Perhaps fashion has gone out of fashion, at least in museums, which are in the habit of producing splendid big books in connection to the Alexander McQueens and Elsa Schiaparellis of the world when shows warrant. Not this season. Art books return in great measure to the giants of art and architecture, while also giving air time to the new and unusual—always in fashion, year to year.

The eminent British art critic T.J. Clark delivered the Mellon Lectures four years ago, and those now make up his Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica, mapping a crucial period—between the two World Wars—during which Picasso confronted “the role of space and the interior, and the battle between intimacy and monstrosity” in three seminal works.

There are many centennial celebrations this year of the Armory Show in New York in 1913, but that same year, Picasso had his first show in America, in Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago hosts a huge show of Picasso in honor of that, and Picasso and Chicago is the companion catalogue.

David Smith (1906-1965) is considered by many to be America’s greatest sculptor. Joan Pachner, in David Smith, surveys the famous steel and bronze works, along with the drawings and writings of this American original in a handsome—and affordable—Phaidon Focus edition.

Moving toward the contemporary art scene—well, the 1980s—Eric Fischl tells all about the big crash of money, celebrity, and recreational drugs in Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas. Fischl was one of the hottest artists at the time.

In April, the Met will open its show, “Photography and the American Civil War.” A book of the same title, by Jeff L Rosenheim, curator in the department of photography, will accompany. A project that sounds like an experiment from the 1970s has produced some touching items: Becky Cooper, an award-winning “writer and cartographer,” raised in Queens, handed out blank city maps to strangers who had lived in the New York City their wholes lives. She asked them to map their personal city and send them to her by mail. Visual histories with unusual themes emerged.

The period of 1960s and ’70s had its own style and politics. Power to the People: The Graphic Design of the Radical Press and the Rise of the Counter-Culture, 1964-1974 by Geoff Kaplan looks at the original ads and illustrations that carried the messages of protest and identity. Famed Doonsebury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, during the Vietnam war, produced, along with David Levinthal, a photographic recreation of Germany’s disastrous move toward the Eastern Front in its battle with the Soviet Union in WWII. They published the book in 1977, and now Andrews McMeel is issuing a new edition of Hitler Moves East.

Craig Dworkin means to erase all these visual strivings—not literarily. But in No Medium, the poet and scholar looks at works of art, music, and literature that privilege absence, from Rauschenberg to Cage to Blanchot.

If absence isn’t your thing, here comes Kenny Goldsmith to pour on the plenitude. The high priest of what he calls Non-Creative Writing, Goldsmith continues producing books from found texts—in the case of Seven American Deaths and Disasters, he transcribes radio transmissions announcing famous deaths and other bad news. His new book is a textual equivalent of Warhol’s Death and Disaster paintings, ripped from the front pages of the Daily News.

PW’s Top 10: Art, Architecture & Photography

Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica. T. J. Clark. Princeton University Press, May 5

Picasso and Chicago: 100 Years, 100 Works. Stephanie D’Alessandro. Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 28

David Smith. Joan Pachner. Phaidon, May 7

Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas. Eric Fischl. Crown, May 7

Photography and the American Civil War. Jeff L. Rosenheim. Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 28

Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in 75 Maps. Becky Cooper. Abrams Image, Apr. 2

Power to the People: The Graphic Design of the Radical Press and the Rise of the Counter-Culture, 1964-1974. Geoff Kaplan. University of Chicago Press, Apr. 15

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43. G. B. Trudeau and David Levinthal. Andrews McMeel. Feb. 12

No Medium. Craig Dworkin. MIT Press, Feb. 1

Seven American Deaths and Disasters. Kenneth Goldsmith. PowerHouse Books, Mar.

Art, Architecture & Photography Listings

Abbeville Press

Audubon’s Birds of America: The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio by Roger Tory Peterson with Virginia Marie Peterson (Feb. 26, hardcover, $185, ISBN 978-0789211354). In this new printing of the classic edition of John James Audubon’s masterwork, the thumbnail images accompanying the descriptive captions are printed in full color. 2,000-copy announced first printing.

