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Take a Seat An overview of exemplary chairs More than any other piece of furniture, the chair has been subjected to the wildest dreams of the designer. The particular curve of a backrest, or the twist of a leg, the angle of a seat or the color of the...

 An updated edition of this indispensable reference, surveying the history of textiles from twenty-five thousand years ago to the present.  The history of textiles, more than that of any other artifact, is a history of human ingenuity. From the...

From Slave Ship to Harvard is the true story of an African American family in Maryland over six generations. The author has reconstructed a unique narrative of black struggle and achievement from paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records,...

Black Philadelphians have shaped Philadelphia history since colonial times. In Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape, Amy Cohen recounts notable aspects of the Black experience in Philadelphia from the late 1600s to the 1960s and how this history...

Larry Neal, a poet, dramatist, and critic, was a founding figure of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and 1970s in New York. Writing as the arts editor for Liberator magazine, a radical journal published in Harlem, Neal called for Black artists to...

“I exaggerate, I sometimes make changes to the subject, but I still don’t invent the whole of painting; on the contrary, I find it ready-made—but to be untangled—in the real world.” —Vincent van Gogh to Émile...

Through a focus on Lenape art, culture, and history and a critical examination of historical visualizations of Native and European American relationships, Never Broken explores the ways in which art can create, challenge, and rewrite history. This richly...

Historic Philadelphia has long yielded archaeological treasures from its past. Excavations required by the National Historic Preservation Act have recovered pottery shards, pots, plates, coins, bones, and other artifacts relating to early life in the...

This miniature bestiary contains some 200 illustrations of more than 160 mythical beings: fire-breathing dragons, mysterious mermaids, sinuous sea serpents, mischievous yokai, and many other wondrous creatures drawn from global folklore and mythology...

A beautiful and delightfully handy art book that is designed to inspire, this collection of 150 beautifully reproduced Vincent Van Gogh images makes a stylish gift. His writings have been edited and selected to create an enlightening, uplifting, and...

Medieval people are often portrayed as having poor hygiene and table manners—licking their knives or throwing chicken bones on the floor. In the Middle Ages, however, such behavior was not tolerated. Medieval society cherished order in nearly every facet...

This indispensable introductory guide explores the art of the African continent from its early origins over 75,000 years ago to the contemporary, set in the context of postcolonial debates, the restitution of cultural objects and artifacts, and the...

The Lenape tribe, also known as the Delaware Nation, lived for centuries on the land that English colonists later called New Jersey. But once America gained its independence, they were forced to move further west: to Indiana, then Missouri, and finally...

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...

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...

The twentieth volume in the renowned ekphrasis series, this collection of Virginia Woolf’s writings on the visual arts offers a whole new perspective on the revolutionary author.   Despite wide interest in Woolf’s writings, and in the...

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...

Mad about Painting collects beautiful new translations of Hokusai’s painting tutorials and related essays written by the artist and his peers—a selection made available in English for the first time.   Best known for his iconic print...

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,...

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...