The Complete Persepolis


Marjane Satrapi - 2003
    It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.

A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees


Yoshida Kenkō
    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283-1352). Kenko's work is included in Penguin Classics in Essays in Idleness and Hojoki.

The Complete Engravings, Etchings & Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer


Albrecht Dürer - 1972
    Among them are his most famous works, Knight, Death and Devil; Melencolia I; and St. Jerome in His Study. Also included are portraits of his contemporaries, including Erasmus of Rotterdam and Frederick the Wise, as well as six engravings formerly attributed to Dürer.

Agnes Martin: Writings = Schriften


Herausgegeben Von Dieter Schwarz - 2005
    Her "floating abstractions," in which lines and free bands of color emerge almost imperceptibly, can be reproduced only with difficulty. Her writings, on the other hand--although certainly not intended as programmatic statements--offer valuable clarity regarding her own works and poetic insight about art in general. Since its original publication in 1991, this volume of Martin's writings has been a fundamental document for libraries of artists, collectors, and critics. Rather than identifying herself with her Minimalist peers, Martin has aligned herself with the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Chinese, asserting that "the function of art work is . . . the renewal of memories of moments of perfection." In combination with illustrations of her works, these texts--including lectures, stories recorded by critic Ann Wilson, passages ostensibly arranged in associative sequences, and "fragmentary ideas"--form an eloquent artist's statement by the creator of "silent paintings."

Dear Data


Giorgia Lupi - 2016
    The result is described as “a thought-provoking visual feast”.

Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop


Paul Kingsbury - 2001
    Country musicians and magicians, professional wrestlers and rock stars, all have turned to Nashville's historic Hatch Show Print to create showstopping posters. Established in 1879, Hatch preserves the art of traditional printing that has earned a loyal following to this day (including the likes of Beck, Emmylou Harris, and the Beastie Boys). Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop is the first fully illustrated tour of this iconic print shop and also chronicles the long life and large cast of employees, entertainers, and American legends whose histories are intertwined with it. Complete with 190 illustrations--as well as a special book jacket that unfolds to reveal an original Hatch poster on the reverse--Hatch Show Print is a dazzling document of this legendary institution.

My Favorite Things


Maira Kalman - 2014
    A pictorial index provides photographs of the actual objects and a short description of them, enhancing the reading experience.As it speaks to the universal experience and importance of beloved objects in our lives—big and small, famous and private—this unique work is a fresh way of examining and understanding our society, history, culture, and ourselves.

Down Below


Leonora Carrington - 1945
    Fiction. Translated from the French by Victor Llona. DOWN BELOW is an account of Leonora Carrington's travels to Spain after having been declared "incurably insane." Carrington wrote and painted as a defender of the Surrealist movement into the twentieth century. DOWN BELOW was first published in 1944. This recent publication includes new collages by Debra Taub.

Patti Smith 1969-1976


Judy Linn - 2011
    I felt protected in the atmosphere we created together. We had an inner narrative, producing our own unspoken film, with or without a camera." -Patti Smith, from her afterword Like a scene in Godard's Vivre sa vie or Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Patti Smith posed for the lens of a young photographer, Judy Linn. It was 1969, some years before Patti Smith entered the arena of rock and roll. Smith was a struggling poet, harboring a romantic ideal of the collaborative possibilities between an artist and model- a dream happily fulfilled within this intimate and high-spirited body of work. Linn's images of Smith range from the vulnerable to the iconic. Focusing on shifting influences and spotlighting her profound relationships with artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Shepard, Linn has captured Smith like no one else, in the grainy atmosphere of a bygone New York. Judy Linn's photographs document the blooming of an enduring friendship and the evolution of two unique artists: gritty and visionary, fragile and tough.Praise for Patti Smith 1969-1976:"a striking new book, Patti Smith: 1969-1976 (out March 1) . . . collects photographs of the coolly photogenic star taken by her talented friend Judy Linn during the same time Kids describes. They're wonderfully composed shots of Smith looking like the star of a Godard film of her own making. The pictures show her fully ready for a closeup that would cement her boho image just a few years later, on the iconic cover of her first album, Horses, shot, of course, by Mapplethorpe himself." -New York Daily News "Here is Smith's acclaimed 2010 memoir, Just Kids, come to life-the shrines to Bob Dylan, the dress up-and the photos strike the same wistful note; as Smith writes in her afterword: 'once upon a time, we were young and beautiful and anyone we imagined we could be.'" -Publishers Weekly"Anticipating a new generation's excitement for Smith and Mapplethorpe, their friend Judy Linn has published a new book of her photographs, Patti Smith 1969-1976, that centers on the era covered in Just Kids, the time before Patti and Robert were famous. The book's a nice visual testament to their friendship, but it's also a bible of good clothing, an early record of one of the most stylish couples of all time." -The Fader.com"Linn's collection of photographs is the perfect complement to Smith's National Book Award-winning memoir, Just Kids . . . like Smith's memoir, the photos-uninterrupted by titles, captions, or any other text-serve two purposes: they tell the story of young artists finding their voice and style and serve as a love letter to '70s New York, four decades later." -Flavorwire.com

