Genre

In recent years, a young and active queer photography scene has emerged,  helped in large part by social media. Indulging their desire for self-presentation, affirmation, and reflection, many photographers  portray male homosexuality in...

A world without plants is a world without life, both literally and figuratively. Besides forming the very basis of human survival on Earth, they are also an important source of creative inspiration, ingenuity, and expression. From scientific explorers...

While birth often brings great joy, making babies  is a knotty enterprise. The designed objects that surround us when it  comes to menstruation, birth control, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood vary as oddly, messily, and...

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...

Edited by H. Richard Dietrich III and Deborah M. Rebuck with contributions by David L. Barquist, Edward S. Cooke Jr., Michael P. Dyer, Kathleen A. Foster, Morrison H. Heckscher, Philip C. Mead, Lisa Minardi, Deborah M. Rebuck, and William S. Reese This...

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...

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...

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...

Bruno Munari was among the most inspirational designers of all time, described by Picasso as “the new Leonardo.”  Munari insisted that design be beautiful, functional and accessible, and this enlightening and highly entertaining book sets out his...

As much as skills and styles matter when it comes to design, every visual begins with a fundamental element that can be enhanced or expanded into an aesthetically pleasing and meaningful piece of work.  Whether they serve as simple points of focus...

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...

Native America is a special issue about photography and Indigenous lives, guest edited by the artist Wendy Red Star. As debates around nationalism and borders in North America reach a fever pitch, Aperture magazine releases “Native America,” a special...

In the wake of a pandemic, global protest movements, and a dramatic presidential election in the United States, Aperture magazine’s new issue, “Utopia,” shows that other ways of living are possible—when the collective will exists. In “Utopia,” artists,...

Communication Arts Typography Annual 11 features the award-winning projects from their 11th Annual Typography Competition, plus in-depth profiles of Prague-based photographer Bet Orten, Portland, Oregon–based design firm OMFGCO, Brooklyn-based...

A 60 page Philadelphia inspired almanac alternative highlighting the lesser-known locations and activities the city has to offer that are typically left out of popular travel guides.  Other than the monthly calendar and astrology pages, the unique...

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,...

Understand how graphic design works and develop your visual sensibility through puzzles and activities!An entertaining and highly original introduction to graphic design, the Graphic Design Play Book uses puzzles and visual challenges to demonstrate how...

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...

Originally published in 1971, A Documentary HerStory of Women Artists in Revolution documents the efforts of W.A.R., a loose group of women artists,  filmmakers, writers and cultural workers organized around advancing the place of women in the art...

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...

Cameraless Photography presents a concise historical overview of photographic images created independently of a camera. It surveys the corresponding techniques—including photograms, chemigrams, luminograms, dye destruction prints, and...

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...

Hans Ulrich Obrist has been conducting ongoing conversations with the world's greatest living artists since he began in Switzerland, aged 19, with Fischli and Weiss. Here he chooses 19 of the greatest figures and presents their conversations, offering...

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...

Featuring more than 100 profiles of pioneering women designers, some who have achieved global recognition such as Ray Eames, Charlotte Perriand and Zaha Hadid, it also introduces the fascinating and often untold stories of lesser–known designers,...

This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and...

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...

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...

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...

To create his award-winning multicolored typefaces, Mark van Wageningen first returned to the past for his research: wood-type printing. His subsequent form and color studies led to a series of popular digital typefaces and awards for typographic...

It takes a very inclusive anthology to encompass the protean personality and range of interests of Benjamin Franklin, but The Portable Benjamin Franklin  succeeds as no collection has. In addition to the complete Autobiography, the volume contains...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was the first female representative of Impressionism. Her early works are mostly watercolors and pastels, but she later progressed to oils.  She developed a technique of transcribing her drawings onto her canvases and then...

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...

Throughout history, artists, scientists, and philosophers have attempted to explain and order the visible color spectrum. Color: A Visual History from Newton to Modern Color Matching Guides  offers the fascinating history of how color has been...

In the rural community of Gee’s Bend, African American women have been making quilts for generations. They use scraps of old overalls, aprons, and bleached cornmeal sacks—anything they can find. Their traditions have been passed down through...

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...

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...

More than 300 photographs by Lewis W. Hine, whose trailblazing documentary images of early 20th-century working conditions helped to transform United States labor laws.  This book covers all eras of Hine’s work, including his pictures of  child...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s David Lebe (b. 1948) pushed the boundaries of photography, creating nuanced and visually complex images using innovative techniques. Often enhancing his prints with hand-coloring, Lebe made experimental pinhole photographs,...

