To celebrate Art Month, our friends at Thames & Hudson are giving YOU the chance to take home the ultimate art and design book collection of your dreams! It’s our biggest prize pack of art books ever, valued at RRP $2500! Curated from their stunning range of art and design publishing both locally and internationally, this incredible selection includes titles from architecture, art, design, fashion, and photography.

For your chance to WIN, simply purchase any art& design books during September and fill in an entry form.

📍Entries close midnight 1 October 2024. This competition is only open to residents of Australia.
One entry per person per proof of purchase. Entry valid with purchase of any art & design books from Kinokuniya during September 2024.
Winner will be notified by phone/email.

 

The full list of titles included within the prize pack are:

 

Glenn Murcutt Unbuilt Works
RRP $120

Working in close collaboration with Murcutt, architect Nick Sissons, Murcutt’s former student and assistant, presents a selection of never-before-seen projects documenting the journey between some of the esteemed architect’s most notable works. Using extraordinary true-to-life renders, Glenn Murcutt: Unbuilt Works reveals ten previously unknown designs in remarkable detail, including original hand-drawn plans, sections, elevations and sketches from his personal archive. Murcutt discusses each project in detail, examining the progression of his design philosophy while lending a new perspective into his life and works. A revelation for any lover of architecture.

 

Kengo Kuma Complete Works
RRP $90.00

The quintessential Japanese architect of today, Kengo Kuma has forged a modern design language that artfully combines the country’s traditional building crafts with sophisticated technologies and materials. From his iconic Glass House (1995) to Dundee’s V&A (2018), this is the complete record of Kuma’s built work, comprising thirty projects to date. Kenneth Frampton’s revised and updated essay frames Kuma’s work in the context of post-war Japan’s flourishing architecture scene and influential figures, and recounts the international acclaim that Kuma’s ideas and buildings have received.

 

Gunyah Goondie Wurley
RRP $120.00

The award-winning Gunyah Goondie + Wurley: The Aboriginal Architecture of Australia is the only continental survey of this country’s First Nations’ innovative architecture. It explores the range and complexity of Indigenous-designed structures and spaces, from minimalist shelters to semi-permanent houses and villages, debunking false perceptions of early Aboriginal constructions and settlements. Built on decades of research and field work and richly illustrated with rare photographs, Gunyah Goondie + Wurley offers insight into the lifestyles and cultural heritage of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, and how they combine to have a dynamic influence on this country.

 

Kerstin Thompson Architects
RRP $59.99

Kerstin Thompson Architects: Encompassing people and place takes readers on an immersive journey into the very heart of this extraordinary body of work, and documents how, over time, the practice has shifted its focus from individual housing to larger-scale public projects created by a collaborative and talented team. With high-quality images, sketches and drawings selected from Thompson’s archive and discursive texts, this monograph provides a deep insight into not only what architects do – the buildings they make – but also why and how they design.

 

The New Modernist House
RRP $$79.99

The intuitive design, sun-lit spaces and tranquil vibe of Modernist houses still have an enduring appeal today. But can these homes be updated for contemporary living while maintaining the integrity of the original architecture? The New Modernist House presents twenty-one mid-century homes respectfully restored and renewed for future generations to enjoy. Designs by some of the period’s heavyweights – including Anatol Kagan, Alistair Knox and Ernest Fooks – have been sensitively updated by today’s creative innovators.

 

Vincent Namatjira
RRP $90.00

‘Welcome to the past, present and future. I stand side-by-side with my great-grandfather, who I never met – two painters from the centre of this country, standing up and making our voices heard. I believe in the power of art, the power of the paintbrush. I know that art can change lives. It changed mine and I hope that art can change the world too.’ Vincent Namatjira is an astute observer of life, of power, of popular culture. To be in the presence of a Vincent Namatjira painting is like being on the edge of a portal into another world. From the first page of this monograph, Vincent takes us on a journey through his artwork, contextualising his iconic series on Indigenous soldiers, Indigenous leaders, power and the Royal Family, giving us an insight into his world view.

