Jean-Michel Othoniel Libri

During his 2012 residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel (born 1964) delved into the archives of the magnificent garden that Isabella Stewart Gardner, the first American woman to graduate with a degree in horticulture, cultivated around her residence. Othoniel examined the museum (where nothing has been moved since its owners died) and photographed the flowers in the tapestries, ironwork, architecture, furnishings and paintings, in such masterpieces as van Dyck's -Portrait of a Woman- with its innocuous rose, Piermatteo d'Amelia's -Annunciation- with its majestic lily and Bartolome Bermejo's -Saint Engracia- with its enigmatic palm. This giftworthy volume presents his art-historical ABC of these flowers, from Acanthus to Zea Mays.

A dazzling intervention at the Beaux-Arts Petit Palais from the author of The Secret Language of Flowers French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel (born 1964) installed his opulent sculptures in the gardens and halls of Paris' Beaux-Arts Petit Palais in Le Théorème de Narcisse. This volume documents his monumental water lilies, gold necklaces and glass bricks.