Books by Joanna Ebenstein
Walter Potter's Curious World of Taxidermy
by Pat Morris, Joanna Ebenstein
Welcome to Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter’s fantasy world of rabbit schoolchildren, cigar-smoking squirrels and exemplary feline etiquette in Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy…
Walter Potter (1835–1918), a British country taxidermist of no great expertise, built anthropomorphic taxidermy tableaux that became famous icons of Victorian whimsy, including his masterpiece The Death & Burial of Cock Robin. His tiny museum in Bramber, Sussex, was crammed full of multi-legged kittens, two-headed lambs, and a bewildering assortment of curios. Potter’s inspired and beguiling tableaux found many fans in the contemporary art world: it was reported that a £1M bid by Damien Hirst to keep the collection intact was refused when the museum finally closed. Here, perhaps for the last time, many important pieces from the collection are showcased and celebrated with new photographs of Potter’s best-loved works. Darkly witty and affecting, Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy makes a charming, whimsical (and yes, slightly morbid) gift.
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Death: A Graveside Companion: A Graveside Companion
The ultimate death compendium, featuring the world’s most extraordinary artistic objects concerned with mortality, together with text by expert contributors.
Death is an inevitable fact of life. Throughout the centuries, humanity has sought to understand this sobering thought through art and ritual. The theme of memento mori informs medieval Danse Macabre, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Renaissance paintings of dissected corpses and "anatomical Eves," Gothic literature, funeral effigies, Halloween, and paintings of the Last Judgment. Deceased ancestors are celebrated in the Mexican Day of the Dead, while the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead to secure their afterlife.
A volume of unprecedented breadth and sinister beauty, Death: A Graveside Companion examines a staggering range of cultural attitudes toward death. The book is organized into themed chapters: The Art of Dying, Examining the Dead, Memorializing the Dead, The Personification of Death, Symbolizing Death, Death as Amusement, and The Dead After Life. Each chapter begins with thought-provoking articles by curators, academics, and journalists followed by gallery spreads presenting a breathtaking variety of death-related imagery and artifacts. From skulls to the dance of death, statuettes to ex libris, memento mori to memorabilia, the majority of the images are of artifacts in the astonishing collection of Richard Harris and range from 2000 BCE to the present day, running the gamut of both high and popular culture.
Essays:
Death in Ancient and Present-Day Mexico, Eva Aridjis
The Power of Hair as Human Relic in Mourning Jewelry, Karen Bachmann
Medusa and the Power of the Severed Head, Laetitia Barbier
Anatomical Expressionism, Eleanor Crook
Poe and the Pathological Sublime, Mark Dery
Eros and Thanatos, Lisa Downing
Death-Themed Amusements, Joanna Ebenstein
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Bruce Goldfarb
Theatre, Death and the Grand Guignol, Mel Gordon, Holy Spiritualism, Elizabeth Harper
Playing dead – A Gruesome Form of Amusement, Mervyn Heard
The Anatomy of Holy Transformation, Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca
Collecting Death, Evan Michelson, Art and Afterlife: Ethel le Rossignol and Georgiana Houghton, Mark Pilkington
The Dance of Death, Kevin Pyle, Art
Science and the Changing Conventions of Anatomical Representation, Michael Sappol
Spiritualism and Photography, Shannon Taggart
Playing with Dead Faces, John Troyer
Anatomy Embellished in the Cabinet of Frederik Ruysch, Bert van de Roemer 900 illustrations in color and black and white
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Memento Mori The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life
A transformative guide to embrace your own mortality and live a more fulfilling life
Talking about death has been deemed morbid, taboo, or even pathological. But in order to fully embrace life, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders all agree—contemplating death is the key to living a life with meaning.
This life-changing book will give you a 12 week program to befriend death in your own way, creating your own personal, daily meditation on what it means to be mortal. Through personal anecdotes, historical examples, meditations, exercises, journal prompts, and reflections, you will learn to both come to terms with what death means and to live alongside it without fear. In doing so, you will see your own life in a new light and discover what makes life worth living. After all, there’s no better motivation to seize the day than a regular reminder that your days are numbered.
Whether you're struggling with anxiety, grieving a loved one, or seeking a greater sense of purpose, Memento Mori is an invaluable guide to living a life of greater meaning and joy.
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