Monographs

Frans Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters in history, and his style transformed ideas and expectations about what portraiture can do and what a painting should look like. Hals was a member of the great trifecta of Dutch Baroque painters...

'Sometimes I long so much to do landscape, just as one would for a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul.' Vincent van Gogh saw nature and art as inseparably linked. In The Healing Power...

With Vladimir Kagan’s death in 2016, the world of design lost one of its most celebrated practitioners. Pointed Leaf Press is honored to be reissuing, in its third edition: Vladimir Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant Garde Design. The new book, in addition to...

American Surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) worked across painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation and writing over the course of seven decades, producing one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic oeuvres. Tanning’s work conjures...

The first book to feature Jacob Lawrence’s Nigeria series, this richly illustrated volume also highlights Africa’s place as a global center of modernist art and culture. This revelatory book shines a light on the understudied but important influence of...

Bringing together a range of unconventional painted supports and found-object sculptures, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art and Objecthood provides an innovative, in-depth look into the artist’s sculptural practice. In addition to painting and drawing on...

This XL edition traces the extraordinary depth and breadth of Michelangelo’s work and his ascent to the elite of the Renaissance and art history. Ten richly illustrated chapters cover the artist’s paintings, sculptures, and architecture, with special...

A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train. More than 365 images chart Smith’s singular aesthetic -- inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. In 2018, without any...

In 1860, at the age of twenty-four, Winslow Homer (1836–1910) sold Harper’s Weekly two dozen wood engravings, carved into boxwood blocks and transferred to  metal plates to stamp on paper. One was a scene that Homer saw on a  visit...

The definitive volume on the ever-evolving and shape-shifting work of the Chicago-based artist, Nick Cave: Forothermore highlights the way Cave’s practice has shifted and continues to shift in response to our history and current moment of cultural crisis...

This book provides a material and social history of the art of Giuseppe Penone, a leading protagonist of Arte Povera, whose work explores the interconnectedness of humans and the phenomenal world. Can a work of art help us know our world differently? In...

Henri Matisse is one of the masters of twentieth-century art and a household word to millions of people who find joy and meaning in his light-filled, colorful images--yet, despite all the books devoted to his work, the man himself has remained a mystery...

“If my story were ever to be written down truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone,” wrote Henri Matisse. It is hard to believe today that Matisse, whose exhibitions draw huge crowds worldwide, was once almost universally reviled and...

These stories celebrate the eye even as they reveal its unexpected proximity to the heart. For if each of A.S. Byatt's narratives is in some way inspired by a painting of Henri Matisse, each is also about the intimate connection between seeing and...

Between 1935 and his death at midcentury, Henri Matisse (1869–1954) undertook many decorative projects and commissions. These include mural paintings, stained glass, ceramic tiles, lead crystal pieces, carpets, tapestries, fashion fabrics, and...

From his earliest pointillist-influenced paintings to this mature and playful paper cut-outs; from enormous, ebullient murals to reverent stained glass--Henri Matisse was renowned for his dramatic use of color and fluid draftsmanship. Thirty of Matisse's...

Mina Loy was born in London in 1882, became American, and lived  variously in New York, Europe, and finally, Aspen until she died in  1966. Flamboyant and unapologetically avant-garde, she was a poet,  painter, novelist, essayist,...

A fresh perspective on the influential critic, offering new ways of understanding the art of the Harlem Renaissance. Alain Locke (1885-1954), leading theorist of the Harlem Renaissance, maintained a lifelong commitment to the visual arts. Offering an...

Discover one of the most admired artists in history: Johannes Vermeer. Complete with crisp reproductions, details, and insightful essays, this monograph spans his entire repertoire, illuminating the artist’s outstanding ability not only to bear witness...

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...

Ringgold's most formative and influential political works are gathered in this beautifully designed clothbound volume. Alongside reproductions of key works made between 1967 and 1981, Faith Ringgold: Politics / Power provides an overview of Ringgold's...

Pettibon is known for his characteristically enigmatic aesthetic and sharply satirical critiques of American culture. Though drenched in cynicism, his work empathizes with the dizzying madness of our own humanity as it engages both so-called high and low...

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...

Pioneering Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander is one of the most influential artists working today. Sikander is widely celebrated for expanding and subverting miniature painting to explore gender roles and sexuality, cultural identity, racial...

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...

An exploration of nineteenth-century American landscape painter Thomas Cole and the influential role of his studio for other artists of the Hudson River School. In December 1846, Thomas Cole excitedly began work in his new studio, but his early death...

Presenting recently rediscovered drawings, Life and Death explores what it means for an artist to picture their own death, in both the context of Wyeth’s late career and contemporary American art. This volume presents for the first time a recently...

A groundbreaking insight into Gustave Courbet and his bold experiments in landscape painting. Between 1862 and 1866 Gustave Courbet embarked on a series of sensuous landscape paintings that would later inspire the likes of Monet, Pissarro, and Cézanne...

Traces the evolution of Matisse’s work on paper, from experimental beginnings to the artist’s instantly recognizable mature style. An internationally recognized expert in the European tradition of draughtsmanship, Christopher Lloyd offers rare insights...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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, metalsmith...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 Ticonderoga ...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...