Download or read book Collecting An Unruly Passion written by Werner Muensterberger and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From rare books, valuable sculpture and paintings, the relics of saints, and porcelain and other precious items, through stamps, textiles, military ribbons, and shells, to baseball cards, teddy bears, and mugs, an amazing variety of objects have engaged and even obsessed collectors through the ages. With this captivating book the psychoanalyst Werner Muensterberger provides the first extensive psychological examination of the emotional sources of the never-ending longing for yet another collectible. Muensterberger's roster of driven acquisition-hunters includes the dedicated, the serious, and the infatuated, whose chronic restlessness can be curbed--and then merely temporarily--only by purchasing, discovering, receiving, or even stealing a new "find." In an easy, conversational style, the author discusses the eccentricities of heads of state, literary figures, artists, and psychoanalytic patients, all possessed by a need for magic relief from despair and helplessness--and for the self-healing implied in the phrase "I can't live without it!" The sketches here are diverse indeed: Walter Benjamin, Mario Praz, Catherine the Great, Poggio Bracciolini, Brunelleschi, and Jean de Berry, among others. The central part of the work explores in detail the personal circumstances and life history of three individuals: a contemporary collector, Martin G; the celebrated British book and manuscript collector Sir Thomas Phillipps, who wanted one copy of every book in the world; and the great French novelist Honoré de Balzac, a compulsive collector of bric-a-brac who expressed his empathy for the acquisitive passions of his collector protagonist in Cousin Pons. In addition, Muensterberger takes the reader on a charming tour of collecting in the Renaissance and looks at collecting during the Golden Age of Holland, in the seventeenth century. Throughout, we enjoy the author's elegant variations on a complicated theme, stated, much too simply, by John Steinbeck: "I guess the truth is that I simply like junk." Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book A Passion for Books written by Harold Rabinowitz and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of sixty classic and contemporary essays, stories, lists, poems, quotations, and cartoons that celebrates the joys of reading, the feeling of spending hours browsing through a bookstore, and the people for whom buying books is a necessity. Booklovers will find themselves in good company within the pages of A Passion for Books, beginning with science-fiction great Ray Bradbury's foreword and throughout contributions like-- Umberto Eco's How to Justify a Private Library, dealing with the question everyone with a sizable library is inevitably asked: "Have you read all these books?"; Gustave Flaubert's Bibliomania, the tale of a book collector so obsessed with owning a book that he is willing to kill to possess it; and Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, in which she shares her optimistic view on the role of reading and the future of books in the computer age. Interspersed throughout are entertaining lists--Ten Bestselling Books Rejected by Publishers Twenty Times or More, Norman Mailer's Ten Favorite American Novels and many more-- plus select writings on bookstores, book clubs, cartoons about books and a specially prepared "bibliobibliography" of books about books. Whether you consider yourself a bibliomaniac or just someone who enjoys reading, A Passion for Books will provide you with a lifetime's worth of entertaining, informative, and pleasurable reading on your favorite subject--the love of books.
Download or read book A Passion for Collecting written by François Baudot and published by Filipacchi Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culled from the pages of "Elle Decor," 300 beautiful color photos take readers on a fabulous journey through the homes of some of the world's finest collectors, and amply show that seemingly inanimate objects bring life and warmth to one's surroundings.
