Ambroise Vollard

#2

"The filmmaker Jean Renoir described how his father 'looked at flowers, women and clouds in the sky as other men touch and caress.' In contrast to the habitual conception of Impressionism, which reduces it to "the purely visual", this book, as the exhibition it accompanies, singles out the central role of tactile sensations in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's canvases, which are evident in all the different phases of his career and which he expressed in a wide range of genres, including grortraits and nudes, as well as still lifes and landscapes. This publication comprising more than 70 works by the artist, from museums and collections world-wide, reveals the way Renoir made use of the tactile qualities of volume, material and textures as a vehicle to depict intimacy in its different forms (social intimacy, among friends and family, or erotic) and how that imagery connects the work and the viewer to the sensuality of the brushstroke and the pictorial surface"--

#3

1986

This substantial new monograph on the work of Edgar Degas (1834-1917), one of the most significant artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, is a decisive contribution to the literature on the French Impressionist artist. An innovative and groundbreaking book, with underlying discussions related to "dance, politics and society," it pays special attention to issues of gender, identity, labor, race and the representation of women. Degas worked in various mediums, and, at the end of his life, left around 6,000 works, including 2,000 related to the world of dance and ballet. The contradictions and ambiguities of his art, especially the way he straddles both tradition and modernity, reaffirm both his uniqueness and significance in the history of Western art. Degas: Dance, Politics and Society includes ten essays, never before published, by experts around the world, and also features a visual essay of black-and-white photographs of the bronze sculptures, including Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, by the Brazilian artist Sofia Borges. Through her camera, Borges reinterprets and conceives new images of Degas' most cherished and classic sculptures. Borges' extraordinary photographs reveal, transform and revisit Degas' works in an innovative and radical manner. Exhibition: Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil (12.04.2020-08.01.2021).