Art, Architecture & Photography > artists

Timeless Land is a unique collaboration between three of New Zealand's most steadfast and individual talents painter Grahame Sydney, poet Brian Turner and writer Owen Marshall. Much of their best and most enduring work has grown out of their deep attachment to, and familiarity with, the essence of the memorable landscapes of the Central South Island.

Take a trip through New Zealand art via Dick Frizzell's point of view. He shines a light on some of the works he's always loved - a number of which have seemed to miss muster in the usual round-ups. It's an eclectic bunch of paintings and begins with images he was drawn to (because that's what it was all about. images) back before he was told what he'd be better off looking at. From Peter McIntyre inviting him up onto the scaffolding to watch him painting the WWII mural in the Hastings War Memorial Library, through to discovering ... read more

This season's fashions are good enough to eat; in fact they are entirely edible. In A Matter of Taste Fulvio Bonavia fuses haute couture with cuisine with results that are guaranteed to tantalize fashionistas and foodies alike. Step out in style in a pair of corn espadrilles. A tagliatelle belt makes for a delicious main course, but should always be worn al dente. Later, for dessert, you can dine on fruit-paste bangles and a cheese necklace, then dance the night away in a pair of aubergine slippers. Accompanying Fulvio's images is ... read more

From James Busby on, European settlers made gardens from the moment they set foot on New Zealand soil, and of course Maori had extensive cultivations of kumara around their kainga. Many settler gardens were matters of survival - kitchen gardens on which families were reliant - but as individual circumstances allowed and prosperity spread, many gardens became increasingly ambitious and extensive. It is hardly surprising that artists were drawn to depicting them, as they have from the 1820s right through to the present day. This col... read more

Sir Peter Siddell's intricately detailed paintings of New Zealand urban scenes and landscapes that are not quite a replication of actuality are much loved and enduringly popular.
Both technical tours de force and rich with acute observation, they feature in all our national art collections and never fail to fascinate. This major book, the first to ever bring his work together, celebrates both Siddell's life and his art, with 150 images, and an essay by both Sir Peter himself and the renowned art historian Professor Michael Dunn.

Seeing something in Nature that intensifies my joy in being alive, I want to try to reproduce it in such a form that when I see it again I re-live my joy at that divine moment. By so painting I hope to share my own delight with other people. – Austen Deans, 1967 At twelve Austen Deans knew he wanted to spend his life exploring the high country and mountain ranges of Canterbury. He became an en plein air artist and has made his living for nearly seventy-five years capturing images of mountains and natural landscapes in water ... read more

Graham Percy is one of New Zealand's highest achieving illustrators on a global scale. Though he lived in London from 1964 until his death in 2008, he grew up here and never ceased thinking of himself as an expatriate Kiwi. A Micronaut in the Wide World re-discovers the life and work of this talented, original artist/illustrator/typographer. A tribute to the exquisite beauty of the hand-drawn line, the book also features large, colour reproductions of art works, documentary photos and a biographical, art historical text exploring t... read more

The Art of Dale Chihuly -- Dale Chihuly is the most famous and influential artist working in glass today. For more than four decades, he has been the leading figure in this unique art form, fusing traditional craft with fine art, fabrication with the natural environment. Now, in his first major San Francisco exhibition, Chihuly displays a vast array of artworks from many of his signature series (including the Baskets, Seaforms, Persians, Venetians, and more) at both the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. A career-spanning biogra... read more

In 2008 the famous painter Don Binney completed a suite of 24 absolutely charming coloured pencil drawings of Auckland's West Coast, from Huia to Te Henga (Bethells). They are evocative of the coast so many New Zealanders love and they are magnificent works in themselves. They are accompanied by text that takes the reader on an imaginary journey from Huia to Te Henga, commenting on the landmarks shown in each of the drawings. They also draw on Binney's extensive contact with this coast and with the Waitakeres in general: in early a... read more

Since his work is categorized as illustration and was most famously featured on the cover of the "Saturday Evening Post", fine art critics were slow to acknowledge the importance of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) as true artist, though his work was enormously popular during his lifetime and has endured as a crucial element in America's perception of itself in the 20th century. Through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the 1950s and 60s, Rockwell illustrations were a part of daily life, showing, as he once said,... read more

A photographic exploration of the workspace and studio of renowned contemporary artist Max Gimblett.

The story of twentieth-century art is dominated by a major shift from representation to abstraction, from Cezanne's paintings of hills and houses to Pollock's pictures of nothing. Yet in New Zealand we know a lot about Rita Angus and Colin McCahon but little about the post-representational art that now dominates the art world. This book is the first account of the work of New Zealand's leading abstract painter, Milan Mrkusich. Trained as an architect and working for the innovative design firm Brenner Associates in the 1940s, Mrkusi... read more

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world", ukiyo-e refers to the famous Japanese woodblock print genre that originated in the 17th century and is practically synonymous with the Western world's visual characterization of Japan. Though Hiroshige captured a variety of subjects, his greatest talent was in creating landscapes of his native Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and his most famous work was a series known as "100 Famous Views of Edo" (185... read more

This title is Taschen 25 - Special edition! It explains the bare minimum. Founded as a backlash against abstract expressionism, Minimalism was characterized by simplified, stripped-down forms and materials used to express ideas in a direct and impersonal manner. By presenting objects as simple objects, minimal artists sought to communicate without referring to expressive or historical themes. This critical movement, which began in the 1960s and branched out into land art, performance art, and conceptual art, is still a major influence today.

This work is Taschen's 25th anniversary - special edition! Modigliani - Sensitive paintings and sculptures that speak in tongues. To contemporaries, Amedeo Modigliani was the very definition of Parisian Bohemia, the controversial darling and target of the popular press and the model on which many a novel, play and film was based. As an artist, the scandalous Modigliani made his name chiefly with his celebrated pictures of women, with almond eyes and long necks and bodies. His style had ancient roots that lay deep in classical antiq... read more

Austen Deans, now aged 95, has long been of the country's most popular en plein art artists. In his work he has captured the beauty of the New Zealand's alpine scenery as well as Antarctica. He has won many awards for this work. He has also painted a number of portraits which are included in this book. Also included are many of his paintings completed while he was a prisoner-of- war, 1941-1945. Before he is capture he was an associate war artist.

"Vision and Reality" Van Gogh - one of the great forerunners of 20th century painting. This richly illustrated and expert study follows the artist from the early gloom-laden paintings in which he captured the misery of peasants and workers in his homeland, through his bright and colourful Parisian period, to the work of his final years, spent under a southern sun in Arles. Here, at last, he found the light that produced the unmistakable Van Gogh style. At Arles, Saint-Remy and Auvers-sur-Oise, in the feverish burst of creative ener... read more

Authoritative yet highly approachable new monograph of the great German artist Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Both a comprehensive introduction to and an insightful reappraisal of the life and works of the most famous North European Renaissance artist. Jeffrey Chipps Smith seeks to demystify Durer by considering his life and art within the context of his fascinating and tumultuous age, analysing the myths and explaining his artistic processes. All Durer's major works, from prestigious altarpieces to well-known prints and drawings, a... read more