Vincent van Gogh's story is one of the most tragic in art history. Today, he is celebrated the world over as one of the most important painters of all time, recognized with sell-out shows, feted museums, and record prices of tens of millions of dollars at auction.

Yet as he was painting the canvases that would subsequently become these sell-out modern masterpieces, van Gogh was battling not only the disinterest of his contemporary audiences but also devastating bouts of mental illness, with episodes of depression and paralyzing anxiety which would eventually claim his life in 1890, when he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday.

This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) pairs a detailed monograph on his life and art with a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings.

In a fleeting fourteen year period, sandwiched between two world wars, Germany's Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideals for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology to be applied across painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textiles, ceramics, theatre, and installation.

As much an intense personal community as a publicly minded collective, the Bauhaus was first founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969), and counted Josef and Anni Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, Gunta Stölzl, Marianne Brandt and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe among its members. Between its three successive locations in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, the school fostered charismatic and creative exchange between teachers and students, all varied in their artistic styles and preferences, but united in their idealism and their interest in a total work of art across different practices and media.

This book celebrates the adventurous innovation of the Bauhaus movement, both as a trailblazer in the development of modernism, and as a paradigm of art education, where an all-encompassing freedom of creative expression and cutting-edge ideas led to functional and beautiful creations.

Initiating readers in the fascinating and complex history of witchcraft, from the goddess mythologies of ancient cultures to the contemporary embrace of the craft by modern artists and activists, this expansive tome conjures up a breathtaking overview of an age-old tradition. Rooted in legend, folklore, and myth, the archetype of the witch has evolved from the tales of Odysseus and Circe, the Celtic seductress Cerridwen, and the myth of Hecate, fierce ruler of the moonlit night. In Witchcraft we survey her many incarnations since, as she shape-shifts through the centuries, alternately transforming into mother, nymph, and crone--seductress and destroyer.

Edited by Jessica Hundley, and co-edited by author, scholar, and practitioner Pam Grossman, this enthralling visual chronicle is the first of its kind, a deep dive into the complex symbologies behind witchcraft traditions, as explored through the history of art itself. The witch has played muse to great artists throughout time, from the dark seductions of Francisco José de Goya and Albrecht Dürer to the elegant paean to the magickal feminine as re-imagined by the Surrealist circle of Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Leonor Fini. The witch has spellbound through folktales and dramatic literature as well, from the poison apples of The Brothers Grimm, to the Weird Sisters gathered at their black cauldron in Shakespeare's Macbeth, to L. Frank Baum's iconic Wicked Witch of the West, cackling over the fate of Dorothy.

Throughout this entrancing visual voyage, we'll also bear witness to the witch as she endures persecution and evolves into empowerment, a contemporary symbol of bold defiance and potent nonconformity. Featuring enlightening essays by modern practitioners like Kristen J. Sollée and Judika Illes, as well interviews with authors and scholars such as Madeline Miller and Juliet Diaz, Witchcraft includes a vast range of cultural traditions that embrace magick as spiritual exploration and creative catharsis.

Back in 2002, Simon Woody Wood was dreaming up schemes to get free sneakers. Two weeks later, he was the proud owner of Sneaker Freaker and his life was never the same.

From its early roots as a punk-style fanzine to today's super-slick print and online operations, the fiercely independent publication has documented every collab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike, and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last 20 years.

Woody's original premise that Sneaker Freaker would be funny and serious, meaningful and pointless at the same time has certainly been vindicated in The Ultimate Sneaker Book. With more than 500 pages jam-packed with insider knowledge and his own irreverent observations, the insane historical detail and otaku-level minutiae is beyond obsessive.

Traversing 100 years of history, each chapter paints a rollicking picture of the sneaker industry's evolution. Air Max, Air Force, Adi Dassler, Converse, Dapper Dan, Dee Brown, and Michael Jordan--along with obscure treasures like Troop, Airwalk, and Vision Street Wear--are all exhaustively documented.

This is a definitive source of knowledge. This is... The Ultimate Sneaker Book!

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world.

Basquiat's expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life--so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered royalty, heroism and the streets. In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time.

First published in an XXL edition, this unprecedented insight into Basquiat's art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN's 40th anniversary. With pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches, it offers vivid proximity to Basquiat's intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist's life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

Taking us on a journey through the history of sacred art and architecture, Sacred Sites explores the myriads of ways in which we imbue our environments with profound and enduring meaning. From our early designation of nature and the body as temple to our futuristic embrace of imaginary realms, we travel the vast and mystical landscapes of myth, religion, and imagination.