Download or read book A Passion for Antiquities written by Marion True and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 1994-12-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman of New York is one of the most important private collections of ancient Greek and Roman art in the United States and among the most important in the world. Composed of approximately three hundred objects from the Bronze Age to the Late Antique, it includes bronze statuettes, marble sculpture, vases, jewelry, lamps and candelabra, keys, weights, and silver bowls and utensils. The Fleischmans have a particular fascination with pieces associated with everyday life in antiquity, since these objects evoke a human connection to the past. They are also drawn to pieces that exemplify the human propensity to transform a functional object into a thing of beauty. Not only has their emotional response to an object’s aesthetic appeal or its historical significance guided them in their forty years of collecting, personal interests have been at work as well. The large number of pieces related to the theater or representing theatrical subjects reflects Barbara Fleischman’s lifelong love of that art. A Passion for Antiquities contains photographs and extensive catalogue entries on the objects included in the exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Eighteen contributors provide art historical and descriptive information about each piece. The objects not selected for the exhibition are detailed in a checklist that specifies their origins, dates, media, and sizes. This book is the first major reference on the entire collection, since most of the objects have never before been publicly shown. To facilitate finding specific objects or groups of objects, the book is organized first chronologically and then by medium. Bibliographic sources for each entry cite both publications where the specific work is discussed as well as references to related scholarship. Karol Wight provides a chronological overview of the collection, and Oliver Taplin relates selected pieces to the development of Greek theater. The exhibition of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman’s collection and this catalogue allow us to enter into their minds and emotions so that, for a time, we can share their passion for antiquities.
Download or read book Collecting Art for Love Money and More written by Ethan Wagner and published by Phaidon Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book offers clear advice on how to navigate the contemporary art world, from assessing sales information and dealing with galleries to discovering new talent and accessing the best work."--P. [4] of cover.
Download or read book The Joys of Collecting written by Jean Paul Getty and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2011 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965.
Download or read book A Passion for Performance written by Shelley Bennett and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 1999-09-02 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and Her Portraitists brings together three engaging essays – by Robyn Asleson, Shelley Bennett and Mark Leonard, and Shearer West – that recreate the eventful life, both on and off the stage, of the great eighteenth-century actress Sarah Siddons. Siddons was renowned for her bravura performances in tragic roles, and her fame was enhanced by the many portraits of her painted by the leading artists of the day. The greatest of these was Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, a painting now in the Huntington Art Collections and recently studied at the Getty Center. A Passion for Performance places this magnificent portrait within the context of Siddons’s career as an actress and cultural icon. Includes a chronology of Siddons’s life by volume editor Robyn Asleson.
Download or read book Dust Grooves written by Eilon Paz and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.
Download or read book A Gentle Madness written by Nicholas A. Basbanes and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Gentle Madness continues to astound and delight readers about the passion and expense a collector is willing to make in pursuit of the book. The book captures that last moment in time when collectors pursued their passions in dusty bookshops and street stalls, high stakes auctions, and the subterfuge worthy of a true bibliomaniac. An adventure among the afflicted, A Gentle Madness is vividly anecdotal and thoroughly researched. Nicholas Basbanes brings an investigative reporter's heart to illuminate collectors past and present in their pursuit of bibliomania. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Download or read book Passion and Profit written by Paul van der Grijp and published by Lit Verlag. This book was released on 2006 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the cultural phenomenon of collecting all about? What moves the collector? Discussed are both elitist cultural objects and non-elitist such a mass producted items. Book contributes to the collecting literature from an anthropological point of view.
Download or read book The Maeght Family written by Yoyo Maeght and published by . This book was released on 2007-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first and only book to tell the story of the extremely strong friendships that have linked one remarkable family to literally hundreds of contemporary artists. Miro, Chagall, Mariss, Breton and Duchamp, these are just some of the legendary artists associated with the Maeght family. The original Maeght Gallery was opened in Paris in 1946, today, the Adrien Maeght Gallery is just streets away. The family started its own publishing business, producing catalogues of today's best known artists, but its best legacy is the Aime and Marguerite Maeght Foundation. This museum in the South of France houses some of the greatest masterpieces of 20th Century art and is an architectural marvel in its own right. Told with an authenticity and in-depth knowledge, here is the story of this unique landmark of modern art. The key moments in the family's life are illustrated with over 300 documents that enhance the text's chronology.
Download or read book A Passion for Sea Glass written by C. S. Lambert and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some people's passion for sea glass goes beyond collecting--they use it to create something of beauty. Carole Lambert, author of Sea Glass Chronicles, gives us entree into the studios of those who do everything from gathering and amassing sea glass mulch for landscaping to designing stained-sea-glass windows. This volume will arouse a renewed sense of wonder in those who already possess a passion for sea glass and win legions of new sea-glass devotees.
