Photo essays, exhibit catalogues, monographs, and more feature among this season’s art books.

Top 10

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today

Edited by Eva Respini. Yale Univ., Feb. 13

While lots has been written on the impact of the internet on politics, this collection of essays by curators, scholars, and critics seeks to understand its impact on art.

David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night

David Breslin and David Kiehl. Whitney Museum of American Art, July 10

The companion catalogue to a major exhibit at the Whitney Museum in New York surveys the life and art of David Wojnarowicz, who was one of the pivotal figures on the New York City art scene in the 1980s.

Double Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil

William Middleton. Knopf, Mar. 27

This dual biography of the married couple, whom the New York Times described as “the Medicis of Modern Art,” looks at the role of collectors in the making of culture.

How New York Breaks Your Heart

Bill Hayes. Bloomsbury, Feb. 13

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this love letter in photos documents a diverse range of city dwellers while capturing both the excitement and loneliness of living among them.

Lorna Simpson Collages

Lorna Simpson. Chronicle, Apr. 3

Multimedia artist Simpson pays homage to black culture with her exquisite collages featuring vintage advertisements of black women in this delectable monograph.

Misère

Linda Nochlin. Thames & Hudson, Mar. 13

This posthumous book from feminist art historian Nochlin, who died in 2017, examines depictions of squalor in artwork created during the industrial revolution.

The Museum of Lost Art

Noah Charney. Phaidon, May 14

The author of The Art of Forgery returns with a companion volume collecting true tales of art work that has been looted, stolen, or destroyed.

Never Remember: Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia

Masha Gessen and Misha Friedman. Columbia Global Reports, Feb. 27

This collaboration between Gessen, winner of the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and photographer Friedman documents the empty landscapes of three gulags where millions of Soviet citizens were killed between the 1930s and ‘50s.

Old in Art School: A Memoir

Nell Irvin Painter. Counterpoint, June 19

The author of The History of White People uses her experiences studying at the Rhode Island School of Design to explore the roles of gender, race, and age in the art world.

Sara Berman’s Closet

Maira and Alex Kalman. Harper Design, June 19

An illustrated tribute to Maira Kalman’s late mother, this book deconstructs the life and spirit of Sara Berman through items in her meticulously kept closet.

Art, Architecture & Photography

Abrams

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings by Sarah Greenough and Sarah Kennel (Mar. 27, hardcover, $55, ISBN 978-1-4197-2903-4) surveys the body of work of photographer Sally Mann over the course of her 40-year career, which has explored themes of family, identity, and race in the American South.

The World of Apartamento by Omar Sosa, Nacho Alegre, and Marco Velardi (Apr. 24, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-1-4197-2892-1). Over the past decade, Apartmento magazine has become an influential interior design publication. This book celebrates the publication’s 10th anniversary with a collection of its best features along with more than 300 photographs.

Abrams Image

Dress Like a Woman: Working Women and What They Wore (Mar. 6, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-2992-8). Fashion writer Vanessa Friedman contributes the introduction and cultural critic Roxane Gay provides the foreword to this book that examines the role of gender and dress in the workplace across history through 300 photographs.

Afterall

Glenn Ligon: Untitled (I Am a Man) by Gregg Bordowitz (Mar. 3, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-84638-192-8). Steeped in theory, this book provides an in-depth examination of a single 1988 painting by Glenn Ligon, Untitled (I Am a Man), paying special attention to the representation of self, race, and gender.

Architect

World Expos: A History of Structures by Isaac Lopez Cesar (May 1, trade paper, $49.99, ISBN 978-84-946257-3-2) examines the changes in architecture over the past 150 years through the lens of the structures built at World Expos.

Art Institute of Chicago

Charles White: A Retrospective by Sarah Kelly Oehler (June 5, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-0-300-23298-1) reexamines the legacy of artist Charles White (1918–1979), best known for large-scale paintings of African-Americans.

Atria

Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic. Rocking Our Truth, edited by Beverly Bond (Feb. 27, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-5011-5792-9), pays tribute to the achievements of black women around the world in more than 125 original photographs, specially commissioned for this work, with written contributions by celebrities Misty Copeland, Angela Davis, Shonda Rhimes, Gabrielle Union, and others.

