Bibliotheca Universalis

'For me, it's really the joy of looking out into the world and getting this positive energy... It's opening up our vision, and how we look'—David Hockney. When David Hockney discovered the iPhone as an artistic medium, it opened u…

For the last couple of years, Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann have traced the latest developments in illustration around the globe-and for all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era, they're here to set the record…

Whether you’re thinking of getting a tattoo or just want to see to what lengths others have gone in decorating their bodies, this is the book to check out. 1000 Tattoos explores the history of the art worldwide via designs and pho…

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics-and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the in…

Before reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already sculpted Pieta and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the …

Arranged alphabetically, this biographical encyclopedia features every major photographer of the 20th century alongside her or his most significant monographs. From the earliest representatives of classical Modernism right up to t…

"Girls, Gags & Giggles," ran publisher Robert Harrison's recipe for dishing up pin-up to the American male. Men loved his tasty dishes, a mixture of strippers and starlets dressed in outfits so fetishistic no one noticed they …

Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork. They turned to everyday …

A magnificent pictorial document of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, the Hortus Eystettensis is in a class of its own when it comes to the range of flowers engraved. First published in 1613, the 367 cop…

Take a journey through the makers and shapers of celluloid history. From horror to romance, noir to slapstick, adventure to tragedy, Western to new wave, this selection gathers the greats of 20th-century cinema into one indispensa…

With more than 280 entries, this architectural A-Z, now part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, offers an indispensable overview of the key players in the creation of modern space. From the period spanning the 19th to the 21st…

This important addition to our understanding of art history's masterworks puts some of the world's most famous paintings under a magnifying glass to uncover their most small and subtle elements and all they reveal about a bygone t…

Over the years, talented architects have occasionally indulged themselves with the challenge of designing small but perfectly formed buildings. Today, with reduced budgets, many architects have turned in a more focused way to crea…

It was a dappled and daubed harbor scene that gave Impressionism its name. When Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was exhibited in April 1874, critics seized upon the work's title and its loose stylistic rendering of light and m…

The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is as old as humanity. In this neat TASCHEN edition, take a tour of some of our finest arboreal adventures with 50 of the most beautiful, …

The history of photography began nearly 200 years ago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognized as a medium in its own right. Cologne's Museum Ludwig was the first museum of contemporary art to devote a substantia…

A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's major w…

George Eastman's career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak progressed from a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, and a crucial innovator in photographic history…

Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, r…

The most exciting new buildings today are almost all environmentally aware, sustainable, and conceived to consume less energy than ever before. Discover the best examples of green projects from the Architecture Now! series in this…

Drawn from TASCHEN's Illustration Now! series, this go-to catalog brings together 100 of the most successful and important illustrators around the globe. With featured artists including Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast,…

From the eccentric museum La Specola in Florence comes this amazing collection of waxworks depicting human anatomy in all its dazzling complexity. A selection of wax bodies and body part and organ studies from the museum's collect…

Antiquarian, archaeologist, vulcanologist, and envoy to the British Embassy in Naples, Sir William Hamilton (1731-1803) was a leading European figure of his time. Though the romance between his wife Lady Emma Hamilton and Horatio …

Photographs have a strange and powerful way of shaping the way we see the world. The most successful images enter our collective consciousness, defining eras, making history, or simply touching something so fundamentally human and…

If you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you'll take an even greater interest in this completely updated edition of Indus…

Alex Steinweiss (1917-2011) invented the album cover as we know it. In 1940, as Columbia Records' young new art director, he pitched an idea: why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The …

Very few artists can claim such lasting and worldwide fame and importance as Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). The nickname il divino ("the divine one") has been applied to him since the 1530s right through to today: his achiev…

South of the border, rich colors and woven textiles form a unique design aesthetic, crafted by the union of local Aztec and Mayan cultures and Spanish influences. Bold pigments and vivid patterns come together in simple and rustic…

Under the burning Tuscan sun roll marvelous hills, vineyards, and olive groves-all postcard-perfect landscapes nestling centuries-old towns, rural villas, and contadino farmhouses. We've tracked down the best examples of such have…