New at the Library

Reviewed: NYT/BR 7 Mar. 2021 p. 13.
Description: McKinley draws on her extensive collection of historical and contemporary photos to present a visual history of African women across centuries. These images tell how deeply cosmopolitan and modern they are in their style; how they were able to reclaim the tools of the colonial oppression that threatened their selfhood and livelihoods. She shows that, while African studios captured the dignity, austerity, and grandeur of African women, photos by Europeans are mostly nudes, revealing the relationships of white men and Black females: at best, a grave power imbalance. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 22 June 2020 p. 139
Description: We’re all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dormroom posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh’s suicide, you may not be aware that there’s pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn’t die by his own hand but was accidentally killed–or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol’s most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy’s moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? NC Museum of Art curator Jennifer Daseal takes a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories be-hind the world’s great artists and masterpieces. (publ.)

Throughout history, artists, scientists, and philosophers have attempted to explain and order the visible color spectrum. Color: offers the fascinating history of how color has been recorded, explored, and understood. Using an extraordinary collection of original color material that includes charts, wheels, artists' palettes, and swatches, the book showcases centuries of significant scientific discoveries and artistic exploration. This stunning display of shades, tints, and tones is an authoritative guide for anyone working in the arts, as well as anyone passionate about color in their personal lives, homes, and surroundings.

Sue Taylor integrates the artist's own recollections into interpretations of his art. This book conveys the very real threats under which Wood lived and pays tribute to his resourceful responses.

Shedding new light on the renowned Renaissance artist, this book examines all of da Vinci's known paintings using recent advances in technology and the latest art historical research. While Leonardo da Vinci is one of history's most studied and renowned artists, there are many myths surrounding his work. This book demonstrates how recent advances in technology have aided researchers in studying and restoring da Vinci's art--including uncovering forgeries--and explores the artist's scientific achievements in the fields of optics and paint composition.

Reviewed: PW 22 June 2020 p. 70.
Description: The first major biography for our time of René Magritte, from the celebrated biographer of Braque and Cézanne. In this stimulating life of René Magritte (1898-1967), Alex Danchev makes a case for the artist as the single most significant purveyor of images to the modern world. His surreal sensibility, his deadpan melodrama, and his fine-tuned outrageousness have all become inescapably part of our times through legendary works such as “The Treachery of Images” (we know it as Ceci n’est pas une pipe), and through his iterations of the man in a bowler hat, raining down in multiples from the sky, or with an apple where his face should be. These pathbreaking subversions all came from a middleclass Belgian gent, who kept a modest house in a Brussels suburb; who led a small, brilliant band of Belgian surrealists, and famously clashed with André Breton; whose first one-man show, in the style he famously dubbed "Vache" ("Cow"), sold absolutely nothing. In 1965 a major retrospective traveling through-out the United States gave birth to his international reputation. Using thirty-two pages of color inserts and black-and-white illustrations throughout the text, Danchev explores the path of this highly unconventional artist who posed profound questions about the relationship between image and reality and the very nature of authenticity. Danchev delves into a deep examination of Magritte's artistic development, surveys his intimate friendships, and plumbs the mystery of an iconoclast whose influence can be seen in everyone from Jasper Johns to Beyoncé. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 12 Oct. 2020 p. 66; TLS 27 Nov. 2020 p. 10.
Description: Keith Lowe, an award-winning author of books on WWII, saw monuments around the world taken down in political protest and began to wonder what monuments built to commemorate WWII say about us today. Focusing on these monuments, Lowe looks at World War II and the way it still tangibly exists within our midst. He looks at all aspects of the war from the victors to the fallen, from the heroes to the villains, from the apocalypse to the rebuilding after devastation. He focuses on twenty-five monuments including The Motherland Calls in Russia, the US Marine Corps Memorial in the USA, Italy’s Shrine to the Fallen, China’s Nanjin Massacre Memorial, The A Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, the balcony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and The Liberation Route that runs from London to Berlin. Unsurprisingly, he finds that different countries view the war dif-ferently. In monuments erected in the US, Lowe sees triumph and patriotic dedications to the heroes. In Europe, the monuments are melancholy, ambiguous and more often than not dedicated to the victims. In these differing international views of the war, Lowe sees the stone and metal expressions of sentiments that imprison us today with their unchangeable opinions. Published on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war, Prisoners of History is a 21st century view of a 20th century war that still haunts us today. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 14 May 2020 p. 30.
Description: This groundbreaking volume examines the extraordinary artistic and cultural traditions of the African region known as the Sahel (“shore” in Arabic), a vast area on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert that includes present-day Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. This is the first book to present a comprehensive overview of the diverse cultural achievements and traditions of the region, spanning more than 1,300 years from the pre-Islamic period through the 19th century. It features some of the earliest extant art from Africa as well as such iconic works as sculptures by the Dogon and Bamana peoples of Mali. Essays by leading international scholars discuss the art, architecture, archaeology, literature, philosophy, religion, and history of the Sahel, exploring the unique cultural landscape in which these ancient communities flourished. Richly illustrated and brilliantly argued, Sahel brings to life the enduring creativity of the different peoples who lived, traded, and traveled through this crossroads of the world. (publ.)