Bloomsbury

How New York Breaks Your Heart by Bill Hayes (Feb. 13, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-63557-085-4). This photo essay by renowned photographer Hayes depicts chance encounters with ordinary New Yorkers. 40,000-copy announced first printing.

Canongate

The Story of Looking by Mark Cousins (Feb. 6, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-78211-911-1). Filmmaker Cousins makes a broad exploration of the impact of the act of looking on our worldview in this book that is part art book, part philosophical treatise.

Chronicle

Lorna Simpson Collages by Lorna Simpson (Apr. 3, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4521-6114-3). Poet Elizabeth Alexander writes the introduction to this delightful showcase of renowned artist Simpson’s collage work that pays homage to the beauty of black hair.

Columbia Global Reports

Never Remember: Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia by Masha Gessen and Misha Friedman (Feb. 27, hardcover, $27.99 ISBN 978-0-9977229-6-3). Gessen, winner of the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction, teams up with photographer Friedman to explore, in words and images, the now-empty sites of three gulags where million of Soviet citizens were killed between the 1930s and ’50s.

Conway Maritime

Mapping Shakespeare: An Exploration of Shakespeare’s Worlds Through Maps by Jeremy Black (Apr. 10, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-84486-517-8) plots the various locations of Shakespeare’s plays on illustrations and maps and explores the historical context that may have led Shakespeare to these locations.

Counterpoint

Old in Art School: A Memoir by Nell Irvin Painter (June 19, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-64009-061-3). Princeton professor Painter, author of The History of White People, enrolls at the Rhode Island School of Design, seeking to understand how women artists are seen and judged by their age, race, and looks.

Editions Hazan

Monet the Collector, edited by Marianne Mathieu and Dominique Lobstein (Feb. 6, hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-0-300-23262-2), reveals the artistic tastes of Claude Monet (1840–1926) beyond his own work by touring the collection of art he amassed over his lifetime.

Electa

Lost Japan: The Photographs of Felice Beato and the School of Yokohama (1860–1890) by Rosella Menegazzo (Apr. 3, hardcover, $80, ISBN 978-88-918-1496-8) collects 80 photographic prints from 19th-century Japan of women in kimonos, geishas, and samurai warriors, as well as scenes of everyday life.

Faber & Faber

The Pixels of Paul Cezanne: And Reflections on Other Artists by Wim Wenders (Apr. 27, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-571-33646-3). The German filmmaker reflects on the artists who have influenced his work, such as choreographer Pina Bausch and painters Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.

J. Paul Getty Trust

Artists and Their Books/Books and Their Artists by Marcia Reed and Glenn Phillips (July 10, hardcover, $49.95, ISBN 978-1-60606-573-0) selects 80 books from the Getty Research Institute’s collection of more than 6,000 unique editions of artists’ books to explore the physical book as an increasingly popular medium in contemporary art.

Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography by Paul Martineau (July 10, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-1-60606-558-7) surveys aesthetic choices and technological innovations in fashion photography over the past 100 years, from the work of Luxembourg-American photographer Edward Steichen in the 1910s to today.

Giles

Holbein’s Sir Thomas More by Hilary Mantel and Xavier F. Salomon (Apr. 27, hardcover, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-907804-91-5). Novelist Mantel imagines the context in which 16th-century artist Hans Holbein painted his famous portrait of Thomas More, while Salomon provides scholarly grounding.

Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders by Sherry C.M. Lindquist and Asa Simon Mittman (June 12, hardcover, $39.95, ISBN 978-1-911282-18-1). Drawing from the Morgan Library & Museum’s collection of illuminated manuscripts, this book examines the strange allure and frightening beauty of monsters in medieval societies.

Godine

The Stones of Yale by Adam Van Doren (Apr. 19, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-56792-618-7). This quaint collection of watercolor paintings depicts the world-renowned architecture of Yale University’s New Haven campus and will appeal to architecture buffs and art lovers alike.

