Conversations with Picasso


Brassaï - 1985
    Brassaï carefully and affectionately records each of his meetings and appointments with the great artist, building along the way a work of remarkable depth, intimate perspective, and great importance to anyone who truly wishes to understand Picasso and his world.

Keith Haring


Jeffrey Deitch - 2008
    This is the book Haring wanted to make, based on the outline of a monograph that was never completed due to his untimely death in 1989.

i am 8-bit: Art Inspired by Classic Videogames of the '80s


Jon M. Gibson - 2006
    Frogger. Super Mario Bros. These classic videogames are burned into the collective consciousness of an entire generation, thanks to countless hours spent at pizza parlors and bowling alleys across the country. Now artists such as Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, and Ashley Wood put their memories to paper, canvas, and wood to create original works of art inspired by the art of the videogame. Chuck Klosterman shares his thoughts in his distinctively insightful and entertaining style in a foreword on how videogames created a new playground for artistic expression. With more than 100 thought-provoking, amusing, and simply fun pieces of original art, i am 8-bit is a pixilated stroll down memory lane.

Stanley Donwood: There Will Be No Quiet


Stanley Donwood - 2019
    His influential work spans many practices over a 23-year period, from music packaging to installation work to printmaking. Here, he reveals his personal notebooks, photographs, sketches, and abandoned routes to iconic Radiohead artworks. Arranged chronologically, each chapter is dedicated to a major work—whether an album cover, promotional piece, or a personal project—and is presented as a step-by-step working case study. Featuring commentary by Thom Yorke and never-before-seen archival material, this is the first deep dive into Donwood’s creative practice and the artistic freedom afforded to him by working for a major music act. It is a must-have for fans of the band and anyone interested in graphic design and popular culture.

Unstill Life: A Daughter's Memoir of Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction


Gabrielle Selz - 2014
    What followed was a whirlwind childhood spent among art and artists in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Gabrielle grew up in a home full of the most celebrated artists of the day: Rothko, de Kooning, Tinguely, Giacometti, and Christo, among others.Poignant and candid, Unstill Life is a daughter’s memoir of the art world and a larger-than-life father known to the world as Mr. Modern Art. Selz offers a unique window into the glamour and destruction of the times: the gallery openings, wild parties and affairs that defined one of the most celebrated periods in American art history. Like the art he loved, Selz’s father was vibrant and freewheeling, but his enthusiasm for both women and art took its toll on family life. When her father left MoMA and his family to direct his own museum in California, marrying four more times, Selz’s mother, the writer Thalia Selz, moved with her children into the utopian artist community Westbeth. Her parents continued a tumultuous affair that would last forty years.Weaving her family narrative into the larger story of twentieth-century art and culture, Selz paints an unforgettable portrait of a charismatic man, the generation of modern artists he championed and the daughter whose life he shaped.

Hockney Pictures


Gregory Evans - 2004
    Including more than 300 illustrations, accompanied by quotes from the artist that illuminate the passionate thinking behind the work, Hockney’s Pictures shows the evolution and diversity of Hockney’s paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, and photography, confirming and reinforcing his position as one of the world’s most popular living artists.

The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to Present


Maurice Sendak - 2003
    His uniquely expressive illustrations, which bring to life a world of fantasy and imagination, have won him the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the Caldecott Medal, and most recently the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature in 2003.Picking up where Selma Lanes's earlier, landmark monograph, The Art of Maurice Sendak, left off, this new book traces Sendak's life and work from 1980 to the present, representing two decades filled with projects inside and outside the children's book arena. This strikingly designed volume is overflowing with hundreds of wonderful Sendak illustrations: sketches and final art for opera, ballet, and theater productions, as well as children's books, adult book jackets, posters, and CD covers.An extended essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, a friend of the artist, provides an intimate view of Sendak. With an insider's perspective, Kushner not only gives us a chronological overview of Sendak's work, but also allows us to see him as an accomplished author and artist redefining his legacy, and as a man coming to terms with himself. This survey will only add to our understanding and appreciation of this multitalented artist, whose creative endeavors are among the most inventive and treasured of our time.

Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier


Richard Cahan - 2014
    Her story—thousands of photo negatives and prints found in a storage locker and sold for pennies at auction—has stirred millions around the world. Maier was a painfully private woman who now speaks powerfully through the photographs she took only for herself. This new collection offers readers a chance to follow Maier as she travels the world, including images of France, Italy, Malaysia, Yemen, Puerto Rico, and America. These eye-to-eye portraits, published for the first time, are the single constant in her lifetime of photographic work. Maier is often cast as a quirky, antisocial character, moving on the outskirts of real connection. But these photographs show something more. Printed with the latest technology, the book utilizes a modified four-color process that produces images akin to traditional silver gelatin prints. Combined with 15u stochastic screening, Maier's 96 photographs in this volume are spectacularly sharp, full-range black-and-white reproductions.

The Meaning in the Making: The How and Why Behind Our Human Need to Create


Sean Tucker - 2021
    We’re each trying to describe what we know about life, to create a collective sense of “safety in numbers.” When we reach the end of our traditional descriptive powers, it’s time to weave collective meaning from poetry, painting, writing, dancing, photographing, filmmaking, storytelling, singing, animating, designing, performing, carving, sculpting, and a million other ways we daily create Order out of the Chaos and share it with each other for comfort.On this journey we need a creative philosophy which will help us find our voice, discover our message, deal with the responses to our work, maintain inspiration, and stay mentally healthy and motivated creators as we strive to find “the meaning in the making.”

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative


Austin Kleon - 2012
    That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

Wall and Piece


Banksy - 2005
    Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.

Coming up roses


Cath Kidston - 2013
    

The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide


Eva Talmadge - 2010
    Packed with beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations — and statements from the bearers on their tattoos’ history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work — The Word Made Flesh is part photo collection, part literary anthology written on skin.

Pattern


Orla Kiely - 2010
    Her very first collection of signature handbags turned the fashion world on its head, displaying a new sense of freshness and optimism. Now, nearly 20 years later, the graphic patterns and expressive colors of her apparel, handbags and home furnishings are instantly recognizable - and universally coveted. In Pattern, Orla Kiely traces the pattern of her own development as a designer, providing useful information and inspiring insights that can help all of us develop a creative eye for color, shape, form - and pattern. Gain a glimpse of a typical fashion year, including the timing, production and presentation of seasonal collections. Come to understand the power of color, how it triggers emotional and intellectual responses, and how to temper those responses by combining and contrasting tones. And who better than Kiely to advise us on the use of pattern in our lives, be it in the clothes we wear, the accessories we carry, or the furnishing we surround ourselves with in our homes, from wallpaper to rugs, lampshades to linens? Vibrant illustrations and gorgeous photography make Pattern a visual treasure and a thoughtful guide to using pattern with confidence and joy.

Playing to the Gallery


Grayson Perry - 2014
    This funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but that we’re too embarrassed to ask. Questions such as: What is “good” or “bad” art—and does it even matter? Is art still capable of shocking us or have we seen it all before? And what happens if you place apiece of art in a rubbish dump?