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Gijs Van Hensbergen lectures in architecture and is the author of Art Deco (Quintet, 1986) and of the highly acclaimed Spanish travel book A Taste of Castile. (Right) Gijs launched his new book 'Guernica' at The Book Shop. |
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GUERNICA
Of all the great paintings in the world, Guendca has had a more direct impact on our consciousness than perhaps any other. In this absorbing and revealing book, Gijs van Henabergen tells the story of Picasso's masterpiece from its origin in the destruction of the Basque town of Gernika in the Spanish Civil War, through its time as a weapon in the propaganda battle against Fascism, and its later role both as the nucleus of the Museum of Modem Art In New York and as the detonator for the Dig Bang of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s. to its long-contested but eventually triumphant return to Spain In 1981.
It is a story of passion
and politics, in which we see the transformation of a work of art into
an icon of many meanings:
in Spain a symbol of reconciliation; to the Basques a symbol of national
identity; and at the UN in New York a symbol of the conscience of the
world. It is a story to which Gijs van Hensbergen has done full justice.
GAUDI
- The Biography
For many Gaudi's unique architecture is Barcelona. But little is known about the shadowy figure behind the swirling, vivid buildings that inspired Surrealists. Contemporary accounts paradoxically describe him as at once an effete dandy (getting his brother to break in new shoes), as a strict vegetarian and a fervent Catholic (the mosaic of the famous curving bench of the Park Guell is laid out as an extended prayer to the Virgin), as a revolutionary patriot (arrested in the pro-Catalan riot at 73), as an innovator who was profoundly orthodox (a member of the Sant Llucs, an ultra-conservative organisation that declared war on fin-de-siecle decadence by suppressing nude female life drawing) and as the hermit who chose life long celebacy, having been rejected by the woman he loved. Eccentric and brilliant, Antonio Guadi was very much the product of his time and place and this biography brings both man and architect powerfully to life, against the changing backdrop of Barcelona and Catalonia.
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