Art meets activism in this season's lead art books.
Top 10
The Adirondacks: Season by Season
Carl Heilman II. Rizzoli, Mar. 21
This volume focuses on the changing seasons in Adirondack Park, with a new selection of panoramic photographs from one of the area’s most accomplished photographers.
A Beautiful Ghetto
Devin Allen. Haymarket, June 13
Baltimore photographer Allen documents, in 100 black and white photos, the mass protest that erupted in response to the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody in 2015.
Blind Spot
Teju Cole. Random House, June 20
Acclaimed novelist and cultural critic Cole turns attention toward his other passion, photography, presenting 150 of his photographs, while ruminating on his complex relationship to the visual world.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive
Edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jennifer Gray. Museum of Modern Art, May 23
Accompanying a major exhibition at MoMA, this catalogue celebrates the 150th anniversary of the architect’s birthday through a scholarly exploration of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives.
Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between
Darran Anderson. Univ. of Chicago, Apr. 10
Already a cult favorite in Europe, this book is a lighthearted and digressive investigation of how visions of utopias and dystopias have influenced the design and development of actual cities.
Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore
Terry Newman. Harper Design, June 27
A fashion insider profiles 50 writers whose work and way of dress bear an idiosyncratic stamp influencing culture today.
Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors
George W. Bush. Crown, Feb. 28
This book showcases the former U.S. president’s favorite pastime through a series of portraits he painted of military veterans, with his share of the proceeds going to the Military Service Initiative of his nonprofit organization.
My Soul Has Grown Deep: Art from the Black South
Randall Griffey, Amelia Peck, and Darryl Pinckney. Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 11
Accompanying an exhibit at the Met Breuer in New York, this catalog examines the historical significance of a major group of self-taught artists from the American South.
Strong Is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves
Kate Parker. Workman, Mar. 7
Inspired by her two young daughters, Atlanta-based photographer Parker combats gender stereotypes about female beauty with photos of girls from around the United States “unabashedly and confidently being themselves.”
Type Tells Tales
Steven Heller and Gail Anderson. Yale Univ., May 30
Two veteran graphic designers use 600 illustration to demonstrate how typeface is integral to the message it conveys.
Art, Architecture & Photography Listings
Abrams
Detroit: The Dream Is Now: The Design, Art, and Resurgence of an American City by Michel Arnaud (Apr. 11, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-4197-2392-6) is a visual essay on the rebuilding and resurgence of the city of Detroit by photographer Arnaud. 15,000-copy announced first printing.
Art Institute of Chicago
Revoliutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test, edited by Matthew S. Witkovsky and Devin Fore (July 18, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-22571-6), gathers information from the forefront of current research into early Soviet art, providing a new understanding of where art was presented, who saw it, and how the images incorporated and conveyed Soviet values.
Asian Art Museum
Flower Power: The Meaning of Flowers in Asian Art by Dany Chan (June 6, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-939117-79-6) focuses on six celebrated flowers—lotus, plum blossom, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum, tulip, and rose—in 40 works of art and the messages they convey; with a foreword by Jay Xu.
Bellevue
The Topography of Tears by Rose-Lynn Fisher (May 2, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-942658-28-3) is a visual study of more than 100 tears photographed through an optical microscope, using tears captured in moments of grief, pain, gratitude, and joy, underscored by poetic captions.
Black Dog & Leventhal
This Is What a Librarian Looks Like: A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information by Kyle Cassidy, edited by Ronald Rice (May 16, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-316-39398-0), is a photographic and written tribute to 220 librarians from all 50 states and Canada, and their essential value to their communities. 30,000-copy announced first printing.
Bloomsbury USA
The Sagrada Familia: The Astonishing Story of Gaudí’s Unfinished Masterpiece by Gijs van Hensbergen (July 25, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-63286-781-0) chronicles the story of architect Antoni Gaudí’s strange masterpiece, which has remained under construction for the past 130 years, as well as the building’s complicated relationship with the city and residents of Barcelona.
