Books, Arts & Photography, Schools, Periods & Styles, Surrealism

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Al Seckel
Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion
by Sterling (Paperback)

Rings of seahorses that seem to rotate on the page. Butterflies that transform right before your eyes into two warriors with their horses. A mosaic portrait of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made from seashells. These dazzling and often playful artistic creations manipulate perspective so cleverly that they simply outwit our brains: we can’t just take a quick glance and turn away. They compel us to look once, twice, and over and over again, as we try to figure out exactly how the delightful trickery manages to fool our perceptions so completely. Of course, first and foremost, every piece is beautiful on the surface, but each one offers us so much more. From Escher’s famous and elaborate “Waterfall” to Shigeo Fukuda’s “Mary Poppins,” where a heap of bottles, glasses, shakers, and openers somehow turn into the image of a Belle Epoque woman when the spotlight hits them, these works of genius will provide endless enjoyment.

Jim Coddington, Robert Lubar, Jordana Mendelson, Adele Nelson, ...
Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937
by The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-11-01)

Taking Joan Miro's notorious declaration of 1927--"I want to assassinate painting"--as its point of departure, this richly illustrated volume is the first to focus on Miro the "anti-painter," identifying the core practices and strategies the artist used to challenge painting between 1927 and 1937. Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937 surveys the various material, iconographical and rhetorical forms of Miro's attacks on painting by presenting, in chronological sequence, 12 distinct series of works, beginning with a remarkable group of paintings on unprimed canvas and concluding with Miro's return to Realism in "Still Life with Old Shoe" (1937). Acidic color, grotesque disfigurement, stylistic heterogeneity and the use of resistant, ready-made materials are among the key tactics of aggression that are explored in this extraordinary presentation of the interrelated and oppositional series of paintings, collages, objects and drawings Miro produced during this crucial ...

Robert Descharnes, Gilles Neret
Salvador Dali 2v
by Taschen (Hardcover)

TASCHEN's 25th anniversary ? Special edition! Two large-format hardcover volumes in a slipcase at a special bestseller price Picasso called Dal? "an outboard motor that's always running." Dal? thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head. Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dal? (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics?and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This lively monograph presents the infamous Surrealist in full color and in his own words. His provocative imagery is all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. A friend of the artist for over thirty years, privy to the reality behind Dal?'s public image, author Robert Descharnes is uniquely qualified to analyze ...

Frida Kahlo
The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait
by Harry N Abrams (Hardcover)

Dali (Portfolio (Taschen))
by Taschen (Paperback)

Zdzilsaw Beksinski
The Fantastic Art of Beksinski (Masters of Fantastic Art)
by Morpheus International (Hardcover)

This art book captures 30 years in the career of Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. The subject matter ranges from apocalyptic landscapes with towering edifices and zombie-like figures, to scenes of ghostly calm. His haunting, surreal works convey a sense of mystery and are often disturbingly dark.

Boris Artzybasheff
As I See: The Fantastic World of Boris Artzybasheff
by Titan Books (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-10-21)

A striking collection of extraordinary images from one of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed and unique American artists.This fantastical collection teems with ironic imagery which documents our culture’s vanity, aggression, dreams, and neuroses with biting wit and wisdom. Boris Artzybasheff’s striking graphic style, which includes everything from grotesque experiments in anthropomorphism, to the depiction of vivid and extreme ranges of human psychology and emotion, is displayed to full effect in this seminal collection of his work. A stunning collection from an artist with a strong sense of design and humour!

Alastair Brotchie, Mel Gooding
A Book of Surrealist Games
by Shambhala (Paperback) (Release Date: 1995-07-04)

Charles Simic, Joseph Cornell
Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell
by Ecco (Hardcover)

Brilliantly exploring the life and work of American artist Joseph Cornell, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Simic utilizes a series of short prose pieces that scavenge the dark corners of New York City by way of the nooks and crannies of his own imagination, creating the literary equivalent of Cornell's art. Photos.

Salvador Dal
Diary of a Genius
by The Tears Corporation/Creation (Paperback)

With an introduction by J G Ballard, this is a seminal Surrealist text that reveals the intimate details of Dali's life and work as figurehead of the 20th century art movement.

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