.This beautifully illustrated publication, which accompanies an exhibition at the Estorick Collection, London, includes a full catalogue of the works, as well as essays by noted scholars.

Lorna Robertson’s colourful paintings, often made with a combination of oil paint and collage, have a distinctly nostalgic tone. Shimmering female forms with swinging skirts from the 1950s or bonneted bathers from the 1920s jostle with richly described interiors and crowded tabletops. Hints and glimpses of tangible forms – a fashion model, for example, or a vase – appear and then fragment into patterns and explosions of colour. This new publication coincides with Robertson’s exhibition at Ingleby Gallery and is divided into sections that feature collections of recent large paintings by the artist (2015–2022), small paintings (all 2022) and works on paper (2016–2022), all of which demonstrate Robertson’s characteristic layered interpretations of the female form alongside recurring motifs such as hats, long dresses and flowers. Her drawings (2018–2020) offer fluid forms in ink, pencil and watercolour. An essay by art critic Hettie Judah explores Robertson’s work in terms of pattern, costume and architecture, drawing out key inspirations including tapestry, advertising and magazine design through abstracted forms. The influence of contemporary female painters and those from art history is further considered. In another text, Robertson is in conversation with artist and writer Mikey Cuddihy. This frank interview reveals much about Robertson’s intuitive working processes: from starting points, colour decisions, the rhythms of brushwork and considerations of scale, to the wider relationship between text, music, drawing and painting.The publication is edited by Ingleby Gallery, designed by Joanna Deans, Identity, printed by Albe De Coker, and co-published by Ingleby Edinburgh, and Anomie, London. The publication coincides with Robertson’s first solo exhibition 'thoughts, meals, days' at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2022. The artist is represented by Ingleby Gallery.Lorna Robertson was born in Ayr on the west coast of Scotland in 1967. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and currently lives and works in Glasgow. Recent public solo exhibitions include 'Kodachroma', Glasgow Project Room (2013); 'This Dark Ceiling', Intermedia Gallery, C.C.A, Glasgow (2008); 'The Overlooked', Atelier Am Eck, Dusseldorf, Germany (2006); and 'New Paintings', 64 Osborne Street, Glasgow (2005). Robertson’s group exhibitions include 'Once Upon a Time', Flora Fairbairn, The Portman Estate, London (2022); 'Faces in the Water', Ingleby at Cromwell Place, South Kensington, London (2021); 'Brexit: Mail Art from a Small Island', Sipgate Shows, Düsseldorf, Germany (2019); 'Lorna Robertson and Robert MacBryde', Kingsgate Project Space, London (2019); 'Psychopathology of Everyday life', Glasgow Project Room (2011); and 'Vistas', Glasgow Project Room (2003). The artist was awarded the John Kinross Traveling Scholarship to Florence in 1990 and the Summer Scholarship, Hospitalfield School of Art, Arbroath, Scotland in 1989.

From antiquity, when the Great Pyramid was revered as a wonder of the ancient world, to the Cleopatra of Shakespeare’s stage, and from the medieval Arab scholars who sought hieroglyphs’ mystical wisdom, to the biblical stories still told today, Visions of Ancient Egypt explores how ongoing engagement with ancient Egypt has shaped centuries of art and design. Accompanying a ground-breaking exhibition, it unpicks the constructed fantasies of this ancient civilisation and charts how ancient Egypt’s iconic motifs and visual style have been re-imagined over time – revealing not just an enduring artistic fascination with Egypt, but a story of how Egypt’s own heritage has been reinvented and appropriated by different cultures over time, and a history closely entwined with imperial conquest and colonial politics. Beautifully illustrated throughout and with contributions by leading scholars, this book explores the imagined construction of ancient Egypt promoted through painting, sculpture, photography, architecture and film, as well as design, fashion and jewellery. It traces the journey across time, beginning with the ancient Romans who looted Egyptian monuments and adopted Egyptian gods into their Pantheon; to Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt, and the elite taste for all things Egyptian it prompted; as well as the Victorian creation of an Orientalist fantasy popularised at World Fairs. Presented in a nuanced way, the story is not Eurocentric. For the first time, it also places Egypt’s own story firmly into the narrative, exploring for example Egyptian artists’ responses to nationalist calls for independence spurred by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, while also addressing the popular impact of the ‘Tutmania’ craze in the West and its influence on Art Deco. The book also examines the enduring appeal of ancient Egypt in global contemporary art, across media from painting and sculpture, to film and multimedia installations. Artists both within and beyond Egypt continue to look to its ancient imagery to make statements about heritage, identity and race. The book invites readers to debate and to discuss this complex history of the construction of ancient Egypt in art and design, and to ask who these visions serve – both then and now.

Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was part of an important group of artists who left Europe for America during the Second World War. Andre Breton described her as possessing two priceless gifts: the enlightenment of a lucid madness and the sublime potential of solitary thought. For Max Ernst, she was the Bride of the Wind, a figure who brought energy through her intense life, mystery and poetry. The current volume brings together a reconstruction of Carrington’s biography with a detailed analysis of her artistic production, beginning with her fleeing English high society to follow a dream of freedom, her crazy love affair with Max Ernst and her time in the small village of Saint Martin d’Archèche in the south of France, where she began to paint, write and sculpt. After the outbreak of war, the abyss of madness led her to an asylum, to escaping to New York and finally to Mexico. The culture of Mexico fed her imagination, inspiring a fantastic mythography that amalgamates a deep understanding of the Italian Renaissance, the hybrid figures of Surrealism and studies of esotericism and alchemy, producing original and extremely sophisticated creations. The book provides an intense narrative that spans across the fundamental stations of Carrington’s life, situating her individual journey within the cultural context of the 20th century, a journey that begins in England, moves across the Ocean and concludes in the new millennium in Mexico City, where the author met and became acquainted with the artist.

Digital culture, taken etymologically, means a culture of the fingers (from the Latin digitus). Although our contemporary times are still envisioned through the lens of an over-reigning visual paradigm, our media practice has become mainly bodily, since the role of hands has proven ever more decisive and as gestures have increasingly been constructed as tools for thinking and conceptualization. This issue presents crucial case studies in film and visual culture, ranging from classic to experimental cinema, from science visualization to esoteric culture. In every field, filmed hands come to be extraordinary operators of visibility: they depict imaginary worlds which do not rely upon eye perception, they make visible the intimacy of the human being, they give shape to the spectator’s gaze and, in a more concrete fashion, to the image itself through gestures of care and restoration of the filmstrip as well as by anchoring vision through data visualization processes. A hypnotic and a powerful motif, hands represent the corporeal grounds of the cinematic medium and the indelible crystallization of the human in technique.

Seventy-five years ago, the Hollywood blacklist ruined lives, stifled creativity, and sent waves of proscription and censorship throughout United States culture. When the Hollywood Ten refused to answer the questions of the House Committee on Un-American Activities about their membership in the Communist Party, they were sentenced to prison, the five who were under contract were fired by their studios, and all were blacklisted from reemployment until they "purged themselves of their communist taint." By the 1950s, this blacklist publicly stigmatized nearly three hundred other Americans in the entertainment industry who invoked the First and Fifth Amendments in their refusal to apologize for their Communist ties or provide the names of other members. Dozens of others were graylisted, as the result of rumors. The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later offers new insights on the origins of the blacklist, the characteristics of those blacklisted, and the probability of future proscriptions of the blacklist type. Author Larry Ceplair draws on previously published work while introducing new material to vigorously recount the events that took place between the US government, Hollywood unions, and motion picture studios. Ceplair thoroughly examines the role of Jewish identity in many anti-communist efforts—a concept that has never been fully examined by scholars - and analyzes the actions of subpoenaed witnesses who were forced to choose between cooperating with the House Committee or joining the blacklist. This fascinating book is an illuminating examination of a dark period in American history and the fragility of our rights to free speech and due process. The book includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography and filmography.