Chronicle
The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures by the Library of Congress (Apr. 4, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-4521-4540-2) pays tribute to the power of the written word through more than 200 full-color images of first edition book covers, photographs from the library’s magnificent archives, and original catalogue cards; with a foreword by the current librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden.
Coffee House
At the Lightning Field by Laura Raicovich (Apr. 11, trade paper, $12.95, ISBN 978-1-56689-466-1) explores coincidences in history, light, space, duration, chaos theory, mathematics, memory, and Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, an art installation located in the desert of central New Mexico.
Columbus Museum of Art
Subversion and Surrealism in the Art of Honoré Sharrer by Sarah Burns, Robert Cozzolino, Michael Lobel, M. Melissa Wolfe, and Adam Desmond Zagorin (Mar. 7, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-300-22313-2) re-evaluates the work of artist Honoré Sharrer (1920–2009), an American painter who pushed the boundaries of figurative painting with playfulness and biting wit.
Crown
Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors by George W. Bush (Feb. 28, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-8041-8976-7) showcases the collection of oil paintings and stories by former president George W. Bush honoring the sacrifice and courage of America’s military veterans.
Daylight
Aramco: Above the Oil Fields by Ayesha Malik (June 27, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1-942084-36-5) is a photo essay that documents life inside Dhahran, a gated compound originally built for the American workers of the oil company, one of the most valuable companies in the world.
What Is Left Behind: Stories from Estate Sales by Norm Diamond, contributions by Kat Kiernan (May 16, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-1-942084-31-0), features photographs of items at estate sales that explore themes of memory, mortality, and cultural history.
DelMonico
Andy Warhol: Born Under a Dark Star, edited by Douglas Fogle (June 1, hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-3-7913-5615-0). From soup cans to car crashes, the early work of Andy Warhol is reconsidered in this illustrated collection of essays from a wide variety of scholars, writers, and artists, including Geoff Dyer, Barbara Kruger, and Richard Prince
Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern by Wanda M. Corn (Mar. 1, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-3-7913-5601-3) illuminates how the American artist purposefully proclaimed her modernity in the way she dressed and posed for photographers, with images of her art, homes, and wardrobe.
Dia Art Foundation
Robert Ryman, edited by Courtney J. Martin and Stephen Hoban (May 23, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-22671-3) highlights the interplay of context and meaning in the work of the American painter, accompanied by essays from a formidable array of scholars and curators.
DK
The Art Book (Mar. 7, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-4654-5337-2) is an introduction to art history that focuses on the masters of art while breaking down key concepts, periods, movements, and works using DK’s distinctive visual style.
Flammarion
Talk About Street Art by Jerome Catz (Feb. 7, paperback, $9.95, ISBN 978-2-08-020313-7) provides an introduction to an often underappreciated art form that is found on every continent.
Godine
Alice: A Survey of Her Calligraphy by Jerry Kelly (Mar. 23, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-1-56792-600-2) collects work from the personal archives of Alice Koeth, one of the most respected calligraphers in the world today, whose career spans more than 60 years.
Harper Design
Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore by Terry Newman (June 27, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-242830-1) showcases the signature sartorial and literary style of 50 writers, including Maya Angelou, Truman Capote, Colette, Allen Ginsberg, Zadie Smith, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and David Foster Wallace. 25,000-copy announced first printing.
Harvard Univ./Belknap
The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art, edited by David Bindman, Suzanne Preston Blier, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Feb. 27, hardcover, $95, ISBN 978-0-674-50439-4), asks how the black figure was depicted by artists from the non-Western world—Africa, East Asia, and the Indian subcontinent—whose aesthetic traditions are as diverse as the political and social histories of these regions.
Haymarket
A Beautiful Ghetto by Devin Allen (June 13, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-60846-759-4) documents in 100 black and white photos the mass protests that errupted in Baltimore in April 2015 in response to the brutal death of Freddie Gray while in police custody, revealing a world of love, courage, struggle, and hope.