A brilliant and personal examination by sensational and bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard of his Norwegian compatriot Edvard Munch, the famed artist best known for his iconic painting The Scream. Sets out to understand the enduring and awesome power of Edvard Munch's work by training his gaze on the landscapes that inspired Munch. Bringing together art history, biography, and memoir, Knausgaard tells a passionate, freewheeling, and pensive story about not just one of history's most significant painters, but the very meaning of choosing the artist's life, as he himself has done.

Description: In 2013 Georg Baselitz declared that “women don’t paint very well.” While shocking, his comments reveal what Helen Gørrill argues is prolific discrimination in the artworld. In a groundbreaking study of gender and value, Gørrill proves that there are few aesthetic differences in men and women’s painting, but that men’s art is valued at up to 80 per cent more than women’s. Indeed, the power of masculinity is such that when men sign their work it goes up in value, yet when women sign their work it goes down. Museums, the author attests, are also complicit in this vicious cycle as they collect tokenist female artwork which impinges upon its artists’ market value. An essential text for students and teachers, Gørrill’s book is provocative and challenges existing methodologies while introducing shocking evidence. She proves how the price of being a woman impacts upon all forms of artistic currency, be it social, cultural or economic and in the vanguard of the “Me Too” movement calls for the artworld to take action. (publ.)

A fascinating exploration of art created by the varied Armenian kingdoms that connected the East and West during the Middle Ages As the first people to officially convert to Christianity, Armenians commissioned and produced astonishing religious objects. This sumptuous volume depicts and contextualizes the compelling works of art that defined the rich and complicated culture of medieval Armenians, including carvings, liturgical furnishings, beautifully illustrated manuscripts, gilded reliquaries, exquisite textiles, printed books, and more.

In The Art of Looking, renowned art critic Lance Esplund shows that works of Modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they might seem to be. Nor do they represent a dramatic break from the past. He situates more recent movements in the tradition of art and examines the threads that tie the art of the past to that of the present.

Reviewed: TLS 24 Jan. 2020 p. 36.
Description: Against an increasingly polarizing political backdrop, this book takes a visual journey through over a hundred years of social protest. From the early twentieth century suffragettes through to the 1960s and 1970s–considered by many the heyday of uprisings–and contemporary, social media-driven demonstrations of dissent, this illustrative history features iconic posters from world-renowned artists, including notable posters from the archives of Amnesty International, as well as more spontaneous ephemera from short-lived print collectives and street activists. With a foreword from celebrated artist and activist, Anish Kapoor, The Art of Protest showcases more than 100 posters. It covers key campaigns such as women’s liberation, nuclear disarmament, the civil rights movement, climate change, AIDS activism, and Black Lives Matter, revealing artists who have pushed boundaries, given voice to the marginalized, and railed against those who seek to deny people their rights to peace and equality. (publ.)

In this vivid account Scott Nethersole examines the remarkable period of cultural, artistic, and intellectual blossoming in Florence from 1400 to 1520--the period traditionally known as the Early and High Renaissance. He looks at the city and its art with fresh eyes, presenting the well-known within a wider context of cultural reference. Key works of art--from painting, sculpture, and architecture to illuminated manuscripts--by artists such as Michelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli, and Brunelleschi are showcased alongside the unexpected and less familiar.

Cable knitting is easier than it looks - and it looks extraordinary! Brilliant patterns and quality yarns give great results and this fantastic collection from Ivar Asplund shows off the beauty, versatility and endless possibilities of cable knitting. With over 20 projects ranging from sweaters, cardigans, and ponchos to scarves, wrist warmers, and hats, for children and adults, there is something here to please everyone. Novice cablers can work up something quick with a single eye-catching cable edging, while veterans can test their skills on larger, more complex patterns with multiple interwoven cable designs. With step-by-step instructions, a tutorial section that explains the principles of working and combining cables to achieve a variety of striking effects, and tips and tricks to help ease your way, it's a dream come true for any cable knitter!

