Art History

 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,...

Matthew Affron (Author) With contributions by Cécile Debray, Alexander Kauffman, Michael R. Taylor, and John Vick This book offers an engaging and accessible introduction to one of the twentieth century’s greatest and most enigmatic artists, Marcel...

George Eastman’s career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak progressed from a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, and a crucial innovator in photographic history. Eastman died in 1932,...

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...

Jessica Todd Smith (Author) With an emphasis on painting and sculpture made in the United States between 1910 and 1950, this gorgeously illustrated volume offers a rich introduction to American modernism through the world-class collection of the...

Kathleen A. Foster (Author) and Mark Tucker (Author) Thomas Eakins is acknowledged as one of the preeminent American painters of the 19th century. As a young artist in 1875 he prepared a monumental painting for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia...

This lavishly illustrated and super-condensed history of world art is  the perfect gift for any art lover. A pocket-sized book bursting with  900 illustrations, it takes the reader from the beginnings of art in  prehistory to the...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

By Flavia Frigeri In 1971, in an essay that has now become one of the touchstones of feminist art history, Linda Nochlin raised the question heard round the world: “Why have there been no great women artists?” Since the 1970s, as a result of this kind of...

Hiromi Kinoshita (Author) This richly illustrated catalogue of highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s wide-ranging collection of Chinese art, spanning antiquity to the present day, includes such gems as Ming gold vessels and imperial court...

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...

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...

Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley (Author), Peggy A. Olley (Author) with an essay by Jeffrey A. Cohen This handsome book explores in depth a group of stunning painted and gilded furniture designed by the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, best known for...

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...

Crafted is a celebration of craft in the 21st century – a definitive visual guide to all things handmade. Featuring 80 of the most popular and well-established crafts, Sally Coulthard explores their history, materials and techniques as she offers a...

Suzanne Ramljak(Author) with an introduction by Darrel Sewell Published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Crafting a Legacy showcases the Museum’s burgeoning collection of contemporary American crafts...

For more than one thousand years, Christians and  Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most  notorious period of conflict between the two religions...

Carlos Basualdo (editor) with essays by Carlos Basualdo, Olena Chervonik, Richard Fletcher, Emily Greenwood, and Nicola Del Roscio This revelatory publication provides a comprehensive and multifaceted account of Cy Twombly’s masterpiece Fifty Days at...

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...

An eccentric exhibitionist, Egon Schiele documented the discord of his  time in furious paintings of people and self-portraits. Schiele’s  artistic universe is ready to be rediscovered with these many  illustrations of drawings,...

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...

Foreword by Kathy Halbreich. lizabeth Carpenter (Editor). Hayden Herrera (Contributor) , Elizabeth Carpenter(Contributor), Victor Zamudio-Taylor(Contributor) Few artists have captured the public's imagination with the force of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo...

Editor: Joseph J. Rishel The notion of a golden age set in an earthly paradise has long kindled the human imagination. Virgil envisioned such a place of bucolic pleasures—erotic and unsullied, sometimes shadowed by blunted desires and doubts—in his...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

By Jennifer A. Thompson with contributions by Joseph J. Rishel and Eileen Owens Featuring ninety highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s stellar collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, this handsome volume includes iconic works...

This book showcases highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation, established in 1963 by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. and focused on 18th-century American fine and decorative arts. Essays explore the formation of the collection and its many areas of...

By Felice Fischer and Kyoko Kinoshita The Kano lineage of painters—the most important in Japan—was established in the late fifteenth century by Kano Masanobu (1434–1530) and continued for nearly 400 years. Originally limited to successive generations of...

When the Philadelphia lawyer John G. Johnson began to collect art in the late nineteenth century, he defied contemporary taste by acquiring Italian paintings from the early Renaissance. He eventually donated his distinguished collection to the City of...

By Andrea Kettenmann The arresting paintings of Frida Kahlo were in many ways expressions of trauma. Through a near-fatal road accident at the age of 18, failing health, a turbulent marriage, miscarriage and childlessness, she transformed the afflictions...

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...

This is the fascinating story William Marshal who negotiated the  brutal realities of medieval warfare and the conflicting demands of  chivalric ideals, and who against the odds defeated the joint French and  rebel forces in arguably the...

Edited by Anna Vallye; With contributions by Christian Derouet, Maria Gough, et al. With his landmark 1919 painting The City, Fernand Léger (1881–1955) inaugurated a vitally experimental decade during which he and others redefined the practice of...

By Peter Barberie, with an essay on the photographic materials by Beth A. Price and Ken Sutherland Renowned for his alluring and provocative photographs of the monuments, interiors, streets, and people of Paris and its environs, Eugène Atget carefully...

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...

