Arts and Culture

Open the pockets of this Halloween countdown calendar to reveal magical Dark Arts surprises inspired by the Harry Potter films!

With over a dozen exclusive Harry Potter collectibles inspired by the sinister Dark Arts, this official advent calendar is the perfect way to ring in the year’s spookiest holiday. Open a new gift p

Go behind the scenes of the Harry Potter film series with this compendium of stunning blueprints depicting spellbinding magical wizarding world locations from all eight films. Harry Potter: The Blueprints showcases the work of the artists who laid the foundation for the visually enchanting buildings, homes, rooms, and settings from all eight Harry Potter films. ICONIC LOCATIONS: 260 pages of

The first substantial book on the French Neo-Romantics, a cosmopolitan group working in 1920s Paris who turned against modernist abstraction in favour of a new form of figurative painting. In 1926, the Galerie Druet in Paris made waves presenting a group of young painters who had spurned modernist abstraction and returned to a form of figurative painting. For most of them this was the first t

New Zealand-born Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947) arrived in London in 1901 and, by the 1920s, had become a leading British modernist, exhibiting frequently with avant-garde artists such as Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. This book explores Hodgkins as a traveller across cultures and landscapes – teaching and discovering the cubists in Paris, absorbing the landscape and light of Ibiza

The art of Makoto Azuma uses flowers and plants as its starting point, but juxtaposes their timeless yet transient beauty with an incredibly diverse range of striking settings. In a series of sculptures, installations and interactive events, he delights in blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice. Azuma founded the floral atelier Jardins des Fleurs in 2002, taking commissions from pri

In this first systematic introduction to contemporary Chinese art, Wu Hung provides an accessible, focused and much-needed narrative of the development of Chinese art across all media from the 1970s to the 2000s. From its underground genesis during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), contemporary Chinese art has become a dynamic and hugely influential force in a globalized art world where the disti

The most comprehensive, practical, and beautiful directory of type, organized by type category - Serif, Sans Serif, Display, and Script - and covering all styles throughout history. Type Directory offers over 1,800 examples of the best in type design, spanning almost 600 years of design history. From classics such as Garamond, Baskerville, Futura, and Helvetica, to more idiosyncratic recent crea

The book behind Anton Corbijn’s film Squaring the Circle (the story of Hipgnosis) Founded in 1968 by Aubrey “Po” Powell, Storm Thorgerson and Peter Christopherson, graphic design firm Hipgnosis gained a legendary status by transforming the look of album art through their designs for AC/DC, Black Sabbath, The Police, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett, and The Who. In t

Santiago Calatrava first made a name for himself in the late 1980s with delicately designed structures in Zürich that seem to grow out of the earth. He went on to create a series of highly innovative, iconic bridges across Europe, and in recent years he has drawn attention for such large-scale projects as the City of Arts and Sciences in his birth town, Valencia; the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de J

Type Tells Tales focuses on typography that is integral to the message or story it is expressing. This is type that speaks – that is literally the voice of the narrator. And the narrator is the typographer. This can be quite literal, for example when letters come from the mouth of a person or thing, as in a comics balloon. It can be hand lettering, drawn with its own distinctive peculiarities that

The V&A Photography Library is a new series of accessible, introductory volumes to the key themes, works, objects and individuals in photography, illustrated with unprecedented access to the V&A’s photography collection, the oldest held by a public museum and one of the largest and finest in the world, now expanded with acquisitions from the Royal Photographic Society collection. Written by Mar

The essential purpose of a staircase is utilitarian: to facilitate ascent and descent. Yet the design of even the simplest stair is complex, requiring great knowledge, skill and ingenuity. This volume showcases the astonishing diversity of staircases over the centuries, from the stepped pyramids of the Maya to the exquisitely proportioned stairs of the Renaissance, to the elaborate balustraded con

Over the past 40 years, Lois Greenfield has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most accomplished and respected photographers of human motion. Her images of dancers in mid-flight or mid-movement are astonishingly beautiful and capture the magic of dance in a unique way. In the 17 years since her last book was published, Greenfield has moved into digital colour photography, and some 150 of th

The powerful aesthetic and philosophical framework that modernism ushered in during the early part of the 20th century revolutionized the built world, transformed our living spaces and lifestyles, and fundamentally changed the way we think about design. As they experimented with new forms, materials and techniques, modernist designers rejected historical precedents to prioritize function over hist

The World According to Roger Ballen, co-authored with Colin Rhodes, looks at Ballen’s career in the wider cultural context beyond photography, including his connections with and collections of Art Brut. It features photographs selected from across Ballen’s career, along with installations created exclusively for the exhibition at Halle Saint Pierre and photographs of objects and works from Ballen’

Go under the hood of Batman´s most iconic vehicles in this fully illustrated volume that crosses multiple realities to explore a huge fleet of Batmobiles, including cars seen in The Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, and the films of Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder, and Tim Burton. In a universe that encompasses infinite realities there is one constant: each known reality has its own Batma

Bursting with beautiful illustrations to color, Harry Potter: Ravenclaw: The Official Coloring Book is a must-have coloring book for members of this house and fans of the magical film series. Grab your colored pencils—it's time for coloring wizardry! Show your house pride with intricate all-new artwork of characters, iconic objects, and magical places from the Harry Potter films, all theme

This enchantingly designed inspirational card deck features 64 cards, each of which offers the reader a unique question, prompt, or invitation for self-reflection based on the major characters, moments, quotes, and themes of the Harry Potter films. It comes packaged in a decorative gift box with a book that delves deeper into the cinematic moments explored in the cards and the inspiration the film

Making the leap from convenience store worker to international film icon, Kevin Smith has spent over twenty-five years at the forefront of pop culture. In this hilariously candid treasure trove of artifacts and anecdotes, Kevin tells the full story of his incredible life for the first time, from his early days in Highlands, New Jersey, through to the breakout success of low-budget indie smash Cler