Reviewed: TLS 5 July 2019 p. 35.
Description: Without any prompting, children intuitively develop a powerful impulse to draw. Beginning with their first scribbles, drawing is an activity that encompasses children’s expanding knowledge, changing perceptions and new experiences about themselves and their environment. It is a visual language that evolves as the child grows, and one in which feelings, ideas and emotions can all appear. As children draw they develop motor skills, a positive sense of identity, and faculties of problem-solving and critical thinking. And their drawings offer parents a window to see how children perceive themselves and the world around them. This is a concise, richly illustrated book, aimed at parents and carers, that explores why children draw and the meaning and value of drawing for youngsters–from toddlers aged two to pre-adolescents aged twelve. Informed by psychology and practical teaching with children, it guides readers through the progressive stages and characteristics of drawing development as children grow and change mentally, physically, socially, emotionally and creatively. It offers parents tips about encouraging children to express their ideas visually, age-appropriate art materials, workspaces, and different media as well as suggestions for making an art museum visit more meaningful–not to mention more fun–for both parents and kids. (publ.)

How an eighteenth-century engraving of a slave ship became a cultural icon of black resistance, identity, and remembrance One of the most iconic images of slavery is a schematic wood engraving depicting the human cargo hold of a slave ship. First published by British abolitionists in 1788, it exposed this widespread commercial practice for what it really was--shocking, immoral, barbaric, unimaginable. Printed as handbills and broadsides, the image Cheryl Finley has termed the "slave ship icon" was easily reproduced, and by the end of the eighteenth century it was circulating by the tens of thousands around the Atlantic rim. Committed to Memory provides the first in-depth look at how this artifact of the fight against slavery became an enduring symbol of black resistance, identity, and remembrance.

Description: From the Zoroastrian sculpture of a 100-kilo mastiff to the portrait of a coiffured lap dog, this book presents humanity’s best friend like never before. Through a wide range of genres, fashions and cultures, from Roman mosaics to pop art, video, impressionism and photography, this book brings together more than 200 breathtaking canine images to tell the story of dogs in art from ancient times to the present. Susie Green considers the artist’s often very personal motives behind their work, the vastly different cultural raison d’etres, and the reasons why these sentient, emotional beings are loved and trusted by hundreds of millions of people, including artists such as Hogarth, William Wegman and Lucien Freud. (publ.)

2018 marks the centenary of Egon Schiele's death. To coincide with this occasion the publication will present the painting collection of the Belvedere Vienna including highlights such as Eduard Kosmack, House Wall, Death and Girl, The E mbrace and Four Tr ees. The book provides an opportunity to study the artist's work processes in greater detail and to follow the fascinating routes taken by his works before reaching the museum. In 1918 the Österreichische Galerie under Director Franz M. Haberditzl was the first Austrian museum to acquire an oil painting by Schiele during his lifetime. Today the museum owns one of the top collections of paintings from the years 1907 - 1918 by the artist. The publication will examine each work separately and will answer questi ons with regard to their acquisition and subject as well as related works.

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 22.
Description: An entertaining and highly original introduction to graphic design, this beautifully designed book uses puzzles and visual challenges to demonstrate how typography, signage, posters and branding work. Through a series of games and activities, including spot the difference, matching games, drawing and dot-to-dot, readers are introduced to concepts and techniques in an engaging and interactive way. Further explanation and information is provided by solution pages and a glossary, and a loose-leaf section contains stickers, die-cut templates, and coloured paper to help readers complete the activities. (publ.)

When one thinks of women in the Middle Ages, the images that often come to mind are those of damsels in distress, mystics in convents, female laborers in the field, and even women of ill repute. In reality, however, medieval conceptions of womanhood were multifaceted, and women's roles were varied and nuanced. Female stereotypes existed in the medieval world, but so too did women of power and influence. The pages of illuminated manuscripts reveal to us the many facets of medieval womanhood and slices of medieval life--from preoccupations with biblical heroines and saints to courtship, childbirth, and motherhood.

Reviewed: TLS 16 Aug. 2019 p. 25 (referenced)
Description: In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo's assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? (publ.)

This accessible book--the first of its kind--offers concise explanations of key jewelry terms. The fascination with personal adornment is universal. Jewelry encompasses a seemingly endless number of ornaments produced across time and in all cultures. In any given society, master artisans have devoted their time, energy, and talent to the fine art of jewelry making, creating some of the most spectacular objects known to humankind. This volume, geared toward jewelry makers, scholars, scientists, students, and fashionistas alike, begins with a lively introduction that offers a cultural history of jewelry and its production. Containing more than eighty color illustrations, this guide will be invaluable to all those wishing to increase their understanding and enjoyment of the art of jewelry.

