Books

Monuments and Myths is the first publication to trace the intersecting work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) and Daniel Chester French (1850–1931), the leading American sculptors of the Gilded Age. Featuring provocative essays, stunning...

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 effects, and the incomplete...

With essays by Roberta Bernstein, Yve-Alain Bois, Jean-François Chevrier, John Elderfield, John Golding, Christopher Green, Jennie Hirsh, Joop M. Joosten, Anabelle Kienle, Albert Kostenevich, Carolyn Lanchner, Mark D. Mitchell, Joseph J. Rishel,...

Printing Design for Graphic Designers is a reference book that showcases  design projects from all over the world and focuses on the processes  that were used to print them. The book opens with a thorough  introduction of printing history,...

The author's approach is not so much a step-by-step instruction with template-like schemes, instead it focuses on the intrinsic logic of things, their connections and relations, and the link between presentation and design. She invites readers to...

Four journeys by early Americans Mary Rowlandson, Sarah Kemble Knight, William Byrd II, and Dr. Alexander Hamilton recount the vivid physical and psychological challenges of colonial life. Essential primary texts in the study of early American cultural...

Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered...

Trace the history of rock and roll with this playful journey through the decades, artists and styles that make this such a diverse and beloved art form. For children and parents alike, this colorful and lovingly illustrated book travels from the 1950s...

In an increasingly digital world, the art of printing has become more precious than ever. Although screens continue to take over society and sustainable practices have improved the preservation of natural resources, many designers still thrive on...

Featuring over five hundred masterpieces from around the world, this revised and expanded guide is a beautifully illustrated introduction to the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This updated version of the museum's handbook presents more...

Learn how to grow your own herbs and vegetables, harvest herbs to make your own teas and tinctures, and make cordials, bitters and elixirs of all kinds, all while learning the basics of making drinks at home. Complete with recipes, striking photography...

The Korean people possess a folklore tradition as colorful and captivating as any in the world, and yet the stories themselves are not as widely-known to Western readers as those from The Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, or Hans Christian Andersen. In her...

Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet?  In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that...

How do trees grow, and why do they change throughout the seasons? Children will love delving into the inner workings of a tree to discover the answers with this incredible interactive book. With labeled acetate diagrams, this is a fantastic first look at...

Best-selling illustrator Britta Teckentrup explores the world of birds in a sumptuously illustrated nonfiction book. There are birds everywhere! Some of them live along the coast, some of them in the savannah, and some may be in your backyard. Young...

The history of China— brilliantly told and brought vividly to life through more than 6,000 years of artifacts and treasures. This illustrated introduction to the history of China offers a fresh understanding of China’s progress from the Neolithic age to...

“These mirror images with their uncanny resemblances traverse space and time, spotlighting the black lives that have been silenced by the canon of western art, while also inviting us to interrogate the present.” —Times (UK) Since the beginning of the...

 'Race Is Everything’ explores the spurious but influential ideas of so-called racial science in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, and how art was affected by it. David Bindman looks at race in general, but with...

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) remains famous for his dreamy images and luminous use of color, but in the 1930s his palette darkened as he began to address intensifying anti-Semitism in Europe. Chagall: World in Turmoil draws attention to lesser-known works...

Once admired as “a little Rome” on the banks of the Rhône, the town of Arles in the south of France had been a place of significance long before the painter Vincent van Gogh arrived in February of 1888. Aware of Arles’s history as a haven for poets, van...

Cabinets of curiosities fascinated people of the 16th and 17th  centuries. They offered a glimpse into a world full of natural wonders and treasures that aimed to reflect the order of the universe. This volume takes us through the world’s most...

Over the centuries our manipulation of the natural world has resulted in  an explosion of synthetic dye production and application globally. To gain insight into the history of how folk practices have been lost and technical processes found,...

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp sent out a 'telegram' in the guise of a urinal signed R. Mutt. When it arrived at its destination a good forty years later it was both celebrated and vilified as proclaiming that anything could be art; from that point on, the...

Elijah Pierce (1892–1984) was born the youngest son of a former slave on a Mississippi farm. He began carving at an early age when his father gave him his first pocketknife, and throughout his life he honed his craft and created artworks that would...

Organized into chapters that explore the many ways to express dissent (RESIST!, VOTE!, STRIKE!, TEACH! and LOVE!), Strikethrough presents more than 120 signs, posters, publications and ephemera in vivid imagery and incisive prose. From the colorful...

Today, Danish Modern design is synonymous with clean, midcentury cool. During the 1950s and ‘60s, it flourished as the furniture choice for Americans who hoped to signal they were current and chic. But how did this happen? How did Danish Modern become...

From analog to digital, mainframes to mobile phones – with photos, ads, and concept drawings of inventions that ushered in the digital era, this visual survey of the Information Age reveals how the computer and the  internet irreversibly transformed...

Vine of the Soul is an exceptional photographic essay accompanied by detailed descriptions of the Amazonians' use of medicinal and other sacred plant substances. Over 160 documentary photos, some of the most significant ever taken on the subject, bring...

Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of...

The Peacock Room Comes to America details the unique history of a  dining room so masterfully decorated, it crossed oceans to become an  art collector’s piece. The room is a study in opulence, offering a  360-degree showstopping view. This...

Once upon a time in Persia, there was a woman who had never seen her reflection. On her wedding day, she sees herself in a mirror for the first time and does not recognize herself. Heartbroken, she runs away, mistakenly believing another bride has taken...

Celebrating over a century of fashion’s greatest talents, from Azzedine Alaïa and Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent. From Azzedine Alaïa, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel to  Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and...

The world’s leading museum directors discuss the future of museums in the wake of 2020’s pandemic and social upheavals. 2020 ushered in a new decade and with it a series of unforeseen events that have reoriented the future. As the coronavirus forced...

Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet…Except this cabinet is filled with files on the ‘symptomers’, humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species. But to Mr Kong, the harried...

Over the course of more than 50 years, renowned American artist Ellsworth Kelly made approximately 400 postcard collages, some of which served as exploratory musings and others as studies for larger works in other mediums. They range from his first...

Combining decades of ethnographic research with stunning photography, this book is a celebration of the customs and clothing of ethnic-minority groups in China. Aesthetic influences drawn from China have long resonated throughout Western art, design,...

Carrie Mae Weems has often confronted the uncomfortable truths of racism and race relations over the course of her nearly 40-year career. In The Shape of Things she focuses her unflinching gaze at what she describes as the circus like quality of...

A guide to going on dates with people to visit trees in Philadelphia, PA.  There are 25 more tree-dates out there! What is our social relationship to plants? Can we create a feeling of belonging within a landscape? Tree Dates provide an opportunity...

Since the 1960s, contemporary art has overturned the accepted historical categorizations of what constitutes art, who creates it, and how it is represented and validated. This guide brings the subject up to date, exploring the notion of “contemporary”...

Acknowledging how architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts reflect the culture and society of their time, this latest addition to the Art Essentials series invites the reader to experience and appreciate the entirety of Western art from...

An absorbing group biography revealing how exiles from war-torn France brought surrealism to America, sparking the movement that became abstract expressionism. In 1957 the American artist Robert Motherwell made an unexpected claim: "I have only known...

Generations of artisans in Japan have forged and refined their crafts to become the envy of the world. Each of the country’s regions are renowned for specific traditions relating to local materials and the natural world in which they are produced. While...

Perfect for students and casual and professional artists, with lots of great reference information for print collectors as well, this is the ultimate guide to the ins and outs of every variety of printmaking practiced today. In addition to in-depth...

The 2007 volume of Ceramics in America is devoted to the topic of Bonnin and Morris soft-paste porcelain made in Philadelphia between 1770 and 1772. For the first time, all nineteen known objects from this important American "china" manufactory along...

By Felice Fischer and Kyoko Kinoshita Art of Japan presents one hundred highlights of Japanese art from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, dating from the Neolithic period to today. Among them are a temple and a teahouse, acquired in 1928,...

In The Critic as Artist, arguably the most complete exploration of his aesthetic thinking, and certainly the most entertaining, Oscar Wilde harnesses his famous wit to demolish the supposed boundary between art and criticism...

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...

There are many myths about the artist Edgar Degas—from Degas the misanthrope to Degas the deviant, to Degas the obsessive. But there is no single text that better stokes the fire than Degas and His Model, a short memoir published by Alice Michel,...

Photography is now more popular than ever thanks to the rapid development of digital cameras. Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs is ideal for this new wave of snap shooters using DSLR, compact system and bridge cameras. It contains no...

Best known for his iconic print Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as the Great Wave, Katsushika Hokusai was a revolutionary printmaker. His mastery of ukiyo-e in the nineteenth century has inspired generations of artists since, and his works helped...

‘Big Type’ explores graphic design and identity work where the emphasis is on typography. The visual landscape in which today’s designers are contributing to is very cluttered and the digital world alone is so vast, that sometimes it...

A compilation of esoteric musings, Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty explores Alexandre Kojève’s philosophical approach to the relationship between art and beauty. A teacher to Jacques Lacan, André Breton, and Albert Camus, Kojève defined art as the act of...

A popular classic is back! Famed quilt collector Roderick Kiracofe’s sumptuous hardcover book of 150 offbeat quilts became an instant classic when it  was published in 2014, inspiring a nation of quiltmakers and fine artists. In a...

Bright and carefree, Zitkála-Šá grows up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota with her mother until Quaker missionaries arrive, offering the reservation’s children a free education. The catch: They must leave their parents behind and travel...

Painted about 1550–50 by Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503–1572), this remarkable portrait depicts the young Florentine aristocrat Lodovico Capponi (b. 1534), an associate of the Medici court. Capponi wears black  and white, his family’s armorial...

Working across photography, film, video, painting, and installation, his work references and re-imagines African American and African visual culture, from hip hop vernacular to Nefertiti, while nodding to traditions of spirituality and Surrealism. This...

In this volume, the writer and Rodin scholar Rachel Corbett selects excerpts from the famous sculptor’s book Cathedrals of France,  first published in 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I.  Cathedrals were central to the way Rodin...

Two authorities on popular culture reveal the ways in which art can enhance mood and enrich lives - now available in paperback. This passionate, thought-provoking, often funny, and always-accessible book proposes a new way of looking at art, suggesting...

Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the early United States, The Forest imagines how a wide variety of Americans experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, and featuring both real and invented characters, the book follows...

In 1941, Professor Richard Evan Schultes took a leave from Harvard and disappeared into the Amazon, where he spent the next twelve years mapping uncharted rivers and living among dozens of Indian tribes. In the 1970s, he sent two prize students, Tim...

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a classic novel known throughout the world. One of the 20th century’s enduring works of art, it is the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The story of the village of Macondo, as seen through the lives...

The followup to the much-loved Easy Peasy, Little Green Fingers is packed full of even more fun gardening activities for children! The followup to the much-loved Easy Peasy, Little Green Fingers is packed full of even more fun gardening activities for...

A clever, quirky picture-book biography of one of the most important figures of modern and contemporary art. Louise  Bourgeois was a world-famous artist who told stories of her life through her art until she was 98 years old. She drew, wove, and...

Colors of Film is an introduction to film through the lens of color. Taking you from the 1940s to today, it showcases the most extraordinary use of color and provides visually appealing palettes of some of the best movies ever made. Taking you on...

Friends are an important part of every toddler's social life ... and now, part of their first art collection! Friendships  are among the most important relationships we have. Friends play, laugh, and share - and comfort one another in times of need...

A tender and wise ode to love, illustrated with an expertly curated selection of fine art for young children. Art,  like anything else, is only as meaningful and interesting as it is relatable. For toddlers and preschoolers, connecting their own...

Creating Connections features over 70 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and watercolors from the Rosenthal Collection of work by self-taught artists. This richly illustrated publication explores the mysterious connections we have with works of art and...

Edward Hopper's canvasses are filled with stripped-down spaces and unrelenting light, evocative landscapes, and the lonely aspects of men  and women seemingly isolated in their surroundings. What kind of man had this haunting vision, and what kind...

A meditation on suffering, resilience, creativity, and grace. In 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering the loss of her husband, pieced together a quilt out of his old, worn work clothes. Nearly six decades later her daughter Arlonzia Pettway,...

A critical look at the renegade spirit that permeates Japanese prints and the posters of fin-de-siècle Paris. Both the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan and the late nineteenth century in France witnessed a multitude of challenges to the status quo from...

A modern classic that invites readers to discover a unique ritual that has come to symbolize wisdom, beauty, and the elegant simplicity of Asian culture. Kakuzo Okakura celebrates the Way of Tea from its ancient origins in Chinese Taoism to its...

In 2018, just a few weeks after his father’s death, Dean Rader made a pilgrimage to the Gagosian Gallery in New York to see a retrospective of Cy Twombly’s work, In Beauty It is Finished: Drawings 1951-2008. The exhibit led to a poem that would become...

Colour is one of the essential elements of many branding designs. It can help give an identity personality and warmth, express emotion, communicate messages in an unconscious and subtle way and it can keep or navigate the viewer’s interest, drawing the...

The catalog to the most ambitious exhibition of the work of Violet Oakley (1874–1961) to date, A Grand Vision highlighted Oakley’s spirit of civic humanism and her prolific accomplishments as a muralist, portraitist, stained glass designer, and...

On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army delivered the message that African Americans in Texas were free. Since then, Juneteenth, as the day has come to be known, has steadily gained recognition throughout the United...

Recalling a charcoal she made in 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe later wrote, “I  have made this drawing several times—never remembering that I had made  it before—and not knowing where the idea came from.” These drawings, and the majority of O’Keeffe’s...

