Illustrated celebration of the ocean announced

Ocean: Exploring the Marine World

A brand new richly illustrated celebration of the world’s oceans and seas, developed in consultation with an international panel of experts including the National Oceanography Centre’s (NOC) Dr Tammy Horton, is now available for pre-order.

Ocean: Exploring the Marine World presents a remarkable survey of the aquatic kingdom, from the ancient world to the present, through the lens of culture. Featuring 315 spectacular images spanning more than 3,000 years, Ocean features fantastical prints of sea creatures, vintage movie posters, paintings and sculptures from classic and contemporary artists as well as maps, scientific illustrations and incredible underwater photography. The book takes readers on a journey across continents and cultures to discover the endless ways artists and imagemakers have found inspiration in the marine world throughout history.

The selection of works presented in Ocean was developed in consultation with an international panel of research scientists, marine biologists, conservationists, artists and photographers, museum curators and experts from organisations including the Wildlife Conservation Society and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Other consultants include Anne-Marie Melster, Cofounder and Executive Director of ARTPORT making waves (GER); Doug Allan, wildlife and documentary cameraman (UK); Noah Chesnin, Associate Director of the New York Seascape Program (US); David Doubilet, award-winning underwater photographer (US); Dr Carsten Lüter, Curator at the Leibniz Institute for Evolutionary and Biodiversity Research (GER); and Dr Tammy Horton, research scientist at the NOC.

Featured artists and creators included in Ocean range from the renowned to the unexpected, and span centuries. They include: Eileen Agar, Mary Anning, Carl Chun, Jacques Cousteau, David Doubilet, Sylvia Earle, Ernst Haeckel, Damien Hirst, Eames, David Hockney, Katsushika Hokusai, Yayoi Kusama, Greg Lecoeur, Claude Monet, NASA, Georgia O’Keeffe, Catherine Opie, Vincent van Gogh and many more.

As international curator and art critic Anne-Marie Melster notes in the book’s introduction, the sequence of visual entries has been carefully curated to reveal interesting juxtapositions. Each image is accompanied by a short and accessible text expanding on the work, its creator and the significance to our world’s oceans. The book also includes an illustrated timeline of the ocean, from its beginning 4.6 billion years ago to the present day; a detailed graph of ocean zones; and a comprehensive glossary of key terms. Ocean, Exploring the Marine World Phaidon Editors, with an introduction by Anne-Marie Melster

Readers will discover striking, full-page images of prehistoric marine creatures and fossils, mysterious flora and fauna and mythical creatures of the deep. They will explore the diverse groups of fish and coral on the Great Barrier Reef, jellyfish from the deepest location on Earth, and life in the polar waters of the Arctic and Antarctic, while also learning about the dangers facing our planet’s oceans due to climate change activity, and the dedicated efforts of contemporary conservationists. Spanning epochs and mediums - from painting and sculpture, to jewellery and textiles - and purposes ranging from the religious, political, and decorative to the scientific and educational, the entries in Ocean create a visual journey that together reveal a deeper understanding of the marine world. The book illustrates Sylvia Earle’s observation: ‘Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea’.

Learn more about the book “Ocean: Exploring the Marine World”