Bestselling author Dominick Dunne, who chronicles the escapades, excesses, and eccentricities of high society for Vanity Fair, offers fifteen provocative portraits of some of the most luminous figures of the decade . . . profiles of the movie legend who remains the only divorced wife of a U.S. president; the pretty singing star who fell in love with a notorious mobster; the brilliant photographer who took Dunne's picture weeks before succumbing to AIDS . . . sketches that detail the lavish wedding-that-never-was between an heiress and a counterfeit prince; the incarceration of a high-flying financier; and the brutal slaying of a film mogul and his sife, allegedly by their own two sons. Filled with pathos and wit and the twenty-four-carat insight of a society insider, The Mansions of Limbo offers a peek into a rarified world there nothing is ever enough.

This lavish catalogue presents 150 European paintings, pastels, and drawings from the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century that have been given to the Metropolitan Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman or are still held in Mrs. Wrightsman's private collection. These notable works were collected over the past four decades, many of them with the Museum in mind; some were purchased by the Museum through the Wrightsman Fund. Highlights of the book include masterpieces by Vermeer, El Greco, Rubens, Van Dyck, Georges de La Tour, Jacques-Louis David, and Caspar David Friedrich as well as numerous paintings by the eighteenth-century Venetian artists Canaletto, Guardi, and the Tiepolos, father and son, plus a dozen remarkable portrait drawings by Ingres. Each work is reproduced in color and is accompanied by a short essay.

This book explores a selection of hundreds of masterpieces from the extraordinary art and jewellery collections formed by the legendary art connoisseur and museum benefactor Roberto Polo. At an early age, Roberto Polo revealed a powerful talent as a visual artist and was described as 'an art prodigy', exhibiting his work in major art museums and galleries in America. Thanks to his profound knowledge of art history and theory, he also revealed an astonishing talent for identifying exceptional art and jewellery from many periods and origins. Educated at The Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., where he was appointed professor at the precocious age of sixteen, and at Columbia University in New York, at the age of twenty-four he conceived and organised the now landmark exhibition Fashion as Fantasy (1975) featuring work especially created for him by artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Paco Rabanne and Guy Bourdin. Roberto Polo was instrumental in founding Citibank's Fine Art Investment Services, the first department of its kind in the banking industry. In 1981, he left Citibank and incorporated PAMG Inc., his company specialised in art and jewellery investment advisory. During this period, he formed magnificent collections of French eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century fine and decorative art, and jewellery, collections described as 'anthological'. In 1988, he suffered a Kafkaesque fall, from which he rose in 1995, defending historical design and Modernism through Galerie Historismus, first in Paris and then in Brussels, where he resides. Often described as 'the trendsetter of the art market', Roberto Polo continues to follow the edict that one should only acquire works of art which were revolutionary in their time and have fallen into oblivion. Exquisitely illustrated with over 300 colour photographs, Roberto Polo: The Eye includes texts by Daniel Alcouffe, former Chief Curator of the Department of Decorative Art of the Musée du Louvre, Dr. Thomas Föhl, member of the Board of Directors of the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar, and Françoise Aubry, Chief Curator of the Musée Victor Horta. This book is a fascinating insight into a man described as 'one of the ten people who have made a difference in the art market' and an illuminating account of his forty years of art and jewellery collecting.

The 20th century was a rich period of beautiful, innovative design and many classics from that era have influenced and inspired modern designers. "Lighting: 20th-Century Classics" includes more than 90 of the most desirable and iconic pendant lights, table lamps, floor and wall and ceiling designs from the last century. Organized by decade each entry comprises: a double-page spread, featuring a short essay on the classic under discussion and a photograph of that object; top tips on what to look out for when considering a purchase; a price guide in both pounds sterling and US dollars; and, key websites for further information about the piece. This book provides all the information you will need to make an informed decision when investing in a piece of classic design, whether it is a Tiffany lamp, a Poul Henningsen PH Artichoke or PH5 or a Verner Panton Moon Lamp. This gorgeous book is essential for anyone interested in style, design or interiors.

Salvador Dalí, Jerome Robbins, Jackie Onassis. Gregory Peck, Mick Jagger—S. J. Perelman—I. M. Pei. Philip Johnson, Josephine Baker, John Lennon: they, and so many more who made New York City the center of the universe in the 1970s, all had one thing in common besides their adopted hometown—they shopped at a legendary palace of books, music and art: Rizzoli Books at 712 Fifth Avenue. There, Kennedys and Rockefellers mingled with tourists and “regular” customers under the watchful gaze of sophisticated employees, themselves a multi-talented, international collection of artists, scholars and rogues. Nights at Rizzoli is the memoir of Felice Picano, an aspiring but near-starving young writer who in 1971 lucked into a part-time job at the stunningly elegant store via a friend. It metamorphosed into a life-changing experience, one that exposed him to some of the brightest lights in the world’s cultural capital. At the store, he himself became a key player on a stage that opened every night to a new drama that often featured romance, at times violence, and of course always the books and their readers. And when his shift was over, in this post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS era, the handsome young bookstore manager stepped from one world into another, prowling the piers, bars and very private clubs of a different New York City.