Michael R. Taylor (Author) with essays by Andrew Lins, Melissa S. Meighan, and Beth A. Price, Ken Sutherland, Scott Homolka, and Elena Torok In his early thirties, Marcel Duchamp convinced everyone that he had abandoned making art in favor of playing...

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...

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...

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...

Art Nouveau, elegant ornamentation, and sensual women. Hardly any other  artist proved a greater virtuoso in this style than Alphonse Mucha.  Discover not only the most beautiful of the Czech artist’s posters, but  also many of...

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...

By Michael R. Taylor This scholarly catalogue provides an engaging analysis of Chagall’s life and career in the early decades of the twentieth century. Featured throughout are the paintings and works on paper that the artist created during these years,...

Including more than 200 examples of both popular and lesser  known works from private collections, this book captures all periods of  Klee’s oeuvre, representing each stylistic metamorphosis and painting  technique used by the artist. The...

The father of impressionists, Camille Pissarro, was groundbreaking for  the modern age. Whether it was painting or graphics, impressionism or  pointillism, portraits or the worker genre—his work was extraordinarily  versatile and full of...

Pierre Terjanian (Author) This striking publication examines two masterful armors for man and horse recently acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Among the earliest complete European examples in existence, these German works demonstrate the...

Mark S. Tucker (Author), Lloyd DeWitt (Editor), Seymour Slive (Preface), Blaise Ducos (Contributor), Franziska Gottwald (Contributor), George Keyes (Contributor), Shelley Perlove (Contributor), Larry Silver (Contributor), Ken Sutherland...

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (Author) and Richard J. Powell (Author) This publication highlights nearly 150 objects in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art that were created by American artists of African descent. Introduced with an essay by the...

By François Blanchetière While anchoring his practice in the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, Auguste Rodin paved the way for modern sculpture. From a very early stage, he was interested in movement, the expression of the body, chance...

Kathleen A. Foster (Author) The Life Line, a thrilling scene of rescue on stormy seas, firmly established Winslow Homer (1836–1910) as one of the leading American painters of his day, and one of the foremost maritime artists of all time. Combining a...

In 1119, a  small band of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade set up a new religious order in Jerusalem, which was now  in Christian hands. These were the first Knights Templar, elite warriors who swore vows...

The Bauhaus, the legendary school in Dessau, Germany, transformed  architecture and design around the world. This book broke new ground when first published in 1991 by introducing psychoanalysis, geometry, early childhood education, and popular...

Felice Fischer (Author) From Japan’s first forays onto the international stage of world’s fairs in the late nineteenth century to the dynamic creativity of the 1920s and 1930s, and from the heady post–World War II period to the present day, Japanese...

Joseph J. Rishel (Author) with Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt This monumental book transcends geographic boundaries and explores the history of the confluence of styles, materials, and techniques among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas from Columbus's...

John Ittmann (Editor), Cordula Grewe (Editorial Consultant) From the 1770s through the 1840s, German, Austrian, and Swiss artists used the medium of printmaking to create works that synthesized poetry, literature, music, and the visual arts in new and...

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...

Christopher D.M. Atkins (Author) Peter Paul Rubens proudly described his monumental painting Prometheus Bound as first among “the flower of my stock.” This singular work demonstrates how Rubens engaged with and responded to his predecessors Michelangelo...

The amazing tales of the knight Theuerdank and his companion  Ehrenhold constitute the last great epic verse of the late Middle Ages.  The courageous knight’s journey to woo his future wife, Mary of  Burgundy, and his triumph in battles...

By Kathleen Foster Labeled as a traveling American folk artist when he was rediscovered in the mid-20th century, the mysterious Thomas Chambers here receives a fresh and creative reassessment. Although his distinctive sea and landscapes appear in many...

Darrel Sewell (Editor) with essays by Kathleen A. Foster, Nica Gutman, William Innes Homer, et al. Thomas Eakins s one of the most fascinating and important personalities in the history of American art. His memorable and much-loved scenes of rowing,...

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...

Edited by Hyunsoo Woo; with essays by Insoo Cho, Hongkyung Kim, Woollim Kim, So-hyun Kwon, Dongsoo Moon, Unsok Song, and Hyunsoo Woo and a chronology by Rose E. Lee Treasures from Korea is the first major publication outside of Korea to survey the...

Rachel Arauz (Author), Ann Temkin(Author), Anne D'Hamoncourt(Author), et al. Featuring pivotal works of twentieth-century painting and sculpture, this book handsomely illustrates a selection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s outstanding modern art...

Misunderstood during his lifetime and branded as “the crazy man with the  red hair," Vincent van Gogh is one of the most famous artists of all  time. As one of the founders of modern art he created a unique body of  work, against all odds,...