Donald Albrecht

This inspiring book accompanies the first traveling exhibition about Doris Duke’s estate Shangri La and its influential synthesis of modernist architecture and Islamic art and design. Situated on five acres of terraced gardens and pools overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Honolulu’s Diamond Head, Shangri La was the idyllic paradise of philanthropist Doris Duke, reflecting her personal passion for the art, architecture, and design of the Islamic world. The estate incorporates unique architectural features, such as carved marble doorways, jalis, and floral ceramic tiles, and the decor includes artifacts, such as silk textiles, jewel-toned chandeliers, and gilt and coffered ceilings, many collected during her travels. This volume presents an exclusive tour of Shangri La’s breathtaking interiors and landscape, including the splendid furnishings and art. Archival photographs of Duke and friends as well as correspondence and drawings provide a view into a lifestyle defined by the highest sense of aesthetics. Doris Duke’s Shangri La is sure to inspire both art and design lovers.

Best known for having written and produced some of the seminal records of American popular culture from Big Girls Don t Cry for the Four Seasons to Silence is Golden for the Tremeloes and Lady Marmalade for LaBelle Bob Crewe was a multifaceted artist for whom a passion for painting and the visual arts provided a lifelong counterbalance to music. Collected here are more than 80 of Bob Crewe s artworks, stretching from his first forays into abstract expressionism in the 1950s and 1960s to more complex, tactile compositions made on his full-time return to painting in the 1990s accompanied by archival images and ephemera that reflect Crewe s simultaneous contribution to popular music. Essays by Jessica May and Peter Plagens explore the development of an artist whose influences ranged from Rauschenberg and Johns to Warhol and Bacon; legendary record producer Andrew Loog Oldham captures the period of radical experimentalism in which Crewe wrote many of the most memorable songs in the canon of modern pop; and Donald Albrecht s introduction ties together the many complementary aspects of Crewe s personal and creative lives.

An overview of the turbulent 1960s and 1970s through the lens of fashion, a period when demure silhouettes and pastels exploded into bold prints and tie-dyed psychedelic chaos and ultimately resolved into a personal style dubbed by Vogue the "New Nonchalance." Mod New York traces the fashion arc of the 1960s and 1970s, a tumultuous and innovative era that continues to inspire how we dress today. During this period, demure silhouettes and pastels favored by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy exploded into bold prints and tie-dyed psychedelic chaos and ultimately resolved into a personal style dubbed by Vogue the “New Nonchalance.” Accompanying a major exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, this book is beautifully illustrated by two hundred groundbreaking and historically significant designs by Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Rudi Gernreich, Yves Saint Laurent, Andre Courreges, Norman Norell, and Bill Blass, among many others, all drawn from the renowned costume collection at MCNY. By the mid-1960s, clothing assumed communicative powers, reflecting the momentous societal changes of the day: the emergence of a counterculture, the women’s liberation movement, the rise of African-American consciousness, and the radicalism arising from the protests of the Vietnam War. New York City, as the nation’s fashion and creative capital, became the critical flashpoint for these debates. Authoritative essays by well-known fashion historians Phyllis Magidson, Hazel Clark, Sarah Gordon, and Caroline Rennolds Milbank explore the ways in which these radical movements were expressed in fashion. Of special note is Kwame S. Brathwaite’s presentation of the Grandassa Models and “Black is Beautiful” movement, which is illustrated with photographs by his father, Kwame Brathwaite.

Known for her bravado and boundary-pushing dresses, Elsa Schiaparelli is undoubtedly one of the greatest icons of twentieth-century fashion. After launching her eponymous haute couture house in Paris in 1927, the Roman-born designer captured the attention of the world at large not only thanks to her trompe l oeil patterns and surrealist forms but also because of her creative relationships with some of the epoch s most renowned artists. From Salvador Dali, who collaborated with Schiaparelli on her infamous Lobster Dress to Alberto Giacometti s furnishings for her salon and Rene Magritte, whose surrealist works inspired some of the designer s creations, this beautifully illustrated tome delves into the couturiere s fascinating rapports with these artistic legends. Through never-before-seen photography, intimate anecdotes, and essays penned by some of today s most authoritative fashion critics, curators, and personalities, this volume is the first definitive work dedicated to the shared inspiration between the designer and her circle of artist friends. Unique in its breadth of artwork and diverse contributors, this visually stunning book is a must for anyone interested in avant-garde art, twentieth-century fashion, or thought-provoking design.

Rivera, Kahlo, Tamayo, Covarrubias, Weston, Modotti, Bravo, Spratling – names which are closely linked with the internationally celebrated art, photography and design scene of the 1920s and 1930s in the United States and Mexico. This lavishly illustrated publication traces the dynamic cultural exchange which left its mark on both sides of the border. At the beginning of the 20th century a lively and profitable exchange developed between artists in the United States and Mexico. The Americans were full of enthusiasm for the Mexican synthesis of history and modernity and their social commitment, which contrasted strongly with the consumer culture in the U. S. The Mexican artists in turn found important financiers across the border. The volume shows through paintings, drawings, photographs and graphical works from the Harry Ransom Center in Austin and other important museums how this intercultural network brought forth a large number of world-famous artists.

Queer people have always flocked to New York seeking freedom, forging close-knit groups for support and inspiration. Gay Gotham brings to life the countercultural artistic communities that sprang up over the last hundred years, a creative class whose radical ideas would determine much of modern culture. More than 200 images both works of art, such as paintings and photographs, as well as letters, snapshots, and ephemera illuminate their personal bonds, scandal-provoking secrets at the time and many largely unknown to the public since. Starting with the bohemian era of the 1910s and 1920s, when the pansy craze drew voyeurs of all types to Greenwich Village and Harlem, the book winds through midcentury Broadway as well as Fire Island as it emerged as a hotbed, turns to the post-Stonewall, decade-long wild party that revolved around clubs like the Mineshaft and Studio 54, and continues all the way through the activist mobilization spurred by the AIDS crisis and the move toward acceptance at the century s close. Throughout, readers encounter famous figures, from James Baldwin and Mae West to Leonard Bernstein, and discover lesser-known ones, such as Harmony Hammond, Greer Lankton, and Richard Bruce Nugent. Surprising relationships emerge: Andy Warhol and Mercedes de Acosta, Robert Mapplethorpe and Cecil Beaton, George Platt Lynes and Gertrude Stein. By peeling back the overlapping layers of this cultural network that thrived despite its illicitness, this groundbreaking publication reveals a whole new side of the history of New York and celebrates the power of artistic collaboration to transcend oppression.