Gudme: The Iron Age Settlement and Central Halls presents, describes and interprets the many finds and structures that have been comprised during the extended excavations at the central parts of the Gudme locality on southeast Funen, Denmark. Head of excavation Palle Østergaard Sørensen extracts, combines, classifies, dates and temporalizes the many finds and houses from the excavations Gudmehallerne, Gudme III, Gudme IV. Since the 19th century the Gudme area has been known as one of the richest prehistoric localities in Scandinavia, and more than 1,000 roman coins, close to 600 fibulas as well as several small mask and animal figurines form part of the Gudme find assemblage. From AD 200 to AD 600 the site expanded rapidly and covered as much as one square kilometre comprising up to 50 farmsteads. At the individual farms, specialized craftsmanship can be found and the debris and tools of gold- and silversmiths as well as bronze casting is abundant – here, bronze fragments, often from statues, imported from the Roman Empire form a distinct category of finds – bearing witness to a flourishing and innovative world of craftsmanship, as well as an extensive trade network. During this period the unique and monumental halls, with the largest being 47 m long and 10 m wide, dominated the hilltops east of Gudme lake. Just to the south a smaller building accompanied the large hall, and had been purposely demolished and rebuilt several times at the exact same spot. The unusually large entrances to the two adjoined buildings lead straight from one to the other, thus witnessing a duality of buildings that came to define the aristocratic localities throughout Scandinavia in the following 800 years. Hence, Gudme represents a starting point for a significant type of architectural ideal as well as a first generation of central places.

The New York Times called the Speed Art Museum's Promise, Witness, Remembrance - centered around artist Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor and originally commissioned by Ta-Nehisi Coates for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine - one of the best art exhibitions of 2021. In the words of critic Holland Cotter, "the show was assembled in four months - warp speed in museum-time - and created a prototype for institutional responses to history-as-it's-happening." This breathtaking book documents not just the 32 works featured in the exhibition, but also the process by which the Speed used this opportunity to memorialize the life of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville police in March 2020, and to serve its community through art, featuring real-time quotations from Curator Allison Glenn, Community Engagement Strategist Toya Northington, Director Stephen Reily, Tamika Palmer (Breonna Taylor's mother), artist Amy Sherald, and others. With 200 photos, featuring work by 22 Black artists, including Sam Gilliam, Lorna Simpson, Kerry James Marshall, Hank Willis Thomas, and Theaster Gates, Promise, Witness, Remembrance is a vital addition to the canon of Black American art.

This fascinating and beautifully illustrated book presents for the first time the rediscovered frescoes painted by Andrea Sacchi (1599–1661) for the loggia of Cardinal del Monte’s Roman palace near via di Ripetta, Rome. Considered lost by generations of scholars, Andrea Sacchi’s fresco cycle has survived in a private apartment in Rome. Largely unpublished and rarely mentioned in recent literature, the frescoes underwent a revelatory restoration in 2010–11. For the past three years, the author was granted exclusive access to study them thoroughly – resulting in this monograph. Accompanied by beautiful and full photographic documentation, this study compares the painted images with the detailed description given by the biographer Giovan Pietro Bellori; it sheds light on the iconography and style, above all with respect to the sources used; and integrates this key commission within Sacchi’s early career. The cycle’s iconography is explored with careful verification of early sources that now allows us to resolve some particularly complex problems of interpretation – above all those relating to alchemy. Cardinal del Monte’s Palazzo di Ripetta housed a fully equipped pharmacological laboratory. Research on this cycle of frescoes has also made it possible to discover new archival evidence regarding Sacchi’s date and place of birth.