This in-depth study of a much-loved and extremely popular ballet, leads us from our first association (Christmas gifts, toys, sweets, fairy tale), into a complex, fascinating world of ballet symbolism. Secret meaning is embedded in dancers' movements, costume details and colors, characters' names and order of appearance. Leading the reader from scene to scene, the author shows us how these are unexpectedly connected to Russian history, society, religion, even geography and more. Nothing in The Nutcracker is accidental or merely decorative. Based on thorough research, the book gives a completely new perspective on the world-famous masterpiece.

The Paston Treasure, a spectacular painting from the 1660s now held at Norwich Castle Museum, depicts a wealth of objects from the collection of a local landed family. This deeply researched volume uses the painting as a portal to the history of the collection, exploring the objects, their context, and the wider world they occupied.

Reviewed: NYRB 19 Dec. 2019 p. 59.
Description: This study investigates how changing modes of representing the black female figure were foundational to the development of modern art. It examines the legacy of Edouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), arguing that this radical painting marked a fitfully evolving shift toward modernist portrayals of the black figure as an active participant in everyday life rather than as an exotic “other.” Denise Murrell explores the little-known interfaces between the avant-gardists of nineteenth-century Paris and the post-abolition community of free black Parisians. She traces the impact of Manet’s reconsideration of the black model into the twentieth century and across the Atlantic, where Henri Matisse visited Harlem jazz clubs and later produced transformative portraits of black dancers as icons of modern beauty. These and other works by the artist are set in dialogue with the urbane “New Negro” portraiture style with which Harlem Renaissance artists including Charles Alston and Laura Wheeler Waring defied racial stereotypes. The book concludes with a look at how Manet’s and Matisse’s depictions influenced Romare Bearden and continue to reverberate in the work of such global contemporary artists as Faith Ringgold, Aimé Mpane, Maud Sulter, and Mickalene Thomas, who draw on art history to explore its multiple voices. (publ.)
Note: Catalog accompanied the exhibitions at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, New York, (October 24, 2018-February 10, 2019), & Musée d’Orsay (March 26-July 14, 2019).

School buses that have been converted into mobile living spaces -- known as skoolies -- are a natural extension of the tiny house craze. Experienced builder Will Sutherland, whose creative school bus conversions have been featured in Road and Track and Popular Mechanics, is behind the wheel of this alluring look at life on the road. In addition to profiles of eight fellow skoolie fans and stunning photos of bus interiors designed for simple living, Skoolie! does what no other book on the subject has -- it offers a complete, step-by-step guide to the conversion process, from seat removal to planning layout and installing insulation, flooring, and furnishings that meet your needs.

This is a collection of the most memorable portraits taken over the past decades of the international Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Each is accompanied by a story that tells how the picture came to be taken and its importance as a record of an unforgettable moment.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 12/23/2019 p. 9.
Description: Combining the expertise and insight of a leading journalist and a pioneering designer, Kuang and Fabricant provide a definitive, thoughtful, and practical perspective on a topic that has rapidly gone from arcane to urgent to inescapable. It is a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Kuang and Fabricant unpack the ways in which the world has been–and continues to be–remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design. They map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have caused our world to change. You’ll never interact with technology the same way again. (publ.)

Description: Authors Jamie Camplin and Maria Ranauro weave together an engaging cultural history that probes the ways in which books and paintings represent a key to understanding ourselves and the past. Paintings contain a world of information about religion, class, gender, and power, but they also reveal details of everyday life often lost in history texts. Such artworks show us not only how books have been valued over time but also how the practice of reading has evolved in Western society. Featuring over one hundred works by artists from across Europe and the United States and all painting genres, this book explores the two-thousand-year story of the great painters and the preeminent information-providing, knowledge-endowing, solace-giving, belief-supporting, leisure-enriching, pleasure-delivering medium of all time: the book. (publ.)

Description: By the late 1960s, the United States was in a pitched conflict in Vietnam, against a foreign enemy, and at home–between Americans for and against the war and the status quo. This powerful book showcases how American artists responded to the war, spanning the period from Lyndon B. John-son’s fateful decision to deploy US Marines to South Vietnam in 1965 to the fall of Saigon ten years later. Artists Respond brings together works by many of the most visionary and provocative artists of the period, including Asco, Chris Burden, Judy Chicago, Corita Kent, Leon Golub, David Hammons, Yoko Ono, and Nancy Spero. It explores how the moral urgency of the Vietnam War galvanized American artists in unprecedented ways, challenging them to reimagine the purpose and uses of art and compelling them to become politically engaged on other fronts, such as feminism and civil rights. The book presents an era in which artists struggled to synthesize the turbulent times and participated in a process of free and open questioning inherent to American civic life. (publ.)

