Books

Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) came to art-making on his own and found his creative voice without guidance; today he is remembered as a renowned American artist. Traylor was born into slavery on an Alabama plantation, and his experiences spanned multiple...

Photography has a complex relationship to art. This volume uses an innovative framework to help readers appreciate photography as its own modern art form. In his unique and insightful approach, professor of photography David Bate presents iconic...

Celebrating the magick of the natural realm, Volume IV of The Library of Esoterica, delves into the symbolism, ceremony, and our ritual relationships with the botanical world. A visual journey through our interdependent evolution with nature, Plant...

Exploring the art and life of this important American artist whose work bridged the gaps between abstraction, feminism, and Blackness Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction is a fascinating examination of the multifaceted career of artist, activist,...

'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...

Explore the marvelous kingdom of the fungi through this magnificent follow up to Botanical Inspiration.  While nature’s beauty is evident throughout the plant kingdom with its  showy blooms, lush vegetation and grandiose statures, there is just...

The Hidden Language of Symbols covers a wide-ranging selection of visual culture and art under one unified theme: symbols. Often not immediately apparent, our day-to-day lives abound with symbols of various kinds, from national emblems to emojis,...

Explore Hieronymus Bosch's fantastic illustrations of the afterlife and other religious concepts and narratives. Although Bosch's known works amount to no more than two dozen paintings and a handful of drawings, the artist had an enormous impact on...

An elegant introduction to Egon Schiele’s career, this book untangles the mysteries and misunderstandings behind his genius. Egon Schiele left an enormous artistic legacy that is all the more powerful for the brevity of his career. Isabel Kuhl’s lively...

Discover the motifs, masterpieces, and driving forces behind the artist Pablo Picasso. Picasso was arguably the most influential artist of the 20th century. Over the course of a career that spanned seven decades--and included thousands of paintings,...

Discover the life and work of Frida Kahlo in this introduction to the iconic Mexican artist. Although her body of work is relatively small, Frida Kahlo has inspired adoration and admiration that few other artists have attained. This accessible and...

This introduction to the work of the 16th-century master portraitist Hans Holbein reveals the impressive and surprising scope of his career. 16th-century Europe was a time of unprecedented economic expansion, cross-cultural trade, religious upheaval,...

Get a glimpse into the life and work of painter, sculptor, and printmaker Edgar Degas, who is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism. Best known for his depictions of young dancers on the stage and in the studio, Degas was an accomplished...

This revelatory examination of the Surrealist master updates prevailing theories about Magritte’s life and beliefs, and offers a surprising new assessment of an artist who strived for anonymity rather than fame. Throughout his career, Magritte subverted...

The story of Klimt’s astonishing artistic career is told in this beautifully produced collection of reproductions, photographs and drawings with an accompanying text that places the artist in a unique historical moment and reflects his fierce appetite...

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Monet makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. Monet’s dazzling depictions of flowers, sunsets, fields, and oceans, in which line and shape are suggested...

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Botticelli makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. The Florentine painter Botticelli personifies the Golden Age of the early Renaissance. Best known for The...

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Vincent van Gogh makes the world's greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. Tracing the arc of van Gogh's career, this volume presents his portraits and self-portraits,...

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Caravaggio makes the world's greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. This monograph explores Caravaggio's entire life and career by focusing on the most important of his works...

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Pieter Bruegel makes the world’s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. A Renaissance painter and printmaker best known for his landscapes and peasant scenes; Bruegel’s...

Frank Lloyd Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums, and other commercial projects. Wright-designed interior elements included leaded glass windows, floors, furniture and even tableware that were...

A Japanese designer offers a compelling alternative way to engage with our possessions, our history, our environment, and each other. The Japanese phrase "hodo-hodo" originates in ancient times. When contemporary designer Taku Satoh applies it to his...

Sonia Delaunay was a true pioneer of modernist abstraction; breaking with the figurative vocabulary that subordinated color to subject matter, she placed dynamic color interaction at the core of her vision, whether expressed through painting, book...

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...

Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods and Fairmount is among its most famous.  But you know it for the Parkway and the museums.  Did you know it is also home to a ghostly history?  Eastern State Penitentiary has had countless reports of...

What better to keep your place in the latest page-turner by your bedside with our bookmark reproducing Rousseau's Carnival Evening! An air of mystery pervades this wintry forest landscape. Dressed in festive carnival costumes, a lone couple stands in...

When watching a masterful sketcher, it seems that they create elaborate sketches with ease, tracing their pencils on the page and bringing to life rich and detailed drawings. After sweating away hours trying to create a simple sketch, you may find that...

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning history that transforms a single event in 1722 into an unparalleled portrait of early America.  In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the...

An illustrated guide to the fantastic world of Japanese myths: retelling the stories and exploring how Japanese mythology has changed over time, as new gods, heroes, and spirits have entered the  canon. While people around the world love Japan’s...

Though she was widely known for her supernatural fictions, Lee hasn’t gained the recognition she so clearly deserves for her contributions in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy of empathy, and art criticism. An early follower of Walter Pater, her...

Through a carefully curated selection of quotations, images and interviews, Artists on Art  reveals what matters most to the masters. You'll discover how the  giants of the different artistic genres developed their distinctive  visual...

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...

From soft watches to burning giraffes, this book celebrates the fantastical world and flamboyant personality of Salvador Dalí, one of  the most visionary and prolific artists of the 20th century.  Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and...

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...

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...

Through eye-popping colors and simple forms, rejoice in the restless creativity and infectious energy of Henri Matisse, the artist who never stopped making art, and whose vivid palette gave nudes, landscapes, and interior views a whole new modernity...

For Marc Chagall (1887–1985), painting was an intricate tapestry of dreams, tales, and traditions. His instantly recognizable visual language carved out a unique early 20th-century niche, often identified as one of the earliest expressions of psychic...

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...

Discover more than 500 of the most innovative, influential, and enduring products from the last five centuries in this fully revised and expanded edition of Phaidon's much-loved companion to the best of design Take an extraordinary journey through...

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...

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...

Shimmering, pulsating color masses characterize the Abstract Expressionist masterpieces of Mark Rothko. Like no other artist in his generation, Rothko developed his own stylistic vocabulary, creating ceiling-high canvases that were to be experienced as...

It was a dappled and daubed harbor scene that gave Impressionism its name. When Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was exhibited in April 1874, critics seized upon the work’s title and its loose stylistic rendering of light and motion upon water...

Meet Vincent van Gogh, one of the most famed tragic figures of 19th‑century art. This lush tome collects all his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work of a master who continues to tower over art. Today, the works of...

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...

Take an intimate promenade through Paris with some 500 images from Eugène Atget. Down main streets and side streets, through courtyards, arcades, and the city’s 20 arrondissements, we find a unique portrait of a beloved city and the making...

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...

One of our customer favorites, Drawn from Life is finally back in print! This ideally shaped and sized book offers bite-size lessons that will help anyone master the classic practice of life drawing. Over 100 pieces of art by contemporary artists...

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the  universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a  connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a  history of seekers, but our...

This book surveys the work of a new generation of Black artists, and also features the voices of a diverse group of curators who are on the cutting edge of contemporary art. As mission-driven collectors, Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi have...

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,...

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 perfection...

Fables, folklore, and fantasy—this compendium of all things alchemical  and mystical gathers centuries of esoteric mythology in the form of  writings, drawings, paintings, and prints. From early Christian mystics  to the illustrations of...

Fall under the spell of Gustav Klimt. A century after his death, the Viennese artist still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. Master of 19th-century Viennese art and pioneer of the Secessionist...

A dazzling reprint of Hiroshige's views of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), one of the masterpieces of the ukiyo-e woodblock tradition and a paradigm of the Japonisme that inspired Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau artists, from Vincent van Gogh...

In a fleeting 14-year period between two world wars, Germany’s Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideas for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology,...

Arranged alphabetically, this biographical encyclopedia features every major photographer of the 20th century alongside her or his most significant monographs.  From the earliest representatives of classical Modernism right up to the present day,...

From Togas to Top Hats The evolution of style from antiquity to 1888 Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume Historique was in its day the most wide-ranging and incisive study of clothing ever attempted...

Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first  developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know  as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork.  They turned to everyday street...

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)  was one of the century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics—and was  rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the  first to apply the insights...

When is a urinal no longer a urinal? When Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) declared it to be art. The uproar that greeted the French artist’s Fountain  (1917), a porcelain urinal installed in a gallery, sent shock waves  through the art world...

Editor: Anne D'Harnoncourt Published in connection with the 1973 retrospective exhibition "Marcel Duchamp,"  co-curated by Anne d'Harnoncourt of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and  Kynaston McShine of The Museum of Modern Art. This...

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...

When you've got to put down that page-turner, you'll be glad to see the Philadelphia Skyline where you left off.  Museum Exclusive Solid brass, electro-plated with non-tarnishing silver finish, giclee print Bookmark measures 1" x 3 1/2";...

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...

This pocket-sized drawing journal is packed with just as much clever, imaginative fun as the original bestselling 642 Things to Draw. All 642 drawing prompts invite doodlers to draw teeny-tiny things—from "a keyhole" and "a marble" to "an atom" and "your...

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 into revolutionary...

By Lisa Minardi, with an interview by Ann Percy Among the most beloved forms of American folk art, fraktur is a Germanic tradition of decorated manuscripts and printed documents noted for its use of bold colors and whimsical motifs. This publication...

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...

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,...

This pictoral map of Philadelphia features detailed illustrations of points of interest, as well as historical information and sight seeing reccomendations. It incorporates antique imagery and architectural renderings of Philadelphias most renowened...

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...