As a young man the American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was passionate about the sea and deeply knowledgeable about ships and seafaring. Between the ages of 18 and 23, he started his career as a professional painter with a remarkable rang...

A dictionary that provides information on the work of over 3,000 sculptors working in Britain between 1660 and 1851.

John Gutmann (1905-1998) was one of America's most distinctive photographers. Born in Germany where he trained as an artist and art teacher, he fled the Nazis in 1933 and settled in San Francisco, reinventing himself as a photo-reporter. Gutmann capt...

Seizing the Hungarian throne at the age of fifteen, Matthias Corvinus, "the Raven King", was an effervescent presence on the fifteenth-century stage. A successful warrior and munificent art patron, he sought to leave as symbols of his strategic and h...

Filled with a remarkable cast of characters and set against the backdrop of imperial Russia, this tale of forbidden romance could be the stuff of a great historical novel. But in fact "The Pearl" tells a true tale, reconstructed in part from archival...

Upon publication of her 'field manual', "The Origins of Totalitarianism", in 1951, Hannah Arendt immediately gained recognition as a major political analyst. Over the next twenty-five years, she wrote ten more books and developed a set of ideas that...

This masterful political treatise, first published in 1962, examines the history and nature of Communism as it developed in the Soviet Union and in Poland. Jozef Mackiewicz, known for his relentless opposition to Communism, argues that accommodation...

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is one of the great geniuses in the history of art, and his work has influenced a multitude of artists throughout Europe. Across the Atlantic, Cezanne's paintings had a similarly catalytic effect on artists emerging in the Un...

This original and eloquent study brings Frederic Leighton's portrait of May Sartoris to life through the artist's remarkable friendship with May's mother, celebrated opera singer Adelaide Sartoris. The young Leighton frequented Adelaide's artistic an...

Perhaps best known for his iconic paintings and sculptures of love, also featured on a U.S. postage stamp, and hope, created in support of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, Robert Indiana (b. 1928) has been living and working in Maine since...