Book Review
Jennifer Higgie’s Empathetic Elegy for Richard Dadd
In “Bedlam,” the author and art critic does not describe the English painter’s often-sensationalized mental deterioration. Instead, she writes the novel in his voice.
Books
Books
Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press Gets an Exhibition of Its Own
They were both writers, and amongst the remarkable fruits of their union was a decision to open a small press, which in time grew into something far from small.
Book Review
Can We Stop Calling South Asian Painting "Miniature"?
A book on 18th-century Pahari painting warns against thinking of these works as “miniatures,” a Western term, instead illuminating the artistic collaboration and ways of life at their heart.
Book Review
Maria Martins Was More Than Just Duchamp’s Lover
A new book by leading Duchamp scholar Francis M. Naumann chronicles the artist’s affair with the Brazilian sculptor, but frequently reduces her influence and career to sexual allure.
Book Review
Haroutiun Galentz’s True Colors
A new book traces the function of color as both a mask and a mirror in psychological portraits by the modernist painter, who lost his parents during the Armenian Genocide.
Book Review
Why Won’t Britain Return Looted Gold to Ghana?
In “The African Kingdom of Gold,” Barnaby Phillips explores how British colonial forces plundered the Asante people and expertly traces the stolen artifacts’ afterlives in museum storage.
Books
10 Photo Books to Read This Month
Hal Fischer’s archive of queer fashion, Sophie Rivera’s portraits of Nuyorican communities, Rania Matar’s love letter to Lebanon, and more new titles to check out from photo book publishers.
Book Review
The Fruitless Search for Vermeer’s Personal God
A recent biography spends too much time speculating about the Dutch artist’s religious beliefs and not enough exploring other mysteries, including his possible use of a camera obscura.
Opinion
AI Companies Are Pulping Our Humanity
The recent revelation about Anthropic’s systematic digitization and destruction of out-of-print books portends a rapacious future, one where soulless LLMs swell while the shelves starve.
Book Review
Helen Levitt Captured the Poetry of New York City
A new survey publication serves as a testament to the photographer’s belief that the city’s working-class communities of color possessed a beauty and drama all their own.
Book Review
The Many Lives of Frederic Edwin Church
Victoria Johnson’s biography is a nuanced portrait of the artist, whose landscapes conveyed the anxieties of a nation struggling over slavery, war, and disunion.
Art Review
The Album Art Music Left Behind
Two projects examine the visual art and design that shape our perception of music, from Raymond Pettibon’s Foo Fighters record covers to the ephemera of bygone bands.