Tag Archives: Rizzoli press

BETONY VERNON —THE BOUDOIR BIBLE

THE BOUDOIR BIBLEBetony Vernon’s sex-positive pillow book—was first published in 2013. A third printing—updated for the digital age, with new illustrations by François Berthoud—is out now from Rizzoli.

Betony—a sexual anthropologist and erotic jewelry designer—wrote THE BOUDOIR BIBLE to “provide basic body understanding that we all should have learned at school but didn’t. It fills those niches missing from other sex guides, including full, elaborated chapters on rope bondage, restraint of sound and sight, erotic flagellation and the stimulation of new erogenous zones among innumerable other offerings.”

BETONY VERNON, THE BOUDOIR BIBLE: THE UNINHIBITED SEX GUIDE FOR TODAY, illustrated by FRANÇOIS BERTHOUD (Rizzoli International Publications, third printing, 2019).

Betony Vernon, The Boudoir Bible, from top: illustrations by François Berthoud (3); photograph of Vernon by Ali Mahdavi; Rizzoli book cover; illustrations by Berthoud (2). Images courtesy and © the author, the illustrator, the photographer, and Rizzoli International Publications.

JOHN RICHARDSON

“On February 6, 1954—not quite halfway through my twelve years with Douglas [Cooper]—I turned thirty. Douglas planned a birthday celebration that would also serve as a belated housewarming. But on February 5, the arctic chill that had paralysed much of Europe turned even fiercer, and for the first time in decades Castille was beautifully blanketed with a heavy fall of snow… We put the party off until Easter.

“On Easter Sunday… some of us went to the bullfight… In the course of the corrida, Picasso and Jacqueline [Roque] announced that they and the rest of their group—sixteen in all, including Picasso’s son, Paulo… and Jean Cocteau, plus entourage—would like to dine at Castille; he also announced that he had a present for us… an Ingresque drawing that had obsessed me ever since I first saw it pinned on a wall at Le Fournas: an uncompromisingly frontal image of a naked girl, legs wide apart, seated like an odalisque on a pile of cushions. It had been heavily worked. To create highlights and smudge shadows, Picasso used an eraser—a device he admitted borrowing from Matisse… I was surprised at his giving us something so personal until I realized that the gift must have been made at Jacqueline’s behest. She would have had every reason to want this erotic image removed from the studio wall: it represented one of her rivals, Geneviève Laporte. Characteristically, Picasso brought the drawing in the box that had contained the Dior wrap we had given Jacqueline for Christmas. No less characteristically, he kept the box; he liked to incorporate emballage in his work. As Picasso handed over the drawing, he said, presciently, ‘When you two split up, you’re going to have to cut it in half.’ After we broke up, Douglas simply kept it. Sadly, the drawing disappeared when Castille was burgled some years later. So far as I know, it’s still in the hands of the Mafia.” — John Richardson*

The writer, curator, collector, raconteur, art world insider, and great Picasso biographer John Richardson died in Manhattan this week. Volume IV of A Life of Picasso was nearly complete at the time of its author’s death, and should be published later this year.

*John Richardson, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 203–204.

Also see John Richardson, “Picasso: The Mediterranean Years,” in Picasso: The Mediterranean Years, 1945–1962 , exh. cat. (London: Gagosian Gallery/New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 11–45.

From top: John Richardson (left) and Pablo Picasso, photograph by André Villers (detail), courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and ADAGP, Paris; Andy Warhol, John Richardson, courtesy Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Richardson with Nan Kempner at the Met Gala, circa 1980, photograph by Patrick McMullan; Richardson (right) with Boaz Mazor, circa 1975, photograph by Bob Colacello.

PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ

Peggy Cooper Cafritz—the Washington, D.C., collector of African-American art, salonist, activist, fundraiser, co-founder of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and just-published author—died last week in the capital.

Her 2018 book FIRED UP! READY TO GO!—FINDING BEAUTY, DEMANDING EQUITY brings together images of more than 200 works of art that were lost in a 2009 house fire, as well as the art Cooper Cafritz had collected in the years since the catastrophe.

The Cooper Cafritz collection includes pieces by Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Alma Thomas, Norman Lewis, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Nick Cave, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Barkley L. Hendricks, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae WeemsNoah Davis, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Titus KapharNjideka Akunyili Crosby, and Toyin Ojih Odutola.

PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ, FIRED UP! READY TO GO!—FINDING BEAUTY, DEMANDING EQUITY: AN AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE IN ART, THE COLLECTIONS OF PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ (New York: Rizzoli , 2018).

Contributors to the book’s text include Thelma Golden, Simone Leigh, Uri McMillan, Jack ShainmanTschabalala Self.

From top: Torkwase Dyson, Strange Fruit (Blue Note), 2015, acrylic on board; Romare Bearden, Prince Cinque (Maquette), 1976, felt pen with watercolor and collage on graph paper; Jas Knight, Autumn, 2015, oil on linen; Loren Holland, The Messenger, 2005, oil on paper; Noah Davis, Black Widow, 2007, acrylic and gouache on canvas; Nina Chanel Abney, Untitled, 2012. All images © the artists, courtesy the Estate of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, and Rizzoli.