The design and history of Paris's iconic Centre Pompidou is explored in this absorbing and beautifully illustrated biography of a building.

For the first time, a comprehensive exploration of Dora Maar’s enigmatic photography reveals her as an extraordinary and influential artist in her own right. Dora Maar (born Henriette Théodora Markovitch, 1907–1997) was active at the height of Surrealism in France. She was recognized as a key member of the movement and maintained professional relationships with many of its prominent figures, such as André Breton, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Man Ray. However, her standing as the one-time muse and mistress of Pablo Picasso—his famous “Weeping Woman”—has long eclipsed her creative output and minimized her influence. Richly illustrated with 240 key works showcasing Maar’s inimitable acumen as a photographer, this book examines the full arc of her career for the very first time. Subjects include her innovative commercial and fashion photography, her approach to the nude and eroticism, engagement with political groups, interest in socially concerned photography, affiliation with the Surrealist movement, and hitherto unknown work from her reclusive late career, providing a dynamic and multifaceted examination of an important artist.

This is the story of how France's famed cultural icon, one of the most controversial and supremely public buildings of the century, was designed and built. Nathan Silver's detailed account of the Centre Pompidou -- still called Beaubourg by its designers, and by Parisians -- takes the form of a fascinating and insightful "building biography." Not just a book about a building but about the making of a building, this fresh, heterodox means of inquiry is a holistic reading of the intricate process of creating architecture in contemporary society that brings to light its human story, encompassing its stylistic, historical, technical, and social aspects. Beaubourg, Silver reveals, was unlike anything that had ever been built. A realization of ideals and aspirations of it architectural generation, a rethinking of fundamental precepts of design and construction, it took nothing for granted, and it has since become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Europe -- flaunting new principles that other architects have to come to terms with.

Discover highlights from one of the world's most diverse and prestigious drawing collections. Two decades ago, art collectors Florence and Daniel Guerlain decided to focus their energies on shaping a collection of contemporary works on paper. In 2013 they donated a large part of their holdings--1,200 works in total--to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This book includes exquisite full-page reproductions of one hundred drawings and offers readers the chance to experience the extraordinary scope of the Guerlain collection through spectacular contemporary examples from an often overlooked medium. Among the artists featured in the book are Robert Longo, Kiki Smith, Jorinde Voigt, Marcel Dzama, Catharina Van Eetvelde, and Sandra Vasquez de la Horra. Works by other artists who are better known for their painting, sculpture, and performance art, deepen and enhance our experience of their respective oeuvres. This volume opens with an interview with Florence and Daniel Guerlain, and continues with brief essays by curator Elsy Lahner about each of the artists and their artwork, while an essay by Isabelle Dervaux explores the significance of this collection.

The Centre Pompidou will present a major retrospective of the work of American artist Cy Twombly bringing together works from public and private collections around the world. The comprehensive showcase will be structured around three major cycles: Nine Discourses on Commodus, 1963, Fifty Days at Iliam, 1978, and Coronation of Sesostris, 2000, and will span the artist's entire career, from his first works in the early 1950s to his last paintings. Presented chronologically and featuring some 140 paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition will provide what the Centre Pompidou describes as a clear picture of an extraordinarily rich body of work which is both intellectual and sensual. In addition to emphasizing the importance of series and cycles in Twombly's practice, through which he reinvented history painting, the exhibition will also highlight the artist's close relationship with Paris.