Botanica Magnifica: Portraits of the World’s Most Extraordinary Flowers and Plants by W. John Kress with Marc Hachadourian, photographs by Jonathan Singer (Apr. 9, hardcover, $11.95, ISBN 978-0789211378). An unabridged miniature edition of Botanica Magnifica, featuring 250 photographs of rare or exotic plants and flowers by the “Audubon of flowers,” renowned botanical photographer Singer (Fine Bonsai: Art & Nature).5,000-copy announced first printing.

Serpent’s Chronicle by Neil Folberg (May 7, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0789211385). The story of Adam and Eve powerfully retold in photographs from an unexpected viewpoint: that of the serpent. To memorable effect and in a spirit of serious spiritual inquiry, Folberg’s retelling of the story addresses the profound questions inherent in the biblical account. 3,000-copy announced first printing.

Abrams

Barbara Nessim: An Artful Life by David Galloway (Feb. 12, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-1419707681). Five decades of influential art and illustration from an important graphic stylist.

Serpentine by Mark Laita, introduction by William T. Vollmann (Mar. 5, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1419706301). Award-winning photographer Laita focuses his artistic expertise on the world of snakes.

William Klein: ABC by William Klein and David Campany (Mar. 12, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1419707490). A career survey—the first—of the work of master photographer Klein.

Norman Rockwell’s Treasury for Fathers by Susan Homer (May 14, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1419706189). The third book in the successful Rockwell series celebrates fathers with classic stories, poems, and iconic artwork. A Father’s Day special for Pops of a certain age.

Abrams Image

Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in 75 Maps by Becky Cooper, foreword by Adam Gopnik (Apr. 2, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1419706721). An unconventional atlas showcasing 75 personal maps of the Big Apple collected by Cooper, who walked the streets of New York and handed out blank maps to selected people, asking each to map his or her personal New York and mail it back to her.

Abrams/Other Criteria

Two Weeks One Summer by Damien Hirst with Manuela Mano (Feb. 5, hardcover, $110, ISBN 978-1906967598). The catalogue to Damien Hirst’s exhibition at the White Cube Gallery, Summer 2012.

The Complete Spot Paintings: 1986–2011 by Damien Hirst with Michael Bracewell (Feb., hardcover, $280, ISBN 978-1906967482). Hirst’s iconic pharmaceutical paintings, documented in their entirety for the first time.

Andrews McMeel Publishing/Levinthal and Trudeau

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941–43 by G. B. Trudeau and David Levinthal (Feb. 12, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1449428594). First published in 1977, Hitler Moves East displays reality through unreality, using toy figures and evocative photography to portray World War II’s most epic campaign—the German invasion of the Soviet Union. This large-format limited edition now makes the haunting vision of war even more apparent.

Art Institute of Chicago

Picasso and Chicago: 100 Years, 100 Works by Stephanie D’Alessandro (Mar. 28, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-0300184525). The Art Institute of Chicago was the first American museum to exhibit works by Picasso (1881-1973), in 1913. This book is published to commemorate the centennial of that landmark event. From February through May, the Art Institute will feature 250 Picasso works. 2,000-copy announced first printing.

Jonathan Cape

(dist. by ipg)

A Dance by Alexander Barabanov (Apr. 1, hardcover, $59.95, ISBN 978-0224085113). Barabanov, a key figure in the Russian dance world, has choreographed a sequence of photographs to form a 10-movement dance book that makes for an extraordinary collection of pictures, from historical ballet to avant-garde imagery.

Clark Art Institute

(dist. by Yale University Press)

Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection by Marc Simpson (July 28, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-0300191943). Winslow Homer (1836–1910) was a core figure in 19th-century American art. While most well-known for his oil paintings of Civil War scenes and the windswept Atlantic coastline, his oeuvre encompasses a variety of themes, ranging from childhood games through the life-and-death struggles, as evinced in the Clark collection.

Columbia University Press

Satyajit Ray on Cinema by Satyajit Ray, edited by Sandip Ray, foreword by Shyam Benegal (Mar. 26, paper, $19.50, ISBN 978-0231164955). Satyajit Ray, one of the greatest auteurs of 20th-century cinema, was a Bengali motion-picture director, writer, and illustrator who set a new standard for Indian cinema with his Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (1959).

Counterpoint

(dist. by PGW)

Spiritual American Trash: Portraits from the Margins of Art and Faith by Greg Bottoms (Apr. 9, paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1619020597). Bottoms goes beyond the examination of eight “outsider artists” and inhabits the spirit of their work and stories in engaging vignettes. From the janitor who created a holy throne room out of scraps in a garage, to the lonely wartime mother who filled her home with driftwood replicas of Bible scenes.

Crown

Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas by Eric Fischl with Michael Stone (May 7, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0770435578). Fischl’s no-holds-barred memoir about the over-the-top, drug-infused, high-flying New York City art scene in the 1980s, in which he was a star.

Disney Editions

Frankenweenie: The Visual Companion by Mark Salisbury (Feb. 5, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1423141860). A keepsake book chronicling the making of Tim Burton’s new film.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World by Mary Blume (Feb. 5, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-0374298739). A sparkling life of the monumental fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Getty Publications

Ed Ruscha and Some Los Angeles Apartments by Virginia Heckert (Apr. 25, paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1606061381). Los Angeles–based artist Ed Ruscha is celebrated for his paintings, drawings, prints, and artist’s books, and has received widespread critical acclaim for more than half a century. 5,000-copy announced first printing.

Harper Design

Super Cute Dolls: The Art of Erregiro by Erregiro (May 7, hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 978-0062234667). This book features more than 100 custom-created dolls by Erregiro, photographed in scenes and against backdrops entirely of the artist’s making. 15,000-copy announced first printing.

Heyday

San Francisco: Arts for the City: Civic Art and Urban Change, 1932–2012 by Susan Wels (Feb. 1, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-1597142069). The history of 80 years of public arts in the City by the Bay—from the founding of the Arts Commission in the depths of the Great Depression to Coit Tower to the Beat Poets to the digital explosion of the 21st century. Features 175 full-color photos, modern design, and analysis by several commentators. A 3,500-copy announced first printing.

Hudson Hills Press

Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World by Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, with contributions from Robert Cozzolino, Glenn Adamson, and Anna C. Chave (Feb. 1, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-1555953898). The Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women, approximately 400 works of art are detailed. Essays consider the struggles, development, and triumphs of women’s art.

Mercatorfonds

(dist. by Yale University Press)

Van Gogh’s Studio Practice by Leo Jansen (July 28, hardcover, $125, ISBN 978-0300191875). This companion to Van Gogh at Work from the same publisher shows how the artist experimented with an enormous range of materials and techniques in his paintings and drawings.

Van Gogh at Work by Marije Vellekoop (July 28, hardcover, $55, ISBN 978-0300191868). An in-depth exploration of Van Gogh’s working practice, his way of learning, his methods and skills, and the wide variety of artists that influenced him.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Etruscan Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Richard De Puma (Apr. 28, hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-0300179538). This informative and engaging book on the Museum’s famous collection of Etruscan art provides an introduction to the fascinating and diverse culture of ancient Etruria, which thrived in central Italy from about 900 to 100 B.C.

Photography and the American Civil War by Jeff L. Rosenheim (May 28, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-0300191806). Published on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, this study of Civil War photography traces the introduction of the camera into the battlefield and shows its influence on history and our responses to war. Features work by George Barnard, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan, and others. 7,500-copy announced first printing.

Early German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1360–1575 by Maryan W. Ainsworth and Joshua Waterman (June 28, hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-0300148978). Paintings by Renaissance masters Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Holbein the Younger are among the works featured in this lavish volume, the first comprehensive study of the largest collection of early German paintings in America. Ainsworth is curator of in the department of European painting at the Met.

MIT Press

No Medium by Craig Dworkin (Feb. 1, hardcover, $21.95, ISBN 978-0262018708). Dworkin looks at works that are blank, erased, clear, or silent, writing critically about works for which there would seem to be not only nothing to see but nothing to say. But he finds plenty to say.

What Was Contemporary Art? by Richard Meyer (Feb. 15, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0262135085). Contemporary art in the early 21st century is often considered radically new. Yet all works of art were once contemporary to the artist and culture that produced them, argues Meyer, who attempts to “reclaim the contemporary from historical amnesia.”

