Abundantly illustrated, this catalogue is a fascinating and comprehensive reevaluation of the French modernist sculptor Camille Claudel.

Camille Claudel (1864–1943) was among the most daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Although much attention has been paid to her tumultuous life—her affair with her mentor, Auguste Rodin; the premature end to her career; her thirty-year institutionalization in an asylum—her art remains little known outside of France. Memorably praised by critic Octave Mirbeau in 1895 as “a revolt of nature: a woman of genius,” Claudel was celebrated for her brilliance during a time when women sculptors were rare.

Featuring more than two hundred photographs along with contributions from leading experts, this publication accompanies the first comprehensive survey of Claudel’s oeuvre in nearly forty years. With essays exploring the many facets of her life, work, and reception; a biography; commentary by American sculptor Kiki Smith; and a fascinating appendix of documents written by Claudel and her contemporaries, this volume reevaluates the artist’s work on its own merits and repositions her legacy within a more complex genealogy of modernism.

This volume, copublished with The Art Institute of Chicago, accompanies an exhibition on view at The Art Institute of Chicago from October 7, 2023, to February 19, 2024 and at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from April 2 to July 21, 2024.

This groundbreaking book provides the first detailed account of the materials and techniques of perhaps the most radical—and until now, least studied—major American Abstract Expressionist.
 
Among the most radical of the great American Abstract Expressionist painters, Clyfford Still has also long been among the least studied. Still severed ties with the commercial art world in the early 1950s, and his estate at the time of his death in 1980 comprised some 3,125 artworks—including more than 800 paintings—that were all but unknown to the art world. Susan F. Lake and Barbara A. Ramsay were granted access to this collection by the estate and by the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, which houses this immense corpus today.
 
This volume, based on the authors’ materials research and enriched by their unprecedented access to Still’s artworks, paints, correspondence, studio records, and personal library, provides the first detailed account of his materials, working methods, and techniques. Initial chapters provide an engaging and erudite overview of the artist's life. Subsequent chapters trace the development of his visionary style, offer in-depth materials analysis of selected works from each decade of his career, and suggest new approaches to the care and conservation of his paintings. There is also a series of technical appendices as well as a full bibliography.

The untold chronicles of the looting and collecting of ancient Mesoamerican objects.

This book traces the fascinating history of how and why ancient Mesoamerican objects have been collected. It begins with the pre-Hispanic antiquities that first entered European collections in the sixteenth century as gifts or seizures, continues through the rise of systematic collecting in Europe and the Americas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ends in 1940—the start of Europe’s art market collapse at the outbreak of World War II and the coinciding genesis of the large-scale art market for pre-Hispanic antiquities in the United States.

Drawing upon archival resources and international museum collections, the contributors analyze the ways shifting patterns of collecting and taste—including how pre-Hispanic objects changed from being viewed as anthropological and scientific curiosities to collectible artworks—have shaped modern academic disciplines as well as public, private, institutional, and nationalistic attitudes toward Mesoamerican art. As many nations across the world demand the return of their cultural patrimony and ancestral heritage, it is essential to examine the historical processes, events, and actors that initially removed so many objects from their countries of origin.

In the third issue of the J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy series, authors Helen Frowe and Derek Matravers pivot from the earlier tone of the series in discussing the appropriate response to attacks on cultural heritage with their paper, “Conflict and Cultural Heritage: A Moral Analysis of the Challenges of Heritage Protection.” While Frowe and Matravers acknowledge the importance of cultural heritage, they assert that we must more carefully consider the complex moral dimensions—the inevitable serious consequences to human beings—before formulating policy to forcefully protect it.

A number of writers and thinkers working on the problem of preserving the world’s most treasured monuments, sites, and objects today cite what Frowe and Matravers call extrinsic and intrinsic justifications for the protection of cultural heritage. These are arguments that maintain that protecting heritage will be a key means to achieve other important goals, like the prevention of genocide, or arguments that heritage deserves to be forcefully protected for its own sake. Frowe and Matravers deconstruct both types of justifications, demonstrating a lack of clear evidence for a causal relationship between the destruction of cultural heritage and atrocities like genocide and arguing that the defense of heritage must not be treated with the same weight or urgency, or according to the same international policies, as the defense of human lives.

By calling for expanded theory and empirical data and the consideration of morality in the crafting of international policy vis-à-vis cultural heritage protection, Frowe and Matravers present a thoughtful critique that enriches this important series and adds to the ongoing dialogue in the field.

The most authoritative publication in nearly fifty years on the subject of conserving paintings on canvas.
 
In 2019, Yale University, with the support of the Getty Foundation, held an international conference, where nearly four hundred attendees from more than twenty countries gathered to discuss a vital topic: how best to conserve paintings on canvas. It was the first major symposium on the subject since 1974, when wax-resin and glue-paste lining reigned as the predominant conservation techniques. Over the past fifty years, such methods, which were often destructive to artworks, have become less widely used in favor of more minimalist approaches to intervention. More recent decades have witnessed the reevaluation of traditional practices as well as focused research supporting significant new methodologies, procedures, and synthetic materials for the care and conservation of paintings on fabric supports.
 
