Henri Matisse’s experiments with form and colour revolutionized the twentieth-century art world. In this concise critical biography Kathryn Brown explores Matisse’s long career, beginning with his struggles as a student in Paris and culminating in his celebrated use of paper cut-outs and stained glass in the last decade of his life. The book challenges various myths about Matisse and offers a fresh perspective on his creativity and legacy. Chapters explore the artist’s enthusiasm for fashi...

This accessible new book offers a fresh view of art auctions, exploring their multifaceted role in today's international art market and their transformation into spectacular theatres of the contemporary art world. From glittering black-tie events to the anonymity of the digital realm, auctions stage the creation of value and can make or break artists' careers. They are a strange phenomenon: relics from the 18th century which remain at the heart of the art market.And yet art auction...

This accessible new book offers a fresh view of art auctions, exploring their multifaceted role in today's international art market and their transformation into spectacular theatres of the contemporary art world. From glittering black-tie events to the anonymity of the digital realm, auctions stage the creation of value and can make or break artists' careers. They are a strange phenomenon: relics from the 18th century which remain at the heart of the art market.And yet art auction...

" Introduce the wonder of backyard chicken's to your little ones! It all starts when "daddy bought a hammer . . ."Told from the child's perspective, The Chicken Coop is an adorable tale about a family that builds a chicken coop for their backyard flock. As time passes and the chickens grow, exciting discoveries are made! But when the family finds an mischievous unexpected visitor, they set out to remove their unwanted guest. When their first plan fails, the family must try a new ap...

Dialogues with Degas demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Edgar Degas to 20th- and 21st-century ideas and art practices.The first in-depth examination of this major artist's impact on contemporary art, this book explores how contemporary practitioners have used Degas's creativity as a springboard to engage imaginatively and critically with themes of colonialism, gender, race and class. Individual chapters are devoted to dialogues between Degas's art and w...

Throughout his career, Henri Matisse used imagery as a means of engaging critically with poetry and prose by a diverse range of authors. Kathryn Brown offers a groundbreaking account of Matisse's position in the literary cross-currents of 20th-century France and explores ways in which reading influenced the artist's work in a range of media. This study argues that the livre d'artiste became the privileged means by which Matisse enfolded literature into his own idiom and demonstrat...

The understanding of warfare in ancient Mesoamerica has blossomed in recent years. In this volume, the authors use recent empirical studies to help us understand the patterns and nature of Mesoamerican warfare. Using evidence from ceramics, settlement pattern, epigraphy, ethnohistory, and ethnography, these projects define the martial nature of Mesoamerican societies and link it to ritual, political economy, and other cultural systems. The studies range from preclassic to post-contact and ...

"I turned the corner. The aisle stretched before me as the music escalated. My white slippers brushed over the red roses.My heart thumped. I had waited so long for this moment. Had I really made it this far? Hundreds of eyes twinkled their approval.But did they really think I was crazy? I could almost hear the question I had been asked before, 'Do you think it will be worth the wait?' Here I was at this pinnacle moment. My first kiss."These are the lessons of a youn...

For readers of Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi, a palliative care doctor's breathtaking stories from 30 years spent caring for the dying.Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. And for the most part, that is good news. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar, peaceful, and gentle -- if sorrowful -- transition, death has come to be something from...

Facts, figures, and essays on women and poverty by Barbara Ehrenreich, Kirsten Gillibrand, LeBron James, and other high-profile contributors.Fifty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a War on Poverty and enlisted Sargent Shriver to oversee it, the most important social issue of our day is once again the dire economic straits of millions of Americans. One in three live in poverty or teeter on the brink—and seventy million are women and the children wh...

Organizations all too often create impressive strategies but fail at implementing them. Based on research with over 750 organizations, Shift conceptualizes execution with energy management in mind to offer discrete capabilitie that will help leaders "shift" into more sustainable and dynamic execution practices. With the importance of orchestrating balance between stability and flexibility at the core, Shift is written in four parts - identifying execution barriers, fillin...