Ann Dumas

Pablo Picasso's artistic output is astonishing in its ambition and variety. This handsome publication examines a particular aspect of his legendary capacity for invention: his imaginative and original use of paper. He used it as a support for autonomous works, including etchings, prints and drawings, as well as for his papier-collé experiments of the 1910s and his revolutionary three-dimensional 'constructions', made of cardboard, paper and string. Sometimes, his use of paper was simply determined by circumstance: in occupied Paris, where art supplies were hard to come by, he ripped up paper tablecloths to make works of art. And, of course, his works on paper comprise the preparatory stages of some of his very greatest paintings, among them Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). With reproductions of more than 300 works of art and additional texts by Violette Andres, Stephen Coppel, Emmanuelle Hincelin, Christopher Lloyd, Johan Popelard and Claustre Rafart Planas, this sumptuous study reveals the myriad ways in which Picasso's genius seized the potential of paper at different stages throughout his career.

An important study of the work of Felix Vallotton, a prominent member of Les Nabis and a contemporary of Bonnard and Vuillard. Published to accompany exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 30 June - 29 September 2019, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 29 October 2019 - 26 January 2020. The Swiss artist Felix Vallotton (1865-1925) was born in Lausanne, but spent much of his working life in France. Closely associated with Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, and a fellow member of the avant-garde group Les Nabis, Vallotton has nonetheless sometimes been overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries. Although he produced some of his most important work in Paris in the 1890s, his original and innovative approach persisted throughout his career. Texts by leading authorities look at Vallotton's life, work and reception. Generously illustrated throughout with the finest exemplars of the artist's paintings and prints, this book accompanies a new presentation of Vallotton's oeuvre that aims to re-evaluate his output and legacy, and includes works never seen in public before. Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with Fondation Felix Vallotton, Lausanne.

The Mediterranean coast of France and Catalonia witnessed the rise and development of modern art over a century, from Cézanne in the 1860s to Matisse, Picasso and Klein in the 1950s and 1960s. These artists and the many more featured here discovered an inexhaustible source of inspiration in this storied region, whose glittering, languid sea stretches out towards the far horizon beneath brilliant azure skies. Indelibly associated with the classical past, this magical land of eternal spring and spiritual renewal came to signify a state of mind, and avant-garde artists sought to convey the vitality and élan it inspired in them through new paradigms of modernist invention.

"Monet, van Gogh and Cezanne feature in a pleasurable Royal Academy show that demonstrates why the Impressionists remain the world's favourite set of artists." — Independent Best known for their superlative oils on canvas, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and numerous other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists also regularly used paper as a support for works in watercolour, gouache, pencil, tempera and that most elusive of media, pastel. Their practice transformed the status of these works from preparatory studies, to be left in the studio and not shown in public, to works of art in their own right. With insightful texts by acknowledged experts in the field, this sumptuous book brings together some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Their bold innovations challenged traditional attitudes, radically transformed the future direction of art and ultimately paved the way for later movements such as Abstract Expressionism.

In the summer of 1905, the French painters Henri Matisse and André Derain changed the course of art history with their radical color experiments During the summer of 1905, Henri Matisse and André Derain went on holiday in Collioure, a modest French fishing village fifteen miles from the Spanish border. This groundbreaking book examines how two artists, entranced by the shifting light and stunning imagery of the eastern Mediterranean, laid the groundwork for the movement known as Fauvism (from the French fauve, or “wild beast”). Featuring more than 70 paintings, watercolors, and drawings produced by Matisse and Derain during their stay, the book also brings to life their personal and artistic revelations with 21 of their letters, published here for the first time in English. Vivid and engaging texts detail their daring experiments with color, form, structure, and perspective; the scandal their paintings caused when they were exhibited several months later; and how, despite the jeering remarks from critics, these works changed the course of French painting. Emphasizing as never before the legacy of that summer, this publication shows how the two artists’ radical investigations galvanized their contemporaries, and how this strain of modernism, created almost by accident, resonates even into the present day. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition ScheduleThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (October 13, 2023–January 21, 2024)The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (February 25–May 27, 2024)

Pablo Picasso's artistic output is astonishing in its ambition and variety. This handsome new publication examines a particular aspect of his legendary capacity for invention: his imaginative and original use of paper. He used it as a support for autonomous works, including etchings, prints and drawings, as well as for his papier-collé experiments of the 1910s and his revolutionary three-dimensional 'constructions', made of cardboard, paper and string. Sometimes, his use of paper was simply determined by circumstance: in occupied Paris, where art supplies were hard to come by, he ripped up paper tablecloths to make works of art. And, of course, his works on paper comprise the preparatory stages of some of his very greatest paintings, among them Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). With reproductions of more than 300 works of art and additional texts by Violette Andres, Stephen Coppel, Emmanuelle Hincelin, Christopher Lloyd, Johan Popelard and Claustre Rafart Planas, this sumptuous study reveals the myriad ways in which Picasso's genius seized the potential of paper at different stages throughout his career.