During a period of radical change, Ruth Baumgarte (1923–2013) created an artistic oeuvre in which humankind and its fragile existence form the main area of focus. This volume introduces her as a passionate creator of drawings, a versatile applied graphic artist and an expressive painter.

Diary-like series, landscape photos and situational mood pictures – Elina Brotherus (*1972 in Helsinki) is constantly searching for new possibilities in photography. This lavishly illustrated volume with related essays pursues the latest developments. Here the Finnish photo artist combines a keen intellect with humorous lightness and technical precision with joyous spontaneity.

Xenia Hausner ranks among the most important Austrian painters of our time. This splendid volume focuses on the aspect of stagecraft which characterizes all her works. Starting from the early paintings of the 1990s up to her moving Exiles series, the publication lures us into a female world filled with mysterious interpersonal relationships.

Alberto Giacometti forged a singular path within European Modernism, restlessly seeking a new language for sculpture as a “double of reality”. Presenting some 100 sculptures and paintings, the publication tracks the evolution of Giacometti’s work from Post-Cubism through Surrealism to post-war Realism.

How can you paint colour? That is the question which the Munich artist Isabelle Dyckerhoff asks herself anew before every picture. The material presence of colour, its expressive power and spatial effect are characteristic for her works on canvas and paper, which are presented together in this volume for book lovers.

Mary Bauermeister (*1934) is regarded as the “mother” of the Fluxus movement. During the 1960s she set out from the United States and conquered the art world with her lens boxes and stone spirals. Her works are represented in many major museums including MoMa and the  Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. This magnificent volume presents her artistic, enchanted studio not far from Cologne.

Elvira Lantenhammer’s paintings are colour events which rely to a considerable extent on intensity of colour. The choice of colour and its application take place intuitively in an examination of the effects of colours and their interaction with regard to a specific location. The term Site Plan, under which the abstract works are subsumed, serves here as an open action grid which conquers new spaces for the colours.

The elements of Astrid Lowack’s (*1969) photographic-artistic transcendence are light, movement and water. As the driving forces of life they relentlessly bring about change and reflect our innermost being – our feelings and experiences. Her snapshots remain thereby constant imaginative challenges to human perception.

László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), painter, photographer, Bauhaus teacher and founder of the “New Bauhaus” and the “School of Design” in Chicago, is one of the most important artist personalities of the modern age. As one of the first artists to work in multiple media, who practised painting, sculpture, photography, film and design as equally valid art genres, he set standards which are still relevant today.

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) is one of the most influential protagonists of the avant-garde, both as an artist and an author. With his utopia of the total Merz vision of the world he aimed at the unification of art and non-art. The art of assemblage and material art reached its first high point in his work; his Merzbau is regarded as a forerunner of present-day installations.