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Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) stood at the center of the sophisticated Paris art world of the 1920s and 30s. Her love for beautiful women, elegant automobiles, and the modern metropolis provided not only motifs for her pictures, but also influenced her artistic style. Simultaneously with her career as artist, Tamara de Lempicka pioneered a new image of life on the screen, evident in the new, self-confident woman and the changing aspects of femininity and masculinity. The same sense of style was reflected in a futuristic cult of speed, domestic design forms promulgated by the Bauhaus, and the dandyism of a George Brummell. Tamara de Lempicka's best-known painting, "Self-Portrait, or Tamara in a Green Bugatti", presents the artist as a female dandy brimming with cool elegance. Whether as an Art-Déco artist, a post-Cubist or a Neoclasissist, de Lempicka struck the taste of a cosmopolitan (and wealthy) public that found its own image reflected in her work.

Picasso called Dalí "an outboard motor that’s always running." Dalí thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head. Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was one of the century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics—and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freudand psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This publication presents the entire painted oeuvre of Salvador Dalí. After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret finally located all the paintings of this highly prolific artist. Many of the works had been inaccessible for years—in fact so many that almost half the illustrations in this book had rarely been seen.

During the Renaissance, several great homosexual artists—from Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli to Michelangelo and Raphael—transformed the history of art, striving for ever closer imitation of nature while shaping it to their tastes. In their art ambiguous beings were born, half man, half woman; female breasts were planted on male busts and a young man's gaze peeped out beneath the eyelids of a Madonna. From his earliest youth Michelangelo transformed personal torment into exquisite creativity—attempting to reconcile the apparently conflicting forces that inhabited him: his earthly passions and his fear of God. Hence the peerless monuments to beauty, celestial and infernal alike, that Michelangelo raised to the glory of God. His predecessors aspired to Heaven through faith alone; Michelangelo sought absolution through the contemplative exaltation of beauty—even on the ceiling of a papal chapel: the Sistine. This exposed him to a chorus of derision from prudish critics, who accused him of exhibiting paganism in a place of religion, and who clothed his immodest Titans in painted "breeches". It was Michelangelo's curse to remain a colossus outside and apart from his time. It is the birthright of the comet to inspire fear and awe in the spectator; but the spectacle of such glory can sear the tender eye.

This is an erotic history of humanity. From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age - whether the Egyptian, Greek and Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas or Picasso - have succumbed to their fantasies, obsessions and libido, and produced erotic works that the censors have taken good care to keep from the public. For Erotica, we surface from the subterranean realms of the museums to enter those of our national and private libraries. Here we discover that not only most of our famous writers, such as Ovid, Aretino, Voltaire, Verlaine or Maupassant, wrote erotic texts that bordered on indecency, but also that great artists like Boucher, Fragonard, Dali or Matisse were inspired to provide suitable illustrations for these naughty books. For this new hardcover edition, we have culled highlights from our Erotica Universalis collection. It is a banquet for the imagination and a feast of the eye.

Drawing with scissors: The revolutionary late-period work by Matisse Towards the end of his monumental career as a painter, sculptor, and lithographer, an elderly, sickly Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for a longer period of time. In this late phase of his life he was almost 80 years of age he developed the technique of carving into color, creating bright, bold paper cut-outs. Though dismissed by some contemporary critics as the folly of a senile old man, these gouaches decoupees (gouache cut-outs) in fact represented a revolution in modern art, a whole new medium that re-imagined the age-old conflict between color and line. This fresh, standard TASCHEN edition of our original prize-winning XL volume provides a thorough historical context to Matisse s cut-outs, tracing their roots in his 1930 trip to Tahiti, through to his final years in Nice. It includes many photos of Matisse, some rare color images, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, and the filmmaker Murnau and text from Matisse, Picasso, publisher E. Teriade, the poets Louis Aragon, Henri Michaux, and Pierre Reverdy, and Matisse s son-in-law, Georges Duthuit. In their deceptive simplicity, the cut-outs achieved both a sculptural quality and an early minimalist abstraction which would profoundly influence generations of artists to come. Exuberant, multi-hued, and often grand in scale, these works are true pillars of 20th century art, and as bold and innovative to behold today as they were in Matisse s lifetime."

