Artists Houses offers readers the unprecedented opportunity to turn the key and enter the private homes of 14 extraordinary artists. We see where they lived and worked, entertained and created their most significant masterpieces. These important European and American artists put as much care, or more, into the design of their homes and gardens as they put into the creation of their works. Claude Monets lush garden at Giverny, composed over more than 40 years, provided the source material for his revolutionary art. Rene Magrittes stark suburban home eerily resembles the backgrounds of many of the surrealists paintings. Vanessa Bell of the Bloomsbury group painted more than just canvases at Charleston, where she (with the help of Duncan Grant) covered nearly every available surface. The photographs and literary portraits of the artists and their homes provide an intimate view into the daily life of these renowned masters. The houses included range from the Czech Republic to Italy, Germany, England and New York and include a diverse cross-section of 19th- and 20th century masters in painting, sculpture and the applied arts including, William Morris, Giorgio de Chirico, Alphonse Mucha and Gabrielle Muenter. Gerard-Georges Lemaires enlightening text, accompanied by Jean-Claude Amiels exquisite photographs, bring the reader into intimate contact with these legendary artists. Many of these houses, which have survived intact to our time, have never before been photographed, and appear here in print for the first time, providing a rare glimpse into the private world of artistic genius.
