Book Review
Unpacking the Ageist Myths of Western Art
Scholar Larry Silver sheds light on depictions of old age in Greek, Biblical, and European art history, but misses a deeper exploration.
Book Review
Book Review
The Poetry of van Gogh’s Montmartre Years
Miles J. Unger’s new study on the artist is in part a critical biography and in part an impressive and sensitive account of his creation of some key paintings.
Book Review
Art Loves You Back When People Don’t
Stephanie Wambugu’s Lonely Crowds follows a painter whose devotion to a filmmaker keeps her from living her life, even as she gains access to the supposed upper echelons of the art world.
Book Review
André Breton After the Surrealist Manifesto
In the French poet’s later writings, now available in an English translation, his ideas about the movement he founded begin to mingle with our own.
Book Review
This Novel Is the Art World’s Black Mirror
We all know the protagonists of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection. You’ve seen them at the gallery openings, on Instagram. In fact, there’s a good chance you are them.
Book Review
How Liberty Fabrics Weaves Design and Art History
Kassia St. Clair, who specializes in color, explores its historical connection to artists and art movements in a book timed with the company’s 150th anniversary.
Book Review
Ruth Asawa Proved That Mothering Is Inherently Artistic
Jordan Troeller’s book about the Bay Area sculptor and her artist-mother community shows us how reciprocity and caretaking become the work itself, not just the subject or the conditions.
Book Review
How Helen Chadwick Took the Piss Out of Art
A biography of the late artist, who used everything from raw meat to bubbling chocolate, acts as an anecdote to historical amnesia around her pioneering material experimentation.
Book Review
The Friendship That Transformed Frida Kahlo
The cover of a new book draws you in for Kahlo, but you will stay for Mary Reynolds, the innovative bookbinder and partner of Marcel Duchamp.
Book Review
The Woman Behind the Iconic Glass House
The life of Dr. Edith Farnsworth was long distorted by her dealings with Mies van der Rohe, who designed her glass house in Illinois. Almost Nothing asks us to take a closer look.
Book Review
The Wild, Inclusive Brilliance of New York’s Pyramid Club
A book of oral histories about the now-shuttered venue takes us through those who came before, made it big, and died too soon.
Book Review
The Fraught Rapture of Seeing Other Women Onscreen
Feminist film scholar Lori Jo Marso redresses misconceptions of the gendered gaze, parsing through the lessons we can learn from our exhilaration and unease.