Review: TLS 22 Mar. 2019 p. 11.
Description: Bill Traylor (ca. 1853-1949) is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. A black man born into slavery in Alabama, he was an eyewitness to history–the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the steady rise of African American urban culture in the South. Traylor would not live to see the civil rights movement, but he was among those who laid its foundation. Starting around 1939, Traylor–by then in his late eighties and living on the streets of Montgomery–took up pencil and paintbrush to at-test to his existence and point of view. In keeping with this radical step, the paintings and drawings he made are visually striking and politically assertive; they include simple yet powerful distillations of tales and memories as well as spare, vibrantly colored abstractions. When Traylor died, he left behind more than one thousand works of art. Leslie Umberger considers more than two hundred artworks to provide the most comprehensive and in-depth study of the artist to date; she examines his life, art, and powerful drive to bear witness through the only means he had, pictures. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 11 Jan. 2019 p. 31.
Description: At the end of World War II, the US Office of Military Government for Ger-many and Bavaria, through its Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives division, was responsible for the repatriation of thousands of artwork, looted by the Nazis in the countries they had occupied. With the help of the US Army, massive numbers of objects were retrieved from their wartime hiding places and inventoried for repatriation. This fascinating history documents the story of the Allies’ Central Collecting Point (CCP), set up in the former Nazi Party headquarters in Munich, where the confiscated works were transported to be identified for restitution. Iris Lauterbach presents her archival research on the events, with meticulous attention to the official systems, frameworks, and bureaucratic enterprise of the Munich CCPin the years from 1945 to 1949. She uncovers the stories of the people who worked there at a time of lingering political suspicions; narrates the research, conservation, and restitution process; and investigates how the works of art were returned to their owners. (publ.)
Note: Originally published as: Der Central Collecting Point in München: Kun-stschutz, Restitution, Neubeginn (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2015).

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 22.
Description: If you’ve ever had a Barbie doll, or you know someone who did, chances are that Barbie was dressed in one of the thousands of designs created by Carol Spencer during her unparalleled reign as a Barbie fashion designer spanning more than thirty-five years. Published in commemoration of Barbie’s sixtieth anniversary, this book is a dazzling celebration of the clothes that made America’s favorite doll and the incredible woman behind them. … Along with behind-the-scenes stories of how these designs came to be, Spencer reminisces about her thrilling time at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and Charlotte John-son, the original Barbie designer, for a full, insider look into life with the beloved doll. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Dec. 2018 vol. 56 no. 4) Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Illuminates both the historic context in which FDR articulated the Four Freedoms–Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear–and the role of Rockwell’s paintings in bringing them to life for millions of people, rallying the public behind the War effort and changing the tenor of the times. In telling the story of how Rockwell’s works were transformed from a series of paintings into a national movement, the exhibition also demonstrates the power of illustration to communicate ideas and inspire change. Also includes numerous other examples of painting, illustration, and more, by both Rockwell and a broad range of his contemporaries, from J.C. Leyendecker and Mead Schaeffer, to Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks, among others. (publ.)
Note: Published in conjunction with the exhibition at the New York Historical Society, May 25-September 2, 2018 (and other locations).

Reviewed: PW 25 June 2018 p. 23.
Description: More than a hundred years ago (1899), photographer Frank Bennett Fiske (1883-1952) began photographing members of the Standing Rock Sioux in his studio at Fort Yates, North Dakota. He was 16 years old when he took over the studio from S.T. Fransler. The men and women Fiske photo-graphed were his friends and neighbors, Native Americans who had lived on the reservation for more than 20 years. Fiske lived there nearly all his life. Made with a large studio camera on glass plate negatives, the resulting images are stunning in their clarity and composition, and have rarely been seen in public and never published in book form until now. Dakota native, photographer and graphic designer Murray Lemley has curated a selection of Fiske's work for the world to see for the first time. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Oct. 2018 vol. 56 no. 2) Top 75 Titles recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Covers the history of architecture, interiors, and furniture globally, from ancient times through the late twentieth century. Each chapter gives you background information about the social and cultural context and technical innovations of the period and place, and illustrates their impact on interior design motifs. The book highlights cross-cultural influences of styles and designs, showing you how interior design is a continuing exchange of ideas. This second edition expands global coverage to Latin American, African, and Asian cultures and integrates green design into historic developments. You’ll learn to use your understanding of the past to design for the present and find inspiration for your future designs. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Aug 2019 vol. 56 no. 12); Essential; Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Shedding new light on the renowned Renaissance artist, this book examines all of da Vinci’s known paintings using recent advances in technology and the latest art historical research. While Leonardo da Vinci is one of history’s most studied and renowned artists, there are many myths surrounding his work. Beginning with his birth and early maturity in the workshops of the Florentine masters, Alessandro Vezzosi delves into the provenance of disputed works such as Madonna Litta and La Bella Principessa. He demonstrates how recent advances in technology have aided researchers in studying and restoring da Vinci’s art–including uncovering forgeries–and he explores the artist’s scientific achievements in the fields of optics and paint composition. (publ.)

