Five hundred years ago, the landing of Hernán Cortés in Mexico marked the end of the Aztec Empire. This volume presents the wealth of this culture with spectacular, sometimes unpublished finds: rare feathered shields, impressive stone sculptures, precious mosaic masks and goldwork as well as brilliantly coloured illustrated manuscripts bring the world of the Aztecs to life.

The shaping of the body through clothing has repeatedly played a major role across the centuries; in Europe changes in fashion were always accompanied by changes to the cut of clothing and hence to the silhouette of the body. This lavishly illustrated volume delights the reader with illustrations of numerous original items of historical clothing and insightful essays.

The editors visited numerous studios throughout Germany in order to select 53 artists from among the current generation of 30 to 40-year-olds who are currently breaking new ground in the painting of panel pictures. The publication and simultaneous exhibitions in Bonn, Wiesbaden and Chemnitz and subsequently in Hamburg demonstrate the diversity and quality of their work.

Lost places of cinema—the photographer Margarete Freudenstadt has dedicated herself to cinema and strikingly captured contemporary history with her camera. Cinemas confronts her melancholic pictures of movie theaters in the former East Germany after the fall of the Wall, with the opulent but crumbling film palaces of today's Cuba in an exciting dialogue.

Few regions have undergone a more rapid and radical development than the American West in the mid-twentieth century. The modern infrastructure, technical innovations, spectacular architecture and new leisure activities have been recorded on postcards with lively pictures in vivid colours. This volume shows 500 selected linen postcards from the America of the 1930s to 1950s with an incomparable wealth of detail.

The ensemble with its prominent twin towers that Egon Eiermann (1904–1970) built in Frankfurt am Main for the Italian office machinery company Olivetti, was the Karlsruhe architect’s last major project. His priorities lay in the slender form, derived from the task, the construction and the material to create a characteristic silhouette.

In the last five decades the popularity of outsider art – works by artists working outside of the art establishment – has grown exponentially. Museums, galleries, and the public worldwide have embraced these powerful works. Victor Keen’s Collection at the Bethany Mission Gallery, Philadelphia, is one of the leading outsider art collections in the U.S.

The book is dedicated to legendary Viennese art collector Franz Hauer. The son of a mailman from Lower Austria became one of the key figures of his time. Franz Hauer started out penniless, became an exemplary self-made man, and built an art collection with important groups of works by Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka. Today, its treasures are held by numerous important museums in Europe and the US.

The painting Paris Street, Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) is an icon of Impressionism.This volume presents the work in the context of Caillebotte’s innovative artistic work, introducing him as a driving force in the establishment of Impressionism and describing his intensive exchanges with his fellow-artists.

At the age of seventeen Georg Forster embark ed on a voyage around the world with the famous Captain James Cook. Shortly after his return in 1775 the explorer met the open-minded Prince Franz of Dessau and his consort Louise in London.They returned home with a rich collection of objects, as the unique Wörlitz South Seas Collection proves to this day.