This book tells the extraordinary story of three sixteenth-century sisters who, along with their father and brothers, were afflicted with an extremely rare genetic condition that made them unusually hairy. Amazingly, the Gonzales sisters were not mocked or shunned, but were welcomed in the courts of Europe, spending much of their lives among nobles, musicians, and artists. Their double identity as humans and beasts made them intriguing, and the girls and their father were the subjects not only of medical investigations but also of a considerable number of portraits, some of which still hang in European castles today.

 

Using the Gonzales family as a lens, historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks examines their varied and wondrous times. The story of this family connects with every important change of their era—political and religious violence, colonial conquest, new forms of scholarship and science—and also provides insights into the complex relationships between beastliness, monstrosity, and gender in early modern life.

This catalogue accompanies the Vanitas exhibition held at 33 Portland Place in October 2010. The curatorial statement is wrtten by All Visual Arts CEO Joe La Placa and associate driector Mark Sanders. It also includes a 5000 word essay by Art Forum critic Gilda Williams.

Incontinent old ladies, men with eagle tattoos, traumatised widowers - Dr Iwan James's patients cause him both to feel both sympathy and dismay, further complicated by his feelings for his practice partners: unrequited longing for Dr Lois Pritchard, and frustration at the antics of Dr Robert Smith, who will use any means to make Iwan look bad in her presence. Iwan's cycling trips with his friend and mentor, Arthur, provide some welcome relief, but as we explore the phantoms from his past, we ask what is the dividing line between patient and provider? Wry, comic, graphic, often quotidian and sometimes tragic, his patients' stories are the spokes that make Iwan's wheels go round. In this moving, funny and eloquent graphic novel of the life of a country doctor, Ian Williams has created a graphic Dr Finlay's Casebook for the 21st century.

Most of us watch with mild concern the fast-disappearing wild spaces or the recurrence of pollution-related crises such as oil spills, toxic blooms in fertilizer-enriched forests, and violence both home and abroad. Joy Williams does more than watch. In this collection of condemnations and love letters, revelations and cries for help, she brings to light the price of complacency with scathing wit and unexpected humor. Sounding the alarm over the disconnection from the natural world that our consumer culture has created, she takes on subjects as varied as the culling of elephants, electron-probed chimpanzees, vanishing wetlands, and the determination of American women to reproduce at any cost. Controversial, opinionated, at times exceptionally moving, Ill Nature is a clarion call for us to step out of our cars and cubicles, and do something to save our natural legacy.

The seminal work on alienation, creativity, and the modern mindset. First published 30 years ago, it illuminated the struggle of those who seek not only the transformation of the Self, but of society as a whole.

Enchanted or evil, lucky or cursed - freaks have always held a special place in society. In this book, n oted cartoonist (and great-nephew of P.T. Barnum) Gahan Wils on looks at famous freaks from the past, and also looks at p otential freaks of the future. '

This book examines artwork created through the preservation of plants.