Conserving Canvas compiles the proceedings of the conference, presenting a wide array of papers and posters that provide important global perspectives on the history, current state, and future needs of the field. Featuring an expansive glossary of terms that will be an invaluable resource for conservators, this publication promises to become a standard reference for the international conservation community.
 
The free online edition of this open-access publication is available at getty.edu/publications/conserving-canvas. Also available are free PDF and EPUB downloads of the book.

Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict Zones addresses the connection between cultural heritage and cultural cleansing, mass atrocities, and the destruction of cultural heritage. Pulling together various threads of discourse and research, Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities outlines the issues, challenges, and options effecting change.

Cultural Genocide and the Protection of Cultural Heritage examines the various lenses through which the international community defines attacks on cultural heritage—legal, accountability, security, counterterrorism, and atrocity prevention—and proposes a sixth, cultural genocide, that can be used to recast the debate over how to best protect the world’s cultural heritage.

A pathbreaking call to halt the intertwined crises of cultural heritage attacks and mass atrocities and mobilize international efforts to protect people and cultures.
 
Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, mausoleums in Timbuktu, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.
 
Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities assembles essays by thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume's guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide. Based on the three pillars of prevent, react, and rebuild, R2P offers today's policymakers a set of existing laws and international norms that can and—as this book argues—must be extended to the protection of cultural heritage. Contributions consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage. A concise abstract of each chapter is offered online in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish to facilitate robust, global dissemination of the strategies and tactics offered in this pathbreaking call to action.
 
The free online edition of this publication is available at getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book.

The fourth volume of the J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy series is the result of a multi-day discussion on the issue of cultural heritage under siege. It features an edited collection of papers and discussions by nineteen scholars and practitioners of different specialties in the field of cultural heritage. This paper, along with the other Occasional Papers, is free and downloadable online.

Una exploración profunda de la historia, la autenticación y la relevancia moderna del Códice Maya de México, el libro más antiguo del continente americano.

Los antiguos escribas mayas registraban profecías y observaciones astronómicas en las páginas de libros pintados. Aunque la mayoría se perdieron por el desgaste del paso del tiempo o porque fueron destruidos, se sabía que tres códices mayas prehispánicos habían sobrevivido. Sin embargo, en la década de 1960 apareció en México, en circunstancias misteriosas, un cuarto libro diferente a los demás. Después de cincuenta años de debate sobre su autenticidad, investigaciones recientes con análisis científicos e histórico-artísticos de vanguardia, determinaron que el Códice Maya de México (antes conocido como Códice Grolier) es, de hecho, el libro más antiguo del continente americano: al menos doscientos años más antiguo que los demás.
 
Este volumen ofrece una introducción multifacética a la creación, el descubrimiento, la interpretación y la autenticación científica del Códice Maya de México. Además, un facsímil a todo color y una guía de la iconografía página por página hacen que un amplio público pueda acceder al códice. Otros temas incluyen los usos y la importancia de los libros sagrados en Mesoamérica, el papel de la astronomía en las antiguas sociedades mayas y la continua relevancia del códice para las comunidades mayas contemporáneas.
 
La publicación de este volumen acompaña la exposición que se exhibirá en el J. Paul Getty Museum ubicado en el Getty Center del 18 de octubre de 2022 al 15 de enero de 2023.

An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de México, the oldest surviving book of the Americas.
 
Ancient Maya scribes recorded prophecies and astronomical observations on the pages of painted books. Although most were lost to decay or destruction, three pre-Hispanic Maya codices were known to have survived, when, in the 1960s, a fourth book that differed from the others appeared in Mexico under mysterious circumstances. After fifty years of debate over its authenticity, recent investigations using cutting-edge scientific and art historical analyses determined that Códice Maya de México (formerly known as Grolier Codex) is in fact the oldest surviving book of the Americas, predating all others by at least two hundred years.
 
This volume provides a multifaceted introduction to the creation, discovery, interpretation, and scientific authentication of Códice Maya de México. In addition, a full-color facsimile and a page-by-page guide to the iconography make the codex accessible to a wide audience. Additional topics include the uses and importance of sacred books in Mesoamerica, the role of astronomy in ancient Maya societies, and the codex's continued relevance to contemporary Maya communities.
 
This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from October 18, 2022, to January 15, 2023.
 

An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de México, the oldest surviving book of the Americas.
 
Ancient Maya scribes recorded prophecies and astronomical observations on the pages of painted books. Although most were lost to decay or destruction, three pre-Hispanic Maya codices were known to have survived, when, in the 1960s, a fourth book that differed from the others appeared in Mexico under mysterious circumstances. After fifty years of debate over its authenticity, recent investigations using cutting-edge scientific and art historical analyses determined that Códice Maya de México (formerly known as Grolier Codex) is in fact the oldest surviving book of the Americas, predating all others by at least two hundred years.
 
This volume provides a multifaceted introduction to the creation, discovery, interpretation, and scientific authentication of Códice Maya de México. In addition, a full-color facsimile and a page-by-page guide to the iconography make the codex accessible to a wide audience. Additional topics include the uses and importance of sacred books in Mesoamerica, the role of astronomy in ancient Maya societies, and the codex's continued relevance to contemporary Maya communities.
 
This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from October 18, 2022, to January 15, 2023.