Description: Featuring many of Da Vinci’s most enduring artworks, both as illustrations and pop-ups, including The Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper, and, of course, the Mona Lisa, Leonardo Pop-Ups also includes Da Vinci’s self-portrait, an overview of his architectural designs, and inventions such as a flapping ornithopter. A beautiful new way of looking into one of the greatest minds of all time. (publ.)

Reviewed: NPR 20 Nov. 2018.
Description: She is famous throughout the world, but how many know her name? You can admire her figure in Washington, Paris, London, New York, Dresden, or Copenhagen, but where is her grave? We know only her age, fourteen, and the work that she did–because it was already grueling work, at an age when children today are sent to school. In the 1880s, she danced as a “little rat” at the Paris Opera, and what is often a dream for young girls now wasn’t a dream for her. She was fired after several years of intense labor; the director had had enough of her repeated absences. She had been working another job, even two, because the few pennies the Opera paid weren’t enough to keep her and her family fed. She was a model, posing for painters or sculptors–among them Edgar Degas. Drawing on a wealth of historical material as well as her own love of ballet and personal experiences of loss, Camille Laurens presents a compelling, com-passionate portrait of Marie van Goethem and the world she inhabited that shows the importance of those who have traditionally been overlooked in the study of art. (publ.)

Reviewed: WSJ 9/10 Mar. 2019 p. C11; Choice (Apr. 2019 vol. 56 no. 8) Essential; Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: The artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) is America’s best-known sculptor of public monuments. This is the first comprehensive biography of this fascinating figure and his illustrious career. Full of rich detail and beautiful archival photographs, it is a nuanced study of a preeminent artist whose evolution ran parallel to, and deeply influenced, the development of American sculpture, iconography, and historical memory. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Dec. 2018/Jan. 2019 p. 58.
Description: The Statue of Liberty is an icon of freedom, a monument to America’s multiethnic democracy, and a memorial to Franco-American friendship. That much we know. But the lofty ideals we associate with the statue today can obscure its turbulent origins and layers of meaning. Francesca Lidia Viano reveals that history in the fullest account yet of the people and ideas that brought the lady of the harbor to life. … The tale stretches from the cobble-stones of northeastern France, through the hallways of international exhibitions in London and Paris, to the copper mines of Norway and Chile, the battlegrounds of the Franco-Prussian War, the deserts of Egypt, and the streets of New York. It features profound technical challenges, hot air balloon rides, secret “magnetic” séances, and grand visions of a Franco-American partnership in the coming world order. The irrepressible collaborators bring to their project the high ideals of liberalism and republican-ism, but also crude calculations of national advantage and eccentric notions adopted from orientalism, freemasonry, and Saint-Simonianism. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 22.
Description: With the rise of the smart phone and social media, cameras have become ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every aspect of social life. The glowing camera screen is the lens by which many of us apprehend and communicate our experience. But our thinking about photography has been slow to catch up; this major fixture of everyday life is still often treated in the terms of art or journalism. Social theorist Nathan Jurgenson develops bold new ways of understanding the transformations wrought by these image-making and sharing technologies and the cultural objects they have ushered in: the selfie, the faux-vintage photo, the self-destructing image, the food photo. Jurgenson shows how these devices and platforms have re-made the world and our understanding of ourselves within it. (publ.)

Description: In 2008, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon acquired a painting called The Flight into Egypt which was attributed to the French artist Nicolas Poussin. Thought to have been painted in 1657, the painting had gone missing for more than three centuries. Several versions were rediscovered in the 1980s and one was passed from hand to hand, from a family who had no idea of its value to gallery owners and eventually to the museum. A painting that had been sold as a decorative object in 1986 for around 12,000 euros was acquired two decades later by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon for 17 million euros. What does this remarkable story tell us about the nature of art and the way that it is valued? How is it that what seemed to be just an ordinary canvas could be transformed into a masterpiece, that a decorative object could become a national treasure? This is a story permeated by social magic the social alchemy that transforms lead into gold, the ordinary into the extraordinary, the profane into the sacred. (publ.)
Note: Originally published as: Ceci n’est pas qu’un Tableau: Essai sur l’Art, la Domination, la Magie et le Sacré (Paris : La Découverte, 2015).

Reviewed: Choice (Sept. 2018 vol. 56 no. 1) Highly recommended for community college libraries.