American Furniture, 1650–1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the first publication dedicated to one of the finest collections of its type in the country. Best known for furniture by artisans from Philadelphia and southeastern...

The publication will feature new, unpublished material related to the concept, filming, post-production, and installation of a new work by artist Rachel Rose (American, b. 1986). This new work, jointly commissioned and acquired by the Philadelphia Museum...

By Anne Monahan West Chester, PA's own Horace Pippin was arguably the most successful African American artist of his day. Pippin (1888–1946) taught himself to paint in the 1930s and quickly  earned international renown for depictions of World War I,...

Louise Bourgeois' tapestry and needlepoint work deals with reparation in  both a literal and metaphorical sense. In many of the works, fragmented  tapestries are pieced together and repaired to create new sculptural  forms. The recurring...

This first installment in Skira and Jack Shainman Gallery's five-volume  publication project on Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) presents for the  first time the artist's works on paper. These images—of flowers and  plants, bananas, a...

Of all the riches of the sixteenth-century European  nobleman, none spoke more powerfully of his heroism, wealth, and taste  than his armor, clothing, and weapons. Drawing on the Victoria and  Albert Museum’s popular arms and armor...

This engaging book offers an introduction to and overview of armor in  Europe from the Middle Ages through the 17th century, focusing in  particular on the 16th century when plate armor reached its peak of  stylistic beauty and functional...

This volume offers an intriguing glimpse into the world of late medieval  martial arts, from wrestling to fencing with the longsword to the  subtle tricks that could be employed when jousting on horseback. Using  superb details of lively...

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec recorded unforgettable images of belle-époque  Paris in his paintings, lithographs, and posters. The posters created by  the painter and graphic designer for the Moulin Rouge club in  Montmartre remain extremely...

The work of Piet Mondrian is highly eclectic: from impressionist  landscapes to cubism and abstracts, in the final years of his working  life. This volume, enriched with images, provides a fascinating analysis  of the Dutch artist’s...

The artistic work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) is  considered a milestone of international modernism and the climax of  German Expressionism. This volume documents the development of the  multi-faceted oeuvre from the epoch-making...

Claude Monet’s extensive work is revealed in numerous images. He was a  painter who like no other moved perception to the center of his artistic  activities. Nature became his own studio. This resulted in fascinating landscapes of different...

His Great Wave off Kanagawa is the most famous work in  East Asian art. Hokusai, a self-confessed eccentric and obsessive,  created with his pictures of the floating world a veritable encyclopedia  of Japanese daily life and thus became a...

Hiroshige is one of the most important artists of the Japanese woodblock  print and is considered a master of “ukiyo-e,” the “pictures of the  floating world.” His evocative illustrations show mainly landscapes and  scenes from the capital...

"The Lady in Gold" was not his only painting!  Gustav Klimt, the most controversial artist of his time, enjoys incomparable  popularity to date. This book offers a fascinating insight into the  extensive work of this remarkable artist...

Few painters are as well-known and admired as Cézanne. His work focuses  on subjects popular since the Renaissance: portraiture, figure studies,  landscapes, and still lifes. However, the way the artist transformed  these traditional...

Edvard Munch is the most important Scandinavian artist and a pioneer of  Expressionism. With him, the existential fear, the loneliness of man,  and the unpredictability of his feelings are drawn into art. With a novel and experimental painting...

 By Mathieu Mercier  "Everything  important that I have done can be put into a little suitcase," Duchamp  said in 1952: finally that suitcase is available to all. One of the most important and enigmatic  pieces of modernist art,...

Celebrate the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s world class Arms and Armor collection and the release of our new book with a special offer for Members only.  For a limited time, members will receive a free enamel helmet pin with the purchase of Arms...

Designs for Different Futures records the concrete ideas and abstract dreams of designers, artists, academics, and scientists exploring how design might reframe our futures, socially, ethically, and aesthetically. Encompassing nearly one hundred...

By Lisa Roberts At four months old Mr. Waffles was rescued from a shelter by a family who collects contemporary design. Luckily for everyone involved - Mr. Waffles Loves Design! Take a tour through a history of design with this very smart and curious cat...

Edited by Dilys E. Blum; with essays by Dilys E. Blum and Mary Schoeser, and a contribution by Julie Schafler Dale This is the first publication to consider art to wear, also known as wearable art, as a discrete American movement that mirrored the...