The Unfinished Palazzo

Author: Judith Mackrell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500294437
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Book Description
Abandoned unfinished and left to rot on Venice's Grand Canal, 'il palazzo non finito' was once an unloved guest among the aristocrats of Venetian architecture. Yet in the 20th century it played host to three passionate and unconventional women who would take the city by storm. The staggeringly wealthy Marchesa Luisa Casati made her new home a belle epoque aesthete's fantasy and herself a living work of art; notorious British socialite Doris Castlerosse (née Delevingne) welcomed film stars and royalty to glittering parties between the wars; and American heiress Peggy Guggenheim amassed an exquisite collection of modern art, which today draws visitors from around the world. Each in turn used the Unfinished Palazzo as a stage on which to re-fashion her life, with a dazzling supporting cast ranging from D'Annunzio and Nijinsky, through Noël Coward, Winston Churchill and Cecil Beaton, to Yoko Ono. Individually sensational and collectively remarkable, these stories of modern Venice tell us much about the ways women chose to live in the 20th century.

In-finitum

Author: Axel Vervoordt
Publisher: Exhibitions International
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
The trilogy as conceived by Axel Vervoordt establishes a perfect balance through the natural time-flow between its three chapters. 'In-finitum', will traverse into the other realm as it reaches into the universe of the unfinished and the infinite.

The Riviera Set

Author: Mary S Lovell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681775794
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
The author of the bestselling The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family brings her trademark brio and relish to the charming and fascinating world of the Château de l'Horizon on the French Riviera. The Riviera Set reveals the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of dynamic group was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties. After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth Bringing a bygone era back to life, Mary Lovell cements her spot as one of our top social historians in this captivating and evocative new book.

Michelangelo

Author: Carmen C. Bambach
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588396371
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
Consummate painter, draftsman, sculptor, and architect, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was celebrated for his disegno, a term that embraces both drawing and conceptual design, which was considered in the Renaissance to be the foundation of all artistic disciplines. To his contemporary Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo was “the divine draftsman and designer” whose work embodied the unity of the arts. Beautifully illustrated with more than 350 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and architectural views, this book establishes the centrality of disegno to Michelangelo’s work. Carmen C. Bambach presents a comprehensive and engaging narrative of the artist’s long career in Florence and Rome, beginning with his training under the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and the sculptor Bertoldo and ending with his seventeen-year appointment as chief architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The chapters relate Michelangelo’s compositional drawings, sketches, life studies, and full-scale cartoons to his major commissions—such as the ceiling frescoes and the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, the church of San Lorenzo and its New Sacristy (Medici Chapel) in Florence, and Saint Peter’s—offering fresh insights into his creative process. Also explored are Michelangelo’s influential role as a master and teacher of disegno, his literary and spiritual interests, and the virtuoso drawings he made as gifts for intimate friends, such as the nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna, the marchesa of Pescara. Complementing Bambach’s text are thematic essays by leading authorities on the art of Michelangelo. Meticulously researched, compellingly argued, and richly illustrated, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of this timeless artist.

Lorenzo De' Medici at Home

Author: Richard Stapleford
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027105641X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
"An inventory of the private possessions of Lorenzo il Magnifico de' Medici, head of the ruling Medici family during the apogee of the Florentine Renaissance"--Provided by publisher.

Flappers

Author: Judith Mackrell
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 0230771688
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Book Description
For many young women, the 1920s felt like a promise of liberty. It was a period when they dared to shorten their skirts and shingle their hair, to smoke, drink, take drugs and to claim sexual freedoms. In an era of soaring stock markets, consumer expansion, urbanization and fast travel, women were reimagining both the small detail and the large ambitions of their lives. In Flappers, acclaimed biographer Judith Mackrell follows a group of six women - Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka - who, between them, exemplified the range and daring of that generation's spirit. For them, the pursuit of experience was not just about dancing the Charleston and wearing fashionable clothes. They made themselves prominent among the artists, icons, and heroines of their age, pursuing experience in ways that their mothers could never have imagined, seeking to define what it was to be young and a woman in an age where the smashing of old certainties had thrown the world wide open. Talented, reckless and wilful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they re-wrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and sometimes tragic ways. And between them they blazed the trail of the New Woman around the world.

Encounters with Peggy Guggenheim

Author: Stefan Moses
Publisher: Hardie Grant
ISBN: 9781784881870
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Born into a wealthy New York family in 1898, Marguerite 'Peggy' Guggenheim was one of the greatest art collectors of the 20th century. Using her inheritance to open her first art gallery, Peggy's love of art lead her to eventually settle in Venice, where she relaunched her life after becoming the star of the 1948 Venice Art Biennale. For her, a life without the inspiration of her artist and writer friends would have been unthinkable. In Encounters with Peggy Guggenheim, renowned photographer Stefan Moses reveals his collection of photographs of Peggy, taken between 1969 and 1974, many of which have never been seen before. Striking, eccentric and dramatic, Moses photographed Peggy in her favorite places around Venice, as well as in her private palazzo at Canal Grande. See Peggy as she glides on her gondola with her Lhasa apso dogs, wearing her iconic butterfly glasses made by Edward Melcarth -- the quickness and talent of Moses captures the character of this true eccentric. An inspiration for art-, photography- and fashion-lovers alike, Encounters with Peggy Guggenheim is a behind-the-scenes look at of one of the world's most eccentric and inspirational women.

Reading Dance

Author: Judith Mackrell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Dance critic Judith Mackrell explores the many different dance forms in the Western repertoire, and looks at the work of famous choreographers from Pepita to Balanchine, including their historical context and the origins of steps.

Dancing with Stalin

Author: Christina Ezrahi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781783965571
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Nina Anisimova was born in 1909 in imperial St Petersburg. One of the most renowned character dancers of the Stalinist period, she won her way into the hearts of her audience over many decades. Yet few knew that her exemplary career was a fragile construct built atop a dark secret. In 1938, at the height of the Great Terror, Nina vanished. Only a handful of people knew that this famous dancer had not only been arrested by Secret Police, accused of being a Nazi Spy, but sentenced to forced labour in a camp in Kazakhstan. There, her art would become a salvation, giving her a reason to fight for her life when she found herself without winter clothes in temperatures of minus 40 degrees. Over the coming weeks, Nina's husband, Kostia Derzhavin, began to piece together what had happened to his wife. What he decided to do next was almost without precedent - to take on the ruthless Soviet state to prove her innocence. He would put himself in danger to save the woman he loved. Dancing for Stalin is a remarkable true story of suffering and injustice, of courage, resilience and love.

Infinite Variety

Author: Scot D. Ryersson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780967052724
Category : Art patrons
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A detailed account of the life of the Marchesa Luisa Casati, "Europe's most notorious celebrity," whose promenades with cheetahs, love affairs with famous men, and lavish spending were so fascinating as to inspire a play, a movie, and a fashion collection.--Jacket.