Through gathering, we ignite our spaces with spirit, we circle the bonfire, bow down at the forest altar, give praise at the temple to our chosen divinities. Through pilgrimage, we carve indelible pathways, making our meditative way across continents, generations of footsteps treading, again and again, upon sacred grounds. And through our creative offerings to spirit - we envision new worlds, wildly imaginative odes to what we deem as holy; golden temples hewn of rock, enormous spirals sculpted from sand and soil, silent sanctuaries hidden among wooded groves. We paint the ancient cave walls, carve petroglyphs to mark the way, place roses in veneration at the candlelit shrine.

Slowly, stone-by-stone, we build monuments to our gods, a cosmic geometry held within our sacred architecture of worship. These hidden patterns can be found in the mysterious, towering pyramids found across the globe and throughout an astounding diversity of cultures, in the marble sanctuaries built to house the Greek and Roman goddesses, and in the windblown mountain monasteries of ancient Asia and the indigenous cliff-dwellings of the American Southwest.

Nature, art, beauty, these are the common elements found both within the places made sacred by our ancestors and in the multitude of environments where we strive to connect to source, and to ourselves. Tracing a hallowed route from rugged stone temples to transcendent works of modern architecture, the fifth volume in The Library of Esoterica celebrates the collective history of spaces made sacrosanct through human worship.

The Book of Symbols combines original and incisive essays about particular symbols with representative images from all parts of the world and all eras of history. The compelling texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol's psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image--all these factors are taken into consideration.

Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche's unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance.

The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.

From the beginning of human history, individuals across cultures and belief systems have looked to the sky for meaning. The movement of celestial bodies and their relation to our human lives has been the central tenant of astrology for thousands of years. The practice has both inspired reverence and worship, and deepened our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

While modern-day horoscopes may be the most familiar form of astrological knowledge, their lineage reaches back to ancient Mesopotamia. As author Andrea Richards recounts in Astrology, the second volume in TASCHEN's Library of Esoterica series, astronomy and astrology were once sister sciences: the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid at Giza was built to align with constellations, Persian scholars oversaw some of the first observatories, and even Galileo cast horoscopes for the Medicis. But with the Enlightenment and the birth of exact science, the practice moved to places where mystery was still permitted, inspiring literature, art, and psychology, and influenced artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Byron, and Blake. Later movements like the Theosophists and the New Agers, would thrust the practice into the mainstream.

Edited by Jessica Hundley, this vibrant visual history of Western astrology is the first ever compendium of its kind, exploring the symbolic meaning behind more than 400 images, from Egyptian temples and illuminated manuscripts to contemporary art from across the globe. Works by artists from Alphonese Mucha and Hilma af Klint to Arpita Singh and Manzel Bowman are sequenced to mirror the spin of the planets and the wheel of the zodiac. With wisdom from new interviews with astrologers like Robert Hand, Jessica Lanyadoo, and Mecca Woods, Astrology celebrates the stars and their mysterious influence on our everyday lives.

Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant Magick celebrates botanicals as creative muse - from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to visionary art inspired by psychoactive plants, cacti, and mushrooms.

Our myths, beliefs, and shared stories are continually reflected in nature; purity represented by the white lily or spiritual awakening by the bloom of the lotus. Our joys and laments are mirrored in the cycle of the seasons, in the seed birthing sprout, or in the dead leaf falling softly from winter branches. Plants, trees, and flowers as signifiers of transition are also deeply embedded within rites of passage rituals across global cultures. Rose petals strewn along the wedding aisle mark the evolution into womanhood and marriage. A wreath of lilies stands sentinel over an open grave. A lover's bouquet awaits on the doorstep. The wooden May Day pole is circled by girls wearing crowns of woven daisies, celebrating the coming of spring. Birth, unions, and burials - cycles of joyful celebration and deep grieving, all are marked symbolically with herbs, flowers or branches of a tree - the integration of nature into ceremony our method of signifying catharsis.

Since time immemorial, plants have also served as potent symbols within the religions of the world; Buddha attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Eve plucking the Apple of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. From root to vibrant blossom, Plant Magick explores the fertile, interconnected history between plants and people, the multitude of ways in which we embrace plants in spiritual ceremony, as healing medicine, as creative muse and as gateways into deeper explorations of consciousness.

An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag SAMO, before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barely a decade, he remains a cult figure of artistic social commentary, and a trailblazer in the mediation of graffiti and gallery art.

Basquiat's work drew upon diverse sources and media to create an original and urgent artistic vocabulary, biting with critique against structures of power and racism. His practice merged abstraction and figuration, poetry and painting, while his influences spanned Greek, Roman, and African art, French poetry, jazz, and the work of artistic contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. The results are vivid, visceral mixtures of words, African emblems, cartoonish figures, daubs of bold color, and beyond.

