Haplomatics is an animated techno-fantasy that combines original text and music by the American composer James Sellars with xerographs by the British artist David Hockney. Their collaboration has not previously been detailed and the unique combination of text-music-image that culminated in Haplomatics deserves closer attention. Their experimentations coalesced into a collaborative work of extraordinary proportions.

A companion to the exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art, this book provides insight and access to a rare yet significant work. In addition to reproducing the Hockney Haplomes and the full text of Haplomatics, the book offers a detailed chronicle of the collaboration between Sellars and Hockney and describes the intersectional ties that exist between the text, music, images and the animated video.

Central to this catalogue are the points which the works of Edward Hopper (1882-1967) have in common with those of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). It is not only a question here of the very noticeable compositional similarities – the works of both artists frequently show interiors with figures absorbed by their activities – but also of the possibilities of interpretation which can be derived for the work of the American master.

Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a rocky massif near his birthplace Aix-en-Provence, some 80 times. The artist translated the interplay of sunlight and shadow on the constantly changing stone into pictures on the threshold of abstraction. Today they are seen as icons of art history and they underline Cézanne’s reputation as one of the most important pioneers of Classical Modernism. Countless artists, including Matisse, Derain, Picasso, Braque and Léger found inspiration in Cézanne’s ideas on colour modulation and pictorial composition. In this publication the author Christoph Wagner positions Cézanne as an artistic genius who opened up for future generations a completely new view of the world through his paintings and watercolours.

Vienna in 1900 – the Vienna Secession, galleries, private art collectors and art magazines – introduced the art of the European avant-garde into Gustav Klimt’s surroundings. The Viennese artist was open to the pictorial language of his contemporaries including Alma-Tadema, Minne, Rodin, Toorop, Hodler, Van Gogh, Monet, Khnopff, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler, Matisse and many others, and adapted elements from a variety of styles. The publication presents in large-format illustrations the works of Klimt and artists who were close to him, revealing significant and often surprising parallels.

The book sketches the life of ten women in the life of the Spanish artist. Picasso was close to his mother throughout her life and chose her maiden name as his artist’s name. When he wanted to marry the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, she warned him that he would remain married to painting throughout his life. They separated in 1935; the reason was his young muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, who was also soon deposed by Dora Maar. Following various separations, women like the young artist Françoise Gilot also disappeared from Picasso’s canvases, but did not vanish entirely. This book pays tribute to them all.

Presented women:
Doña Maria Picasso y Lopez (Picasso’s mother), Maria Dolores Ruiz Picasso (Picasso’s sister), Gertrude Stein, Fernande Olivier, Eva Gouel (Marcelle Humbert), Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter , Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, Jaqueline Roque

As a sought-after painter of frescoes and the founding president of the Vienna Secession, as the portraitist of fashionable ladies and as an illustrator of unashamed eroticism, Klimt was both the enfant terrible and the darling of Viennese society, who created icons of art history with works like The Kiss and his portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

At first Anna Atkins worked for and with her father, the zoologist John George Children; later she chose the objects for her scientific compositions herself: algae and ferns. Atkins placed them on light-sensitive paper that turned dark blue in water after being developed, with the exception of the places that had been covered by the plants. Initially alone, and then with her friend Anne Dixon, she produced well over 10,000 copies of her photograms and assembled them in several books like albums. Today these rare copies are regarded as treasures and are preserved in museums and libraries.