Clifford Coffin

Clifford Coffin
Author: Clifford Coffin
Publisher: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang
Total Pages: 152
Release: 1997
Genre: Photography
ISBN:

American photographer Clifford Coffin (1973-1972) is considered by many who knew him to be the greatest of "Vogue"'s "lost" photographers. His work had challenged the photographic standards of the day and produced fashion photos of unmatched elegance and flamboyance. Now the works of this influential and innovative fashion photographer are now published in one volume.

Dressed For War

Dressed For War
Author: Julie Summers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1471181596

'Magnificent ... Dressed for War works on many levels: as an evocation of an uncommon time; as a celebration of an uncommon woman; as pure, unalloyed fun.' Lucy Davies, Daily Telegraph Dressed For War: The Story of Audrey Withers, Vogue editor extraordinaire from the Blitz to the Swinging Sixties is the untold story of our most iconic fashion magazine in its most formative years, in the Second World War. It was an era when wartime exigencies gave its editor, Audrey Withers, the chance to forge an identity for it that went far beyond stylish clothes. In doing so, she set herself against the style and preoccupations of Vogue’s mothership in New York, and her often sticky relationship with its formidable editor, Edna Woolman Chase, became a strong dynamic in the Vogue story. But Vogue had a good war, with great writers and top-flight photographers including Lee Miller and Cecil Beaton – who loathed each other – sending images and reports from Europe and much further afield – detailing the plight of the countries and people living amid war-torn Europe. Audrey Withers’ deft handling of her star contributors and the importance she placed on reflecting people’s lives at home give this slice of literary history a real edge. With official and personal correspondence researched from the magazine’s archives in London and in New York, Dressed For War tells the marvellous story of the titanic struggle between the personalities that shaped the magazine for the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond.

Victoria Crosses on the Western Front, 31st July 1917–6th November 1917

Victoria Crosses on the Western Front, 31st July 1917–6th November 1917
Author: Paul Oldfield
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 1303
Release: 2017-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473884853

In the past, while visiting the First World War battlefields, the author often wondered where the various Victoria Cross actions took place. He resolved to find out. In 1988, in the midst of his army career, research for this book commenced and over the years numerous sources have been consulted.Victoria Crosses on the Western Front Third Ypres 1917 is designed for the battlefield visitor as much as the armchair reader. A thorough account of each VC action is set within the wider strategic and tactical context. Detailed sketch maps show the area today, together with the battle-lines and movements of the combatants. It will allow visitors to stand upon the spot, or very close to, where each VC was won. Photographs of the battle sites richly illustrate the accounts. There is also a comprehensive biography for each recipient, covering every aspect of their lives warts and all parents and siblings, education, civilian employment, military career, wife and children, death and burial/commemoration. A host of other information, much of it published for the first time, reveals some fascinating characters, with numerous links to many famous people and events.

Double Click

Double Click
Author: Carol Kino
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1982113049

A riveting dual biography of the McLaughlins—identical twin sisters who became groundbreaking photographers in New York during the glamorous magazine golden age of the 1930s and 40s—for fans of Ninth Street Women and The Barbizon. The McLaughlin twins were trailblazing female photographers, celebrated in their time as stars in their respective fields, but have largely been forgotten since. Here, in Double Click, author Carol Kino provides us with a fascinating window into the golden era of magazine photography and the first young women’s publications, bringing these two brilliant women and their remarkable accomplishments to vivid life. Frances was the only female photographer on staff in Condé Nast's photo studio, hired just after Irving Penn, and became known for streetwise, cinema verité-style work, which appeared in the pages of Glamour and Vogue. Her sister Kathryn’s surrealistic portraits filled the era’s new “career girl” magazines, including Charm and Mademoiselle. Both twins married Harper’s Bazaar photographers and socialized with a glittering crowd that included the supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives and the photographer Richard Avedon. Kino uses their careers to illuminate the lives of young women during this time, an early twentieth-century moment marked by proto-feminist thinking, excitement about photography’s burgeoning creative potential, and the ferment of wartime New York. Toward the end of the 1940s, and moving into the early 1950s, conventionality took over, women were pushed back into the home, and the window of opportunity began to close. Kino renders this fleeting moment of possibility in gleaming multi-color, so that the reader cherishes its abundance, mourns its passing, and gains new appreciation for the talent that was fostered at its peak. Pulling back the curtain on an electric, creative time in New York’s history, and rich with original research, Double Click is cultural reportage and biography at its finest.

Public Schools and The Great War

Public Schools and The Great War
Author: Anthony Seldon
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781593086

In this pioneering and original book, Anthony Seldon and David Walsh study the impact that the public schools had on the conduct of the Great War, and vice versa. Drawing on fresh evidence from 200 leading public schools and other archives, they challenge the conventional wisdom that it was the public school ethos that caused needless suffering on the Western Front and elsewhere. They distinguish between the younger front-line officers with recent school experience and the older 'top brass' whose mental outlook was shaped more by military background than by memories of school.??The Authors argue that, in general, the young officers' public school education imbued them with idealism, stoicism and a sense of service. While this helped them care selflessly for the men under their command in conditions of extreme danger, it resulted in their death rate being nearly twice the national average.??This poignant and thought-provoking work covers not just those who made the final sacrifice, but also those who returned, and?whose lives were shattered as a result of their physical and psychological wounds. It contains a wealth of unpublished detail about public school life before and during the War, and how these establishments and the country at large coped with the devastating loss of so many of the brightest and best. Seldon and Walsh conclude that, 100 years on, public school values and character training, far from being concepts to be mocked, remain relevant and that the present generation would benefit from studying them and the example of their predecessors.??Those who read Public Schools and the Great War will have their prevailing assumptions about the role and image of public schools, as popularised in Blackadder, challenged and perhaps changed.

Matisse and Decoration

Matisse and Decoration
Author: John Klein
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300135645

A brand new look at the extremely beautiful, if underappreciated, later works of one of the most inventive artists of the 20th century Between 1935 and his death at midcentury, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) undertook many decorative projects and commissions. These include mural paintings, stained glass, ceramic tiles, lead crystal pieces, carpets, tapestries, fashion fabrics, and accessories--work that has received no significant treatment until now. By presenting a wealth of new insights and unpublished material, including from the artist's own correspondence, John Klein, an internationally acclaimed specialist in the art of Matisse, offers a richer and more balanced view of Matisse's ambitions and achievements in the often-neglected later phases of his career. Matisse designed many of these decorations in the innovative--and widely admired--medium of the paper cut-out, whose function and significance Klein reevaluates. Matisse and Decoration also opens a window onto the revival and promotion, following World War II, of traditional French decorative arts as part of France's renewed sense of cultural preeminence. For the first time, the idea of the decorative in Matisse's work and the actual decorations he designed for specific settings are integrated in one account, amounting to an understanding of this modern master's work that is simultaneously more nuanced and more comprehensive.

From the Somme to Victory

From the Somme to Victory
Author: Peter Simkins
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2014-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473841046

Peter Simkins has established a reputation over the last forty years as one of the most original and stimulating historians of the First World War. He has made a major contribution to the debate about the performance of the British Army on the Western Front. This collection of his most perceptive and challenging essays, which concentrates on British operations in France between 1916 and 1918, shows that this reputation is richly deserved. He focuses on key aspects of the army's performance in battle, from the first day of the Somme to the Hundred Days, and gives a fascinating insight into the developing theory and practice of the army as it struggled to find a way to break through the German line. His rigorous analysis undermines some of the common assumptions - and the myths - that still cling to the history of these British battles.