A perfect synthesis of color and line. The trailblazing paper cut-outs of Henri Matisse. When Henri Matisse (1869 1954) was forced to give up painting in the mid-1940s due to a serious illness, he began to work with painted paper and a pair of scissors, "carving into color" to create bright, bold patterns and forms. Though many critics at the time were unstinting in their cruel remarks about the supposed foolishness of an old man, the work, termed gouaches découpées ( gouache cut-outs ), in fact represented a milestone in modern art. Matisse had not only defied frailty to pursue his artistic impetus, he had also created a whole new medium for exploring the age-old conflict between color and line. This 96-page, hardcover edition includes rich image reproductions from many of Matisse's most celebrated cut-outs,and a detailed biography for context of the artist's life and work.

Lobsters and lunacy: The zaniest Surrealist of them all Painter, sculptor, writer, film-maker, and all-round showman Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis to art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as the soft watches or the lobster telephone, now hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general. Dalí frequently described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” Their tantalizing tension and interest resides in the precise rendering of bizarre elements and incongruous arrangements. As Dalí himself explained, he painted with “the most imperialist fury of precision,” but only “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.” Revolutionizing the role of the artist, the mustache-twirling Dalí also had the intuition to parade a controversial persona in the public arena and, through printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and film, to create work that could be consumed and not just contemplated on a gallery wall. This book explores both the painting and the personality of Dalí, introducing his technical skill as well as his provocative compositions and challenging themes of death, decay, and eroticism. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features: •a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance •a concise biography •approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Gustav Klimt's ornate art expresses the apocalyptic atmosphere of Vienna's upper middle-class society around the turn of the 20th century - a society devoted to the cultivation of aesthetic awareness and the cult of pleasure. The ecstatic joy which Klimt (1862-1918) and his contemporaries found - or hoped to find - in beauty was constantly overshadowed by death. And death therefore plays an important role in Klimt's art. Klimt's fame, however, rests on his reputation as one of the greatest erotic painters and graphic artists of his times. His drawings in particular, which have been widely admired for their artistic excellence, are dominated by the sensual portrayal of women.

Notorious bad boy of Italian Baroque painting, Caravaggio (1571-1610) is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Though his name may be familiar to all of us, his work had been habitually detested and forced into obscurity. Not only was his theatrical realism unfashionable in his time, but his sacrilegious subject matter and use of lower-class models were violently scorned. Caravaggio's great work had the misfortune of enduring centuries of disrepute. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that he was rediscovered and, quite posthumously, deemed a great master. He is now considered the most important painter of the early Baroque period; without him there would have been no Ribera. Zurbaran, Velazquez, Vermeer or Georges de La Tour. Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Delacroix, and Manet would have been different. In this book you'll find over 50 of Caravaggio's best paintings; we think you'll agree that he was a genius beyond his time.

Renaissance man in extremis Michelangelo, in pursuit of the beautiful and sublime Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply Il Divino ( the divine one ). This book provides the essential introduction to Michelangelo with all the awe-inspiring masterpieces and none of the queues and crowds. With vivid illustration and accessible texts, we explore the artist s extraordinary figuration and celebrated style of terribilita (momentous grandeur), which allowed human and biblical drama to exist in compelling scale and fervor. Through the power hubs of Renaissance Italy, we take in his major commissions and phenomenal capacity for compositional schemes, whether the famous Medici library in Florence, or the extraordinary 500-square-meter ceiling (1508 1512) in the Vatican s Sistine Chapel. From the towering David to the aching grief and faith of The Pieta and the vivid drama of the Sistine Chapel s Last Judgment, this is a succinct, dependable reference to a true giant of art history and to some of the most famous artworks in the world.About the series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions".

Freewheeling Tamara de Lempicka, icon of Art DecoTamara de Lempicka (1896 1980) lived art in the fast lane. With an appetite for glamour and fame as much as Left Bank bohemianism, she fled her native Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and set about taking Paris by storm. Her prolific, monumental oeuvre remains one of the most vivid documents of 1920s Art Deco. De Lempicka s style deployed cool colors and tight, post-cubist forms into an at once neoclassical and voluptuous figuration. Her subjects, often nude, are sensual, aloof, and powerful. Bedecked in seductive light and textures, they command our attention but typically avert their gaze with an aspect of haughty grandeur. Her subjects include both high-society patrons and progressive portraits of emancipated and lesbian women, such as Women Bathing, Portrait of Suzy Solidor, and her notorious Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti, showing Tamara behind the wheel. A vision of speed, sophistication, and independence, the work was commissioned for the cover of German magazine Die Dame, which defined de Lempicka as the epitome of women s liberation. Through some of her finest, most compelling portraits, this introduction to de Lempicka explores the artist s unique visual language and its privileged place not only in the annals of interwar art but also in the history of female artists and in our collective consciousness of the Roaring Twenties.About the series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions"