This book presents Basquiat's short but prolific career, his unique style, and his profound engagement with ever-relevant issues of integration and segregation, poverty and wealth.

Back in 2002, Simon Woody Wood was dreaming up schemes to get free sneakers. Two weeks later, he was the proud owner of Sneaker Freaker and his life was never the same.

From its early roots as a punk-style fanzine to today's super-slick print and online operations, the fiercely independent publication has documented every collab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike, and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last 15 years.

Woody's original premise that Sneaker Freaker would be funny and serious, meaningful and pointless at the same time has certainly been vindicated in The Ultimate Sneaker Book. With more than 650 pages jam-packed with insider knowledge and his own irreverent observations, the insane historical detail and otaku-level minutiae is beyond obsessive.

Traversing 100 years of history, each chapter paints a rollicking picture of the sneaker industry's evolution. Air Max, Air Force, Adi Dassler, Converse, Kanye, Dapper Dan, Dee Brown, Michael Jordan, and Yeezy--along with obscure treasures like Troop, Airwalk, and Vision Street Wear--are all exhaustively documented.

This is a definitive source of knowledge. Keep your laces loose!

Among the women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an icon of 20th century art.

After an accident in her early youth, Frida became a painter. Her marriage to Diego Rivera in 1929 placed her at the forefront of an artistic scene not only in the cultural Renaissance of Mexico, but also in the United States. Her work garnered praise from the poet André Breton, who added the Mexican painter to the ranks of international surrealism and exhibited her work in Paris in 1939 to the admiration of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp.

We access the intimacy of Frida's affections and passions through a selection of drawings, pages from her personal diary, and an extensive illustrated biography featuring photos of Frida, Diego, and the Casa Azul, Frida's home and the center of her universe.

This book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo's paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years.

The deceptively simple lemon takes center stage in the second volume of TASCHEN's collaboration with The Gourmand, masters of the rich intersection of food and art. The star of Renaissance gardens, that shaped the Medici dynasty, have the power to ward off scurvy, had a hand in forming the mob, and whose juice has been used as an invisible ink since 600 CE to pen covert messages, these joyful yellow orbs are ripe with intrigue. The Gourmand charts the fruit's astonishingly intricate genealogy, explores its role as a literary device for the likes of Joan Didion, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Wolfe, and James Joyce, and examines its unique representation of the American dream through lemonade stands. A favorite subject of art history's giants, the lemon captivates in the still lifes of Old Masters and inspired the breakthroughs of modern visionaries like Picasso, Matisse, and Warhol. Lemons also find themselves at the cutting edge of design in Philippe Starck's iconic Juicy Salif and the unassuming yet revolutionary Jif Lemon. Their presence extends to the decorative arts, gracing everything from Arts and Crafts wallpapers to mythological ceramics. Even the famed Bloomsbury Group found lemons entangled in their literary love affairs. Accompanying these citrus-centric anecdotes are a foreword by chef and acclaimed food writer Simon Hopkinson and an introduction by art critic and author Jennifer Higgie alongside more than 60 lemon-infused recipes across global cuisines and for every occasion--including perfect poultry, decadent sauces, classic cocktails, and indulgent desserts, with custom photography by Bobby Doherty.

The Hermetic Museum takes readers on a magical mystery tour spanning an arc from the medieval cosmogram and images of Christian mysticism, through the fascinating world of alchemy to the art of the Romantic era. The enigmatic hieroglyphs of cabalists, Rosicrucians, and freemasons are shown to be closely linked with the early scientific illustrations in the fields of medicine, chemistry, optics, and color theory.
Even for those with no knowledge of the fascinating history of alchemy, this book is a delight to explore. Each richly illustrated chapter begins with an introduction and quotes from alchemists by specialist Alexander Roob. The roots of surrealism and many other more recent artistic movements can be found in this treasure trove.

The creative duo Charles Eames (1907-1978) and Ray Kaiser Eames (1912-1988) transformed the visual character of America. Though best known for their furniture, the husband and wife team were also forerunners in architecture, textile design, photography, and film. The Eameses' work defined a new, multifunctional modernity, exemplary for its integration of craft and design, as well as for the use of modern materials, notably plywood and plastics.
The Eames Lounge Chair Wood, designed with molded plywood technology, became a defining furniture piece of the 20th century, while the couple's contribution to the Case Study Houses project not only made inventive use of industrial materials but also developed an adaptable floor plan of multipurpose spaces which would become a hallmark of postwar modern architecture.

From the couple's earliest furniture experiments to their seminal short film Powers of Ten, this book covers all the aspects of the illustrious Eames repertoire and its revolutionary impact on middle-class American living.

