Books

For the first time since 1931, the modern art collection of Philadelphia artist and collector Earl Horter has been reassembled. This great collection included some of the greatest works by the most renowned and respected figures in Modern Art. However,...

For centuries artists and designers have recorded places, people, and life in travel sketchbooks. Over a period of fifty years, Laurie Olin, one of America’s most distinguished landscape architects, has recorded aspects of France: its cities and...

Few product designs have the staying power of creations by Dieter Rams.  Almost everything produced by the most influential designer of the twentieth century is today considered a classic. This new and revised edition...

For decades, anyone who cared about product design looked to the Braun label when choosing their appliances, radios, and other consumer items. Dieter Rams, the guiding force behind the Braun look, breaks down his design principles and processes in this...

Hold your place in any book with this wood bookmark from Homer's Two Sailboats in the museum collection. Homer's love of the sea was a rich source of themes while closely observing the fishermen, the sea, and the marine weather. Homer’s skill as a...

You won't loose your place in a book with artist Severin Roesen's Still Life with Bird's Nest  reproduced on this bookmark.  A lavish depiction of flowers is crowded with blooms from every season.  Daylilies, irises, lilacs, morning...

While it is easy to lose time when reading a good page turner, you won't loose your place with this bookmark detailing the face of a tall case clock in the museum's Early American Art collection. German-born watch- and clockmaker Frederick Dominick...

Keep your place safely marked in any book with our bookmark inspired by a painted wrought iron hasp in our Pennsylvania German collection!  This Pennsylvania German hasp with slot for locking loop would have been used to keep safe the contents of a...

Keep your place marked with this angel bookmark.  This detail from a chest of drawers in the museum's Pennsylvania German Furniture collection is found in our Early American Art Galleries.  Furniture painted with this decoration is known as...

Mark your place with Paul Revere's teapot as you enjoy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow popularized Paul Revere,  an 18th-century American activist and artisan, in "Paul Revere's Ride", a poem first published in 1861,...

Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising...

Design for Children, a must-have book for all style-conscious  and design-savvy readers, documents the evolution of design for babies, toddlers, and beyond. The book spotlights more than 450 beautiful, creative, stylish, and clever examples of...

Today, people carry powerful computers in our pockets and call them “phones.” A generation ago, people were amazed that the processing power of a mainframe computer could be contained in a beige box on a desk. This book is a celebration of...

This a great book for pencil collectors, admirers, historians, artists, writers—anyone who gets excited about the new Palomino Blackwing, the Philadelphia Museum of Art exclusive Diana pencil for example, or a perfectly sharpened No. 2...

How to Rule at Photography features 50 bite-size tips and tricks to help you improve your photo skills with your phone's camera. Creating brilliant photos with your phone isn't as hard as you might think, and the easy-to-follow advice in this book goes...

The 100 contemporary working artists included in this first volume are: 1. Dulcina Abreu 2. Ashton Agbomenou 3. Razan Al Sarraf 4. Hanna Barczyk  5. Sergio Barrios El Hase 6. Jon Bocksel 7. George Boorujy 8. Amanda  Browder 9. Scotty Brown 10...

German printmaker Kathe Kollwitz (1867–1945) is known for her unapologetic social and political imagery; her representations of grief, suffering, and struggle; and her equivocal ideas about artistic and political labels. This volume explores Kollwitz’s...

YES!! That poet and that poem!  This is a special edition of the poem "The Hill We Climb," read at the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, on January 20, 2021.On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and...

Milo is on a long subway ride with his older sister. To pass the time, he studies the faces around him and makes pictures of their lives. There’s the whiskered man with the crossword  puzzle; Milo imagines him playing solitaire in a cluttered...

From the paperclip to the Eames Lounge Chair, the hundreds of everyday  objects included in The Design Book span the last five centuries and  shape our society in indelible ways. This extraordinary collection  includes classic pieces by...

Famed sociologist, writer, and Black rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois fundamentally changed the representation of Black Americans with his exhibition of data visualizations at the 1900 Paris Exposition.  Beautiful in design and powerful in content,...

Many scholars have called Linda Nochlin’s seminal essay on women artists the first real attempt at a feminist history of art. In her revolutionary essay, Nochlin refused to answer the question of why there had been no “great women...

Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects...

At the center of the United States’ economic and social development, according to conventional wisdom, are industry, commodities, and technology—while craftspeople and handmade objects are relegated to a bygone past. Renowned craft historian Glenn...

Whirr, buzz, hum. Before busy machines in factories turned out most of what we need and use, people crafted these  items by hand. From a globe to a pie crimper, a butter churn to a rocking horse, this unique collection highlights fourteen...

