Christopher Masters Livres

A most striking, design-led reference book, A to Z Great Modern Artists features artist and graphic designer Andy Tuohy's portraits of 52 key modern artists, rendered in each artist's own characteristic style - including Aleksandr Rodchenko in his constructivist poster style, Andy Warhol as a classic repeat print, and Barbara Hepworth illustrated to resemble one of her distinctive bronze and rod sculptures. With expert text by art historian Christopher Masters, each artist's entry includes a summary of the essential things you need to know about the artist; their biographical details, why they're so significant, where you can find their works today, and a surprising fact about them plus reproductions of key works. Whether you're already an art expert, or looking for a helpful cheat to navigating around a gallery, you'll love this stunning and intelligent guide to global artists of the modern age.

Salvador Dali (1904-89) is one of the most controversial and paradoxical artists of the twentieth century. A painter of considerable virtuosity, he used a traditional illusionistic style to create disturbing images filled with references to violence, death, cannibalism and bizarre sexual practices, from the extraordinary fluid watches in The Persistence of Memory to the gruesome monster in Soft Construction with Boiled Beans and the fetishistic lobster in the famous Lobster Telephone.

A gift book to delight and inspire, brimming with beasts real and imagined, from every age and culture around the world.

This new study explores the development of the window, showing how it both transformed human experience by increasing access to light and air and changed our perception of architectural space Christopher Masters celebrates the multiple roles of the window in architecture by providing engaging commentaries on over 80 exceptional buildings of all types, both ancient and modern. The unique selection ranges from the Pantheon in Rome, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto to Walter Gropius's Bauhaus in Dessau, Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal in New York, Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Dorte Mandrup's Icefjord Centre in Greenland. Featuring more than 100 superb photographs, this is an intriguing and accessible survey of a formerly neglected subject in architectural history.

A window provides access to two of life’s essentials, light and air, but it is more than just a means to an end. Windows also have symbolic, expressive and architectural qualities that have for centuries inspired some of the world’s greatest artists. In this engaging new study, Christopher Masters celebrates the multiple roles of the window in art through five key themes, from the window as a status symbol to its use as a provider of physical and spiritual illumination; from its employment as a literal window on the world outside the confines of a room to its function as a mirror, reflecting the emotions of the artist or the individuals depicted; and finally to the immense architectural variety of windows that animate interior and exterior scenes throughout Western painting. With superb reproductions of 90 works by major artists from Giotto to Banksy, and spirited analysis of the paintings’ meanings, this is a remarkable exploration of an important but hitherto neglected subject in art history.