American Style

James Danziger

Cecil Beaton: The Art of the Scrapbook

As one of the 20th century's most important photographers, Cecil Beaton documented lives both famous and quotidian in dozens of scrapbooks now held by Sotheby's London. In the course of his decades-long career as a photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as a British war correspondent, Beaton helped invent the cult of the celebrity image. In these pages, reproduced here for the first time, you will enter a fabulous and surreal party where Tallulah Bankhead rubs shoulders with a bust of Voltaire and a portrait of Stravinsky, and where Beaton's first trip on the Queen Mary coincides with Queen Elizabeth's coronation.

Florence Muller

Fashion Game Book: A World History of 20th Century Fashion

A compendium of intrigue, lore, who's who and what's what of fashion.

Alwyn Crawshaw

Alwyn Crawshaw's Ultimate Painting Course: A Complete Beginner's Guide to Painting in Watercolour, Oil and Acrylic

In Alwyn Crawshaw's Ultimate Painting Course, the artist encapsulates 50 years' of painting and teaching in one volume. He begins with the basics: brushes, paints, and surfaces; choosing a medium; and the fundamentals of simple perspective, color-mixing, composition, and tonal values. He then starts you off with simple three-color exercises, which are followed by a number of helpful half-hour exercises. He also shows you how to work from photos and sketches and includes a section on painting outdoors. Finally, there are more than 20 step-by-step demonstrations - in watercolor, acrylics, and oils - that feature landscapes, seascapes, and human figures. An outstanding guide for aspiring artists.