Books published by Prestel Verlag

Now available in a new, large single volume with an appendix also listing the modern plant names, this classic collection by "the Audubon of botany" features more than 250 exquisite reproductions of Walcott's celebrated watercolors of wildflower life in the United States of America and Canada. What does it take to paint a wildflower that blooms for a single day in a deep forest? For Mary Vaux Walcott, it involved spending up to seventeen hours a day out of doors with her paintbox to capture the shape, movement, and colors of delicate petals and leaves. Originally published in 1925 to enormous acclaim in five, oversized volumes, Walcott's sketches introduced the diversity and beauty of North American plants to the general public. A selection of some of the most stunning illustrations are now available in a single volume, these illustrations have lost none of their beauty or realism. Walcott's technique involved precise attention to detail, color, light, and perspective. Her art can also be appreciated as the work of a woman scientist battling the prejudices against her gender that were common in her day. She was an intrepid explorer, skilled mountaineer, and generous benefactor to the Smithsonian Institution at a time when women's accomplishments were often overlooked or misattributed. As inspirational and informative as they are a pleasure for the eyes, this bouquet of nature's fleeting gifts is a lasting treasure of botanic and scientific artistry. Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution

This collection of striking color images from the American West is both a moving national portrait as well as a celebration of analog color photography from an undisputed genius of the form. The photographer behind Life magazine's first ever all-color photographic essay, Ernst Haas made-and captured-history as an early adapter of Kodachrome film. The Austrian-born artist had already established himself as a black and white photographer when he moved to America in 1951. But as a member of the renowned Magnum agency, he transformed the genre with his color-saturated images, the perfect medium for capturing America's geographic and cultural landscapes. From desert storms, Route 66 gas stations, and Las Vegas neon to rolling prairie, dilapidated farms, small-town parades, and city sidewalks, Haas' perfectly composed images, contain a distinct pictorial language, suffused with poetry, pattern, and light. At the same time his pictures communicate a journalist's point of view, whether the subject is rural poverty, suburban comfort, or the myth of the American West. The remarkable book offers a vision of America that feels both poignantly distant and reassuringly familiar.