Books
Emily Mason’s Quest for Color and Truth
The late painter was influenced by Abstract Expressionism, but she had none of the hubris of its male artists. For her, painting was not about an experience, it was an experience.
Books
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.
Feature
An Artist and a Historian Plumb Gynecology’s Hidden Histories
Nao Bustamante and Wendy Kline explore the racist, sexist, would-be-very-illegal-today methods through which we’ve come to understand the medical field.
Books
Passports, Prints, and Protest at the NY Art Book Fair
The indie presses exhibiting at Printed Matter’s annual fair, now back at MoMA PS1, put an irreverent twist on the subversive histories of radical publishing.
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.
Feature
Photographs That Depict Alzheimer's With Dignity
Alicia Vera documents and processes her mother’s disease diagnosis in a new book.
Feature
An Ancient Roman Guide to Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook
The authors of a new anthology argue that we can understand and counter authoritarianism’s rapid expansion today by looking at culture in the time of Julius Caesar.
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.
Books
This Is Not the Real Geronimo
Elbridge Ayer Burbank’s haunting paintings of the Apache leader capture a likeness that was only ever real from the vantage point of a White man with a gun, canvas, or camera.
Guide
6 Art Books to Read This August
Before summer ends, we’re reading books on Ruth Asawa’s circle of artist-mothers, water and race in contemporary art, Kent Monkman, Carrie Yamaoka, and more.