Told in classic comic-book form, this graphic biography invites a new audience to learn about Banksy-and uses a pitch-perfect medium to convey the artist's message that art is for the people.
Banksy is arguably the most well-known street artist of all time. But we don't actually know who he is.
This is just one of many contradictions that are addressed in this enormously compelling graphic biography. When two young Londoners are caught spray-painting graffiti on a city wall, they get to know each other while detained by the police. After they are released, they decide to make a film of Banksy's life, tracing the arc of his career as they travel through the streets of London.
Readers will learn not only of Banksy's politically charged art and the causes he championed, but also of its worldwide dissemination, museum exhibitions, and record-breaking auctions.
While readers may not learn Banksy's true identity, this uniquely graphic form of storytelling communicates the artist's belief that art is for everyone, speaks to everyone, and is owned by everyone.
Mark Rothko's work is among the most recognisable in modern art history. His huge colour-field works enjoy enormous popularity for their luminosity, moodiness, and immersive qualities. But he didn't always paint in bold, simple swaths of colour. This graphic biography traces Rothko's entire life, from his boyhood emigration from Russia to America, to his suicide in 1970. It touches on his schooling and early work for the WPA in the 1930s; the evolution of his art from representational to purely abstract; and the dawning of his artistic philosophy, which took him farther and farther away from the material world and toward a universally emotional and expressionist modality. The book's finely detailed drawings are Rothko's signature colours and draw readers into his fascinating creative journey. While Rothko the artist was largely misunderstood during his lifetime, this unique graphic biography offers a way of making sense of his life and of decoding the visual language he invented.