Marvels of craftsmanship, beauty, and function, Joshua Vogel's hand-carved kitchenware is coveted far and wide. In The Artful Wooden Spoon, Vogel shares more than 100 gorgeous pieces from his workshop gallery, providing rich visual inspiration along with...

An unparalleled introduction to American folk art, accompanying a major traveling exhibition. A handsome and insightful survey of American folk art, this book includes paintings, sculptures, furniture, and household objects made by untrained—or...

This beautifully illustrated handbook will show you how to mend jeans, socks, sweaters, down jackets, and leggings and other common repairs. Mending Life encourages us to cherish our things by repairing them rather than discarding them. Filled with...

The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible is that rare type of book, one that is as packed with information as it is pleasing to look at. An elegant aesthetic is paired with practical tips on identifying, attracting, and caring for backyard birds, as well as...

You saw Woman in Gold, this is the perfect introduction to the man who created her. Gustave Klimt (1862-1918) was one of the most brilliant artists of the Austrian avant-garde. Admired for his sensual images of women and for his powerful and original...

The name which predominates in the development of art throughout the twentieth century is that of Pablo Picasso. Not only was he one of  the most influential artists, he was also one of the most versatile. This beautifully produced book surveys the...

Van Gogh's paintings revolutionized artistic practice and styles. The intensity  of his vision, his wonderful sense of color and the extraordinary  boldness of his technique created masterpieces that exercised a profound  influence on the...

Salvador Dalí (1904-89) was one of the most controversial and paradoxical artists of the twentieth century. He was initially influenced by Impressionism and Cubism, but  subsequently became involved with the Surrealists, the most revolutionary...

Spanning over 60 years of Jasper Johns’s (b. 1930) prolific career, this spectacular publication is the most comprehensive and definitive study of the artist’s work to date. Written by noted Johns expert Roberta Bernstein, the book explores...

One of Europe’s most influential contemporary artists, Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 1933) has persistently investigated and expanded the role of the spectator in art since the 1950s through painting, sculpture, and performance. His present...

This fully illustrated catalogue features entries on more than one  hundred significant works by artists including Stieglitz Circle painters Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Arthur Dove;  Precisionists Charles Demuth, Ralston...

Considered by many to be the founder of modern sculpture, Rodin created sculptures that would enjoy a lasting renown, including The Kiss, The Thinker, and The Burghers of Calais.  Philadelphia's own Benjamin Franklin Parkway is graced by a museum...

Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) was the last great woodblock print master of the Ukiyo-e tradition, and One Hundred Aspects of the Moon is regarded as his greatest achievement. The only complete set of the series, in the collection of the Museum of International...

The Rookwood Pottery was probably the most famous company making art pottery in the United States in the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century, achieving an international reputation and consistently promoting artistic innovation. Proud that...

For almost fifty years, Senga Nengudi has shaped an œuvre that  inhabits a specific and unique place between sculpture, dance, and  performance. And that work has been widely recognized as groundbreaking.  Her iconic R.S.V.P...

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is fortunate to have a collection of Italian drawings that encompasses a broad sweep of Italy’s art history, from the Renaissance to Futurism to the contemporary, and includes works by such famed artists as Batoni,...

This text accompanies the first museum survey of the mature work of Warren Rohrer, one of the premiere abstract artists to work in Philadelphia in the 20th century, bringing together 32 large-scale paintings from the years 1972 to 1993. This selection...

An intimate collection of Vincent van Gogh’s portraits and self- portraits—perhaps the work for which he is best known. Despite his posthumous fame as a painter of flowers, still lifes, gardens, landscapes, and city scenes, Vincent van Gogh himself...

In 1930, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired the collection of  medieval and Renaissance sculpture and decorative arts assembled by  Edmond Foulc (1828–1916). Foulc’s beautiful Paris residence was an important gathering place for...

In the late eighteenth century, mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner devised a standardized color scheme that allowed him to describe even the subtlest of chromatic differences with consistent terminology. His scheme was then adapted by an Edinburgh...

A beautifully produced book for art lovers and nature enthusiasts illuminating van Gogh’s belief that painting should “celebrate the finest qualities of nature” Vincent van Gogh felt a profound empathy with the natural environment and...

A beautifully produced gift book for gardeners and art lovers everywhere: a selection of Vincent van Gogh’s garden and flower paintings and drawings. Vincent van Gogh never owned a garden, but throughout his career he painted and drew outdoor...

Ever since his self-proclamation as part of the “New York Five,”  Richard Meier has risen through one top commission after another to the dizzy heights of architectural stardom. From Madison Square Garden to Shenzhen, China, his sleek, luminously...

Discover the audacious futurism of Zaha Hadid. As the first woman to win both the Pritzker Prize for architecture and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal,  Hadid broke the rules and re-defined the game, despite some saying her  designs were unbuildable...

