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Abstraction and Calligraphy

Towards a Universal Language (Arabic edition)

Didier Ottinger

Marie Sarré

Format:

Hardback ISBN: 9781785513541

Hardback publication date: 23 February 2021

Category: Art & Illustration

Hardback price:

£ 44.00

The Louvre Abu Dhabi’s exciting exhibition programme explores the enduring dialogue between Eastern and Western artistic expression. Abstraction and Calligraphy brings together a rich array of works, from 10th-century ceramics from Samarkand to paintings and drawings by Kandinsky, Matisse, Miró, Twombly and other modern masters. The ways in which these artists respond to Eastern calligraphic traditions enriches our understanding of the dynamic between modern art in the West and long-established forms from Asia and the Near East.

This is the Arabic language edition of the book.

 

The Abbey Library of St Gallen

Director's Choice

Cornel Dora

Philipp Lenz

Franziska Schnoor

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785513787

Paperback publication date: 20 December 2021

Series: Director's Choice

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 9.95

The Abbey Library of St Gallen is one of the oldest libraries still surviving today. It can be traced back to the Irish missionary Gall, who established the first community of monks in St Gallen in 612. As the ‘healing-place of the soul’, the library has a collection that is unique in the world for its quality and completeness, illustrates the part played by the monasteries in the development of western culture and contains many treasures. Its Baroque Hall is one of the most beautiful library spaces imaginable.

The library and its collection are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and are included in its Memory of the World Register.

The members of the management team of the Abbey Library present a personal choice of the most important items in the library and a few other objects that are worth seeing.

The A.G. Leventis Gallery

Director's Choice

Loukia Hadjigavriel

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785513398

Paperback publication date: 16 April 2021

Series: Director's Choice

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 9.95

The A. G. Leventis Gallery brings the grandeur of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century, connecting the European continent with its south-eastern outpost by highlighting the unique relationship between art and its history.

In this book, Director Loukia Hadjigavriel selects highlights from the Collection. From the outstanding paintings and objets d’art – Old Master paintings, Dutch still lifes, light-spirited Rococo pastorals, and boldly coloured pointillist and fauve canvases; through the Gold Collection, where gold coins from antiquity unfold the history of the rulers and artists who created them; and into the development of modern Greek art, as well as the first generation of Cypriot artists from the beginning of the 20th century.

This wide variety of treasures all offer insight into the world of the man behind the collection, Anastasios G. Leventis – businessman, visionary, art collector and true ‘citizen of the world’.

500 Years:

Treasures from the Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Peter Kidd

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785510878

Paperback publication date: 29 December 2016

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 14.95

From medieval 12th-century Ireland to 16th-century Renaissance France; from 13th- and 14th-century England to 15th-century Italy… The breadth of history captured within these manuscripts is simply astounding.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was founded 500 years ago, in 1517. To mark its fifth centennial anniversary, this catalogue provides a varied selection of some of the greatest treasures in the College Library. Unlike Oxford’s older colleges, Corpus Christi was founded with Renaissance ideals: it would promote the new learning current in Europe, and would equip its students to read Hebrew and Greek – the original languages of the Bible – as well as Latin. To this end the College’s Founder and its first President began to fill the Library with an astonishing collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books in these three languages. Most of the books included date from the 12th to the 16th centuries, of which a significant proportion represent the Bible in a variety of different translations and versions. Others are later, including unique works that represent scientific discoveries made by astronomers including Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.

50 Treasures from Winchester College

Richard Foster

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785512209

Paperback publication date: 10 June 2019

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 20.00

Winchester College was founded in 1382 and is one of England’s oldest schools. Over the past six centuries it has accumulated remarkable collections of documents, books and works of art. This publication includes essays on fifty objects from across these collections, each written by a member of the school community. It features documents and artefacts from the early history of the College, and outstanding items from its important collections of Greek antiquities, Chinese ceramics, English silver, and rare books. Among the more unusual and unexpected objects are a ship model made by 18th century prisoners, a scrapbook from the Crimean War, and perhaps the world’s longest running scientific experiment. An introductory essay describes how the collections were acquired and sets them in the context of the school’s history.

50 Masterpieces of Czech Fin de Siècle Art

From the Collections of The Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen

Roman Musil

Ivana Skálová

Marie Rakušanová

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785514357

Paperback publication date: 7 March 2023

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 12.95

The fin de siècle artworks collection in The Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen ranks among the best public collections in the Czech Republic. It covers all the key trends that appeared on the contemporary art scene, i.e. naturalism, symbolism, impressionism and art nouveau. At that time, Czech art was an integral part of international structures and many artists from the Czech lands studied, exhibited or worked in the key cultural centres of Europe, such as Vienna, Munich and Paris. The Pilsen collection includes, among others, works of two artists who achieved worldwide fame: one of the most important protagonists of art nouveau, Alfons Mucha, and the co-founder of abstract painting, František Kupka.

