Books
A Tour of Timekeeping in Rare Books
Through 86 volumes that span the 15th century to the present, the Grolier Club visualizes the development of modern timekeeping.
Books
Books
How Cy Twombly Spliced Poetry into His Art
In Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint, Mary Jacobus offers a fresh and intricate study of Twombly’s citations and overall engagement with verse.
Books
Death by Wallpaper: The Alluring Arsenic Colors that Poisoned the Victorian Age
Lucinda Hawksley's book Bitten by Witch Fever chronicles the rise of poisonous pigments in the 19th century through the burgeoning British wallpaper trade.
Books
Reader’s Diary: David Beech's ‘Art and Value’
What in the world is art worth?
Books
The Aviation Aspirations of Chinese Farmers
Xiaoxiao Xu photographed and interviewed men in rural Chinese villages who have huge dreams of flight.
Books
Vintage Cameras and the Imperfect Photographs They Take
David Ellwand has collected over 100 vintage cameras and published the photographs he’s taken with them in RetroPhoto: An Obsession.
Books
The Posthumous Fame of the 19th Century's Greatest Vegetable Photographer
Charles Jones photographed hundreds of vegetables in the 19th century, but it was only in 1981 that his work was rediscovered by chance.
Books
Reader’s Diary: Cormac McCarthy's ‘Blood Meridian’
Thanks to Blood Meridian, I’ve learned, at least temporarily, the meanings of “quirt,” “pritchel,” and even the seemingly ultra-rare “malandered.”
Books
The Tender Proceduralism of Solmaz Sharif’s 'Look'
More than merely taking a side in a long-running coterie debate, Look’s selective disclosures of its method stand out because they represent a way of pointing to artistic process without fetishizing it.
Books
An Artist Who Cultivates Deadly Plants and Photographs Them
Matthew M. Kaelin takes pictures of carnivorous plants to highlight their beautiful and fatal details.
Books
Paintings of a Homegrown Black Superhero
A great deal of art leverages mystique by processing experience through varying layers of abstraction. The N-Word, a new collection of paintings by the artist Peter Williams — published by Rotland Press and with contributions by writers Lynn Crawford and Bill Harris — does the opposite: it lays out a response to
Books
Nocturnal Photographs of the World's Oldest Trees
Photographer Beth Moon documents the world's oldest trees by the starry light of the night sky.