Showing titles in Biographies of Artists, Architects & Photographers

The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. 

Harry Truman and Pablo Picasso were contemporaries and were both shaped by and shapers of the great events of the twentieth century—the man who painted Guernica and the man who authorized the use of atomic bombs against civilians. But in most ways, they couldn’t have been more different. Picasso was a communist, and probably the only thing Truman hated more than communists was modern art. Picasso was an indifferent father, a womanizer, and a millionaire. Truman was utterly devoted to his family. How did they come to be shaking hands in front of Picasso’s studio in the south of France?

Anya Liftig grew up with a foot in two very different worlds: While her mother's upbringing was so rural that the other kids called her "holler rat," her father came from a comfortable, upper-middle-class Jewish family. Anya spent school years in affluent Connecticut and summers in the holler. Shaped by the experience, she would go on to win a scholarship to Yale and become an acclaimed artist, using provocative performances to explore the contradictions and unanswered questions of her life. 

Rita pode ter tido de tudo, menos uma “vidinha besta”. E os últimos anos foram, sim, desafiadores. Ao mesmo tempo que o mundo passava por uma pandemia, ela foi diagnosticada com câncer no pulmão. Em um texto franco, ora cru e chocante, ora cheio de ironias, ora sutil e amoroso, Rita Lee não poupa detalhes de seu tratamento. Fala também da rotina, dos avisos do Universo, de seres de luz e dos caminhos que a vida tomou.

Johann König verliert als Kind durch einen Unfall fast vollständig seine Sehkraft. Wie kann man sich Kunst erschließen, wenn man sich auf seine Augen nicht verlassen kann? Was ist Sehen überhaupt, wenn die Welt um einen herum verschwimmt? In seinem Buch "Blinder Galerist" beschreibt Johann König, wie es ihm gelang, die Welt und die Kunst neu wahrzunehmen. "Die Bilder, die im Kopf entstehen, sind genauso wichtig wie die Bilder an der Wand".

La muy premiada biografía definitiva de Elvis Presley, en edición revisada y económica, en dos volúmenes. Pasará mucho tiempo antes de que otra biografía coseche tan encendidos elogios como los obtenidos por esta obra definitiva (el adjetivo no es, por una vez, hiperbólico) sobre la fulgurante ascensión y la apoteósica decadencia de un cantante ya instalado en la mitología popular contemporánea.

Etwa 470 Briefe umfasst der Briefwechsel zwischen dem großen Berliner Maler Max Liebermann und dem Direktor der Hamburger Kunsthalle Alfred Lichtwark. Lichtwark, der als einer der Ersten Liebermanns Kunst förderte, hatte einen starken Einfluss auf den Maler. Liebermann wiederum war dem Mentor dankbar für die persönliche Beratung und Freundschaft. Als Liebermann seinen Landsitz in Berlin-Wannsee errichtete, plante er die Gartengestaltung in einer ausführlichen Korrespondenz mit Lichtwark. Er selbst entwickelte für die Gartenlandschaft eine Grundidee und arbeitete sie mit seinem Freund zu einem vielgestaltigen modernen Garten aus.

Das abenteuerliche Leben der Sehnsuchtsbilder von Caspar David Friedrich – mitreißend erzählt von Florian Illies. Kein deutscher Maler löst solche Emotionen aus wie Caspar David Friedrich: Seine abendlichen Himmel sind bis heute Ikonen der Sehnsucht, er inspirierte Samuel Beckett zu "Warten auf Godot" und Walt Disney zu "Bambi" – Goethe jedoch machte die rätselhafte Melancholie seiner Bilder so wütend, dass er sie auf der Tischkante zerschlagen wollte.

"Ho deciso di partire. Non posso più restare qui, mi scoppia il cuore. Ho detto ieri al dottor Peyron che domani salirò sul treno e andrò via per sempre." Come in un vero e proprio "diario ritrovato" Vincent van Gogh ci racconta, giorno per giorno, le ultime settimane della sua vita trascorse nel villaggio di Auvers-sur-Oise, a nord di Parigi. Un’autobiografia ideale e poetica, fatta anche di tanti ricordi, in cui Marco Goldin presta le sue parole al grande pittore olandese, con un passo narrativo coinvolgente e sempre fedele alle fonti storiche e all'epistolario.

