Monographs

Intricate patterns and mind-boggling graphics are trademarks of the fascinating creations of M.C. Escher.  Mysterious and mathematical at once, the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) has captivated scientists and scholars...

“A woman once rang me up and said, ‘Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles, you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.’ I replied, ‘Madame, if that’s the way you see it, so be it.’” A fittingly sly...

A unique look into the life and art of Sean Scully, an internationally celebrated artist and creative practitioner at the height of his powers. Sean Scully’s paintings of brushy stripes and blocks of sumptuous color are critically acclaimed and widely...

Edward Hicks (1780–1849) was the creator of one of the most familiar scenes in American art: the Peaceable Kingdom, which depicts a realm where wild and flesh-eating animals come together with defenseless creatures, and will not harm them. Because Hicks...

The catalogue for the exhibition at Punta della Dogana.  The show in Venice will present two major works jointly owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pinault Collection (Contrapposto Studies, I through VII from 2015/2016 and Walks In Walks...

Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Kruger (born 1945) has been interrogating  consumer culture in works that often combine visual and written language. In her singular graphic style, Kruger probes aspects of identity, desire and consumerism that are...

An  intimate look at the life and career of the Dada hero known for the  unique joy of her work across mediums, authored by her great-niece and  buttressed with archival material.  Even when  performing at Zurich’s Cabaret...

Revolutionizing abstract painting with his grid systems of intersecting bands and lines, Sean Scully is widely regarded as the master of post-minimalist abstraction. In this retrospective exhibition, Scully revisits his early works from 1969 to 1974. It...

Faith Ringgold is a critically acclaimed and key figure of postwar American art, whose unique methods of visual storytelling have documented and advanced art historical, feminist, and civil rights  movements for more than half a century...

Until the early 2000s, little had been written about eye miniatures or  “Lover's Eyes”, and their short-lived popularity at the end of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries, when hand-painted portraits  of single human eyes were set in...

 Afro-Atlantic Histories brings together a selection of more than 400 works and documents by more than 200 artists from the 16th to the 21st centuries that express and analyze the ebbs and flows between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe...

From soft watches to burning giraffes, this book celebrates the fantastical world and flamboyant personality of Salvador Dalí, one of  the most visionary and prolific artists of the 20th century.  Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and...

Sophie  Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) was an artist but also a dancer, designer, puppet maker, architect, and editor. A true pioneer of modern art, for Taeuber-Arp, abstraction was never just an idea—it was her way of life.  This lived abstraction...

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) was a radical sculptor whose unorthodox approach to multiplication, assemblage, industrial production, and serial repetition challenged classical sculptural traditions and provided a definitive break in the history of art...

One of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century, Alice Neel's vibrant, expressionistic paintings revealed a breath-taking depth of emotion within her subjects. From works exploring loss and grief, to communist political art, Neel's work pushed...

One of the key figures in Mexican revolutionary modern art, she was also a pioneer of the politics of gender, sexuality, and feminism. This XXL monograph combines all of Kahlo's 152 paintings with rarely seen.. Among the few women artists who have...

Marcel Duchamp, the artist’s first legendary monograph and draft catalogue raisonné, was written by art historian and novelist Robert  Lebel and published in French in 1959; later that same year, it was  translated into English by George Heard...

In 1939, the year before his death from a long illness and against a  backdrop of sociopolitical turmoil and the outbreak of World War II, Klee worked with a vigor and inventiveness that rivaled even the most productive periods of his youth. This...

Friedlander's social landscape is a who's who of postwar American photography.  In the 1960s and '70s, Lee Friedlander (born 1934) developed his signature  approach to documenting the American “social landscape”: deadpan,...

Street  photography may look like luck, but you have to get out there and hone your craft if you want to shake up those luck vibes. Matt Stuart never goes out without his trusty Leica and, in a career spanning twenty years, has taken some of the...

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Emma Amos (1937 – 2020) was a distinguished painter and printmaker. She is best known for her bold and colorful mixed-media paintings that create visual tapestries in which she examines the intersection of race, class,...

A wide-ranging retrospective that reveals a master printer’s own photographs to be technically brilliant work of remarkable breadth and complexity.This book presents the first in-depth survey of photographs by Richard Benson (1943–2017), who...

A revised edition of the classic little book, which has over 500,000  copies in print. New material and illustrations make the book even more  accessible to readers who are interested in mindfulness, in seizing the moment, in staying steady in...

Philadelphia—where more than three centuries of history come alive—is not one but several cities and you can experience all of them if you know where to look. Tucked amid the glass-and-steel skyscrapers stand the brick-and-mortar buildings of the...

In the fascinating Encyclopedia of Witchcraft folklore expert Judika Illes introduces readers to the mystical world of witchcraft.  Here are mythic witches, modern witches, sacred goddess witches, even  demon witches, male and female witches,...

For serious readers and dabblers alike, the acclaimed author of the Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells offers the essential book for working with supernatural beings. Spirits permeate every corner of our culture, and the Encyclopedia of Spirits explains who...

Once dismissed as a rusting industrial has-been—the “Next  Detroit”—Philadelphia has enjoyed an astonishing comeback in the 21st century. Over the past two decades, Inga Saffron has served as the  premier chronicler of the city’s physical...

Bringing together all the greats—from Air Jordan 1 to Air Presto—Nike  and Virgil Abloh reinvent sneaker culture with the collaborative project  The Ten and redesign 10 sneaker icons. Experience engineering ingenuity and Abloh’s investigative...