In 2016, sportswear manufacturer Nike and fashion designer Virgil Abloh joined forces to create a sneaker collection celebrating 10 of the Oregon-based company's most iconic shoes. With their project The Ten--which reimagined icons like Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Force 1, and Air Presto, among others--they reinvigorated sneaker culture.

Virgil Abloh's designs offer deep insights into engineering ingenuity and burst with cultural cachet. Drawing on the genius of the original shoe using lettering, ironic labels, collage, and sculpting techniques, Abloh played with language and sculptural elements to construct new meaning. Inspired by the wit of Dadaism, architectural theory, and avant-garde happenings, he analyzed what makes each shoe iconic and deconstructed it into an artistic assemblage, making each shoe into a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once.

ICONS traces Abloh's investigative, creative process through documentation of the prototypes, original text messages from Abloh to Nike designers, and treasures from the Nike archives. We find Swooshes sliced away from Air Jordans and reapplied with tape or thread, Abloh's typical text fragments in quotation marks on Air Force 1, and All Stars cut into pieces. We take a look behind the scenes and witness Abloh's DIY approach, which gave each model in the Off-WhiteTM c/o Nike collection its own unique touch. His deconstructive vocabulary is reflected in the Swiss binding, which showcases an open spine and discloses the production of the book.

The book documents Abloh's cooperative way of working and reaffirms the power of print. For its design Nike and Abloh partnered with the acclaimed London-based design studio Zak Group. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, equal parts catalog and conceptual toolbox. The first part of the book presents a visual culture of sneakers while a lexicon in the second part defines the key people, places, objects, ideas, materials, and scenes from which the project grew. Texts by Nike's Nicholas Schonberger, writer Troy Patterson, curator and historian Glenn Adamson, and Virgil Abloh himself frame the collaborative work within fashion and design history. A foreword by Hiroshi Fujiwara places the project within the historical continuum of Nike collaborators.

Hailed the Prince of the Impressionists, Claude Monet (1840-1926) transformed expectations for the purpose of paint on canvas. Defying the precedent of centuries, Monet did not seek to render only reality, but the act of perception itself. Working en plein air with rapid, impetuous brush strokes, he interrogated the play of light on the hues, patterns, and contours and the way in which these visual impressions fall upon the eye.

Monet's interest in this space between the motif and the artist encompassed too the ephemeral nature of each image we see. In his beloved water lily series, as well as in paintings of poplars, grain stacks, and the Rouen cathedral, he returned to the same motif in different seasons, different weather conditions, and at different times of the day, to explore the constant mutability of our visual environment.

This book offers the essential introduction to an artist whose works simultaneously reflected upon the purpose of a picture and the passage of time, and in so doing transformed irrevocably the story of art.

Fall under the spell of Gustav Klimt. Over a century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's paintings alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged archival material from Klimt's own archive to trace the evolution of his astonishing oeuvre.

With top-quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Frieze, the book follows Klimt through his prominent role in the Secessionist movement of 1897, his candid rendering of the female body, and his lustrous golden phase when gold leaf brought a shimmering tone and texture to such beloved works as The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold.

The creator of the ubiquitous Knoll Tulip chairs and tables, Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) was one of the 20th century's most prominent space shapers, merging dynamic forms with a modernist sensibility across architecture and design.

Among Saarinen's greatest accomplishments are Washington D.C.'s Dulles International Airport, the very sculptural and fluid TWA terminal at JFK Airport in New York, and the 630 ft. (192 m) high Gateway Arch of St. Louis, Missouri, each of them defining structures of postwar America. Catenary curves were present in many of his structural designs. During his long association with Knoll, Saarinen's other famous furniture pieces included the Grasshopper lounge chair and the Womb settee. Married to Aline Bernstein Saarinen, a well-known critic of art and architecture, Saarinen also collaborated with Charles Eames, with whom he designed his first prize-winning chair.

With rich illustration tracing his life and career, this introduction follows Saarinen from his studies across his training all the way to his most prestigious projects, and explores how each of his designs brought a new dimension to the modernist landscape.

Andy Warhol was a relentless chronicler of life and its encounters. Carrying a Polaroid camera from the late 1950s until his death in 1987, he amassed a huge collection of instant pictures of friends, lovers, patrons, the famous, the obscure, the scenic, the fashionable, and himself. Created in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, this book features more than hundred of these instant photos.

Portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Yves Saint Laurent, Pelé, Debbie Harry are included alongside images of Warhol's entourage and high life, landscapes, and still lifes. Often raw and impromptu, the Polaroids document Warhol's era like Instagram captures our own, offering a unique record of the life, world, and vision behind the Pop Art maestro and modernist giant.

(c) The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.