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Lucian Freud
- Mapping the Human
- Narrated by: Denise Kahn
- Length: 59 mins
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Lucian Freud
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Publisher's summary
Renowned artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was commemorated in an exhibition of 50 portraits spanning his working life, held at The National Portrait Gallery London from February to May 2012. The review explored the development of his art from the potent and hypersensed studies of the 1940s to major paintings in the later phase, where the artist engaged in a complex and sometimes brutal meditation on the human being, drawn from an intimate engagement with the sitter. Freud's unsparing eye maps his subjects, sustaining single-handedly an almost unique commitment to the ambitions of high art, grounded in the canons of classic Western tradition. The audiobook also includes a review of Freud's figure drawings exhibited at Blain|Southern Gallery.
Marina Vaizey is an art critic, a lecturer, and a traveler. She was the art critic for the Financial Times for 4 years and The Sunday Times for 18. She has curated several exhibitions and written many catalogues. She has been a trustee for several national museums.
Nicholas James studied painting with Frank Auerbach and Keith Vaughan at the Slade School UCL. He formed Cv Publications in 1992 and Cv/Visual Arts Research in 1995.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 192
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
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Tom and Jack
- The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock
- By: Henry Adams
- Narrated by: Wayne Thompson
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton's highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock's days as a student under Benton. Pollock's first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I suggest you READ, not listen...
- By Grace O'Malley on 07-01-16
By: Henry Adams
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Eye of the Beholder
- Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing
- By: Laura Snyder
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Historical book about the evolution of optics through the eyes of two geniuses
- By Memi on 04-12-17
By: Laura Snyder
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The Vanishing Velázquez
- A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece
- By: Laura Cumming
- Narrated by: Siobhan Redmond
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4 out of 5 stars 138
When John Snare, a 19th-century provincial bookseller, traveled to a liquidation auction, he stumbled on a vivid portrait of King Charles I that defied any explanation. The Charles of the painting was young - too young to be king - and yet also too young to be painted by the Flemish painter to which the work was attributed. Snare had found something incredible - but what? His research brought him to Diego Velázquez, whose long-lost portrait of Prince Charles has eluded art experts for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fascinating study of art history
- By Ron on 07-02-16
By: Laura Cumming
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In Montparnasse
- The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dalí
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life, and asking new questions about how to define art. In Montparnasse recounts how this artistic revolution came to be amidst the salons and cafés of that vibrant neighborhood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Second of Two Books
- By Robert Keith on 10-26-19
By: Sue Roe
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Turner
- The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner
- By: Franny Moyle
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
J. M. W. Turner is one of the most important figures in Western art, and his visionary work paved the way for a revolution in landscape painting. Over the course of his lifetime, Turner strove to liberate painting from an antiquated system of patronage. Bringing a new level of expression and color to his canvases, he paved the way for the modern artist.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Balanced biography of a complex artist
- By Thomas S. on 05-05-17
By: Franny Moyle
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So Much Longing in So Little Space
- The Art of Edvard Munch
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In So Much Longing in So Little Space, Karl Ove Knausgaard sets out to understand the enduring and awesome power of Edvard Munch's work by training his gaze on the landscapes that inspired Munch and speaking firsthand with other contemporary artists, including Anselm Kiefer, for whom Munch's legacy looms large. Bringing together art history, biography, and memoir, Knausgaard tells a passionate, freewheeling, and pensive story about not just one of history's most significant painters, but the very meaning of choosing the artist's life, as he himself has done.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good start
- By Barbara O on 11-08-23
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David Lynch
- The Man from Another Place (Icons)
- By: Dennis Lim
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
At once a pop culture icon, cult figure, and film industry outsider, master filmmaker David Lynch and his work defy easy definition. Dredged from his subconscious mind, Lynch's work is primed to act on our own subconscious, combining heightened, contradictory emotions into something familiar but inscrutable. No less than his art, Lynch's life also evades simple categorization, encompassing pursuits as a musician, painter, photographer, carpenter, entrepreneur, and vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential listening for Lunch fans
- By Michael P. Mesaros on 08-14-18
By: Dennis Lim
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Foursome
- Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury
- By: Carolyn Burke
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
New York, 1921: Acclaimed photographer Alfred Stieglitz celebrates the success of his latest exhibition - the centerpiece, a series of nude portraits of his soon-to-be wife, the young Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibit acts as a turning point for the painter poised to make her entrance into the art scene. There, she meets Rebecca Salsbury, the fiancé of Stieglitz’s protégé, Paul Strand, marking the start of a bond between the couples that will last more than a decade and reverberate throughout their lives.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A competent account of four interesting lives
- By Sil A. on 11-21-20
By: Carolyn Burke
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Red
- A History of the Redhead
- By: Jacky Colliss Harvey
- Narrated by: Jacky Colliss Harvey
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Red is a brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair throughout the ages. An audiobook that breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, with a look at multiple disciplines, including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art. With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pushing Past Stereotypes
- By Troy on 06-09-15
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The Contemporaries
- Travels in the 21st-Century Art World
- By: Roger White
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Mispronunciations Spoil This Reading!
- By Jenny Jenkins on 06-17-15
By: Roger White
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Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 162
Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
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The True History of the Elephant Man
- The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick
- By: Michael Howell, Peter Ford
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing man!
- By Carolyn on 02-05-15
By: Michael Howell, and others
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The Unfinished Palazzo
- By: Judith Mackrell
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned, and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century, it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nostalgia At Its Best
- By Dan on 01-09-18
By: Judith Mackrell
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Da Vinci's Ghost
- Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image
- By: Toby Lester
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Haunting Expierience
- By Paul on 02-10-12
By: Toby Lester