Canadian-born Agnes Martin was one of the pre-eminent painters of the second half of the twentieth century, whose work has had a significant influence both on artists of her own time and for subsequent generations. A contemporary of the abstract expressionists though often identified with minimalism, Martin was of the few woman artists who came to prominence in the predominately masculine art world of the late 1950s and 1960s, and became a particularly important role model for younger women artists.
When Gilded Age millionaires wanted to buy Italian Renaissance paintings, the expert whose opinion they sought was Bernard Berenson, with his vast erudition, incredible eye, and uncanny skill at attributing paintings.
In July 2007, the acclaimed writer Bessie Head would have turned 70 years old. Her friends, colleagues andliterary critics honoured her with a series of conferences, new books and theses, and the founding of a permanent Bessie Head Heritage Trust to guarantee the future of her house and literary papers. Wits University Press took the opportunity to repackage and republish this excellent biography and it appears with new, never-before-published photographs of Bessie Head’s life.
Cecil Higgs: Close Up is a revealing and intimate biography of one of South Africa’s most respected painters. It is a warm and human, yet at the same time candid, portrait of Cecil Higgs, the private person and the public painter.
Gloriously entertaining, erudite and idiosyncratic, this is a biography of a year, a journey through the diaries of the anthropologists, actors, artists, dancers, designers, film-makers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians and scientists whose lives and works collided over twelve months, creating a frenzy of innovation which broke the world in two.
Creative Lives: Frank Lloyd Wright tells Frank Lloyd Wright’s compelling story, including his unpromising progress at school, his mother’s conviction of his brilliance, the trials and tribulations of his private and financial affairs, and the importance of designs such as Taliesin, Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum.
First published to great acclaim in 1996, New Yorker writer and art critic Calvin Tomkins’ biography of the influential artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) has been out of print for many years.
“I had five paternal uncles, four in South Africa and one in India. For some reason, each uncle had a son named Ebrahim. What a stupid idea. It made me feel like a sausage from a boerewors factory.”
This book traces the extraordinary life of an artist whose unforgettable imagery combined cruelty and wit, honesty and insolence, pain and empowerment.
Through his quietly powerful leadership and influential use of nonviolent resistance in India’s struggle against the British Raj, Mahatma Gandhi became one of the most revered figures of the modern era.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls” is a children’s book packed with 100 BEDTIME STORIES about the life of 100 EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN from the past and the present, illustrated by 60 FEMALE ARTISTS from all over the world. Each woman’s story is written in the style of a fairy tale. Each story has a full page, full color portrait that captures the spirit of the portrayed hero.
When Robin Renwick was appointed British ambassador to South Africa in 1987, he formed a deep friendship with Helen Suzman. Now, drawing on her personal papers, Renwick sets out to capture the qualities of the woman who, in the face of the hostility of the apartheid regime, carved out a unique role for herself as an intrepid fighter for human rights, simple justice and the rights of prisoners and the disenfranchised majority.
In this astounding first volume, Christopher Sykes explores the fascinating world of the most popular living artist in the world today. David Hockney’s career has spanned and epitomized the art movements of the last five decades.
Of all the myriad stars and celebrities Hollywood has produced, only a handful have achieved the fame – and, some would say, infamy – of Orson Welles, the creator and star of what is arguably the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane. Many books have been written about him, detailing his achievements as an artist as well as his foibles as a human being. None of them, however, has come so close to the real man as Chris Welles Feder does in this beautifully realised portrait of her father.
