High Renaissance maiolica, produced in Italy in the orbit of Raphael and other artists, is widely known and has been extensively studied.This istoriato, or narrative, maiolica graces the collections of many of the world’s greatest museums. But not for almost 100 years has attention been focused on magnificent works that preceded it in the 14th and 15th centuries, which were at times prized by contemporary patrons more highly than precious metals. Maiolica before the age of Raphael refocuses the spotlight of contemporary scholarship onto the birth of design in Italian maiolica,and its evolution from c. 1350 up until 1500. It was during this formative period that its characteristic tin-based glaze, with the pure and brilliant white surface it offered the late-medieval potter, engendered some of the most rapid and exciting innovations in all ceramic art. Potters began to decorate the surfaces of their earthenware vessels (of an increasingly varied spectrum of shapes and forms) with squirming, meticulous designs of unparalleled ingenuity and expression that incorporated multisensory influences from luxury contemporary textiles, metalwork, and exotic lustreware from Islamic Spain. Presenting over forty rare objects from the foremost centres of production that have survived in private hands, this catalogue explores thespread and evolution of the medium, as well as the history of collecting and the changing taste for Italian pre-Renaissance pottery in the modern era.

Mexican-American life, like that of nearly every contemporary community, has been extensively photographed. Yet there is surprisingly little scholarship on Chicano photography. Picturing the Barrio presents the first book-length examination on the topic. David William Foster analyzes the imagery of ten distinctive artists who offer a range of approaches to portraying Chicano life. The production of each artist is examined as an ideological interpretation of how Chicano experience is constructed and interpreted through the medium of photography, in sites ranging from the traditional barrio to large metropolitan societies. These photographers present artistic as well as documentary images of the socially invisible. They and their subjects grapple with definitions of identity, as well as ethnicity and gender. As such, this study deepens our understanding of the many interpretations of the "Chicano experience."

Jeff Corey (1914--2002) made a name for himself in the 1940s as a character actor in films like Superman and the Mole Men (1951), Joan of Arc (1948), and The Killers (1946). Everything changed in 1951, when he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Corey refused to name names and was promptly blacklisted, which forced him to walk away from a vibrant livelihood as an actor and embark on a career as one of the industry's most revered acting instructors. In Improvising Out Loud: My Life Teaching Hollywood How to Act, Corey recounts his extraordinary story. Among the actors who would soon fill his classes were James Dean, Kirk Douglas, Jane Fonda, Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson, and Leonard Nimoy. In 1962, when the blacklist ended, Corey was one of the industry's first trailblazers to seamlessly reboot his acting career and secure roles in some of the classic films of the era, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), True Grit (1969), and Little Big Man (1970), in which he starred as the infamous Wild Bill Hickok.Throughout his life, Corey sought to capture the human heart: in conflict, in terror, in love, and in all of its small triumphs. His memoir, which he wrote with his daughter Emily Corey, provides a unique and personal perspective on the man whose teaching inspired some of Hollywood's biggest names to star in the roles that made them famous.

This special issue of Cinéma& Cie focuses the topic of post-cinema taking for granted the background of this notion that animated the recent debate revolving around it. The aim of the volume is thus rather to ask which ontologies, if any can, do the moving image justice in a situation in which the cinema is merely one of many configurations of film, which other theoretical frameworks may be appropriate and which modes of temporality, and of historiography and analysis can account for the steady transformation of film’s varying configurations. While the most productive accounts of post-cinema rarely trace this filiation in an explicit fashion, the label is closely related to the concept of post-media as developed by Félix Guattari in the early 1990s, later adapted into art, media theory, new and screen media. Highlighting the importance of bridging post-cinema and post-media, the volume addresses the post-what and post-when of post-cinema providing original arguments and categories enabling to envisage the next step to be taken in film theory.

Kokusai lived in a time of immense social, cultural and artistic change, and his work – and indeed his own person – captures its contradictions. The Edo period was ending, the last breath of feudal Japan, and the Meiji Restoration launched the new nation into a dramatic, Westernized and industrialized modernity. Kokusai was a radical interpreter of this world, holding up a mirror to the rich culture vanishing before his eyes. A modernist who yet stubbornly adhered to ancient, simple values, he carved humble, personal truths into the most intractable of materials while simultaneously enjoying a life of wild excess and lavish beauty. This beautifully illustrated set of three volumes – titled Precursors, Kokusai and Followers – includes catalogue entires for 608 objects as well as a number of sub-entries. Also included are essays on Kokusai’s life, carving techniques, materials and followers — the latter of which demonstrates his extraordinary and lasting influence. Most objects are illustrated at size and are augmented by additional and lavish detail photography. Many of the larger objects, such as staffs and sceptres, are illustrated with luxurious fold-out pages.