A Period of Juvenile Prosperity


Mike Brodie - 2013
    Two weeks later I was gone, witnessing my new world wizz by, especially at dusk, then darkness as I watched the sum of all the city lights cast my silhouette across the pine trees of the Florida panhandle. This was it, I was riding my very first freight train. And soon, what would begin as mere natural curiosity and self-discovery would evolve into a casting call of sorts, taking photographs of my newfound friends. — Mike Brodie11 x 13 Inches60 Four-color Plates104 Pages

Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell


Deborah Solomon - 2004
    Legends about Cornell abound--as the shy hermit, the devoted family caretaker, the artistic innocent--but never before Utopia Parkway has he been presented for what he was: a brilliant, relentlessly serious artist whose stature has now reached monumental proportions. Cornell was haunted by dreams and visions, yet the site of his imaginings couldn't have been more ordinary: a small house he shared with his mother and invalid brother in Queens, New York. In its cluttered basement, he spent his nights arranging photographs, cut-outs and other humble disjecta into some of the most romantic works to exist in three dimensions. Cornell was no recluse, however: admired by successive generations of vanguard artists, he formed friendships with figures as diverse as Duchamp, de Kooning, and Warhol and had romantically charged encounters with Susan Sontag and Yoko Ono--not to mention unrequited crushes on countless shop girls and waitresses. All this he recorded compulsively in a diary that, along with his shadow boxes, forms one of the oddest and most affecting records ever made of a life. It is from such documents, and from a decade of sustained attention to Cornell, that Deborah Solomon has fashioned the definitive biography of one of America's most powerful and unusual modern artists.

The Story of Art


E.H. Gombrich - 1950
    Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, and one who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating his deep love of the subject. The Story of Art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written, has been a world bestseller for over four decades. Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, and one who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating his deep love of the subject.For the first time in many years the book has been completely redesigned. The illustrations, now in colour throughout, have all been improved and reoriginated, and include six fold-outs. The text has been revised and updated where appropriate, and a number of significant new artists have been incorporated. The bibliographies have been expanded and updated, and the maps and charts redrawn. The Story of Art has always been admired for two key qualities: it is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to handle. In these respects the new edition is true to its much-loved predecessors: the text runs as smoothly as ever and the improved illustrations are always on the page where the reader needs them. In its new edition, this classic work continues its triumphant progress tirelessly for yet another generation, to remain the title of first choice for any newcomer to art or the connoisseur. The Story of Art has always been admired for two key qualities: it is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to handle. In these respects the new edition is true to its much-loved predecessors: the text runs as smoothly as ever and the improved illustrations are always on the page where the reader needs them. In its new edition, this classic work continues its triumphant progress tirelessly for yet another generation, to remain the title of first choice for any newcomer to art or the connoisseur.

The Poetics of Space


Gaston Bachelard - 1957
    Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams."A magical book. . . . The Poetics of Space is a prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard." -from the new foreword by John R. Stilgoe

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy


Mark Doty - 2001
    Combining memoir with artistic and philosophical musings, the poet and National Book Critics Circle Award winner (for My Alexandria) begins by confessing his obsession with the 17th-century Dutch still life that serves as the title of this book. As he analyzes the items depicted in the painting, he skillfully introduces his thoughts on our intimate relationships to objects and subsequently explains how they are often inextricably bound to the people and places of an individual lifetime. Further defined by imperfections attained from use, each object from an aging oak table to a chipped blue and white china platter forms a springboard for reflection. Doty intersperses personal reminiscences throughout, but he always returns to the subject of still-life painting and its silent eloquence. Doty's observations on balance, grief, beauty, space, love, and time are imparted with wisdom and poetic grace.Books like this, that address the sources of creation and the sources of our humanness, come along once in a decade. -Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times"This small book is as wise, sensitive, intense, and affecting as anything I have read in recent years." -Doris Grumbach, author of Fifty Days of Solitude"A gem." -Library Journal"Mark Doty's prose is insistently exploratory, yet every aside, every detour, turns into pertinence, and it all seems effortless, as though the author were wondering, and marveling, aloud." -Bernard Cooper, author of Truth Serum"A dazzling accomplishment, its radiance bred of lucid attention and acute insight. The subject is the profoundly personal act of perception translated into description. