Featured Books

 A lively history of Surrealism, from its beginnings in Paris to its expansion into an international artistic movement Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 celebrates the centennial of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), which launched one of...

The creative and collaborative history of vanguard printmaking studio and publisher Brand X. Brand X, founded in 1979 as a screenprinting laboratory in New York City, fosters creative collaborations in which paper, ink, and a seemingly endless variety...

Tracing the surge in creativity and transformations in culture and the arts during one of history’s most tumultuous decades Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s looks at the complex shifts in technology and the arts, including music, film, and fashion,...

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...

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...

This seminal 1929 surrealist novel by the painter Giorgio de Chirico merges the realms of dream and reality. In the artist’s only novel, de Chirico invites the reader into a world where language, time, space, and meaning are fluid, highlighting...

Walter Gropius outlines the guiding principles of Bauhaus living, from household utensils to textiles and ceramics The Bauhaus sought to unite life, craftsmanship and art under one coherent ethos and aesthetic. In New Works from Bauhaus Workshops—the...

The De Stijl protagonist’s elucidation of the basics of neoplasticism Painter, writer, architect, typographer, art theorist and leader of the De Stijl movement, Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) was one of the great modernist polymaths, and in this volume of...

The Short Story of Photography is a new and innovative introduction to the subject of photography. Simply constructed, the book explores 50 key photographs from the first experiments in the early 19th century to digital photography. The design of the...

From Game Boy to Gucci American advertising in the naughty 1990s From the Los Angeles riots to the Columbine High School massacre, Americans witnessed events and purchased items that reflected the best and worst of the decade. Bill Clinton’s presidency...

By Ruth Fine and Shelley R. Langdale Since its founding in 1972, the Brandywine Workshop has become an internationally recognized center for printmaking and a vital part of the Philadelphia community. In 2009 the workshop donated one hundred prints to...

Massaging the Consumer The digital future of ads in the extravagant 1980s With the cold war ebbing, crime and inflation at record levels, and movie star-turned-President Ronald Reagan launching a Star Wars of his own, the 1980s did not seem likely to...

Disco and Discovery Ads of the 1970s get funky and socially conscious Both eclipsed and influenced by television, American print ads of the 1970s departed from the bold, graphic forms and subtle messages that were typical of their sixties counterparts...

Americana in Full Bloom To the moon and back with advertising in the 1960s With the consumerist euphoria of the fifties still going strong and the race to the moon at its height, the mood of advertising in the sixties was cheerful, optimistic, and at...

Advertising in the Atomic Age From “The World’s Finest Automatic Washer” to the Cadillac which “Gives a Man a New Outlook” As McCarthyism swept across the United States and capitalism was king, white America enjoyed a feeling of pride and security that...

A selection from the memoir of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, the renowned eighteenth-century French portraitist and one of the most important women painters in art history In her memoir, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun offers a candid and thoroughly...

From Darkness into Light Wartime action and postwar triumph in the advertising of the 1940s At the beginning of the decade, America was at war. Patriotism was an integral part of everyday life, with the sentiment mirrored in advertising. As America...

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...

The Arena Chapel in Padua was completed in 1303; Giotto, then considered the preeminent painter in Italy, was commissioned to paint it in 1306. The resulting fresco cycle, detailing the history, birth, life, and death of Christ, ranks among the greatest...

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...