Art History

Told through the lives of three remarkable artists devoted to the pursuit of liberty, an illuminating new history of the ideals that fired the American Revolution. The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with...

The story of the wildest experiments in early photography and the wild people who undertook them. Today it’s routine to take photos from an aeroplane window, use a camera under the sea or gaze at an X-ray. But the innovations more than a century...

Art museums have played a vital role in our culture, drawing on Enlightenment ideals in shaping ideas, advancing learning, fostering community, and providing spaces of beauty and permanence. In this thoughtful and often personal volume, Daniel H. Weiss...

A celebration of the joyful power of African American quilts, featuring images of over 100 quilts, new research and essays The first publication dedicated to historical African American quilts in California, Routed West traces the flow and flourishing of...

A stylish three-volume boxed set of Katsushika Hokusai’s renowned manga drawings considered a precursor of contemporary manga. In 1814, the great Japanese artist and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) published the first volume of his sketches:...

A celebration of the rich twentieth and twenty-first-century tradition of screen-printing as a means of artistic expression, from its commercial origins in 1920s America to the limited-edition screenprints of the postwar period and today. Screenprints: A...

 A nonfiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art. How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark. . . . How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of...

A thrilling journey through 100,000 years of art, from the first artworks ever made to art’s central role in culture today. Art can help us see the world differently or understand our place in it a little more clearly. It can move us emotionally,...

Alex Pilcher’s A Queer Little History of Art is a beautiful book that illustrates the wide variety of queer art from around the world exploring bodies and identity, love and desire, and prejudice and protest through drawing, painting, photography,...

Mood Marks The painterly gestures of personal feelings Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in...

The need-to-know names of Japanese graphic design from the late 19th century to the pre-digital decade, presented alongside more than 500 color images of vintage ephemera With Fracture, author Ian Lynam presents a survey of Japanese design across a...

As the companion to the exhibition, Fighting for Freedom places Black craftspeople at the forefront of American history, from before the Revolutionary War through the Civil War and beyond Reconstruction. Delving into diverse narratives of creativity,...

Diego Rivera’s America revisits a historical moment when the famed muralist and painter, more than any other artist of his time, helped forge Mexican national identity in visual terms and imagined a shared American future in which unity, rather than...

The authoritative and wide-ranging visual essay on the aesthetics of Japan, a classic volume now back in print with a stunning new cover design ‘Japan style’ is an aesthetic recognizable to everyone: a beautifully displayed flower, an elegant...

The main character of this extraordinary graphic novel is not a person but an idea—the school of Bauhaus, which arose in the wake of World War I, and emerged as the fundamental reference point for virtually every avant-garde artistic movement that...

More than four decades after the passing of Monuments Woman Captain Rose Valland (1898–1980), one of the great heroines of World War II, the Monuments Men and Women Foundation released the first-ever English translation of her 1961 memoir, The Art Front:...

No German painter evokes such strong emotions as Caspar David Friedrich: his evening skies remain icons of longing, his mountain vistas testaments to the grandeur of nature.  He inspired Samuel Beckett to write Waiting for Godot and Walt...

In early modern Japan, cultural salons were creative spaces for people of all ages and social levels to pursue painting, poetry, and other artistic endeavors as serious but amateur practitioners. All using a pen- or art-name, individuals were able to...

An omnibus edition collecting fifteen volumes of Hokusai's dedicated drawing manuals, also known as e-tehon. Best known for woodblock prints such as The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the ninteenth-century artist Hokusai was prolific in other media. Of...

A visual journey through Zen’s influence on Japanese life, from calligraphy to the martial arts Formed by a convergence of the Buddha’s teachings with Taoism and local tradition, Zen has had a profound impact on the art and culture of Japan...

Five centuries of fascinating female creativity presented in more than 400 compelling artworks and one comprehensive volume The most extensive fully illustrated book of women artists ever published, Great Women Artists reflects an era where art made by...

Drawing on thousands of never-before-translated letters and unpublished sources, this biography reveals dramatic new information about the life and work of one of the late nineteenth century’s most important painters. Despite being mocked at the...