Insight Editions
Cuba: This Moment, Exactly So by Lorne Resnick (June 13, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-68383-009-2) provides a portrait of Cuban culture in more than 250 color and black-and-white photos captured over the past 20 years.
Laurence King
Girl on Girl: Art & Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze by Charlotte Jansen (Apr. 18, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78067-955-6) displays how young women are using photography and the Internet to explore issues of self-image and female identity through the work of 40 women artists, all of whose principal subject matter is either themselves or other women.
The Short Story of Art: A Pocket Guide to Key Movements, Works, Themes and Techniques by Susie Hodge (May 2, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-78067-968-6) uses 50 key works of art to explain most important and influential concepts in art, and shows how they are linked, giving readers a thorough understanding and broad enjoyment of art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Irving Penn: Centennial by Maria Morris Hambourg and Jeff L. Rosenheim (Apr. 18, hardcover, $70, ISBN 978-1-58839-618-1) features one of the largest selections of Penn’s photographs ever compiled, including famous and favorite images, as well as works that have never been published, as a celebration of the centennial of Penn’s birth.
My Soul Has Grown Deep: Art from the Black South by Randall Griffey, Amelia Peck, and Darryl Pinckney (July, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1-58839-609-9) examines the art-historical significance of a major group of self-taught artists from the American South.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons by Andrew Bolton (May 30, trade paper, $50, ISBN 978-1-58839-620-4) looks at the influential and enigmatic designer Rei Kawakubo, the founder and creative director of Comme des Garçons, and how she has defined and transformed the aesthetics of the fashion world.
MIT
The Big Archive: Art from Bureaucracy by Sven Spieker (Feb. 24, paperback, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-262-53357-7) investigates the archive as both bureaucratic institution and index of evolving attitudes toward contingent time in science and art.
The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream by Stefan Al (Feb. 10, hardcover, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-262-03574-3) examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself.
Museum of Modern Art
Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive, edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jennifer Gray (May 23, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-1-63345-026-4), collects essays, each focusing on key items from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, published on the 150th anniversary of the master architect’s birth.
Louise Lawler: Receptions by Louise Lawler, edited by Roxana Marcoci (Mar. 28, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-1-63345-023-3), presents the American artist’s multifaceted practice across mediums—photography, sound work, film, objects, and mural-scale installations—and offers new critical perspectives through eight essays by renowned scholars that unpack the tight, witty, radical inventiveness of her work.
Norton
Figures in Stone: Architectural Sculpture in New York City by Robert Arthur King (May 2, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-393-71243-8). This gift-sized book for architecture buffs contains photos of quirky faces, figures, and creatures that adorn New York City buildings.
Looking Backward: A Photographic Portrait of the World at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century by Michael Lesy (Apr. 18, hardcover, $49.95, ISBN 978-0-393-23973-7) presents nearly 250 images displaying a riot of peoples and cultures, stark class divisions, and haunting glimpses of daily life a century ago.
Painted Turtle
The Detroit Public Library: An American Classic by Barbara Madgy Cohn and Patrice Rafail Merritt (May 1, hardcover, $34.99, ISBN 978-0-8143-4232-9) ignites the interests of history buffs, art enthusiasts, library lovers, and Detroit-area locals with a tribute to and photographic tour of an important landmark.
Phaidon
Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari (Mar. 20, hardcover, $89.95, ISBN 978-0-7148-7369-5) is a thorough assessment of artist Pettibon’s career to date and includes nearly 700 images, essays by art critics and James Ellroy, and a recent interview with the artist.
Wood by William Hall (Mar. 20, hardcover, $49.95, ISBN 978-0-7148-7348-0) explores the beauty of wood through 180 structures dating from the ancient world to the present day.
PowerHouse
Spanish Harlem: El Barrio in the ’80s by Joseph Rodriguez, contributions by Ed Morales (Mar. 7, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-57687-825-5). This photo essay documents New York City’s Spanish Harlem in the mid to late 1980s, a landscape littered with abandoned buildings, ominous alleyways, and plagues of addiction, and the residents of Spanish Harlem persevered with flamboyant style and gritty self-reliance.