Acknowledged as the journal of record in its field, American Furniture presents new research on furniture design, use, production, and appreciation. Begun in 1993, this award-winning annual provides a comprehensive forum on furniture history, technology, connoisseurship, and conservation by the foremost scholars in the field. It is the only interdisciplinary journal devoted exclusively to furniture made or used in the Americas from the seventeenth century to the present.

Among silent film comedians, three names stand out -- Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd -- but Harry Langdon indisputably deserves to sit among them as the fourth "king." In films such as The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927) , Langdon parlayed his pantomime talents, expressive eyes, and childlike innocence into silent-era stardom. This in-depth biography, which features behind-the-scenes accounts and personal recollections compiled by Langdon's late wife, provides a full and thoughtful picture of this multifaceted entertainer and his meteoric rise and fall. Authors Gabriella Oldham and Mabel Langdon explore how the actor developed and honed his comedic skills in amateur shows, medicine shows, and vaudeville. Together they survey his early work on the stage at the turn of the twentieth century as well as his iconic routines and characters. They also evaluate his failures from the early sound period, including his decision to part ways with director Frank Capra. Despite his dwindling popularity following the introduction of talkies, Langdon persevered and continued to perform in theater, radio, and film -- literally until his dying day -- leaving behind a unique and brilliant body of work.Featuring never-before-published stories and photos from his immediate family, this biography is a fascinating and revealing look at an unsung silent film giant.

Foreword by Jonathan GreenFor over fifty years, John and Vivian Hewitt visited galleries, artists' studios, and exhibitions in the United States, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in the Americas, collecting hundreds of paintings, etchings, and sketches. The John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art represents fifty-eight works that celebrate the expression and passion of twenty artists, including Romare Bearden, Margaret Burroughs, Jonathan Green, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Ann Tanksley, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Hewitts believed that sharing their collection with the public would enhance the visibility of artists of African descent and showcase their cultural contributions. The Hewitt Collection was subsequently acquired by the Bank of America and generously donated to The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture in Charlotte, North Carolina. This book contains all fifty-eight works from the collection, exquisitely reproduced in full color. Grace C. Stanislaus provides a text on the significance of the collection that is supplemented by interviews with Vivian Hewitt, David Taylor of the Gantt Center, and art collectors Harmon and Harriett Kelley, and Nancy Washington.

This exploration of rock ’n’ roll music and culture in Birmingham, Alabama, is based on the oral histories of musicians, their fans and professionals in the popular music industry. Collected over a twenty-year period, their stories describe the coming of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s, the rise of the garage bands in the 1960s, of southern rock in the 1970s, and of alternative music in the 1980s and 1990s. Told in the words of the musicians themselves, Magic City Nights provides an insider’s view of the dramatic changes in the business and status of popular music from the era of the vacuum tube to twenty-first-century digital technology. These collective memories offer a unique perspective on the impact of a subversive and racially integrated music culture in one of the most conservative and racially divided cities in the country.

The study of listening—aurality—and its relation to writing is the subject of this eclectic edited volume. Theorizing Sound Writing explores the relationship between sound, theory, language, and inscription. This volume contains an impressive lineup of scholars from anthropology, ethnomusicology, musicology, performance, and sound studies. The contributors write about sound in their ongoing work, while also making an intervention into the ethics of academic knowledge, one in which listening is the first step not only in translating sound into words but also compassionate scholarship.

Peter Coker: Mind and Matter is a fully-illustrated catalogue presenting a selection of exceptional works by Peter Coker (1926-2004), bringing together pieces spanning the early 1950s through to the mid-1980s. The first publication focusing on Coker’s works in over a decade, the catalogue will seek to reassess Coker’s contribution to post-war figurative British art. Situating Coker within his contemporary British zeitgeist, Peter Coker: Mind and Matter will also focus on the significance of international artists to Coker’s work, particularly Gustave Courbet and Nicolas de Staël. Undertaking modern day pilgrimages across France, Coker toured the sites favoured by the artists he revered, filtering their influence through the specificity of place. Coker was too talented an artist to mimic, but with acute sensitivity and perception, his vision of the world was constantly altered by the art that touched him. Correspondingly, his mode of depiction was subject to an ever-persistent evolution but with the materiality of paint and the primacy of process always at the heart of his practice. In Coker’s words: “I think when you see exhibitions…you challenge your own thoughts, you refurbish the mind and eye, you are remoulded.”The publication includes an introductory essay, a catalogue of carefully selected works with accompanying descriptions, a chronology, a bibliography, and numerous colour illustrations.

History of Cinema Without Names is an editorial project which gathers research papers presented at Gorizia Conference. It promotes a new research perspective on the notions of film authorship, style, and genre, with the aim of re-articulating their theoretical definition.