Description: Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image adorns countless churches, icons and paintings. He is the subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and works of art. Everyone can conjure up an image of Jesus: usually as a handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes. But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different version of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 6 June 2019 p. 28.
Description: Presents a new perspective on the art and culture of the Middle East in the years 100 B.C.-A.D. 250, a time marked by the struggle for control by the Roman and Parthian Empires. For the first time, this book weaves together the cultural histories of the cities along the great in-cense and silk routes that connected southwestern Arabia, Nabataea, Judaea, Syria, and Mesopotamia. It captures the intricate web of influence and religious diversity that emerged in the Middle East through the exchange of goods and ideas. And for our current age, when several of the archaeological sites featured here–including Palmyra, Dura-Europos, and Hatra–have been subject to deliberate destruction and looting, it addresses the crucial subject of preserving what has been lost and contextualizes the significance of these works on a local and global scale. This essential volume features 186 objects of exceptional importance from Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Readers are taken on a fascinating journey that explores sites of intense political and religious struggles against Roman rule as well as important religious centers and military bulwarks of the Parthian Empire. (publ.)

Description: Featuring essays by leading curators, scholars, and critics, this book provides an in-depth look at how the internet has impacted visual art over the past three decades. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Black Lives Matter, the internet's promise to foster communication across borders and democratize information has evolved alongside its rapidly developing technologies. While it has introduced radical changes to how art is made, disseminated, and perceived, the internet has also inspired artists to create inventive and powerful work that addresses new conceptions of community and identity, modes of surveillance, and tactics for resistance. (publ.)

Reviewed: Economist 20 Jan. 2018 p. 75; LR 2/2018 p. 34; NYRB 10 May 2018 p. 32; TLS 19 Oct. 2018 p. 10.
Description: Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents–a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar–but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, the classic account that single handedly invented the genre of artistic biography and established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari’s extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill rather than an intellectual pursuit, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari’s visionary writings that artists like Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 18 Sept. 2017 p. 76
Description: Commemoration lies at the poetic, historiographic, and social heart of human community. It is how societies define themselves and is central to the institution of the city. Addressing the complex ways that monuments in the United States have been imagined, created, and perceived from the colonial period to the present, Commemoration in America is a wide-ranging volume that focuses on the role of remembrance and memorialization in American urban life. (publ.)

Reviewed: Locus 8/2017 p. 24
Description: Features dozens of lavish color plates, from early work to the exquisitely wrought watercolors that are the basis of 3-time Caldecott Medal winner Wiesner’s best-known books, along with pages excerpted from his forthcoming first graphic novel, Fish Girl. Also included are works by some of the artists most influential to Wiesner, including Marvel comic book legends, Surrealist and avant-garde masters, and mid-20th-century graphic artists. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 3 July 2017 p. 69.
Note: Exhibition Catalog.
Note (2): Traveling exhibition at San Francisco (2017); New York (2017/18); & Oslo (2018).
Description: “…offers a fresh look at the exceptional works of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) by examining them in the light of his precarious mental state. Following a nervous breakdown in 1908, Munch underwent electroshock therapy, which prompted a marked change in his art work. …” (publ.).

Reviewed: NYRB 10 May 2018 p. 19; TLS 25 May 2018 p. 22; LJ 15 Apr. 2018 p. 71.
Description: The social and political climate in which Wood’s art flourished bears certain striking similarities to America today, as national identity and the tension between urban and rural areas reemerge as polarizing is-sues in a country facing the consequences of globalization and the techno-logical revolution. Wood portrayed the tension and alienation of contemporary experience. By fusing meticulously observed reality with fables of childhood, he crafted unsettling images of estrangement and apprehension that pictorially manifest the anxiety of modern life. (publ.)

Reviewed: Time (12 Mar. 2018 p. 54)
Contents: Vol. 1: 1890-1959.
Description: This book offers a comprehensive history of graphic design from the end of the 19th century to the remains of World War II. It traces the evolution of this creative field from its beginning as poster design to its further development into advertising, corporate identity, packaging, and editorial design. Organized chronologically, the volume features over 2,500 seminal designs from all over the world, 71 of which are profiled in detail besides 61 leaders in the field, including Alphonse Mucha (chocolate advertisements), Edward Johnston (London Underground logo and typeface), El Lissitzky (constructivist graphics), Herbert Matter (photomontage travel posters from Switzerland), Saul Bass (animated opening titles), and A. M. Cassandre (art deco posters). (publ.)
Note: Vol. 1 of planned 2 vol. set.

