Art History

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...

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...

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. But what was...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Enjoy twelve months of one of the finest collections of arms and armor in the United States.  The exceptional permanent collection at the Philadelphia Museum  of Art looks at arms and armor as art—from warfare to war games, from hunting to...

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...

When Swedish artist Hilma af Klint died in 1944 at the age of 81, she  left behind more than 1,000 paintings and works on paper that she had  kept largely private during her lifetime. Believing the world was not  yet ready for her art, she...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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,...

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,...

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...

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...

Jennifer A. Thompson (Author) 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Jill DeVonyar (Author), Richard Kendall (Author) Among the supreme masterpieces of 19th-century art are Edgar Degas's dramatic, incisive, and often brilliantly colored pictures of the ballet. Yet despite his enormous popularity as the foremost artist of...

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...

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...

Ainsley M. Cameron (Author) and Darielle Mason (Author) This publication presents the first in-depth survey of the Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, which was recently acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This...

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...

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...

Andrea Kettenmann (Author) 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...

François Blanchetière (Author) 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...

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...

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 Innis Howe Shoemaker, Nancy Ash (Contributor), and Eliza Spaulding (Contributor) Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916–1992) is best known as an American painter of mid-20th-century Abstract Expressionism, although his work was distinct for its...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Edited by Michael R. Taylor. With essays by Michael R. Taylor, Kim S. Theriault, Jody Patterson, et al; Arshile Gorky (Armenian American, c. 1904–1948) was one of the central figures in American art's shift toward abstraction during the first half of the...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Christian Marclay (Author), Susan Rosenberg (Editor), Thomas Levin (Contributor), Thaddeus Squire (Contributor) Two of Philadelphia's most famous cracked icons, The Liberty Bell and Marcel Duchamp's The Large Glass, are perhaps rarely thought of as...

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...

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...