 

Ceramics An Atlas of Forms
RRP $79.99

Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms is a global cultural study through the lens of ceramics. Organised chronologically – from an Egyptian ceremonial jar made over 5000 years ago to works by 20th-century luminaries Lucie Rie and Bernard Leach, as well as First Nations artists from Australia and entirely unknown makers – this collection shares the stories of over 100 objects, honouring the artists who have left their mark on this timeless practice.

 

 

Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
RRP $80.00

Hokusai created sublime works during the last thirty years of his life, right up to his death at the age of ninety. Publications have hitherto presented his long career as a chronological sequence. This book takes a fresh approach based on innovative scholarship: thematic groupings of works are related to the major spiritual and artistic quests of Hokusai’s life. Hokusai’s personal beliefs are studied here through major brush paintings, drawings, woodblock prints and illustrated books. The book gives due attention to the contribution of Hokusai’s daughter Eijo (Oi), an accomplished artist in her own right. Hokusai continually explored the mutability and minutiae of natural phenomena in his art. His late subjects and styles were based on a mastery of eclectic Japanese, Chinese and European techniques and an encyclopaedic knowledge of nature, myth, and history

 

Still Life
RRP $59.99

Still Life explores the diverse practices of more than forty contemporary Australian artists and documents a repertoire of styles, subjects, visions and philosophies. Alongside flowers and food – mainstays of the genre – the works within these pages also incorporate objects such as books and beer cans, birds and balloons, adding energy and intrigue to both the composition and the story revealed. This book captures the inanimate beauty of the everyday in a distinctly Australian context, and offers a meditation on human experience and the brevity of life.

 

Iwantja
RRP $79.99

Located on a small ridge at the edge of the Indulkana Ranges, approximately 575 kilometres south of Alice Springs, Iwantja Arts art centre is home to some of Australia’s most exciting Indigenous art.
The art centre, a studio collective where the artists meet, socialise and make art, was founded in the 1980s when many Aboriginal communities were fighting for land rights. It was during this time that now senior artists campaigned to both establish an art centre in their community and for the 1981 APY Land Rights Act. As intended, the art centre is now a bustling intergenerational hub of the community where everyone shares stories, creates art and connects with their long-standing culture. Senior artists, such as original centre co-founder Alec Baker, paint alongside budding artists as well as award-winners like Vincent Namatjira, Betty Muffler and Kaylene Whiskey.

 

Ramesh
RRP $100.00

Bursting with energy and life force, this visual cornucopia celebrates the work of Sri Lankan Australian sculptor and painter, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, one of Australia’s most prominent and sought-after contemporary artists. His exuberant ceramic idols and installations gleam with vivid impossible-to-ignore immediacy, provoking and stimulating audiences as he explores the politics of sex, gender and religion. Continually playing with form, materiality and scale, Ramesh has set new benchmarks in the field of ceramics. This highly anticipated monograph catalogues over 500 pieces in his signature neo-expressionist style. The rough-edged playfulness of his animated beings will appeal to both established collectors and seekers of the unconventional.

 

Drawing in the Present Tense
RRP $70.00

In an era of advanced technologies where image production has accelerated – potentially beyond the capacity of human attention – what values can be attributed to the slow, deliberate process of drawing by hand? This book explores the variety of ways in which contemporary artists from around the world have come to approach drawing as the primary, sometimes the sole, element of their practice, and one which is autonomous: an end in itself rather than a means to an end in another, more substantial medium. The artworks featured here are not confined to traditional tools – one can also draw on a computer, tablet or smartphone, and examples of digital drawing are incorporated into the narrative not as a separate category but as one medium among many.

 

Underworlds
RRP $49.99

From the burrows and secret bunkers beneath our feet to imagined hellscapes and surrealist dreamscapes, the disquieting, alarming and wonderful visuals span natural and constructed subterranea and imagined and subconscious worlds. A personal introduction by Stephen together with contextual chapter introductions establish the key themes, while supplementary texts elucidate essential concepts, historical events and figures. Thought-provoking literary, philosophical and spiritual quotations punctuate the intriguing images. Together, the images and authoritative text highlight the interplay between the real and the imagined, revealing how the real has fed our fears and hopes and informed our imagination – and conversely, how our imagination has depicted the esoteric, the abject and the unknown.