Harper Design

The Mermaid Handbook: An Alluring Treasury of Literature, Lore, Art, Recipes, and Projects by Carolyn Turgeon (May 15, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-06-266956-8) is an illustrated homage to mermaids written by the editor-in-chief of Faerie magazine that explores mermaids’ place in myth, literature, and art.

Sara Berman’s Closet by Maira and Alex Kalman (June 19, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-284640-2) is an illustrated tribute to Sara Berman (1920–2004), mother of artist and author Maira Kalman and grandmother of Alex Kalman, the founder of Mmuseumm, told through objects found in Berman’s Greenwich Village studio.

Harvard Art Museums

Inventur: Art in Germany, 1943–55, edited by Lynette Roth (Feb. 13, hardcover, $55, ISBN 978-0-300-22920-2), looks at the work of 50 German artists in the period immediately after WWII in an attempt to understand the role of art in national reckoning.

Harvard Univ.

Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon by Joyce Tyldesley (Mar. 16, hardcover, $25.95, ISBN 978-0-674-98375-5) traces the history of the painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, now housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum, from its creation by sculptor Thutmose in the Bronze Age to its rediscovery and controversial removal to Europe in 1912.

Ilex

Why You Like This Photo: The Science of Perception, and How We Understand Photographs by Brian Dilg (Mar. 6, hardcover, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-78157-374-7) is a breezy overview of the psychology of beauty aimed at photographers, with practical advice on composition and insight into what makes a photograph appealing.

Knopf

Double Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil by William Middleton (Mar. 27, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-375-41543-2) tells the life stories of these art collectors and their enormous influence in the 20th-century art world.

Laurence King

Madam and Eve: Women Portraying Women by Liz Rideal and Kathleen Soriano (Apr. 17, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-1-78627-156-3) analyzes the depiction of women in 200 contemporary works of art created in the past 40 years by an international mix of female artists.

Lund Humphries

Bubble Wrap: The Chinese Art Market’s 21st-Century Boom by Lisa Movius (July 1, hardcover, $59.99, ISBN 978-1-84822-242-7) is an in-depth look at the frenzied growth of the Chinese contemporary art market over the past 25 years, examining key figures and the cultural contradictions at play.

From Street to Studio by Rafael Schacter (June 1, hardcover, $69.99, ISBN 978-1-84822-236-6) sets the record straight on the difference between graffiti and street art while exploring the larger question of what constitutes art in general.

Menil Foundation

Roni Horn: When I Breathe, I Draw by Michelle White (May 29, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-300-23315-5) looks at the drawings of contemporary artist Roni Horn, including her large-scale works on paper; the artist’s series of cadmium red drawings; and her cut-and-pasted word drawings that combine literary texts by Gertrude Stein and William Shakespeare with colloquial expressions.

Mercatorfonds

Van Gogh and Japan by Louis Van Tilborgh et al. (July 10, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-300-23326-1) examines Vincent Van Gogh’s private collection of Japanese ukiyo-e prints and the enormous impact it had on his own creative output.

Metropolitan

Slow House: Fixtures, Features, Masters, Neighbors, and a Year in Pursuit of a Better American Home by Thomas De Monchaux (May 15, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-62779-175-5). A New Yorker contributor and architect recounts a recent failed attempt to build his dream house on a half-acre plot of land in northern Michigan and what went wrong along the way.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bird’s of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris by Mary Clare McKinley (Feb. 6, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-58839-627-3). An encounter with Cubist artist Juan Gris’s painting The Man at the Cafe in October 1953 inspired Cornell to create more than a dozen shadow boxes, each featuring a motif that echoes formal elements in Gris’s painting. This unique study explores both Gris’s painting and Cornell’s deep fascination with it.

Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body by Luke Syson and Sheena Wagstaff (Apr. 3, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-1-58839-644-0), provides an eclectic exploration of the human figure in sculptures from 13th-century Europe to today, featuring interviews with contemporary artists Barti Kher, Jeff Koons, Alison Saar, and Fred Wilson.