Download or read book Novels in Three Lines written by Félix Fénéon and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Novels in Three Lines collects more than a thousand items that appeared anonymously in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906—true stories of murder, mayhem, and everyday life presented with a ruthless economy that provokes laughter even as it shocks. This extraordinary trove, undiscovered until the 1940s and here translated for the first time into English, is the work of the mysterious Félix Fénéon. Dandy, anarchist, and critic of genius, the discoverer of Georges Seurat and the first French publisher of James Joyce, Fénéon carefully maintained his own anonymity, toiling for years as an obscure clerk in the French War Department. Novels in Three Lines is his secret chef-d’oeuvre, a work of strange and singular art that brings back the long-ago year of 1906 with the haunting immediacy of a photograph while looking forward to such disparate works as Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and the Death and Disaster series of Andy Warhol.
Download or read book The Art of Collecting written by Melissa Lester and published by 83 Press. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It may start with just one special piece that catches your eye and captures your heart, stirring an affection that quickly grows into an assemblage so dear, its sentimental value is beyond calculation. Whether it is a passion for exquisite linens, sterling silver, or fine English china--or simply the thrill of the hunt--that entices us to sift through old attics and antiques shops, estate sales, and European brocantes, we are kindred spirits, linked by an unbridled fervor for curating our favorite things.
Download or read book My Passion for Design written by Barbra Streisand and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly six decades Barbra Streisand has been one of the singular figures in American entertainment. From the cabaret to the Broadway stage, from television and film stardom to her acclaimed work as a director, from the recording studio to the concert hall, she has demonstrated that the extraordinary voice that launched her career was only one of her remarkable gifts. Now, in her first book, Barbra Streisand reveals another aspect of her talent: the taste and style that have inspired her beautiful homes and collections. My Passion for Design is her account of the creation and consturction of her newest home—the dream refuge she has longed for since the days when she shared a small Brooklyn apartment with her mother, brother, and grandparents, and a culmination and reflection of her love of American architecture and design from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Whether she is seeking an elusive shade of blue for the paneling in a Federal lounge, tracking down a contemporary woodworker who was able to recreate the exquisite Greene & Greene style, or choosing the roses to harmonize with both the interior and exterior of a given room, Barbra's perseverance and attention to detail are remarkable—and remarkably engaging. She is a wonderfully witty storyteller as well as a knowledgeable and charming guide. My Passion for Design contains not only Barbra's own photographs of the rooms she has decorated, the furniture and art she has collected, and the ravishing gardens she has planted on her land on the California coast, but memories of her childhood, and insights into the development of her own sense of style. The millions of fans who have cherished her voice as a singer will find that she has an equally inimitable and compelling voice as a writer. Here is a rare and intimate private tour of the world of one of our most beloved stars, which will be welcomed by her fans and all lovers of the great achievements of American design.
Download or read book Collecting Shakespeare written by Stephen H. Grant and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-04-26 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography of Henry and Emily Folger, who acquired the largest and finest collection of Shakespeare in the world. In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr. While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday, April 23, 1932. The library houses 82 First Folios, 275,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, D.C., for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings. The library provided Grant with unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault. He draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.
Download or read book Cultures of Collecting written by Roger Cardinal and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2004-09-02 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the psychology, history and theory of the compulsion to collect, focusing not just on the normative collections of the Western canon, but also on collections that reflect a fascination with the "Other" and the marginal – the ephemeral, exotic, or just plain curious. There are essays on the Neoclassical architect Sir John Soane, Sigmund Freud and Kurt Schwitters, one of the masters of collage. Others examine imperialist encounters with remote cultures – the consquitadors in America in the sixteenth century, and the British in the Pacific in the eighteenth – and the more recent collectors of popular culture, be they of Swatch watches, Elvis Presley memorabilia or of packaging and advertising. With essays by Jean Baudrillard, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Nicholas Thomas, Mieke Bal, John Forrester, John Windsor, Naomi Schor, Susan Stewart, Anthony Alan Shelton, John Elsner, Roger Cardinal and an interview with Robert Opie.
