Art Book Discoveries at the Lifeline Book Fair

Here is a photo of my latest acquisitions for my Art Book library. The piece de resistance is the 4cm thick volume of Leonardo's anatomical drawings, many of which were borrowed from Queen Elizabeth's collection. The book was published in 1952 and I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it before. Only a few of the images were familiar. The same ones that are always shown but there is is a wealth of riches in this book.

 I will probably do some drawing copies from it. I am really getting more into anatomy and going to life drawing a couple of times a week. In fact, I am devoting this year to such studies.

Another amazing find is a book of etchings and engravings called "The School of Fontainebleau" by Henri Zerner. It contains graphic work by Fantuzzi and Jean Mignon in a Mannerist style. They were working for François 1 in France from about 1530. These works are both ultra sophisticated and yet naive.

Here are a couple of pages.

I also scored a copy of "The Spirit of Britain - A Narrative History of the Arts"  by Roy Strong who has been a Director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert in London.

Another more obscure discovery was a book about an Estonian artist called Malle Leis. A Google search didn't reveal much but there is some synchronicity with my own work so I will keep looking for more of her.

Plenty of looking and reading fun ahead. And lots of tea drinking on my studio couch...