Showing titles in Artists, Architects & Photographers

National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography The first definitive biography of Weegee the Famous—photographer, psychic, fiend—from Christoper Bonanos, author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid. Arthur Fellig’s ability to arrive at a crime scene just as the cops did was so uncanny that...

“Arbitrary Stupid Goal is a completely riveting world—when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life.” —Miranda July In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin...

Now a docuseries from Ken Burns on PBS! The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and...

Leonardo welcomes Mona Lisa Ghirardini into his studio in the city of Florence to paint a portrait that was never delivered to the owner. Da Vinci kept the painting and started a long romance with Mona Lisa that lasted over 20 years. The portrait accompanied Leonard during all his traveling and through different homes. This dramatic fiction recreates the relationship of Leonardo with the Gioconda, with his assistants Salai, and with the world and his relentless search for truth and beauty.

Andy Warhol's work and personality changed American visual culture forever, making him an international superstar. His rise to global fame, his entanglement with the seedy New York sexual underground, and the shocking assassination attempt that almost ended his life are chronicled in Stephen Koch's indispensible classic, Stargazer.

Today's high-flying, high-rolling conglomarateurs and corporate raiders are a tame lot compared to their immediate predecessors. The most notorious of these is Robert Vesco, the Kingfish himself, who in 1973 fled the United States accused of looting $250 million from Investors Overseas Services. Now, in this riveting account, noted author Arthur Herzog tells the astounding story of this high school dropout from Detroit, who parlayed cunning, ambition, a brilliant mind, and above all, other people's gullibility and money into a vast financial empire.

With lips slightly parted and eyes fixed on a point in the distance, a breathtaking marble portrait of Costanza Piccolomini appears alive. Carved by Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1636 - 37 for his own pleasure, the portrait of Costanza is one of his most captivating works, but until now little has been known about its subject. For centuries Costanza was identified only as Bernini's mistress, who later incited his rage by betraying him for his brother. Author Sarah McPhee corrects and expands this story in her remarkable biography of a sculpture and its subject.

The Hockneys is a never before seen insight into the lives of the family by youngest brother John, from growing up in the Second World War in Bradford through to their diverse lives across three continents. With a rare and spirited look into the lives of an ordinary family with extraordinary stories, we begin to understand the creative freedom that led to their successful careers and the launchpad for an artist’s work that has inspired and continues to inspire generations across the world. 

This poem is a send up poem written about the insatiable drive that an over zealous optimist has of self, that possesses boundless energy, and enthusiasm for life, without fully realizing the implications and inherent mistakes that can come about. It encapsulates Youthful exuberance in spades, without the experience that sets a calculus on ones takeup of endeavours. This poem was written by myself sometime ago, and has only now had the opportunity to be spoken of.

A rollicking account of a celebrated artist’s coming of age, full of outrageously bad behavior, naked ambition, fantastically good music, and evaporating barriers of taste and decorum, and featuring cameos from David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and many more. “A phantasmagoria of...

In this second volume in the Ackroyd’s Brief Lives series, bestselling author Peter Ackroyd brings us a man of humble beginnings, crude manners, and prodigious talents, the nineteenth-century painter J. M. W. Turner. Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in London in 1775. His father was a...

From his hardscrabble post-World War II Ontario childhood and coming of age to Mad Men-era New York City and the creative pinnacle of advertising, to the hallowed halls of Saturday Night Live and The New Yorker, Bruce McCall’s personal and creative journey is stunningly honest, bittersweet...

A blazingly intelligent first book of essays from the award-winning author of Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time The Guardian Harper's Bazaar San Francisco Chronicle The Atlantic Financial Times Kirkus Finalist for...

The true story of the intimate relationship that gave birth to the Farnsworth House, a masterpiece of twentieth-century architecture—and disintegrated into a bitter feud over love, money, gender, and the very nature of art. “An intimate portrait . . . alive with architectural intrigue...

Camille Claudel, tragic art genius from France: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise.

In the late 19th century, Lilias Trotter stood at the threshold of artistic fame, her extraordinary talent praised by the renowned critic John Ruskin. Yet, at the height of her promise, she made a radical choice that would define the course of her life. Turning away from worldly recognition and social convention, she forged her own path—one that led her through the roughest streets of London and, ultimately, to the deserts of North Africa.

From the streets of Chicago to the launch control centers of America's nuclear force, from beating the odds in a near-fatal medical crisis to running marathons across Europe-this is the extraordinary story of a man who refused to quit.

C’est dans la cour d’une prison, en voulant héler un autre détenu, que Naestro pousse sa voix pour la première fois. Chacun se fige, sidéré. Devant ce trésor qui vient de jaillir, un gardien décide de l’initier à l’opéra. Désormais capable de chanter avec Roberto Alagna...

A bawdy, gimlet-eyed memoir-in-stories capturing a celebrated photographer’s avant-garde coming-of-age in the grit and glamour of 1970s and 80s bohemia I think in stories; I tell stories, and here are some stories. You may stumble across a narrative arc of some kind, but I’ll be damned if...

Meet queer, BIPOC, and women artists around the world as they discuss the gifts, costs, and redemptive power of pursuing a creative life Is the all-encompassing quest to become a self-sustaining artist worth the sacrifices it often requires? Throughout her 20s and 30s, Stephanie Elizondo Griest...