50 Masterpieces of Czech Cubism

The collections of the Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen

Roman Musil

Marie Rakušanová

Ivana Skálová

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785513411

Paperback publication date: 30 March 2022

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 12.95

Czech Cubism is one of the most important contributions of modern Czech art to world culture. These works, created approximately between 1910 and 1935, embrace painting, drawing, graphic art, collage, sculpture, architecture and applied art, and the movement’s leading lights – including painters Emil Filla and Bohumil Kubišta, sculptor Otto Gutfreund and architect Pavel Janák – were among the most exciting practitioners of Cubism anywhere in the world. The Gallery of West Bohemia is home to one of the most important collections of the best Czech Cubist art, painstakingly assembled since the early 1960s. The artworks included here have played a vital role in rehabilitating the avant-garde in a country where modernist art had suffered decades of political repression. As such, the collections of the Gallery of West Bohemia have been crucial to the revival of the domestic art scene in Bohemia and beyond, and continue to inspire contemporary Czech artists. This book, expertly compiled by Gallery Director Roman Musil and his team, introduces some of the finest works of Czech Cubism to an international audience.

20 Masterpieces at Mount Stuart

Paintings from the Bute Collection

Caitlin Blackwell Baines

Charlotte Rostek

Format:

Paperback ISBN: 9781785513046

Paperback publication date: 14 October 2020

Category: Art & Illustration

Paperback price:

£ 6.95

The Bute Collection is one of the foremost collections of fine and decorative arts, books and archival material in Britain, particularly noted for its Dutch Golden Age masterpieces and British 18th-century portraiture. Assembled over three centuries by several generations of the Crichton-Stuart family, the Earls and Marquesses of Bute, parts of the collection can be seen today at the neo-gothic ancestral family seat of Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute – an architectural masterpiece in its own right.
This splendidly illustrated book provides an excellent introduction to the paintings that form just one element of this outstanding collection, including some of the finest pictures in the nation, and is the first in a series planned to celebrate each aspect of Mount Stuart’s rich cultural heritage.

101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel

Raquel Ukeles

Hezi Amiur

Yoel Finkelman

Format:

Hardback ISBN: 9781785514135

Hardback publication date: 9 May 2023

Category: Art & Illustration

Hardback price:

£ 40.00

"Published to celebrate the autumn 2023 opening of the new NLI building in Jerusalem, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, the book is full of fascinating insights and manuscripts. It is akin to a greatest-hits collection from the Jewish world over the past 1,500 years." — Jewish Link

This fascinating and inspirational new volume provides a thematic journey through the rich and diverse collections of the National Library of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. Selected by the Library’s curators and collections experts, this fine-art volume presents 101 of the most precious items in the Library’s collections, from 5th century Babylonia to modern-day Tel Aviv, and shares illuminating stories and anecdotes about these significant works and the intriguing people behind them. Highlights include Maimonides’ autograph copy of his Commentary on the MishnaDamascus Crowns including a vitally important 10th century Hebrew Bible codex; theological ruminations of Isaac Newton; love poetry by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent; manuscripts from leading Jewish and Israeli writers, such as Martin Buber, Stefan Zweig, Franz Kafka, Naomi Shemer, and Shai Agnon; and rare materials documenting Israeli history. High-quality photographs illustrate the stories, and the introduction sets these collections within their cultural and historical context. 

ABOUT THE Author

Raquel Ukeles, PhD, Head of Collections.

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ABOUT THE Author

Hezi Amiur, PhD, Israel Collection Curator.

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ABOUT THE Author

Yoel Finkelman, PhD, Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection Curator.

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REVIEWS

"Published to celebrate the autumn 2023 opening of the new NLI building in Jerusalem, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, the book is full of fascinating insights and manuscripts. It is akin to a greatest-hits collection from the Jewish world over the past 1,500 years."

Jewish Link

Faro Modernism

Buildings, heritage and culture through the lens of an artist

Richard Walker

Batsford

Format:

Hardback ISBN: 9781849949958

Hardback publication date: 14 May 2026

Category: Architecture

Hardback price:

£ 45.00

A stylish exploration of one of the greatest cities for Modernist architecture in the world.

Modernism, characterized by geometric shapes and flat roofs, is one of the defining architectural styles of the 20th century throughout the world. And nowhere is it more in abundance than in Faro, capital of Portugal’s Algarve region. There are over 500 Modernist buildings in Faro, the highest concentration of these types of buildings in Southern Europe.