 

Hockney’s Portraits and People
RRP $45.00

Ever since he made his first portraits at the age of sixteen, David Hockney has been fascinated by people – ‘the human clay’, as W. H. Auden put it – and how they have been represented throughout the history of art. As much as any other artist in recent years he has embraced, invigorated and often subverted traditional portraiture, making it a central concern of his art.Through a careful selection of works both iconic and previously unpublished, this book explores the many ways in which Hockney has depicted the people around him, be they famous names such as Andy Warhol, Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden or lifelong friends such as Henry Geldzahler and Celia Birtwell, among many others. It tells the story of the artist’s relationships with family, friends and lovers, illustrated by works ranging from the intimate and frequently moving studies of his parents and partners to his very recent large-scale double portraits in watercolour.

 

Mid-Century Modern Design
RRP $80.00

This definitive survey of one of the most popular, collectable and dynamic periods of international design offers a rich overview of all aspects of the subject. Mid-century furniture, lighting, glass, ceramics, textiles, product design, industrial design, graphics and posters are covered, as well as architecture and interior design, exemplifying post-war optimism and energy, use of innovative and affordable materials and forms of mass manufacture, and newly developed precepts of ‘good design’.

 

Postmodern Design Complete
RRP $100.00

Emerging in the late 1970s, the multistranded cultural phenomenon that came to be known as Postmodernism proclaimed the death of modernism. Postmodern architects and designers eschewed the rigid ‘international’ style that many felt dehumanized its inhabitants and cities, promoting a belief that design need not follow rules. Instead, they reveled in borrowing from the past, celebrated color, pattern and ad-hocism, and produced a dazzling spectrum of objects, spaces and buildings in the process. It became a style of its own, the defining look of the 1980s, and placed the names and objects of Denise Scott Brown, Ettore Sottsass, Charles Jencks, Alessandro Mendini and Michael Graves in our homes.

 

Tove Jansson
RRP $39.99

Tove Jansson drew her first Moomin on an outhouse wall, before committing Moominvalley to the page in the 1940s. This book offers a fresh, insightful appreciation of her life and art, from imaginative child to art student, painter, author, cartoonist and illustrator, bohemian lesbian and Finnish cultural icon. Jansson’s flourishing Moomin books are examined in detail, as are her interpretations of such classics as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

 

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now
RRP $90.00

Yayoi Kusama is that rare thing: an artist who has achieved truly global acclaim. In a wide-ranging career spanning seven decades and multiple media, she has established profound connections with audiences around the world. Emerging at the forefront of artistic experimentation in Asia in the mid-20th century, Kusama soon became a central figure in the New York art scene of the 1960s. Today, Kusama continues to communicate her highly personal and spiritual world view through her art. Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now is the most comprehensive survey of her work to date. Structured around six thematic sections, ‘Infinity’, ‘Accumulation’, ‘The Biocosmic’, ‘Radical Connectivity’, ‘Death’ and ‘Force of Life’, the volume elucidates the aesthetic and philosophical concerns at the heart of the artist’s oeuvre.

 

Landscape Painting Now
RRP $90.00

Although the fact may be surprising to some, landscape painting is positively thriving in the 21st century – indeed, the genre has arguably never felt as vital as it does today. Landscape Painting Now is the first book of its kind to take a global view of its subject, featuring more than eighty outstanding contemporary artists – both established and emerging – whose ages span seven decades and who hail from twenty-five different countries.

 

Vivienne Westwood Catwalk
RRP $120.00

One of the most thought-provoking and influential designers in the world – she once declared ‘the only reason I’m in fashion is to destroy the word “conformity”’ – Vivienne Westwood reinvented, changed and challenged the world of fashion for over five decades. Celebrating forty years of catwalk collections, this book records the inimitable creations imagined by Vivienne Westwood since her first runway show in 1981, as well as those designed by her husband and long-time collaborator, Andreas Kronthaler.

