The Artful Eye Bargain Book Box

The Artful Eye Bargain Book Box

T J Clark on art and politics. A forensic study of how a chair is actually built. The feuds that shaped art history. And Wes Anderson writing a foreword to a book about the world's most Wes Anderson-looking places.

This box is for people who notice things — the proportions of a room, the weight of a watch, the way a tiled wall changes a space. Inside: Cobra and the postwar avant-garde, modern Japanese restaurant design, Heath Ceramics on tile, Harris Reed on fluid fashion, and short, sharp histories of Rolex, Cartier, and Givenchy.

Plus a century of British artists, a guide to building a productive creative practice, and a genuinely serious handbook on the self-portrait.

Design, fashion, art history, and objects made properly. Heavy on pictures, and none of them decorative.

1. The Avant-Garde Won't Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy — Alison M Gingeras | ISBN: 9783791355092 | RRP: $95.00
   A major study of the Cobra movement — the postwar European collective of Danish, Belgian, and Dutch artists who rejected both abstraction and realism in favour of something wilder. Richly illustrated and seriously argued.
2. Modern Japanese Restaurant — Ietsugu Ohara | ISBN: 9781864706352 | RRP: $69.99
   A beautifully produced survey of contemporary Japanese restaurant interiors — the materials, the proportions, the extraordinary restraint. Essential for anyone interested in hospitality design or Japanese spatial thinking.
3. Fluid: A Fashion Revolution — Harris Reed | ISBN: 9781837830459 | RRP: $65.00
   The designer and Nina Ricci creative director on gender-fluid fashion, its history, and its present moment. Harris Reed writes with genuine authority about where clothing is going and who gets to wear what.
4. Little Book of Rolex: The Story Behind the Iconic Brand — Josh Sims | ISBN: 9781802797596 | RRP: $29.99
   A compact, well-illustrated history of the watchmaker — the technical innovations, the marketing, and the long campaign to make a Rolex mean something. Josh Sims is excellent on how brands are actually built.
5. Cartier: The Story Behind the Style — Rachael Taylor | ISBN: 9781800783409 | RRP: $24.99
   The house of Cartier told through its most recognisable designs — the Tank, the Panthère, the Love bracelet — and the jewellers, clients, and decades behind them. Elegant and informative.
6. Take Your Selfie Seriously: The Advanced Selfie and Self-Portrait Handbook — Sorelle Amore | ISBN: 9781786279040 | RRP: $34.99
   A genuinely technical guide to self-portraiture — composition, lighting, framing, and the photographic thinking behind an image most people take badly. More useful than the title suggests.
7. Little Book of Givenchy: The Story of the Iconic Fashion House — Karen Homer | ISBN: 9781780972770 | RRP: $29.99
   Hubert de Givenchy, Audrey Hepburn, and the house that defined a certain kind of mid-century elegance — plus everything that came after. A concise and beautifully illustrated history.
8. Tile Makes the Room: Good Design from Heath Ceramics — Robin Petravic | ISBN: 9781607747413 | RRP: $95.00
   From one of America's most admired ceramics companies comes a book about what tile does to a space — the glazes, the grids, the manufacturing, and the design philosophy underpinning all of it. Gorgeous and genuinely instructive.
9. Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures — Wally Koval | ISBN: 9781398721791 | RRP: $69.99
   Real places around the world that look as though they were art-directed by Wes Anderson — with an exclusive foreword by Anderson himself. Symmetry, pastel, and a surprising amount of history behind each location.
10. Bad Blood: Rivalry and Art History — Clayton Schuster | ISBN: 9780764357305 | RRP: $37.99
    The feuds, grudges, and outright hatreds that shaped art — Michelangelo and Leonardo, Picasso and Matisse, and plenty more. Entertaining, well-researched, and a reminder that art history is also a history of personalities.
11. Power Up Your Creativity — Rachael Taylor | ISBN: 9780760376942 | RRP: $45.00
    A practical guide to building a sustainable creative practice — setting goals, maintaining momentum, and getting work finished rather than merely started. Useful for anyone whose creativity needs structure around it.
12. Chair Anatomy: Design and Construction — James Orrom | ISBN: 9780500297025 | RRP: $65.99
    A superb technical and design study of the chair — how joints work, why proportions matter, and what separates a good chair from an uncomfortable sculpture. Detailed, well-illustrated, and genuinely informative for designers and makers.
13. Those Passions: On Art and Politics — T J Clark | ISBN: 9780500025260 | RRP: $79.99
    Essays from one of the most formidable art historians of the past half-century, on what art does with and to political life. T J Clark writes demanding, rewarding criticism that takes both the art and the politics seriously.
14. This Is Tomorrow: Twentieth-Century Britain and Its Artists — Michael Bird | ISBN: 9780500024430 | RRP: $65.99
    A century of British art told through the artists who made it and the country that shaped them. Michael Bird writes accessibly without simplifying, and the book is beautifully produced throughout.