The city now has a specific Modernist buildings area, through which guided tours show the full range of detached and semi-detached grand houses, large-scale apartment blocks and little roads of terraced houses that are in fact cleverly disguised maisonettes.

The architectural ringleader was Manuel Gomes da Costa, an Algarvian by birth, who had gone to South America in search of work but who came back in the 1950s to transform the city. Inspired by the work of earlier architects including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, Costa and his colleagues set about creating a Modernist paradise in the southern sun. This book will give fans of inspirational architecture the first real opportunity to delve deep into Southern Europe’s ‘Palm Springs’.

Richard Walker, renowned photographer and artist, has been visiting the city for over 20 years and has amassed an astonishing record of the Modernist buildings in Faro. He hosts architectural tours, including one for the 20th Century Society. This is his first architectural book and includes many unseen photographs of the buildings that have gradually been restored and brought back to life over recent years.

ABOUT THE Author

Richard Walker is a renowned photographer and artist who has been visiting Faro for over 20 years. This is his second book.

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100 Poems to Help You Sleep

Jane McMorland Hunter

Batsford

Format:

Hardback ISBN: 9781849949477

Hardback publication date: 7 November 2024

Series: 100 Poems

Category: Poetry

Hardback price:

£ 12.99

A dreamy collection of poems to read before you turn off the light, or to guide you gently back to sleep when you wake in the small hours.

This soothing anthology contains 100 night-time poems specially selected to calm your mind, introduce positive thoughts, lull you to sleep and bring on sweet dreams. It contains not only poetry about the night itself, but an array of restful, tranquil, meditative verse, along with classic lullabies from many cultures. There are also poems that reflect on the good things in life, encouraging gratitude for the day just gone and optimism for the day ahead.

Within these pages you can observe the night sky with Emily Brontë, visit the Lake Isle of Innisfree with W. B. Yeats, and experience Shakespeare’s most calming verses. Poems include the serene ‘In the Evening’ by Nikki Giovanni, the upbeat ‘Everything Is Going to Be Alright’ by Derek Mahon, the nursery classic ‘My Bed is a Boat’ by Robert Louis Stevenson, and many more that are just perfect for the quiet hours of the night.

Keep this magical book by your bedside and let it lead you into a whole new world of peaceful slumber.

ABOUT THE Author

Jane McMorland Hunter writes and edits books on the good things in life: gardening, nature, cookery, craft and poetry, whilst also working part-time at Hatchards Bookshop, London. She has written and edited several books, including 100 Happy Poems, A Happy Poem to End Every Day, Ode to London, Favourite Poems of England, A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year and Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year. She lives in West London and can be found on social media at @alittlecitygarden.

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REVIEWS

‘Into the golden land of dreams you go with this pocket-sized publication packed with poems.’ 

LoveReading

‘A boon of a book to soothe you to sleep’

LoveReading

'This soothing anthology contains 100 night-time poems specially selected to calm your mind and help you sleep.’

The Guardian

‘A dreamy collection of poems to read before you turn off the light.’

Love Reading

'Exactly what it says on the cover – the opportunity to read a soothing, calming poem to relax and prepare you for sleep.’

The People's Friend

Cooling Towers

A celebration of sculptural beauty, industrial history and architectural legacy

Batsford

Format:

Hardback ISBN: 9781849949460

Hardback publication date: 11 September 2025

Category: Architecture

Hardback price:

£ 45.00

Awarded HIGHLY COMMENDED at The British Book Design and Production Awards 2026.

A stirring large-format celebration of cooling towers, the monumental brutalist structures dotted around Britain that are relics of twentieth-century industrial history – and are about to disappear for good.

Bringing together some of the country’s most distinguished architectural photographers and writers, Cooling Towers is an elegiac exploration of these imposing buildings, forming a definitive visual record of Britain’s coal-fired power stations at the moment that they disappear into history, as most of them have been slated for demolition very soon. In a distinctive large format to reflect the unique and sculptural presence of cooling towers within the landscape and to best show the beautiful photography which captures them. Essays include:

• Hugh Pearman on Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire, still standing but not for long.

• Otto Saumaurez Smith on the recently demolished, particularly beautiful set of cooling towers that formed part of Ironbridge B Power Station.

• Jonathan Clarke on the historical, technological and engineering context of post-war power stations.

With a celebratory foreword by Antony Gormley, Turner Prize-winning British artist who has long expressed admiration for these immense constructions, and photography from renowned architectural photographers Luke O’Donovan, Michael Collins and James O. Davis of Historic England, this book is a visually exciting and historically significant record of Britain’s twentieth-century industrial legacy. 

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