‘A lover of light’: in 1912, a French critic used these words to describe the great Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer, who had close ties to the French art scene for more than two decades. Krøyer first visited Paris in 1877, and his many letters clearly show the impact French art had on Krøyer’s own development as a painter, on the artists’ colony in Skagen, and on Danish art history in general. In Krøyer and Paris. French Connections and Nordic Colours, art historians Mette Harbo Lehmann and Dominique Lobstein describe Krøyer’s artistic development from the Golden Age tradition favoured by the Danish academy to Naturalism and the Modern Breakthrough. They show how inspiration from France can be traced in his painting technique and his open-air paintings from Skagen, revealing how French Naturalism made its mark on Krøyer’s distinctive style.

Landfill is a collection of eye-opening photographs by Brett Kallusky, taken in California's historic Santa Maria Valley, one of the world’s great wine-growing areas. This body of work, however, directs our attention to a small section of the landscape: to the entwined systems of vast agricultural production and the waste it creates. The photographs reveal scenes that are literally hidden from public view and knowledge, underscoring their nature as evidentiary documentation: a microcosm with ramifications far beyond its geographical boundaries. Kallusky's interest does not end there, for his depiction of this famous Central California landscape creates an opportunity for contemplative reflection of our complicit involvement, if only by eating the strawberries, carrots, and cauliflower that is grown here and transported to grocery stores throughout the U.S. Thus, despite the cool formalism and detached documentary style of the pictures, assembled together as they are in this book, they engage in an extended consideration, drawing viewers into a new relationship with this place. Addressing the current, human-centered epoch known as the Anthropocene, the quiet but powerful imagery of Kallusky's Landfill examines important questions of how the land is used and regarded. The landscape reveals who we are, as he brings these invisible spaces into visibility, showing how the earth supports our food needs on a massive scale, fueling a massive engine of consumption. What is left in the wake of that system to which we all belong?

Film star. Cabaret sensation. Recording artist. Writer. Marlene Dietrich was nothing short of enchanting – and remains so even today. In this book she chronicles her fabulous rise to stardom. From her early career in Germany as a chorus girl to her breakout role as Lola in The Blue Angel to her courageous wartime tours, Dietrich recounts a life that captivates on the page just as she smouldered on the screen. She writes passionately of her friends – including Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Edith Piaf, among many others – and she shares memories of what she calls her greatest accomplishment: entertaining the Allied troops during World War II. A sustained expression of her bold, sophisticated style, Marlene reminds us why Dietrich remains an international icon and a true Hollywood legend.

From the wonderfully varied and witty mind of Marlene Dietrich comes an alphabetised collection of her most zany, honest, and heartfelt thoughts. Offering her take on a range of ideas, people, and items, Marlene Dietrich's ABC is an unprecedented glimpse into one of history’s brightest and most enigmatic stars. Nothing is too small or grand for Dietrich’s unique eye. From her entry for hardware store – "I'd rather go to a hardware store than to the opera" – to her entry for egocentric – "If he is a creative artist, forgive him" – she transforms both the mundane and the mysterious into snapshots of her own spirit. Complete with photos from her vast career, Marlene Dietrich’s ABC is an unexpected and addicting treat. In this edition Marlene offers her unique blend of wit, a sometimes mordant humour, sensitivity and acute observations of the world as she has known it and, to some extent, been shaped it. By blending the absolutely practical with her whimsical, witty, poetic and sometimes moving observations, Dietrich creates in yet another field that special magic with which she has held the world enthralled for decades.

