The Neighbors, the latest project from photographer Arne Svenson (born 1952), began when he inherited a telephoto bird-watching lens from a friend and began to record the quotidian activities of his neighbors in the glass-walled apartment building across the street from his Manhattan studio. Completely unstaged and taken without his subjects' knowledge, the images capture his neighbors, framed by the structure of their own windows, in their unguarded moments: taking a nap, eating breakfast, talking on a cell phone. Simultaneously tender and voyeuristic, Svenson's carefully composed photographs have been compared to scenes from Vermeer and Edward Hopper―but the series has also sparked controversy and debate since it was first exhibited in August 2013, at a moment of acute national anxiety over surveillance and privacy. After extensive international press attention, The Neighbors series is collected here for the first time in a beautiful clothbound volume.

Arne Svenson: The Neighbors (JULIE SAUL GALL)

Arts & Photography

Ebony, David

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Julie Saul Gallery

Carmen Cicero (b. 1926) is now in the midst of his seventh decade at the cutting edge of contemporary art. His works of the 1950s--collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and other major museums--combined the gestures of Abstract Expressionism with the complex emergent forms of Surrealist automatism. In the 1960s, Cicero was one of the first members of the American avant-garde to return to figuration, pursuing, through the 1960s and 1970s, a style he called "figurative expressionism." This evolved into his more recent "visionary" mode, in which he depicts, with a startling clarity, mysterious scenes animated by multiple contradictory feelings--unfulfilled desires, jealousy, despair, and isolation--as well as a generous dose of humor. Throughout his entire artistic evolution, drawing and watercolor have remained central to Cicero's practice, allowing him to body forth his fertile imaginings with a vivid immediacy. This oversize volume presents a generous selection of drawings and watercolors from every stage of Cicero's career; it is printed on a quality uncoated stock that recalls the artist's favored Arches watercolor paper, and many of the drawings are reproduced at actual size. An essay by the noted critic David Ebony brings out the humor, pathos, and consummate skill of Cicero's art, and a full apparatus--including an artist's statement, chronology, and bibliography--further add to the value of this work, which will be an essential addition to any library of American art.

Carmen Cicero: Drawings and Watercolors: Tales of Intrigue, Danger, and Humor

History & Criticism

Abbeville Press

The first comprehensive presentation of Emily Mason's work, this volume brings long-overdue attention to the nearly fifty-year career of this contemporary American artist. Grounded in the early influence of late 1940s and 1950s Abstract Expressionism, Mason's ongoing exploration of the expressive possibilities of abstraction has produced paintings of a broad emotional range. The artist's work is driven, above all, by color. Her combinations of raucous, vibrant hues and her masterful tonal calibrations imbue her canvases with mysterious luminosity. Also carefully calibrated are Mason's compositions—structures that delicately balance spontaneity and control, impulse and restraint. To achieve such harmonies of color and composition, Mason relies on an intuitive approach. She comes to each canvas free from intention and open to chance, allowing the process of painting to guide the evolution of each painting. Emily Mason: The Fifth Element includes eighty reproductions of the artist's oil paintings, along with a selection of prints, chosen to show the span of her impressive career and to highlight her most significant works. David Ebony's text brings Mason's life and work into focus, showing how her unique painterly vocabulary has proven that the expressive possibilities of abstract art are indeed boundless. 86 color illustrations.

Emily Mason: The Fifth Element

Individual Artists

George Braziller

A retrospective on the life and art of this renowned Cuban-American artist, acclaimed for his refined and thought-provoking paintings with fantastical, Surrealist overtones. &nbsp; One of the most important contemporary painters to emerge from Latin America, Julio Larraz (b. 1944, Havana) creates powerful, dreamlike paintings that reflect the influence of painters from Velázquez to Sargent and Hopper, and Surrealist artists like Dalí and Magritte. A unique visionary, Larraz produces work that has been described by some as mind-bending and playful, using a refreshingly wide range of subjects from still life to Cuban cultural imagery, such as bullfights, men in white linen suits, and maritime scenes. He reveals imaginary worlds, with deeply satirical, ambiguous, and multilayered themes, in which he often alludes to political corruption, class structure, and human foibles. &nbsp; This is the largest and most comprehensive book to date, with 200 paintings, 50 works on paper, and 10 sculptures, ranging from the 1960s to the present, accompanied by an essay by David Ebony that situates Larraz's work within the Latin American painting tradition. &nbsp;

Julio Larraz: The Kingdom We Carry Inside

Rizzoli Electa

A retrospective of the preeminent Greek-born American artist, who was a pioneer in the use of neon in the realm of fine art. Prolific multimedia artist Stephen Antonakos (1926-2013) is best known for his resplendent abstract neon sculptures--instantly recognizable for their vibrant colors and crisp geometry. Along with well-known artists Lucio Fontana, Bruce Nauman, Keith Sonnier, and his compatriot Chryssa, Antonakos brought new perceptual and formal possibilities to the medium of neon. This comprehensive book comprises Antonakos's diverse output of neon, canvases, drawings, travel collages, chapels, and gold works, all of which reflect an abiding concern with illumination, incomplete geometric shapes, and an almost mystical spirituality that is manifest throughout his oeuvre, from his overtly religious pieces to his playful assembled collages from his trips to Greece. His later works feature neon lights placed behind painted or gold-leaf panels, often bathing the surfaces and the surrounding space in gold halos like Byzantine icons, a tradition that has long fascinated this extraordinary artist. Author David Ebony provides research on Antonakos as a central figure in the international avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s. He also discusses the artist's Greek heritage and legacy, as well as the spiritual and mystical aspects of his later works.

Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry

Emily Mason: The Fifth Element is the first comprehensive presentation of Emily Mason's work and brings long-overdue attention to this contemporary American artist. This volume includes eighty reproductions of the artist's oil paintings, along with a selection of prints, highlighting many of the most significant works from each phase of her impressive career. David Ebony's text brings Mason's life and work into focus, showing how her unique painterly vocabulary has proven that the expressive possibilities of abstract art are indeed boundless.

Emily Mason

With exquisite full-page color reproductions, Emily Mason: The Light in Spring reveals sixty-eight recent canvases along with thirty-two prints, covering Mason’s work with five master printers. David Ebony continues where he left off in his 2006 volume, Emily Mason: The Fifth Element, elaborating on Mason’s prolific career and her influence as a woman artist working in New York for the past sixty years. Christina Weyl contributes an essay on the history and technique of Mason’s experimental approach to printmaking. Together with editor Ani Boyajian, the authors enrich our understanding of Mason as a bold colorist, fearless experimenter, and dynamic historical presence. This book will be a delight for fans of Emily Mason and of art and color in general.

Emily Mason: The Light in Spring

Weyl, Christina

University Press of New England

The combination of Emily Mason's brilliant canvases and works on paper illuminated by a comprehensive and carefully crafted essay by David Ebony crystallizes into a compelling explaination of the power of abstract painting.

Emily Mason: At the Heart of Abstraction

Hard Press Editions

The world was shocked in 2003 by the revelation that U.S. guards had mistreated Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. In response, the renowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero created a series of riveting paintings and drawings that constitute an acerbic condemnation of man's inhumanity to man. The 73-year-old artist, drawing on his knowledge of Renaissance art, has produced a body of works that is timely yet timeless, a vision of hell on earth belonging to a noble tradition of artistic statements against war and violence that includes Goya's Disasters of War and Picasso's Guernica, the works of the Mexican muralists, and Botero's own 1990s paintings responding to drug violence in Colombia.

Botero Abu Ghraib

Reference

Prestel

In her vibrant works, the Brazilian painter Beatriz Milhazes fuses two very different worldviews. Her abstract compositions, which can be seen in a line with modernist masters from Henri Matisse to Bridget Riley, are saturated with the colors and light of her native country. Her paintings are strewn with symbols of everyday life in Brazil, invoking carnival, traditional craftsmanship, and motifs from baroque to pop, all choreographed in an exuberant visual rhythm. The colorful atmosphere has an irresistible exotic allure, but as in the works of Paul Gauguin, we find a broken paradise in which darker, more melancholic tones resonate, both in the promises of tropical life and those of modernist abstraction. In seeking this balance, Milhazes developed a special transfer technique in the late eighties, painting her motifs onto plastic sheets, gluing these to the canvas and letting them dry, and then peeling away the plastic once dry so that the paint remains on the canvas. This method allows the artist to layer surface upon surface and to achieve an iridescence somewhere between radiant aura and shimmering melancholy. Since her breakthrough in the early 1990s, Milhazes has extended the scope of her work to other media, producing screen prints, collages made of chocolate and candy wrappers, sculptures such as giant mobiles made of carnival decorations, site-specific projects that transform building façades into stained glass windows, and experiments with body and rhythm in collaboration with her sister Marcia's ballet ensemble. This updated edition, which has been expanded to include works made as recently as 2020, explores all of the artist's creative phases, from her beginnings to the present, with over 300 of her works. The book was created in close collaboration with the artist, in both the selection of images and specially designed pages between chapters. It includes a conversation with editor Hans Werner Holzwarth in which the artist unravels her working methods and talks about the ideas and cultural background behind her work. An art historical essay by David Ebony, a poetic dictionary of Milhazes's key motifs by Adriano Pedrosa, and a detailed, updated artist biography by Luiza Interlenghi round off this comprehensive work. Also available in an Art Edition with a silkscreen print signed by Beatriz Milhazes

Beatriz Milhazes

Pedrosa, Adriano

Interlenghi, Luiza

Taschen America, LLC

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ebony, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ebony, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ebony, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Arne Svenson: The Neighbors (JULIE SAUL GALL)

Carmen Cicero: Drawings and Watercolors: Tales of Intrigue, Danger, and Humor

Emily Mason: The Fifth Element

Julio Larraz: The Kingdom We Carry Inside

Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry

Emily Mason: The Fifth Element

Emily Mason: The Light in Spring

Emily Mason: At the Heart of Abstraction

Botero Abu Ghraib

Beatriz Milhazes