Examining aesthetic connections between the works of more than 50 Black artists from throughout the global diaspora This book was born out of frustration with art histories that emphasize Black artists’ resilience over the aesthetic impact of their...

Considered a founding father of modern painting, Vincent van Gogh is  also one of the most famed tragic figures in art history. This  comprehensive introduction brings together a detailed account of the artist's life with a complete catalog of...

Jean-Claude Lebensztejn’s history of the urinating figure in art, Pissing Figures 1280–2014, is at once a scholarly inquiry into an important visual motif, and a ribald statement on transgression and limits in works of art in general...

Selections from Romaine Brooks’s unpublished memoir No Pleasant Memories expose the psyche and practice of this underrecognized queer, female artist.   Most known for her bold and darkly painted portraits, Brooks was revolutionary in her...

Charles Baudelaire, considered a father of modern poetry, wrote some of the most daring and influential prose of the nineteenth century. Prior to publishing the international bestseller Les Fleurs du mal (1857), he was already notable as a forthright...

Derek Jarman's Blue weaves a sensory tapestry that serves as both a political call to action and a meditation on illness, dying, and love.   “For Blue there are no boundaries or solutions.” —Derek Jarman   Originally...

Translated into English for the first time, On Contemporary Art, a speech by the renowned novelist César Aira, was delivered at a 2010 colloquium in Madrid dedicated to bridging the gap between writing and the visual arts.   On...

How medieval Gothic art inspired a generation. Gothic Modern illuminates the pivotal discovery of medieval Gothic art for Edvard Munch, Käthe Kollwitz, and their artist contemporaries. It explores their deep attraction to the Gothic art of...

Showcases some of the most stunning treasures from the dynasty that created the Taj Mahal The Great Mughals presents, for the first time, the opulent, internationalist culture of Mughal Hindustan in the age of its greatest emperors: Akbar (r...

An accessible, inspirational, and engaging introductory survey of LGBTQIA+ photography, as told through the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Drawing on one of the oldest and largest photography collections in the world, Calling the...

In a world of infinite images here is a guide to 65 of the best ever taken. From early experiments with light and form through Leica masterpieces and now artificially generated images, take it or leave it, this is our opinion as to why these particular...

For as long as there’s been paint, there have been women painters – these are the painters you may not have heard of who have shaped the way we see. From artists at the forefront of the Dutch Golden Age to avant-garde radicals in Soviet Russia and...

A new history of digital art from the 1960s to the present day, with decade-by-decade essays exploring evolving digital art practices, alongside interviews with artists, gallerists, museum curators, and collectors. This new, image-led history of global...

 Explore the dynamic world of 1960s pop art through Lucy Lippard's insightful analysis of this groundbreaking international art movement. Surprising, questioning, challenging, enriching: the Pocket Perspectives series presents timeless works by...

 What is the purpose of art in a world on fire? Can it be a genuine form of political resistance? What is the purpose of art in a world on fire? In this exhilarating and deeply inspiring work, Amber Massie-Blomfield considers the work of artists,...

African American art in the era of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers In the period of radical change that was 1963–83, young black artists at the beginning of their careers confronted difficult questions about art, politics and racial identity. How...

Portrayals of James Baldwin and others in his circle highlight the iconic writer’s activism The American writer and activist James Baldwin (1924–87) considered himself a “witness” as he challenged perspectives on America and its history through his work...

The essential survey showcasing the work of more than 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Latin America Latin American artists have gained increasing international prominence as the art world awakens to the area’s extraordinary art...

 A celebration of more than 300 groundbreaking women sculptors that surveys 500 years of creative ingenuity from around the world Presenting a more expansive and inclusive history of sculpture, Great Women Sculptors surveys the work of more than 300...

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...

Master sculptor Auguste Rodin’s illuminating writings on cathedrals in France are especially relevant and significant following the recent fire at Notre Dame.    In this volume, the writer and Rodin scholar Rachel Corbett selects...

Through the exceptional permanent collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this book looks at arms and armor as art—from warfare to war games, from hunting to the pursuit of glory. The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s holdings of arms and...

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...