The world's most famous portraits and the hidden stories behind their subjects are explored in this fascinating and highly entertaining book. Portraiture is one of the oldest and most studied genres of art. While most scholars will look at a painting's composition, style, and themes, often questions remain unanswered--who were these people and why were they painted? This entertaining book reveals the identities and lives of some of the most famous characters that populate art history--from the Renaissance to the 21st century. Readers will learn how the fifteen-year-old subject of da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine nearly destroyed a marriage; that van Dyck's depiction of Prudence in wild clothes is actually one of the most controversial aristocrats of the seventeenth century; and that Francis Bacon's character George Dyer was a man he met in a Soho nightclub. These and other stories behind works by Picasso, Klimt, Rubens, Warhol, and dozens of other artists show how portraiture remains one of the most enthralling genres. Based on art scholarship and conveyed in an accessible tone, these fascinating tales of power, lust, intrigue, jealousy, vengeance, and romance will help readers understand masterpieces of art history in an entirely new light.

Colored pencil painter Alyona Nickelsen reveals how to use the medium to push the limits of realistic portraiture. Colored Pencil Painting Portraits provides straightforward solutions to the problems that artists face in creating lifelike images, and will prime readers on the intricacies of color, texture, shadow, and light as they interplay with the human form. In this truly comprehensive guide packed with step-by-step demonstrations, Nickelsen considers working from photo references versus live models; provides guidance on posing and lighting, as well as planning and composing a work; discusses tools, materials, and revolutionary layering techniques; and offers lessons on capturing gesture and expression and on rendering facial and body features of people of all age groups and skin tones.

An illuminating study of Amedeo Modigliani's early drawings and how they reflect the artist's conception of identity One of the great artists of the 20th century, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is celebrated for revolutionizing modern portraiture, particularly in his later paintings and sculpture. Modigliani Unmasked examines the artist's rarely seen early works on paper, offering revelatory insights into his artistic sensibilities and concerns as he developed his signature style of graceful, elongated figures. An Italian Sephardic Jew working in turn-of-the-century Paris, Modigliani embraced his status as an outsider, and his early drawings show a marked awareness of the role of ethnicity and race within society. Placing these drawings within the context of the artist's larger oeuvre, Mason Klein reveals how Modigliani's preoccupation with identity spurred the artist to reconceive the modern portrait, arguing that Modigliani ultimately came to think of identity as beyond national or cultural boundaries. Lavishly illustrated with the artist's paintings and over one hundred drawings collected by Dr. Paul Alexandre, Modigliani's close friend and first patron, this book provides an engaging and long overdue analysis of Modigliani's early body of work on paper.

The Masked Project presents 100 portraits taken by photographer Ashley Murphy during the spring 2020 surge of COVID-19. From behind cotton and polypropylene, stars and grommets, leather and paisley, feathers and studs, eyes unmask worlds about personhood and pandemic life. The collection and flash reflections from Murphy's brief portrait sessions are moving reminders that alongside fear of the unknown stands the refusal to shrink and the unrelenting drive for self-expression. From a safe distance, we emerge bold and brave, known and remembered.

"This book is the first to examine the meaning encoded in the very form of caricature, and to explain its rise as a consequence of the emergence of modernity, especially the modern self."--BOOK JACKET.

From undercover robots to shape shifting soldiers, the twenty-one stories in this wide-ranging anthology explore what happens when the mask comes off. We all wear masks, whether they are the literal costumes of superheroes and bank robbers or the metaphorical shrouds that obscure our real selves. Unmaksed explores these attempts to conceal, the mysteries beneath, and the price we pay when they’re stripped away. Authors ask what happens when your secret identity is revealed. When the monster is unleashed. When the superhero’s child has no power. When Death himself is caught unawares. Here are twenty-one tales of speculation and fantasy that center on magical masks, gas masks, death masks, superheroes, secret identities, disguised robots, alien symbionts, a Napoleonic thief, a swindling demon, and even a hidden clown.

Learn to paint with groundbreaking new techniques for a favorite medium! • Dazzling colors, incredible realism—with simple step-by-step demonstrations • Easy-to-follow instructions from a top colored-pencil artist • Master the wide range of colored pencil effects possible, including blending, layering, translucent effects, and more Radiant color…painterly finishes…astonishing realism…with colored pencils! Achieve rich, luminous color and eye-popping ultra-realistic effects. Artists of every level will be inspired by the amazing new techniques created by Alyona Nickelsen, presented in Colored Pencil Painting Bible for the very first time. Nickelsen’s innovations will delight readers and detailed you-can-do-it processes bring her striking results within reach for every artist. Take colored pencils beyond the ordinary with Colored Pencil Painting Bible!

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Face and Mask: Changing Views -- Portrait and Mask: the Face as Representation -- Media and Masks: the Production of Faces