New Books in Art
Episodes
Eli Maor and Eugen Jost, “Beautiful Geometry” (Princeton UP, 2014)
11 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Beautiful Geometry (Princeton UP, 2014), by the mathematician prof. Eli Maor and the noted artist Eugen Jost. It’s a fascinating collaboratio...
Brian Jay Jones, “Jim Henson: The Biography” (Ballantine Books, 2013)
06 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the field of children’s programming, few people- with the possible exception of Fred Rogers- are as beloved as Jim Henson, a contributor to Sesam...
Daniel Sherman, "French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975" (U Chicago Press, 2011)
05 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The "primitivist idea" has played an important role in art and culture from at least the late nineteenth century. From Paul Gauguin to Pablo Picasso, ...
Christine Yano, “Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek across the Pacific” (Duke UP, 2013)
28 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This cat has a complicated history. In addition to filling stationery stores across the globe with cute objects festooned with little whiskers and bow...
Pauline Turner Strong, “American Indians and the American Imaginary: Cultural Representation Across the Centuries” (Paradigm Publishers, 2012)
20 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Pauline Turner Strong‘s new book American Indians and the American Imaginary: Cultural Representation Across the Centuries (Paradigm Publishers, 20...
Jonathan Hay, “Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China” (University of Hawaii Press, 2010)
19 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China (University of Hawai’i Press, 2010) is a study of domestically produced, portable ...
Anne-Marie O’Connor, “The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” (Knopf, 2012)
12 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Reporter Anne-Marie O’Connor uses the iconic gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer to engage us in the exciting cultural life of fin-de-siecle Vienna, ...
Amanda MacKenzie Stuart, “Empress of Fashion: Diana Vreeland, A Life”
26 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The title says it all: Diana Vreeland was, in fact, that Empress of Fashion, reigning over Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and the Metropolitan Museum of Ar...
Kathryn Livingston, “Lilly: Palm Beach, Tropical Glamour, and the Birth of a Fashion Legend” (Wiley, 2012)
02 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It’s rare that a person’s name comes to represent an object, but such is the case with Lilly Pulitzer. Just say ‘Lilly’ and it conjures images...
William Marotti, “Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan” (Duke UP, 2013)
22 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Japanese artist Akasegawa Genpei was prosecuted in the 1960s for producing work that imitated money. His single-sided, monochrome prints of the 1,000 ...
Ian Condry, “The Soul of Anime” (Duke UP, 2013)
30 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You may come for the Astro Boy or Afro Samurai, but you’ll stay for the innovative ways that Ian Condry‘s new book brings together analyses of tra...
Gennifer Weisenfeld, “Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923” (University of California Press, 2012)
01 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Gennifer Weisenfeld‘s gorgeous and thoughtful new book explores the visual culture that emerged in the wake of the Kanto earthquake of 1923. Imaging...
Lois Rudnick, “The Suppressed Memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan” (University of New Mexico Press, 2012)
29 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The art salon is sadly less prevalent in our day than in days past, but it is far from obsolete. In its heyday, the salon provided people- particularl...
Janice Neri, “The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
13 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Before the sixteenth century, bugs and other creepy-crawlies could be found in the margins of manuscripts. Over the course of the sixteenth and seve...
Daniela Bleichmar, “Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
26 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Daniela Bleichmar‘s new book is a story about 12,000 images. In Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenm...
Shih-Shan Susan Huang, “Picturing the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Traditional China” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2012)
31 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Shih-Shan Susan Huang‘s beautiful new book explores visual culture of religious Daoism, focusing on the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. Pict...
Jennifer Hall-Witt, “Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880” (University of New Hampshire Press, 2007)
16 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When I was young I liked to go to bars, especially bars where bands were playing. But when I got there, I often didn’t listen very carefully. And in...
Ben Cawthra, “Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography in Jazz” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
18 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Cawthra‘s Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (University of Chicago, 2011) discusses the way images of jazz and the musicians w...
Miryam Sas, “Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan: Moments of Encounter, Engagement, and Imagined Return” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011)
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Miryam Sas’ Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan: Moments of Encounter, Engagement, and Imagined Return (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011) is an e...
Andrew Field, “Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954” (The Chinese University Press, 2010)
07 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“To think of Shanghai is to think of its nightlife: the two are synonymous.” From here, Andrew Field takes us on a dance across modern Chinese hi...
David Ciarlo, “Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany” (Harvard UP, 2011)
17 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re a native-born American, you’re probably familiar with Aunt Jemima (pancake syrup), Uncle Ben (precooked rice), and Rastus (oatmeal)–co...
Allen Guttmann, “Sports and American Art from Benjamin West to Andy Warhol” (University of Massachusetts Press, 2011)
12 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When I was a kid, I used to pore over an illustrated history of American sports that I had received as a birthday gift. The oversized, hardcover book ...
Erin Haney, “Exposures: Photography and Africa” (Reaktion Books, 2010)
13 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In Chapter 3 of Erin Haney’s excellent book Photography and Africa (Reaktion Books, 2010) there are seven photos taken in central Africa at the turn...
Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry, and Dru Pagliasotti, “Boy’s Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre” (McFarland, 2010)
13 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indy-car racing offered my friends and me some very exciting heroes. As children, we played “Indy 500” ...
Lee Ambrozy, “Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009” (MIT Press, 2011)
21 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone who has been following the news this year has likely heard of Ai Weiwei. This provocative and gifted Chinese artist-activist has made 2011 head...
Bhanu Athaiya, “The Art of Costume Design” (HarperCollins, 2010)
01 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Bollywood, the Hindustani film genre based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), has long been known for its lavish costumes and sets. Now comes a sumptuous bo...
Benjamin Binstock, “Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice” (Routledge, 2009)
09 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Binstock‘s Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Routledge, 2009) is one of the most fascinating books I ha...
Kyra Hicks, “This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and Other Pieces” (Black Threads Press, 2009)
19 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
I’ll tell you something I’ve never really understood: the difference between “art” and “craft.” Yes, I get the sociological difference (“...
Greg Castillo, “Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design” (Minnesota UP, 2009)
07 May 2010
Contributed by Lukas
If you grew up in the 1960s or 1970s in suburbia, you probably lived in a smallish ranch house that looked like this. That house probably had an “ul...