Best known for her appearances in the six Technicolour 'Neverland' movies, Maria Montez is a film icon. Growing up as one of ten children in the Dominican Republic, her rise as a film star in the United States seemed unlikely. In 1939, Montez set off on her own to New York City to fulfill her aspirations of movie stardom. Despite having no substantial acting experience, Montez managed to sign with major agent Louis Schurr who helped her secure a contract with Universal Studios before she moved out to Hollywood. Following her arrival in Los Angeles, Montez began cultivating the larger-than-life persona for which she is known. Her beauty, personality, and series of publicity antics, including dramatic restaurant entrances, endeared her to the press. She even created her own fan club – The Montez for Stardom Club. Her ambitious self-promotion bolstered the success she found with her first big lead in Arabian Nights, released in 1943. From then on, the studio referred to her as 'The Queen of Technicolour'. Author Tom Zimmerman puts Montez's life in historical context, including her role as a cultural icon and a living representation of the United States’ Good Neighbor Policy with Latin American countries. With her thick Dominican accent, Montez struggled to make herself intelligible to an American audience. However, unlike some of her Latin contemporaries, she did not present a caricature of her culture or use her accent for comedic purposes, giving her credibility with a Latin American audience. Zimmerman skillfully recounts the story of Montez’s fiery ambition and her ascent to Hollywood fame, giving her the opportunity to live on in public memory.

This stunning catalogue presents an exceptional collection of rare Burmese silver. Accompanied by detailed photographs and explanatory texts, this ground-breaking book proposes a new way of looking at Burmese silver. Names, dates, places, and stories – identifying the who, when, where, and what of Burmese silver has been the focus of publications on the topic. Are these questions the best way to understand silver, however? Alexandra Green argues that they are not. Too few pieces provide reliable information about silversmiths, production locations, and dates to allow for a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Instead, a close examination of silver patterns reveals strong links with Burmese art history reaching as far back as the Bagan period (11th- to 13th-centuries), connections with contemporary artistic trends, and participation within the wider world of silversmithing. The first European to write about Burmese silver was H. L. Tilly, a colonial official from the late 19th- into the early 20th-century. Tasked with collecting objects for various fairs and exhibitions, he took an interest in Burmese art, publishing articles and books from the 1880s onwards. While much of what he wrote was factually inaccurate and coloured by the prejudices and stereotypes common at the time, his two volumes on Burmese silver published in 1902 and 1904 contain pictures of pieces from the early to mid 19th-century. These enable a reconstruction of how silver designs evolved as the country was absorbed into the Indian Raj, and British and other Westerners became consumers of local silver products. Tilly was also correct in his interest in silver designs. Green uses the visual information from his books to describe the continuities and innovations of designs found on silver from the mid 19th through the mid 20th-century, and she places these trends within local, regional, and global flows of ideas. Many studies of Burmese silver have been plagued by a lack of understanding of the Burmese context. In contrast, Green examines silver from a local perspective, drawing on Burmese texts and information that allows for a nuanced view of the motifs, designs, and patterns that appear repetitively on silver pieces. Using Graham Honeybill's collection, formed over many years, as a basis, she explores how designs and patterns circulated around the country and were innovatively combined and recombined on pieces by silversmiths producing objects for Burmese, Western, and commercial clients.

Urban planning is a keystone in the materialization of the Nordic welfare states. That is not to say that there is one particular city form or planning practice that is synonymous with the emerging welfare city, as welfare per se is far from normative. On the contrary, welfare is a highly ambiguous and contested notion that has changed over the postwar decades, which is also reflected in the development of the welfare city. However, welfare in urban planning has mainly been associated with ideas of “the good life” and egalitarianism. In a Nordic context, the state has taken the lead in providing the social engineering “hardware” for advancing this universal aim. Social demographic welfare is economically based on full employment, and in this regard housing and caregiving support are key components. Yet education, infrastructure, and leisure facilities are also basic features in the distribution of universal welfare services for citizens’ entire lives. The results, ideally, are green and spacious welfare cities. This book outlines the origins, development, challenges, and lived realities of the changing welfare city, focusing primarily on Denmark. Strategies have changed over the decades as models of development have shifted and as the needs of society and a warming planet have come into focus. The current welfare city can be described as an urban landscape characterized by, on the one hand, a division of functions and, on the other, mutual competition. The role of the state has been minimized, turning municipalities into the new major agents in attracting taxpayers and providing goods—both by means of urban planning.