Acclaimed as the “father of skyscrapers,” the quintessentially American icon Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect of aspiration. He believed in giving cultivated American life its fitting architectural equivalent and applied his idealism to structures...

Even in his unrealized projects, Le Corbusier redefined modern living, synthesizing functionalism, expressionism, and expansive urban thinking  from Switzerland to Chandigarh, India. This book provides a succinct  introduction to his...

Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a  spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color...

Never lose your page again with this bookmark that reproduces Steinlen's Le Chat Noir.  Known best for his works celebrating the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris, Steinlen included cats in many of his illustrations, and even published a book of his...

Never lose your page again with this bookmark that reproduces Monet's Water Lilies.  In 1893 Monet enlarged his gardens at Giverny by purchasing this land with a small stream and pond.  He designed the landscape himself based on Japanese prints...

Never lose your page again with this bookmark that reproduces van Gogh's Irises. Van Gogh carefully studied the irises.  Each flower s unique as he carefully studied them creating a variety of curved silhouettes bounded by wavy, twisting, and...

Never lose your page again with this bookmark that reproduces Hokusai's Under the Wave, off Kanagawa. Hokusai was one of the most renowned Japanese ukiyo-e artists.  It is Hokusai's most famous work and is often considered the most recognizable work...

From majestic desertscapes to magnified lilies and irises, survey the unique and luminous oeuvre of Georgia O’Keeffe, a seminal figure in modern American art and radical pioneer of abstraction. This book  follows the artist through her pioneering...

Shimmering, pulsating color masses characterize the Abstract Expressionist masterpieces of Mark Rothko. Like no other artist in his generation, Rothko developed his own stylistic vocabulary, creating ceiling-high canvases that were to be experienced as...

Painter, and Marxist activist, Diego Rivera was not just the husband of Frida Kahlo.  He is renowned as much for his active politics as for his monumental mural paintings. This introduction explores his unique and visionary renderings of a modern...

Few artists tried as hard as Claude Monet (1840–1926) to capture light itself on canvas. The painter of whom Cézanne said “only  an eye, but my God what an eye!” he stayed true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting...

It was a dappled and daubed harbor scene that gave Impressionism its  name. When Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was exhibited in April  1874, critics seized upon the work’s title and its loose stylistic rendering of light and motion...

Artist and prominent early American Charles Willson Peale  (1741-1827) willed his passions to his equally remarkable children, nieces, and nephew. This engaging pictorial study reveals in-depth these two generations of artists, naturalists, and...

The Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon with no Western equivalent,  one where breathtaking landscapes exist alongside blush-inducing  erotica; where demons and otherworldly creatures torment the living; and  where sumo wrestlers,...

In 1919, the state art school in Weimar was reopened as the Bauhaus,  under the direction of Walter Gropius and with a radical new teaching  approach. Four years later, the first Bauhaus exhibition was held,  presenting the school’s novel...

How can a broken artifact represent a city? The Liberty Bell cracked on the very first attempt to make it sound, and had to be recast twice and remolded with additional copper to improve its alloy. Today, it hangs in  Independence Hall, where it...

Flamboyant man-about-town, Oscar Wilde had a reputation that preceded him, especially in his early career. Known primarily for his plays and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray , it sometimes comes as a surprise to people that he wrote fairy tales...

The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums encompasses over 2,500 of the world’s rarest pigments. Museum director Edward Forbes started the collection at the turn of the 20th century, in order to preserve...

The beloved classic fantasy adventure PETER PAN has been adapted countless times for film, stage, and spin-offs -- but it's never been seen as depicted by the  brushwork of celebrated Belgian cartoonist Brecht Evens. This  elaborately...

Wit, wisdom, and willfulness abound on page after page of this vibrant anthology. A great pick for mid-century architecture, design, and lifestyle fans. Includes a brilliant range of well-known women and those who certainly should be. Discover Edith...

Children Draw is a concise, richly illustrated book, aimed at parents, teachers, and caretakers, that explores why children draw and the meaning and value of drawing for youngsters—from toddlers to pre-adolescents.  It offers parents tips...

The traditional “knight in shining armor” has become a staple figure in popular culture and the images of bloody battlefields, bustling feasting halls, and courtly tournaments have been creatively interpreted many times in film and fiction...

Meet Vincent van Gogh, one of the most famed tragic figures of 19th‑century art. This lush tome collects all his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work of a master who continues to tower over art. Today, the works of...

If anyone can teach readers how to pursue the life and work of an artist, it is the twenty-two amazing artists included in Truth Bomb.This colorful compilation of pioneering and established women artists from around the world motivates and empowers...

The most comprehensive and best-illustrated history of watercolor painting ever published! As an artistic medium, watercolor is so widely practiced, and so  widely beloved, that it can be startling to reflect on its humble origins. For hundreds of...

Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political discontent. From the earliest broadsheets in the 1500s to engravings, photo-lithographs, prints, posters, murals, graffiti, and political...

Inspired by modern masters, Use This if You Want to Be Great at Drawing is a playful introduction to contemporary drawing styles, techniques, and ideas. This sketchbook features thought-provoking prompts and eye-popping illustrations to sharpen your...

In a compact, reader-friendly format, this volume traces a spectacular history of queer life and creativity in the modern age. It traces the rich visual legacy of art's relationship to Queer culture, from the emergence of homosexuality as an identity in...

While it is considered by many artists to be a pure and simplistic form of expression, abstract art is also often thought of as vague or exceedingly theoretical. This new installment in the Art Essentials  series demystifies the concept and history...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir put people into the center of his painting. His compositions showed people embracing the pleasures of life, dancing, and  enjoying outings in Paris. He created special atmospheres full of  summer warmth and lightness,...

Street art is a phenomenon and subculture movement that reaches from the darkest urban backstreets to the most glamorous international art  fairs. Despite having earned a place in the canon of twentieth-century  art history, its qualifications...

It is often forgotten just how provocative and unsettling impressionist canvases seemed when they were first exhibited in 1874. Critics,  professional artists, and gallery visitors alike were shocked to  encounter the unorthodox paintings on...

Pop Art refers to a post-war movement connecting art with  popular culture. Billboard signs, comic books, and movie stars were just  some of the subjects chosen by pop artists, such as Andy Warhol, Roy  Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and...

Active from the late 1700s through the early twentieth century, the Peale family was America’s first artistic dynasty. This overview of the art of the Peales presents more than 160 works in a variety of media from the renowned collection of the...

Modern Art guides the reader through individual movements  from Impressionism to Conceptual Art, situated within five broader  chronological eras. Starting with Impressionism in 1860, art historian  Amy Dempsey explains the essentials of...

Looking at pictures can be an exciting or moving experience, but some pictures—often the most rewarding—require some explanation before they can be fully understood. Delving into the origins, designs, and themes  of over one hundred...

Take an intimate promenade through Paris with some 500 images from Eugène Atget. Down main streets and side streets, through courtyards, arcades, and the city’s 20 arrondissements, we find a unique portrait of a beloved city and the making...

The Story of Art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written, has been a world bestseller for over half a century.  Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor...

Surrealism was launched as a literary and artistic movement by French  poet Andre Breton in 1924, and by the time of his death in 1966 it had  become one of the most popular and recognizable art movements of the  twentieth century...

Iconography, or the study of symbols—be they animals, artifacts, plants,  geometric shapes, or gestures—is an essential aspect of interpreting  art. One of the most consistent features of human society throughout  time has been the use of...

Art lovers can list history’s most important art objects, but what many  don’t know are the dramatic, funny, and sometimes bizarre stories behind  these most famous works. Spanning the last 500 years of art history,  this book revisits...

A tool to bring sanity to our most intense technological relationship. The dark truth is that it has become very hard to find anyone (and certainly anything) more interesting than one’s smartphone. This perplexing and troubling realization has for most...

Our lives are filled with objects. Everyday things used in everyday settings, they are our constant companions. As such, writes Soetsu Yanagi, they should be made with care and built to last, treated with respect and even affection. They should be...

This comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of Louise and Walter Arensberg’s groundbreaking collection of modern and pre-Columbian art takes readers room by room, wall by wall, object by object through the couple’s Los Angeles home...

One of our customer favorites, Drawn from Life is finally back in print! This ideally shaped and sized book offers bite-size lessons that will help anyone master the classic practice of life drawing. Over 100 pieces of art by contemporary artists...

This book accompanied an exhibition of the same name held at the  Philadelphia Museum of Art upon the completion of conservation of  Pontormo's famous portrait of Duke Alessandro de' Medici. Centering on that painting and Agnolo Bronzino's...

In a monumental oeuvre spanning more than forty years, Penone has  explored and expanded our understanding of what constitutes sculpture  through the interplay between the human body, nature, and art. His work  represents a poetic...

The  contemporary art world has been challenged and invigorated by outsider  art--works by self-taught practitioners who, by definition, have little  to do with mainstream art production, but are nonetheless actively  engaged with the...

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the  universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a  connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a  history of seekers, but our...

James Castle (1899-1977) was an American artist who found inspiration in  the detritus of everyday life, primarily in the materials he collected  from his family’s home such as envelopes, packaging, advertisements and  matchbooks. Working...

"Our Philadelphia, as is all our history, is made of these moments:  photographs and stories. And in our effort to find and delineate these  moments we also recognized that we approached a sense of place. Circling  ever closer to a shared...