Reviewed: TLS 2 Dec. 2016 p. 8; 25 Nov. 2016 p. 7 (2016 Books of the Year); LR Sept. 2016 p. 44; PW 7 Aug. 2017 p. 61 (starred); NYT/BR 24 Dec. 2017 p. 11; NYRB 5 Dec. 2019 p. 36.
Synopsis: This is a book about why medieval manuscripts matter. The idea for the book, which is entirely new, is to invite the reader into intimate conversations with twelve of the most famous manuscripts in existence and to explore with the author what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history — and sometimes about the modern world too. (Publ.)

Description: Brings to life the Society’s world-class collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, bronzes, and illustrated letters by Montana’s famed “Cowboy Artist.” (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 3 Dec. 2017 p. 67; LRB 22 Feb. 2018 p. 14.
Description: It was 1830 when English scientist Henry De la Beche painted the first piece of paleoart, a dazzling, deliciously macabre vision of prehistoric reptiles battling underwater dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, cavemen, and other creatures, shaping our understanding of the primeval past through their exhilarating images. In this unprecedented new book, writer Zoë Lescaze and artist Walton Ford present the astonishing history of paleoart from 1830-1990. These are not cave paintings produced thousands of years ago, but modern visions of prehistory: stunning paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, and murals that mingle scientific fact with unbridled fantasy. The collection provides an in-depth look at this neglect-ed niche of art history and shows how the artists charged with imagining extinct creatures often projected their own aesthetic whims onto prehistory, rendering the primordial past with dashes of Romanticism, Impressionism, Fauvism, and Art Nouveau, among other influences. (publ.)

Description: It all started with Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh discovering dozens of these photographs. She and three colleagues, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave and Rachel L. Swarns, began exploring the history behind them, and subsequently chronicling them in a series entitled Unpublished Black History, that ran in print and online editions of The Times in February 2016. … This book includes those photographs and many more, among them: a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading an anti-discrimination rally of in Chicago, Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery Courthouse in Alabama a candid behind-the-scenes shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater, Ralph Ellison on the streets of his Manhattan neighborhood, the firebombed home of Malcolm X, Myrlie Evans and her children at the funeral of her slain husband , Medgar, a wheel-chair-bound Roy Campanella at the razing of Ebbets Field. Were the photos–or the people in them–not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words at an institution long known as the Gray Lady? Eveleigh, Canedy, Cave, and Swarms explore all these questions and more in this one-of-a-kind book. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 4 Dec. 2016 p. 40

Reviewed: NPR (Weekend Edition; 3/26/2016: "With Just Pencil And Paper, A Patient Found Escape Inside State Hospital No. 3")
Description: Edward Deeds spent his entire adult life in mental institutions. These meticulous, and wildly imaginative pencil and crayon drawings portray an unusual cast of characters: nineteenth-century dandies, Civil War soldiers, country landscapes dotted with roaming animals, and fanciful architecture--none of which existed in the actual mid-twentieth-century landscape of Deeds’s own life. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR October 2016 p. 15.

Description: This set contains three complete programs that feature selected masterpieces of architecture, sculpture and painting and are filmed on location throughout Europe, from the early Christian and Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic eras.

Description: Now celebrated as one of the great painters of the Renaissance, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio fled Rome in 1606 to escape retribution for killing a man in a brawl. Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. … Fusing elements of history, biography, memoir, travelogue, and journalism, Terence Ward’s narrative maps the movement from estrangement to grace, as we witness Caravaggio’s bruised life gradually redeemed by art. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 17 Apr. 2017 p. 72 (author interview)

Description: What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately involved with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if our sexuality or physical body is considered deviant or damaged? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens? Olivia Laing explores these questions by traveling deep into the work and lives of some of the century’s most original artists, among them Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Edward Hopper, Henry Darger and Klaus Nomi.
Note: Author interviewed on NPR show, Fresh Air, by Terry Gross (1 Mar. 2016; “Provocative Book Explores The Connection Between Loneliness And Art”). Also reviewed on NPR by author Jason Heller, 1 Mar. 2016, “Lonely City’ Is More Than A Cry For Connection”).

Reviewed: TLS 2 Dec. 2016 p. 8; 25 Nov. 2016 p. 7 (2016 Books of the Year); LR Sept. 2016 p. 44; PW 7 Aug. 2017 p. 61 (starred); NYT/BR 24 Dec. 2017 p. 11; NYRB 5 Dec. 2019 p. 36.
Synopsis: This is a book about why medieval manuscripts matter. The idea for the book, which is entirely new, is to invite the reader into intimate conversations with twelve of the most famous manuscripts in existence and to explore with the author what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history — and sometimes about the modern world too. (Publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 25 Nov. 2016 p. 28

Reviewed: Choice Nov 2016 vol. 54 no. 3 (Essential)

Reviewed: WSJ 19-20 Nov. 2016 p. C12
Note: Children/YA Audience