The rural idyll is a powerful force in the British national imagination. This highly original and vibrant study will examine how key moments in art history have shaped the concept of the idyll and how contemporary artists continue to access and often challenge this concept. From High Art to propaganda, garden centres to air fresheners, contemporary art to computer games – a constellation of powerful images and ideas contribute to our understandings of the rural. This publication offers new ways of thinking about the rural idyll and the countryside more broadly, through the innovative integration of a wide range of art and visual cultures. These include classic landscapes by artists such as Blake, Claude, Constable and Turner, works of modern British art, and contemporary works by artists who present new perspectives on the rural idyll. Crucially, this volume will enter these familiar and unfamiliar art works into a productive dialogue with an extensive range of visual cultures which populate everyday life now and in the past, for instance Frank Newbould’s iconic wartime recruitment posters of 1942–44 and rural-themed video games. In the contemporary art world the rural is seriously under-represented as an arena of critical inquiry and artistic production. This publication will make a significant contribution towards redressing this situation. In addition to the new scholarship on the rural idyll – by academic experts from a wide range of disciplines, encompassing the spheres of art history, contemporary art, poetry, literature, rural history, agriculture, and everyday life – it will include interviews with ten key contemporary artists who are working with the rural in innovative ways. It will also contain newly commissioned material from leading artists and writers which articulate the themes of the publication in ways that differ from the traditional catalogue essay. It will include a specially commissioned visual essay by Jeremy Deller. Deller will select a series of images from the exhibition and elsewhere and combine them with short pieces of text that develop the questions and themes discussed throughout the book in creative and open-ended visual dialogue. There will also be a new commission from the Scottish poet and writer Kathleen Jamie, whose moving observations on the relationships between nature and everyday life, articulate the embeddedness of the rural idyll into the mundane and the quotidian.

The Mountains in Art History is the first English-language work to focus on the mountains as subject matter and source of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration for painters. This collection of original essays is written entirely by Wesleyan University students of art history. The essays examine how artistic representation of mountains has varied through the lens of specific depictions in English and American literature, and consider how images of mountains functioned in conjunction with religion, the sublime, and Romanticism. These essays by student authors adeptly ruminate on works by individuals such as William Wordsworth, John Frederick Kensett, Alexander van Humboldt, Emil Nolde, and Arnold Fanck. Includes an introduction by professor Peter Mark and a helpful appendix of the course syllabus and narrative description.

This rich collection of over twenty fully illustrated essays covers an array of medieval topics, with a particular emphasis on sculpture. The contributors, all friends and colleagues of the dedicatee, are prominent experts in their different fields, from the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. The wide range of subjects covered includes ivories, wood carvings, alabaster, architectural sculpture, caskets, reliquaries, and questions of imagery and iconography. With a full scholarly apparatus, A Reservoir of Ideals is an invaluable work of reference. The volume celebrates the museum career and scholarship of Paul Williamson, a scholar and curator whose outstanding contribution to art history continues to expand and inspire the study of sculpture in general and medieval art in particular. Williamson joined the V&Ain 1979 as one of the youngest curators ever appointed. He took over as Chief Curator in 1989, and he was Director of the Collections from 2004-07, and Acting Deputy Director in 2013. During his 36-year career at the V&Ahe wrote 17 books and over 150 articles. Williamson’s profound experience and expertise as a curator at the V&Ahave both enhanced his own well-deserved reputation as the leading expert in the study of European sculpture, and simultaneously enriched the standing and holdings of the collections themselves. The works acquired during his time at the V&A, and the gallery displays that he either oversaw or curated himself, amply demonstrate his tremendous range of knowledge and appreciation of art. Despite his wide-ranging expertise and enthusiasm for the art of all periods, it seems fitting that this volume is devoted to medieval art, and primarily to sculpture - the works of art that undoubtedly lie closest to his heart. It is a testament to his standing at the pinnacle of medieval studies that so many leading experts have eagerly contributed to this exceptional collection.

In 1995, in Chicago, Mary Jacob curated “Culture in action”, an experience of participatory Public Art which left a mark on the contemporary artistic research and criticism. Over the last twenty years, this “new genre of public art” (Lacy 1995) has developed. In these “dialogical” and “connective” aesthetics (Kester 1999, Gablik 1992), public artists have involved citizens in creative performances that aim to modify citizens’ perceptions of the places where they live, to create new relations within and toward the territory, and to transform (often temporarily) the physical spaces. The book moves from the first outcomes of a two-year interdisciplinary research programme on the Italian contemporary Public Art, funded by the Sardinia Region (Italy). Moving beyond the traditional ladders of formal citizen participation to territory governance, the research investigates how public artists have involved citizens in creative performances that aim to modify citizens’ perceptions of the places where they live, to create new relations within and toward the territory, and to transform (often temporarily) the physical spaces. A book particularly useful to international students who have strong interests in the ongoing debates on political participation and communication from a multidisciplinary perspective, Performative Citizenship is the product of extensive teaching experience in the field of political participation and communication, and stems from continuous comparisons between students of sociology, cultural and media studies, political sciences, arts, architecture, and urban planning.