 

 

Chanel: Collections and Creations
RRP $59.99

Inspired by the House’s signature fragrance, the legendary ‘Chanel No 5’, the book explores five central themes – the suit, the camellia, jewelry, fragrances and make-up, and the little black dress – and follows the threads from past to present to show how these key items have been rediscovered and reinvented by fashion designers working in the footsteps of their illustrious predecessors. This visual journey is enhanced by previously unpublished archive photographs and original drawings by Karl Lagerfeld, as well as glorious images from some of the greatest names in fashion photography.

 

Yves Saint Laurent and Art
RRP $70.00

From the ancient world to pop art, Yves Saint Laurent regularly took inspiration from art history as he combined colours, carved out new forms and rethought the structure of garments in order to create his own masterpieces. Juxtaposing his creations with art works from the collections of five major Paris institutions – the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and the Musée National Picasso – this book explores the couturier’s homages to the masters of art and his never-ending quest for new means of aesthetic expression. Androgynous silhouettes and Proustian gowns stand alongside the elegance of Impressionism; a feathered coat responds to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings; flowing silhouettes merge with a mural by Raoul Dufy; Lucio Fontana’s neon lights make metallic fabrics sparkle; and bold appliqué motifs echo The Dance by Henri Matisse. This is an unforgettable journey through art history with Yves Saint Laurent as a guide.

 

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
RRP $120.00

2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the House of Dior. It was in 1947 that Christian Dior presented his first collection and heralded the birth of a new fashion silhouette for women. After the austerity of the war years, the cinched waistlines, full skirts and soft shoulders of the New Look came to embody a revival of Parisian luxury. Paris regained its place as the global capital of fashion and the name of Dior became a synonym for haute couture. For this book, seventy of the most memorable looks created Christian Dior and his successors – Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri – have been specially selected and photographed in fascinating detail. These wonderful designs are also featured in sketches, runway shots and fashion shoots by the world’s greatest fashion photographers, including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, William Klein, Helmut Newton, Patrick Demarchelier, Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Mario Testino and Nick Knight.

 

Ravens & Red Lipstick
RRP $59.99

From the severity of post-war Realism to the diversity and technical ingenuity of the present, via movements and groups such as Vivo in the 1960s and ‘girls’ photography’ in the 1990s, this visually bold and richly volume traces the development of Japanese photography since 1945. Interleaved are new interviews with some of the most influential practitioners in photographic history, from Moriyama Daido to Araki Nobuyoshi and Kawauchi Rinko. Lena Fritsch writes with imagination and clarity, interrogating a cross-section of photographic movements and works against the vivid, shifting backdrop of Japanese social, cultural and political history. The result is both an accessible introduction and an illuminating work of analysis for general readers and aficionados alike.

 

Casa Susanna
RRP $90.00

In the 1950s and 60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed – dressed as and living as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for their self-expression. This book opens up that now-lost world. The photographs – mostly discovered by chance in a New York flea market in 2004 – chronicle the experiences of men who dressed as women, gender nonconforming people, and transwomen in states of relaxation, experimentation, connection and joy. The people who came to Casa Susanna found a spot where they could explore and celebrate their own and each other’s femininity, as they could not do elsewhere. Their creations are also a reminder that there were, and still are, many ways to explore the boundaries of gender.

 

Alex Webb: Dislocations
RRP $79.99

Recognised as a pioneer of colour photography, Alex Webb is able to juxtapose gesture, colour and contrasting cultural tensions into a single beguiling frame, resulting in evocative images that elevate fractured and multilayered meanings. His book Dislocations, first published in 1998 as a limited edition accordion book with Canon Laser prints (then considered state of the art), brings together pictures from the many disparate locations over Webb’s oeuvre, meditating on the act of photography as a form of dislocation in itself.

 

Saul Leiter
RRP $120.00

Saul Leiter photographed and painted nearly every day for over sixty years, amassing an enormous archive, most of which remained unseen during his lifetime. Finding inspiration within a few blocks of his apartment in Lower Manhattan, he was a master at discovering beauty in the most ordinary places. Celebrated today for his evocative colour photographs of New York in the 1950s and 1960s, which were unknown in their day, Leiter also found success as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. All the while he was shooting black-and-white street scenes on his daily walks, and nudes and intimate portraits back home, while continuing his painting explorations with abstract watercolours, whimsical sketchbooks and painted photographs.