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941, increasing frailty and the confines of a wheelchair, the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art. With what he called "une seconde vie," a second life, he embarked on a remarkable collage period, cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into "gouaches decoupees" of birds, plants, flowers, and the female form.Emphasizing color and contrast, the cut-out technique generated both striking lines and vivid juxtapositions. In works such as The Fall of Icarus (1943), The Blue Nude (1952), The Snail (1953), and La Gerbe (1953), clean forms and elemental structures power a compositional force that belies the work's decorative appeal, at once tightly organized and infectious with joie de vivre. As his work progressed, Matisse's excitement with his results fueled ever-larger pieces, advancing from small works to vast wall-sized murals.

After flirtations with Realism, Impressionism, and Symbolism, Kiev-born Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) found his metier in dissolving literal, representational figures and landscapes into pure, emotionally-charged abstraction. In 1915, he created what is widely lauded as the first and ultimate abstract artwork: Black Square (1915), a black rectangle on a white background, hailed as the "zero point of painting," a seminal moment for modern and abstract practice.In this book, we follow Malevich's key innovations and ideas and place his groundbreaking achievements within the context of both the Russian and global avant-garde. Through rich illustrations of his work, we explore the artist's theory of Suprematism, based on severe geometric abstraction and "the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art;" his leading role in the development of Constructivism; as well as his interests in philosophy, literature, Russian folk art, and the fourth dimension.

Baroque and Roll Meet Sir Peter Paul Rubens, master painter and polymath There are over 1,000 catalogued works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the 16th-century flag bearer for Baroque drama, movement, and sensuality. This essential introduction takes in the most important works from this astonishingly prolific oeuvre to explore Rubens's influences and innovations, and his remarkable visual, and art historical, impact. The richly illustrated survey takes in Rubens's portraits, landscapes, historical paintings, as well as his famed and bountiful nudes. Along the way, we examine the artist's astonishing technique and his deft ability to depict narrative in a compelling and legible visual form, whether an erotic mythologial scene or a tender biblical story. This remarkable artistic bravura is placed in context both with Rubens's long art historical legacy through van Dyck, Velazquez, and beyond, and his other talents as a classical scholar, diplomat, and knight.

At the age of six, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) wanted to be a cook. At the age of seven, he wanted to be Napoleon. "Since then," he later said, "my ambition has steadily grown, and my megalomania with it. Now I want only to be Salvador Dali, I have no greater wish." Throughout his life, Dali was out to become Dali: that is, one of the most significant artists and eccentrics of the 20th century. This weighty volume is the most complete study of Dali's painted works ever published. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret located painted works by the master that had been inaccessible for years-so many, in fact, that almost half the featured illustrations appear in public for the first time in this book. More than a catalogue raisonne, this book contextualizes Dali's oeuvre and its meanings by examining contemporary documents, from writings and drawings to material from other facets of his work, including ballet, cinema, fashion, advertising, and objets d'art. Without these crutches to support analysis, the paintings would simply be a series of many images. The study is divided into two parts: the first examines Dali's beginnings as an unknown artist. We witness how the young Dali deployed all the isms-Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Fauvism, Purism and Futurism-with playful mastery, and how he would borrow from prevailing trends before ridiculing and abandoning them. The second part unveils the conclusions of Dali's lifelong inquiries, as well as the great legacy he left in works such as Tuna Fishing (1966/67) or Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970). It includes previously unpublished homages to Velazquez or Michelangelo, painted to the same end as the variations on past masters done by his contemporary, Picasso. We discover how, motivated by the desire to tease out the secrets of great works and become a Velazquez of the mid-20th century, Dali became Dali.

Often misunderstood, Pierre-Auguste Renoirremains one of history’s most-loved painters—undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good cheer. Gathering brilliant reproductionsand sketches, as well as photosand a complete chronologyillustrating his life and work, this is the essential work of referenceon Renoir. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841–1919) timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history’s most well-loved painters—undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good spirit. In an incisive text tracing the artist’s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret shows how Renoirreinvented the painted female form, with his everyday goddesses and their plump forms, rounded hips and breasts. Renoir’s later phase, marked by his return to the simple pleasure of the female nude in his baigneusesseries, was his most innovative and stylistically influential, and would inspire such masters as Matisse and Picasso. With acomplete chronology,bibliography, photos, sketches, and brilliant reproductions, this is theessential work of reference on this enduring master artist. The author Gilles Néret(1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Oiland Connaissance des Artsand received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse,and Erotica Universalis.