In this volume, 50 masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) from the prestigious Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo—which houses one of the  greatest Van Gogh collections—document the Dutch painter’s entire career, on the eve of the 170th...

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was committed to depicting landscapes throughout his entire life. From his earliest days in art school until the year before his death, landscape remained the prime genre through which he mediated his perception of the world and...

From Gandhi to Rosa Parks, the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter, this introduction to the power of protests covers nearly every continent to show young readers that they can be effective on their own or as part of a movement. Filled with...

At a time when almost everything can be digitally done up to perfection,  the smudges and smears by graphite can be refreshing to the eye and unapologetically human – touching viewers to the core. As a creative tool, it can also be the simplest and...

An essential guide for emerging artists learning how to take pictures of places. From the author of the bestselling Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs series, this jargon–free introduction covers all aspects of photographing places,...

The great painter, book illustrator and print designer Katsushika  Hokusai (1760–1849) has become the best known of all Japanese artists  and one of the most famous and influential artists in the world. He was a key figure for the Japonisme...

This volume presents sketches and textile designs by the great Russian  French modernist artist Sonia Delaunay alongside her paintings and interior and fashion designs. It demonstrates how she transferred her color philosophy of “Simultanism,” which...

A profound examination of the complex constructs that have kept “outsider” and self-taught artists on the margins of the mainstream. The artists in Boundary Trouble in American Vanguard Art defy binary constructs of insider and outsider. Some are...

The story of art as it’s never been told before, from the Renaissance to the present day, with more than 300 works of art. How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what...

An intimate study of the creation and use of embroidered quilts. In Bengal, mothers swaddle their infants and cover their beds in  colorful textiles that are passed down through generations. They create these kantha from layers of soft, recycled...

Textile artist Karen Selk delves into the amazing world of wild silk and the Indigenous people of India who raise these silkworms. Readers will be drawn into the captivating world of a unique living culture that has been engaged in a sustainable industry...

Weaving, as a traditional technique of interlacing yarns or fiber, has a long history and has been given many forms over the years. This book will invite 20 DIYers, designers, artists, and craftsmen to talk about their weaving stories. These projects are...

This book carefully selects 20 contemporary embroidery artists and showcases their delicate artworks together with in-depth and thematic interviews, making it not only a feast for the eyes but a practical guidebook for those who are looking to be...

Philadelphia has thousands of public artworks—more than any other city in America. Ed Hille has 40 years of experience as an award-winning photographer. In Plain Sight brings the two together—the dedicated artist and a spectacular subject. Throughout...

"Wild spinach about 7 feet tall and fully mature.  Well-fed wild spinach is well-branched and produces a huge quantity of  seeds when mature. The leaves are still edible at this stage but are  reduced in quality, taking on a somewhat...

From the mountains to the ocean shores, from the wetlands to the deserts, North America teems with flora and fauna in delicately balanced ecosystems found nowhere else on Earth. With this book in hand, you will understand the language of nature and see...

African American history has produced countless exceptional heroes, leaders, and role models. The graphic novel, BLAM! Black Lives Always Mattered!, tells  the inspiring stories of 14 important Black Philadelphians, such as opera singer Marian...

In an ever-evolving world, the only thing to count on is change. A path is never the same path twice. Everything we experience, be it real or imagined, influences what is around us—even if the changes are sometimes too small to recognize! For three...

Covering the oldest and most traditional ways to make pots, Handbuilt is a beginner's guide to hand building with clay – no pottery wheel required. This book will teach you the building blocks to working with clay and how to apply a professional finish...

Explores ways to use colour in the home to varying degrees, taking the reader into the world of the vibrant, happy house. Joyful case studies of homes that range from lightly speckled to heavily doused in colour with interviews from the renowned...

The essential exploration of the design, history, and culture of the motorcycle – an icon of the machine age. Motorcycles are ubiquitous in the world’s streets and cities, evolving over decades in engineering and design to meet individual transportation...

An overview of the work of illustrator and designer Milton Glaser during the 1960s and 70s. From 1954, when he co-founded the legendary Push Pin Studios, to the late '70s, Milton Glaser was one of the most celebrated graphic designers of his day, whose...

Elegant. Refined. Exclusionary. Interrupted. The foundations of the fine art world are shaking. Beyoncé and Jay-Z break the internet by blending modern Black culture with fine art in their iconic music video filmed in the Louvre. Kehinde Wiley powerfully...

It is human nature to look to the past when seeking inspiration, particularly in art and related creative fields. Unlike other genres that can be attributed to a specific era or style, folk art is harder to define or categorize due to its special...