The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds, edited by Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel (Mar. 1, paper, $50, ISBN 978-0262518345). The geography of the visual arts changed with the end of the Cold War. Contemporary art was no longer defined, exhibited, interpreted, and acquired according to a blueprint drawn up in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. This fascinating volume shows how the lines were redrawn.

Pelluceo

(DIST. BY ACC)

Generation Ink: Williamsburg, Brooklyn by Paul Nathan (Feb. 1, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0985136802). A book that is more about youth culture than tattoo patterns raises the practice to a higher art. Photographer (and New Zealander) Nathan snaps a picture of what he has found in Brooklyn’s hippest neighborhood.

Phaidon Press

Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing by the Editors of Phaidon (May 21, hardcover, $69.95, ISBN 978-0714865287). A global survey of contemporary drawing, spotlighting 115 artists, with an introduction by Christian Rattemeyer, associate curator of drawings at the Museum of Modern Art.

Chris Johanson by Jonathan Raymond, Julie Deamer, Corrina Peipon, and Jens Hoffmann (June 18, paper, $45, ISBN 978-0714856940). An in-depth look at the work of West Coast artist Chris Johanson, a street artist and member of San Francisco’s Mission School art movement.

David Smith: Phaidon Focus by Joan Pachner (Mar. 5, hardcover, $22.95, ISBN 978-0714861562). One of the best-known American sculptors of the modern period, David Smith (1906–1965) was a pioneer of abstract sculpture. He revolutionized the possibilities of metal sculpture by introducing the industrial process of welding. This handsomely illustrated book also sheds light on Smith’s prolific drawing and writing practice.

PM Press

(DIST BY IPG)

Drawn to New York: An Illustrated Chronicle of Three Decades in New York City by Peter Kuper, introduction by Eric Drooker (Apr. 1, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1604867220). “Kuper is extraordinary, a one-of-a-kind talent, and like the city it chronicles, Drawn to New York is beautiful, mutinous, kaleidoscopic, and essential.”—Junot Díaz.

powerHouse Books

Seven American Deaths and Disasters by Kenneth Goldsmith (Mar., paperback, $19.95, ISBN 978-1576876367). Iconoclast and contrarian writing theorist Goldsmith, a proponent of “non-creative writing,” offers transcripts of radio transmissions at pivotal moments in American history (think assassinations and disasters and Michael Jackson). Goldsmith has been named the first poet laureate of the Museum of Modern Art.

Scene by Jeannette Montgomery Barron (Apr. 9, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1576876244). Andy Warhol, Jean-Michele Basquiat, Willem Dafoe, Julian Schnabel, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jenny Holzer, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, and many other major figures in the downtown New York art revolution of the 1980s are captured by the social photographer Barron.

Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle by Chuck Smith (Apr. 30, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1576876220). Forrest Bess, a painter, fisherman, and pseudo-hermaphrodite, lived in obscurity at an isolated camp off the East Coast of Texas. From 1949 through 1967, he showed at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, along with superstar artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. His unusual body of work is reassessed.

Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger by Audrey Niffenegger, Susan Fisher Sterling, Krystyna Wasserman, and Mark Pascale (May 7, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1576876398). The strange and mysterious world, real and imagined, in the art work of Niffenegger, otherwise know as the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, is featured. Book art, works on paper, and paintings reflect her narrative talent. The book is companion to an exhibition of Niffenegger’s art work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., opening in June.

Princeton University Press

Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica by T. J. Clark (May 5, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0691157412). A groundbreaking reassessment of Picasso by one of today’s preeminent art historians.

Thames & Hudson

Kengo Kuma: Complete Works by Kenneth Frampton (Apr. 1, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0500342831). A major monograph documenting Kengo Kuma’s interpretations of traditional Japanese architecture.

Late Raphael, edited by Tom Henry and Paul Joannides (Apr. 1, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0500970492). Sublime works of art that provide a deeper knowledge of one of the masters of High Renaissance art, and one of the most important artists in the development of European painting.

LetterScapes: A Global Survey of Typographic Installations by Anna Saccani (May 1, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-0500241431). The first global survey of typographic art installations in public spaces.

Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George by Erin B. Coe, Bruce Robertson, and Gwendolyn Owens (June 1, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-0500093740). A landmark survey that illuminates, through paintings, pastels, and photographs, how O’Keeffe discovered and refined her approach to nature at Lake George in upstate New York, where she spent time in the 1920s with Alfred Stieglitz.

Transaction Publishers

Louis I. Kahn, Architect: Remembering the Man and Those Who Surrounded Him by Charles E. Dagit Jr. (July 31, hardcover, $39.95, ISBN 978-1412851794). Kahn was one of the foremost architects of the 20th century. This commemorative volume shows the power and influence that he displayed at the University of Pennsylvania department of architecture in the 1960s.

University Of Chicago Press

Power to the People: The Graphic Design of the Radical Press and the Rise of the Counter-Culture, 1964–1974 by Geoff Kaplan (Apr. 15, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0226424354). Power to the People presents more than 700 full-color images as well as excerpts from underground newspapers from the ’60s and ’70s, many of which have not been seen since they were first published.

In the House of Balloon Dog: A Year Inside Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art by Matti Bunzl (Apr. 15, hardcover, $20, ISBN 978-0226924298). Bunzl takes readers behind the scenes of the contemporary art museum to reveal how curators select what to show, the role donors play in these decisions, and the ways in which curation and marketing come together in a museum’s attempt to reach a larger audience.

University of Illinois Press

(dist. by CDC)

Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 by Thomas Leslie (June 10, hardcover, $49.95, ISBN 978-0252037542). This history begins in the key period just after the Great Chicago Fire, when such landmarks as the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, and the Chicago Stock Exchange rose to impressive new heights, thanks to innovations in building methods and materials.

V&A Publishing

Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929: Expanded Edition, edited by Jane Pritchard and Geoffrey Marsh (Mar. 1, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-1851777495). Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Diaghilev’s famed Ballets Russes, which expanded the frontiers of theater and dance forever.

The Whitney Museum of American Art

Hopper Drawing by Carter E. Foster (June 28, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0300181494). The first in-depth exploration of the drawings and creative process of renowned American artist Edward Hopper. 8,000-copy announced first printing.

Yale University Press

Alice Aycock: Drawings by Jonathan Fineberg, introduction by Terrie Sultan (May 28, paper, $45, ISBN 978-0300191103). Alice Aycock (b. 1946) emerged onto the New York art scene in the 1970s and is best known for her large-scale public sculptures that often combine an industrial appearance with references to weightlessness as well as to science and cosmology. Fineberg concentrates here on Aycock’s drawings and discusses how the artist “thinks on paper.”

Angels, Demons, and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet by Klaus Ottmann and Dorothy Kosinski (Feb. 28, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0300186482). The artistic relationships among Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990), and Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) strongly influenced the development of postwar art, argue the authors. Ossorio, the central figure in the trio, was an early champion of Pollock and a close friend of Dubuffet.

What Art Is by Arthur C. Danto (Mar. 19, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-0300174878). A lively meditation on the nature of art by one of America’s most celebrated art critics. 7,500-copy announced first printing.

The Cy Twombly Gallery, edited by Nicola Del Roscio et al. (Mar. 28, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0300188585). A visual celebration of one of the most renowned artists of our time, along with the gallery he helped to create to showcase his work. 3,500-copy announced first printing.

Garry Winogrand, edited by Leo Rubinfien, with contributions by Sarah Greenough, Erin O’Toole, Tod Papageorge, and Sandra S. Phillips (Apr. 28, hardcover, $85, ISBN 978-0300191776). “You could say that I am a student of photography, and I am, but really I’m a student of America.”—photographer Gary Winogrand on his work. 12,000-copy announced first printing.

Paula Modersohn-Becker: The First Modern Woman Artist by Diane Radycki (May 28, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-0300185300). A new look at the life and career of a pioneering woman artist. 3,500-copy announced first printing.

Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953–1966 by Timothy Anglin Burgard and Steven Nash (July 28, hardcover, $55, ISBN 978-0300190786). An exploration of the pivotal years in Diebenkorn’s career. 5,000-copy announced first printing.