What makes a good art book? Strand Books owner Fred Bass lays it out simply: "A name artist or a name photographer; an attractive cover, well made, with top-quality paper." Would that it were so easy. Amazon's top-selling art book category is filled with how-to tomes; only Annie Leibovitz, photos by Sammy Davis Jr. and The Big Book of Breasts crack the top 75. Although for many booksellers, regional art books are the best draw (William Eggleston in the South, Ansel Adams in the West), for national appeal (i.e., sales), following Fred Bass's dicta isn't a bad idea. This spring, among the many worthy contenders, we single out a handful as particularly enticing mixtures of "name" and quality.
It's been almost 50 years since Robert Frank's influential The Americansappeared—arguably the granddaddy of photographic art books. This spring, Steidl commences a program that will eventually encompass Frank's entire oeuvre—photos and films. Three books are due this year, including the enchanting photo/text essay One Hour, along with Vol. 1 of the complete films, including the Jack Kerouac—narrated Pull My Daisy. Next year will bring a revised edition of The Americans and the controversial 1972 Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues(Mick: "Robert, if it shows in America we'll never be allowed in the country again.")Seen everything? If not, art lovers should pick up 1001 Paintings You MustSee Before You Die— a four-color, 960-page bargain at $39.95. Geoff Dyers writes a spirited preface, and a raft of leading critics annotate each work. (Universe; Rizzoli, dist.)Marc Joseph matched his color photos (still lifes of books and records in places where they are found—sales bins, shelves, imaginary space) with texts by the likes of Lydia Davis, Jonathan Lethem and Nick Tosches. The result is New and Used.(Steidl; D.A.P., dist.).Walker at Walker by Walker: through May 13, Kara Walker's beautiful, subversive meditations on the antebellum South will be on display at Minneapolis's Walker Art Center, which has published a textbook-like catalogue, with essays by Rob Storr, Tom McEvilley and others. (D.A.P., dist.)"One of the greatest newspapers" in NYC's history, says Pete Hamill of the Forward, from whose archives A Living Lenswas built. A century of Jewish life is lovingly rendered in photos, along with essays by Paul Berman Roger Kahn and others (Norton). Pictured: Irving Howe, Golda Meir and Ed Koch.Many Warhol portraits are in themselves cultural icons—Jackie O, Liz, Mao. Phaidon's Andy Warhol Portraits is the first complete overview, and includes many lesser-known Warhol takes—of Clint Eastwood, Bill Murray and a very young Sean Lennon. Collectively, Warhol's portraits suggest an equating of celebrity with art—or the other way around.The Police embark on a reunion tour this summer. Best seats are... $4,000. For a tenth of the price, fans can have a backstage pass to the early Police, courtesyof guitarist Andy Summers's photo diary in I'll Be WatchingYou: Inside The Police, 1980—83(Taschen). A $40 trade edition will be available in August.Jean-Michel Basquiat electrified the New York art scene in the '80s with work that was at once urban, avant-garde, immigrant and naïve—and now, it must be said, enduring. A major retrospective at the Milan Triennale occasioned Skira's catalogue raisonné, which documents not only the work but the artist at work, at play and at ease.