Prometheus Books
Defined by Design: The Surprising Power of Hidden Gender, Age, and Body Bias in Everyday Products and Places by Kathryn H. Anthony (Mar. 14, trade paper, $18, ISBN 978-1-63388-283-6) uncovers the implicit biases inherent in the designs of common products and living spaces—from the schools our children attend and the buildings we work in to ill-fitting clothes and one-size-fits-all seating in public transportation.
Random House
Blind Spot by Teju Cole (June 20, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-0-399-59107-5) follows novelist and art critic Cole’s inimitable artistic vision into the visual realm as he explores his complex relationship to the visual world through his two great passions: writing and photography. With a foreword by Siri Hustvedt.
Rizzoli
The Adirondacks: Season by Season by Carl Heilman II (Mar. 21, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8478-5916-0) is a tribute to one of America’s natural treasures in panoramic photographs of the Adirondack Park’s grand mountains, pristine woods, and picturesque waterways.
Running Press
Happy Little Accidents: The Wit & Wisdom of Bob Ross by Bob Ross, compiled by Michelle Witte (May 2, hardcover, $15, ISBN 978-0-7624-6278-0), is a lighthearted tribute to Bob Ross, the soft-spoken artist who captivated television audiences for years painting happy clouds, mountains, and trees—all while dispensing little branches of wisdom. 35,000-copy announced first printing.
Skira Rizzoli
American Treasures: The Brandywine River Museum of Art, text by Christine Podmaniczky (May 16, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-8478-5961-0), features 50 paintings from the renowned art collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pa., and celebrates the beauty of the actual museum as well as its holdings; with a foreword by Thomas Padon, the museum’s director.
St. Martin’s/Dunne
Young Leonardo: The Evolution of a Revolutionary Artist, 1472–1499, by Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Christopher Heath Brown (May 23, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-12935-2) studies Leonardo da Vinci’s formative years, his triumphs and failures in the Renaissance art world, and how his techniques developed into the style he’s famous for today.
Thames & Hudson
Dronescapes: The New Aerial Photography by Dronestegram amd Ayperi Karabuda Ecer (Apr. 25, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-0-500-54472-3) collects 250 photographs taken by quadcopters around the globe, with images offering a bird’s-eye view of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, a photograph taken inches away from an eagle in midflight, or a vertiginous shot taken above Mexico’s Tamul Waterfalls.
Warehouse Home: Industrial Inspiration for Twenty-First-Century Living by Sophie Bush (Apr. 11, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-0-500-51946-2) looks at contemporary transformations of former industrial spaces into stylish modern residences around the world.
Univ. of Chicago
Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between by Darran Anderson (Apr. 10, trade paper, $22.50, ISBN 978-0-226-47030-6) is a magpie’s book, full of characters and incidents and ideas drawn from cities real and imagined around the globe and throughout history arguing that imaginary cities offer lessons for real cities.
Verso
Bad New Days: Art, Criticism, Emergency by Hal Foster (Mar. 7, paperback, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-78478-148-4) examines the evolution of art and criticism in Western Europe and North America over the past 25 years, exploring their dynamic relation to the general condition of emergency instilled by neoliberalism and the war on terror.
Workman
Strong Is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves by Kate Parker (Mar. 7, paperback, $17.95, ISBN 978-0-7611-8913-8) celebrates strong girls in photographs, with images of girls who range from yogis to skateboarders, cancer survivors to valedictorians.
Yale Univ.
Type Tells Tales by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson (May 30, trade paper, $45, ISBN 978-0-300-22679-9) looks at typographic design as an art and as a storytelling device that expresses narratives, emotions, and voice, featuring work from such designers as F.T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, Maira Kalman, among others.
Yale Univ. Art Gallery
Small-Great Objects: Anni and Josef Albers in the Americas by Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye (Feb. 21, trade paper, $25, ISBN 978-0-300-22569-3) looks at the art-collecting practices Anni (1899–1994) and Josef (1888–1976) Albers and their impressive collection of more than 1,400 objects from Latin America.