 

TO:KY:OO
RRP $49.99

A testament to the art of colour composition, this book – art directed by Wong himself and produced to the highest printing standard – brings together a complete and refined body of images that are evocative, timeless and completely transporting. Rounding out the volume’s special treatment is the first publication use of the 45/90 font, designed by Henrik Kubel, of London-based A2-TYPE. The book also features a section that reveals the creative and technical process of Wong’s method, from identifying the right scene to making a good composition, from capturing the essence of a moment to enhancing colour values and deepening an image’s impact – insights that will be invaluable to admirers and photography enthusiasts alike.

 

A World History of Women Photographers
RRP $120.00

As in many fields of art history, the work of women photographers has often been overlooked, and few of their names are now widely recognized. However, women were closely involved in all major photography movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, and have used the camera as an extraordinary tool for emancipation and experimentation. These are artists who never stopped documenting, questioning and transforming the world, breaking down social boundaries, challenging gender roles and expressing their imagination and sexuality. To capture the diversity of this global body of work, Luce Lebart and Marie Robert have invited 160 international women writers to contribute to this volume, which is a bold and beautifully illustrated manifesto as well as an invaluable work of reference.

 

Sophie Calle
RRP $29.99

Variously described as a conceptual artist, a photographer, a film director, and even a private detective, Sophie Calle has developed a practice that is instantly recognizable for its distinct narrative elements and frequent combination of images with text. Dubbed ‘the Marcel Duchamp of dirty laundry’ by the Guardian, Calle blurs the boundaries between the intimate and the public, reality and fiction, art and life: she has invited strangers to sleep in her bed; followed a man through the streets of Paris and Venice; asked blind people to tell her about the final image they remember; and much more besides. By offering her own emotional and psychological life as the subject of her art, Calle invites viewers to meditate on grief, loss and remembrance.

 

Helen Levitt
RRP $24.99

Brooklyn-born photographer Helen Levitt (1913–2009) was an assistant to Walker Evans and a friend of Henri Cartier-Bresson, but forged her own path with fierce independence and endless curiosity about the world around her. She is best known for her street photography, capturing children at play on the streets of Depression-era New York and chalk drawings on walls, but she also cast her eye upon the adult world, seeking out moments of movement, transience and theatricality. Following her first solo exhibition at MoMA in 1943, she devoted more than a decade to filmmaking, but returned to photography in the late 1950s and began to work in colour as well as black and white. Lyrical and witty, her images reveal the streets of New York as flowing with life and unexpected poetry.

 

Gordon Parks
RRP $21.99

Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was a pioneering figure in 20th-century photography. As well as being the first African-American photographer to join the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and to become a staff photographer for Life magazine, he was also a writer, film director and composer. Although best known for documenting issues such as poverty, race relations and civil rights, Gordon Parks was remarkably versatile, turning his gift for visual narrative to subjects as diverse as news coverage, fashion, art and sport. He also captured prominent figures of his era, from Malcolm X to Marilyn Monroe, in a series of memorable portraits. Working in the US and around the world, he was driven by a commitment to social justice: ‘The common search for a better life and a better world is deeper than colour or blood.’

 

Daido Moriyama
RRP $21.99

Daido Moriyama first came to prominence in the mid-1960s. If there is one theme that jumps out from his work – one that can be regarded as his essential territory, the wellspring of his photography – it is Tokyo. He also draws inspiration from William Klein’s confrontational photographs of New York, Shomei Tomatsu’s trenchant social critiques, Andy Warhol’s silkscreened multiples of newspaper images, and the writings of Jack Kerouac and Yukio Mishima. As Gabriel Bauret points out in his introduction to this collection of Moriyama’s work, Light and Shadow is the title of a book published by Moriyama in 1982, but it could just as easily be applied to his whole photographic oeuvre, given the dialogue he so powerfully sets up between light and shadow, black and white.