AMC's Best Day Hikes Near Philadelphia offers 50 of the region's best hikes for all levels. Ideal for families, tourists, and locals alike, this easy-to-use guide will help hikers explore Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware year-round, from...

Polaroid Now celebrates new work created by contemporary artists working with Polaroid cameras and film today, and discusses the history, and evolution of the first instant imaging camera system that became a household name.This curated selection of...

From Paris to L.A., London to Bergen, Sao Paulo to Vienna, and many more, no one has quite captured the strangeness, heroism, frustration or surreal quality of the coronavirus pandemic quite like the world's street artists. This brilliant compact volume...

In 1917, the newly formed Society of Independent Artists received an unusual submission for its inaugural exhibit in New York: a porcelain urinal signed with the name “R. Mutt.” The Society’s board members  agreed to accept it into the exhibition,...

With special emphasis on Berks and Lehigh Counties, PA, this groundbreaking work is an unparalleled presentation of the area's most publically-acclaimed regional folk art, known as Hex Signs or Barn Stars. This valuable collection offers the rare...

This third and expanded 25th Anniversary Edition is a classic sampling of Don Yoder’s massive body of work in folklife studies. The essays cover folk religion, folk medicine, sectarian costume, traditional cookery, and the folklife of the Pennsylvania...

In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century. Funny Weather brings together a career’s...

This American art form has long been an enduring  part of the country’s skylines. Early church steeples were graced with weathercocks, following a European tradition that dates to the MiddleAges. America’s first documented vane maker,...

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in...

This series of paintings seamlessly fuses contemporary basketball  imagery with Edo-period Japanese art and culture, with captivating results. Each image riffs on a classic Japanese painting or subject, adding a surprisingly weighty visual twist as...

Through eye-popping colors and simple forms, rejoice in the restless creativity and infectious energy of Henri Matisse, the artist who never stopped making art, and whose vivid palette gave nudes, landscapes, and interior views a whole new modernity...

Most commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, the body in motion, and...

For Marc Chagall (1887–1985), painting was an intricate tapestry of dreams, tales, and traditions. His instantly recognizable visual language carved out a unique early 20th-century niche, often identified as one of the earliest expressions of psychic...

Jasper Johns (b. 1930) is one of the most influential artists living today . Over the past 65 years, he has produced a radical and varied body of work marked by constant reinvention. Inspired by the artist’s long-standing fascination with mirroring and...

With the amount of progress humankind has made in attitudes and achievements to-date, the time cannot be more apt than now to celebrate how far women have come in the creative industry today. DESIGN(H)ERS is a stunning showcase of up-and-coming talent...

Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America is an urgent call for architects to accept the challenge of reconceiving and reconstructing our built environment rather than continue giving shape to buildings, infrastructure and urban plans that...

For more than five decades, Lee Friedlander has repeatedly been drawn to the signs that inscribe the American landscape, from hand-lettered ads  to storefront windows to massive billboards. Incorporating these markings with precision and sly humor,...

Extra Bold is the inclusive, practical, and informative career handbook for designers that we've all been waiting for. Written collaboratively by a diverse team of authors, the book opens with critical essays that rethink design principles and practices...

The 'Masters of Photography' series is a new approach to photography how-to. Each volume is dedicated to the work of one key photographer who, through a series of bite-sized lessons and ideas, tells you everything you always wanted to know about their...

This collection charts the history of poster design, from the time when paper was first affordable in the 18th century, through developments in print technology, to the more subtle visual communication of the 21st century. Along the way, it showcases the...

Good design, like good storytelling, brings ideas to life. The latest book from award-winning writer Ellen Lupton is a playbook for creative thinking, showing designers how to use storytelling techniques to create satisfying graphics, products, services...

Here, from Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger, is the first full-fledged critical biography of Frank Gehry, undoubtedly the most famous architect of our time. Goldberger follows Gehry from his humble  origins—the son of working-class...

Inspiring Young Minds to Love and Enjoy Art Everyone tells children that art matters— but the truth is that very often it's hard to know why it really does. Museum visits can feel like a chore as does having to learn the names of the big artists we're...

Offers a unique personal perspective on the journey of collecting American art and antiques Start with House, Finish with a Collection is the story of how a couple's use of American art and antiques evolved  from furnishing a house into a full-blown...

Throughout his life, the visionary artist Édouard Manet (1832–1883)  strove to leave behind the conventions of painting of his time.  Genre paintings, maritime landscapes, still lifes or portraits – for Manet, painting has always been the...

A mother stitches a few lines of prayer into a bedcover for her son serving in the Union army during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved  African American woman creates a quilt populated by Biblical figures  alongside celestial events. A quilted...

The allure of color is time honored and undeniable, but its inspired use in product design is a relatively new development. More than a century ago the Bauhaus movement changed the use of color in design. After World War II, pigment-imbued molded...

Milton Glaser: Graphic Design, perhaps the most famous book of its kind, explores the early decades of America’s pre-eminent graphic artist. Glaser’s work ranges from the psychedelic Bob Dylan poster to book and record covers; from store and restaurant...

From legendary classics to anonymous objects that are indispensable in homes and offices, this one-of-a-kind collection of original patent documents celebrates the creative genius of designers, inventors, creators, innovators, and dreamers the world over...

English joiner John Head (1688–1754) immigrated to Philadelphia in 1717 and became one of its most successful artisans and merchants. However, his prominence was lost to history until the author’s discovery of his account book among papers at the...

What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?  That was the question posed by the curators, artists, scholars, and students who comprise the Philadelphia-based public art and history studio Monument Lab. And in 2017, along...

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...

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...

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...

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...