Phaidon

Memoria by James Nachtwey (Mar. 12, hardcover, $99.95, ISBN 978-0-7148-7330-5). The first book in more than two decades from photojournalist Nachtwey, five-time winner of the Robert Capa Medal for Photography, who has been documenting war zones across the world.

The Museum of Lost Art by Noah Charney (May 14, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-7148-7584-2) collects true accounts of famous works of art stolen, looted, or destroyed in war or by accident.

Princeton Univ.

Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now by Asma Naeem (May 29, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-691-18058-8) looks at the resurgence of silhouettes in contemporary art, particularly in the work of Kristi Malakoff, Camille Utterback Kara Walker, and Kumi Yamashita.

Humanity by Ai Weiwei (Mar. 1, hardcover, $12.95, ISBN 978-0-691-18152-3) collects quotes from the influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei on a variety of topics including free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement.

Rizzoli

Denim: Street Style, Vintage, Obsession by Amy Leverton (Mar. 20, trade paper, $32.50, ISBN 978-0-8478-6230-6). A tribute to the enduring legacy of denim as a wardrobe staple worn by people all over the world, this book is sure to appeal to vintage lovers, denim heads, and fashionistas alike.

Semiotext(e)

The Weight of the Earth: The David Wojnarowicz Audio Journals, edited by Lisa Darms (Mar. 2, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-63590-017-0), collects transcriptions from the audio recordings of artist, writer, and activist Wojnarowicz, primarily recorded on road trips between 1987 and 1989.

St. Martin’s

Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt (Feb. 27, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-15765-2) is a biography of an often overlooked artist from the impressionist era, Suzanne Valadon, who got her start as a model for Degas and Renoir and later earned a reputation as a talented artist.

Taschen

Diego Rivera: The Complete Murals by Luis-Martin Lozano and Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera (Feb. 15, hardcover, $69.99, ISBN 978-3-8365-6897-5) is a richly illustrated exploration of the political murals of Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886–1957), with written contributions by art historian Lozano and the artist’s grandson.

Thames & Hudson

Misère by Linda Nochlin (Mar. 13, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-500-23969-8) examines depictions of squalor in the work of 19th-century writers, artists, and philosophers to shed light on the social and material effects of the industrial revolution.

Living with Leonardo by Martin Kemp (May 1, hardcover, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-500-23956-8). Mixing memoir and art criticism, da Vinci expert Kemp recounts his 50-year career spent studying the work of one of history’s most influential artists.

Univ. of California

Brian O’Doherty: Collected Essays, edited by Liam Kelly (June 5, trade paper, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-520-28655-9), is a collection of new and previously published essays by art critic Brian O’Doherty on such major figures as Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol.

Isamu Noguchi’s Modernism: Negotiating Race, Labor, and Nation, 1930–1950 by Amy Lyford (Feb. 1, trade paper, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-520-29849-1) examines the work of Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), arguing that the most fertile period of his storied career—between 1930 and 1950—is also his most overlooked.

Univ. of New South Wales

Running the City: Why Public Art Matters by Felicity Fenner (May 1, trade paper, $49.99, ISBN 978-1-74223-533-2). Leading Australian curator Fenner profiles public art projects from Australia and around the globe that use urban environments as both subject and setting.

Whitney Museum of American Art

David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night by David Breslin and David Kiehl (July 10, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-22188-6). Accompanying a major exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art, this catalogue explores the relationship between artistic production and cultural activism during the AIDS crisis in the work of Wojnarowicz.

Yale Univ.

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, edited by Eva Respini (Feb. 13, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-22825-0). A slew of leading curators, scholars, and critics look at the effects that rapid changes in communication technology and internet culture have had on the art world.

Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas by Catharina Manchanda, Lowery Stokes Sims, and Jacqueline Francis (Feb. 27, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-300-23389-6) brings together the work of three American artists—Colescott (1925–2009), Marshall (b. 1955), and Thomas (b. 1971)—whose works play off of traditional forms of representation in art to reflect on the individual and collective black experience.

On Color by David Kastan and Stephen Farthing (May 22, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-300-17187-7). A scholar and a painter seek to understand the effect of color on our social and moral imagination in this wide-ranging study of 10 colors.

Return to the main feature.