In this groundbreaking book spanning decades of artistic risk-taking, the inventor of “industrial music”, founder of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and world-renowned fine artist with COUM Transmissions, Genesis P-Orridge (1950-2020) takes us on a journey searching for identity and their true self. It is the story of a life of creation and destruction, where Genesis P-Orridge reveals their unwillingness to be stuck—stuck in one place, in one genre, or in one gender.

Frans Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters in history, and his style transformed ideas and expectations about what portraiture can do and what a painting should look like. Hals was a member of the great trifecta of Dutch Baroque painters alongside Rembrandt and Vermeer, and he was the portraitist of choice in the Dutch Golden Age. Steven Nadler gives us the first full-length biography of Hals in many years and offers a view into seventeenth-century Haarlem and this culturally rich era of the Dutch Republic.

Gennem sin fars og sin egen livshistorie fortæller kunstneren Ai Weiwei historien om Kina i de seneste 100 år.

Ai Weiweis far, Ai Qing, som blev en berømt digter, faldt i unåde hos partiet under kulturrevolutionen og blev sendt i eksil. Ai Weiwei voksede derfor op i et barskt og øde område kaldet Lille Sibirien i det nordvestlige Kina, hvor faderen rengjorde de offentlige toiletter som strafarbejde. Her boede familien i 16 år. Da Mao døde, og kulturrevolutionen ophørte, kunne de tage tilbage til Beijing.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.

In this Pulitzer Prize-finalist biography, the author of Mad at the World examines the little-known life of the man behind the well-known bird survey.

This is a love story, set in the Irish literary world between 1986 and 2015. When they were first introduced by the poet Derek Mahon, Alannah Hopkin was an arts journalist turned full-time writer and Aidan Higgins, twenty-three years her senior, was a literary stylist, often cited as the heir to Ireland’s great Modernist tradition. They wrote steadily during their twenty-nine years together, but their careers could not have been more different: while Aidan focused on fiction and memoirs, Alannah prioritised work that paid the bills.

Written and narrated by his longtime friend and collaborator, Sripad Jagannatha Das (Geoffrey Giuliano), this biography provides an in-depth look at Max's journey from a young artist in Nazi Germany to becoming a prominent figure in the pop art movement of the 1960s and beyond. Das's firsthand knowledge and personal anecdotes make this audiobook a must-listen for fans of Peter Max and anyone interested in the art world of the 20th century.

Here is a captivating audiobook exploring the close relationship between Peter Max and Swami Satchidananda. Narrated by Raj Rass and Sripad Jagannatha Das, go on a journey through the lives of two remarkable individuals who formed an unlikely and enduring friendship. Peter Max is a world-renowned artist known for his vibrant abstract works of art. Swami Satchidananda, on the other hand, was a kindly spiritual leader and yoga master who dedicated his life to spreading the teachings of yoga and meditation in the West. These two great souls formed a deep connection that lasted decades.

"LIVSREJSE MED VIGTIGE OPHOLD" er en rejse igennem Benny Andersens liv og forfatterskab, skrevet igennem de sidste mere end 50 år. I veloplagte glimt genoplever Benny Andersen sin barndom og opvækst i Søborg og Vangede, fortæller om de farverige ungdomsår som professionel pianist og debuterende digter og skriver om sine inspirationskilder og sin digteriske praksis igennem sit lange forfatterliv.

London has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956). A controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, the young Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, while George Bernard Shaw reportedly said "Spare's medicine is too strong for the average man." But Spare was never made for worldly success and he went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity south of the river.

Der Lehrer war die Rolle meines Lebens – aber mein Leben ist noch lang. Hendrik Duryn schreibt, wie er ist: leidenschaftlich und ehrlich, streitbar, dickköpfig, kantig, launig und immer bereit, über sich selbst zu lachen. 12 autobiografische Episoden, die sich hören wie die Geschichten eines Freundes. Und folgt man seinen ungewöhnlichen Blickwinkeln auf vertraute Situationen, findet man sich vielleicht unerwartet selbst darin wieder. In "Das verschwundene Lachen oder: Sind sie Inkontinent, Soldat?", steht man triefnass mit ihm in der Kaserne.