Pictorials/assorted > Coffee Table Books

A vivid and strikingly illustrated edition of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Powerful, moving, simple and forceful, it speaks to us all about hope, about our ideals, about the sort of world we want to create and live in.

Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or notorious graffiti artist? The work of Banksy is unmistakable, except maybe when it's squatting in the Tate or New York's Metropolitan Museum. Banksy is responsible for decorating the streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cites throughout the world. Witty and subversive, his stencils show monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, policeman with smiley faces, rats with drills and umbrellas. If you look hard enough, you'll find your own. His statemen... read more

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A beautifully packaged, collectable volume to commemorate the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. On 16 November 2010, the long-awaited engagement of HRH Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton was formally announced, with a London wedding promised for April 2011. Andrew Morton, the leading royal biographer - famous the world over for his million-copy bestselling, authorized biography of Diana, Princess of Wales - has written a full-length biography of William and his new bride. Morton has followed the pri... read more

184 pages. Published to coincide with the exhibition currently (September 2009) showing at the Australian Centrer for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne.

The charismatic Kat Von D, the star of LA Ink, with writer Anthony Bozza (author of best-sellers "Slash" and "Tommyland") opens the door to the world of contemporary tattooing, the way only a true insider can. The book will be targeted to the tattoo audience, particularly the younger demographic that actively gets tattoos. It will include Kat's story, what inspires her, information about her show and her shop, her sketches, and her personal tattoos (she's a walking tattoo). The thrust of the book is on her point of view on tattooin... read more

Photographer Markus Mauthe captures the diversity and beauty of the jungle habitat in his unusually beautiful photographs. For five years he has travelled through all the major primeval forests of the world to regions never seen by man. His journey led from the Amazon to Patagonia, and even to Siberia. He documents the beauty of the jungles and the ongoing destruction of these green paradises. Essays by renowned environmentalists as the biologist Thomas Henningsen make this a unique volume.

A handbook for the happy, and a bible for the broken-hearted, The Alphabet of the Human Heart is an enchanting and enriching journey through the upside and the downside of what it means to be human our hopes and our fears, our strengths and our weaknesses, our highs and our lows. To turn your life around, turn this book around. The answer is inside.

Art at Te Papa reveals and illuminates New Zealand's vast national art collection. Reproductions of more than 400 individual artworks, personally selected by curators, are accompanied by brief essays giving expert and engaging commentary on each work. This book spans the entire collection, from the cream of its early European prints holdings to its most exciting contemporary acquisitions. Here are international artworks by Rembrandt van Rijn, Albrechet Durer, Marcel Duchamp, Barbara Hepworth, Natalie Gontchorova and Robert Mappleth... read more

Did you know that you can make your own camera, and create unique images with it, for next to nothing? This complete guide to pinhole photography will allow you to do just that, with camera templates, step-by-step assembly instructions, practical advice on taking successful pictures and hundreds of inspirational images to encourage you. Pinhole cameras - modern descendants of the camera obscura - do not have a lens. Instead, light is directed through a tiny hole, and the resulting photographs have amazing qualities. Most pinhole ph... read more

Bill Culbert is one of New Zealand's most celebrated artists. In Bill Culbert: Making Light Work, the first substantial book on Culbert, Ian Wedde explores the ideas, materials, and conditions that have formed Culbert's art over the past 50 years.

Dick Frizzell's images populate our world - you find them on T-shirts, on TV ads, in shop windows, on wine bottles, on cushions and T-towels and in art shows. People appropriate (or borrow) his images in much the same way that he too appropriated many of the images he has painted over the years. He's reached iconic status in NZ - we love him, he's one of our own. This book contains all of his major paintings, the story of his life in his own thoughtful and highly articulate words, and an essay by Hamish Keith on Dick's work and its... read more

Andrew Zuckerman now turns his unique photographic perspective to music. Fifty eminent individuals - artists, composers, producers and performers from rock, rap, dance, soul, R&B, classical, country, reggae, pop, jazz, world and more - are all subjected to Zuckerman's democratic style, hyperreal photography to create an inspiring and brilliant perspective of music and musicians.

Enter the world of the imagination, where nothing is ordinary. White Cloud Worlds is a never-before-seen collection of stunning science fiction and fantasy artwork from Aotearoa New Zealand, 'The Land of the Long White Cloud'. Embark upon a journey of exploration into a wealth of visually rich worlds and imaginings, conjured to life by 27 established and emerging artists. The artists are profiled with a selection of their art accompanied by text written in their own unique voice, sharing their origins, inspirations and a rare glimp... read more

Explosive, uncensored and always revelatory, Red Hot Chili Peppers is the long-awaited, never-before-told history of the globe's most worshipped rock band. Loaded with rare and unpublished photographs and memorabilia from their own archives, the band finally reveal all, allowing unprecedented access into their wild inner world. Few '80s groups smashed as many musical barriers as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They created an intoxicating new musical style by mixing punk with funk and a dose of hard rock, topping it off with front-man ... read more

With an introduction by John Lasseter x2014;and very little else in the way of words x2014;this second book in "The Artist Series" lavishly showcases the most brilliant animation created by such luminaries as Ub Iwerks, Norm Ferguson, Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Dick Huemer, Grim Natwick, Art Babbitt, Fred Moore, Bill Tytla, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Marc Davis, John Lounsbery, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Les Clark, Wolfgang Reitherman, John Sibley, Bill Justice, Clyde Geronimi, Ted Berman, Glen Keane, Andreas Dej... read more

Graffiti Art has blazed a trail across the world, with amazing examples visible in every modern city, but its pioneers were the New Yorkers who painted whole subway cars. This book contains 54 accurate line drawings of Subway carriages, some with color or B&W line art on them to help you get started, but most clean and ready for use.

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In The Book of Time we see how philosophers, religions and scientists have tried to explain time as everything from a perfect cycle to ever-increasing chaos. We see how time works in the natural world and in our own bodies and minds, and how we've tried to measure it - first with calenders, then with increasingly sophisticated devices, from the Ancient Indian ghati and to the latest atomic clock. And from Aristotle to Einstein, we explore how time has been essential for scientists in their quest to understand the universe and eve... read more