Visual Arts-new

Since 1970, Manitoba artist Don Proch has built an astonishing body of work evoking a semi-mythical Prairie past and an unsettled and unresolved modernity. In his complex sculptures and life-size masks, Proch combines intricate draftsmanship with natural and found materials in surprising and transformative ways.

With her earliest work, Penny Siopis established herself as one of the most talented and challenging visual artists in and beyond South Africa. Penny Siopis: Time and Again engages in a variety of ways with her work of the past thirty-five years. A conversation between the artist and the editor, Gerrit Olivier, unfolds throughout the book, giving the reader fascinating insights into her working methods, her strong interest in form and different genres, her theoretical concerns and her views on the position of art in a socio-political context.

All throughout his fruitful career, Velázquez painted the powerful just as well as the ordinary Spanish people. His body of work bears the imprint of realism worthy of the greatest Flemish masters of the period, and despite outside influences, he undeniably succeeded in developing his own artistic principles. Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) is one of the world's most famous artists. Representative of 17th-century European painting, he worked for the Spanish court and for the most important personalities, completing numerous portraits. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, passionate about the human figure, his oeuvre of his long artistic career of more than forty years also encompasses representations of daily life in the taverns of Spain.

Without a doubt, Katsushika Hokusai is the most famous Japanese artist since the middle of the nineteenth century whose art is known to the Western world. Reflecting the artistic expression of an isolated civilisation, the works of Hokusai - one of the first Japanese artists to emerge in Europe - greatly influenced the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, such as Vincent van Gogh. Considered during his life as a living Ukiyo-e master, Hokusai fascinates us with the variety and the significance of his work, which spanned almost ninety years and is presented here in all its breadth and diversity.

With Impression, Sunrise, exhibited in 1874, Claude Monet (18401926) took part in thecreation of the Impressionist movement that introduced the 19th century to modern art. All his life, he captured natural movements around him and translated them into visual sensations. A complex man and an exceptional artist, Monet is internationally famous for his poetic paintings of waterlilies and beautiful landscapes. He leaves behind the most wellknown masterpieces that still fascinate art lovers all over the world. In this twovolume illustrated work, Natalia Brodskaya and Nina Kalitina invite us on a journey across time to discover the history of Impressionism and Monet; a movement and an artist forever bound together.

Pierre Bonnard was the leader of a group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘prophet'. Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Denis, the most distinguished of the Nabis, revolutionized the spirit of decorative techniques during one of the richest periods in the history of French painting. Influenced by Odilon Redon and Puvis de Chavanne, by popular imagery and Japanese etchings, this post-impressionist group was above all a close circle of friends who shared the same cultural background and interests. An increasing individualism in their art often threatened the group's unity and although tied together by a common philosophy their work clearly diverged

"Born in the West Indies, Pissarro found his passion in paint as a young man in Paris, and by the age of 43 had corralled a group of enthusiastic artists into a new collective. Their first show was scorned by the critics, but the group had acquired a new name: the Impressionists. For the next 40 years Pissarro was the driving force behind what has today become the world’s favourite artistic movement." - Kanopy website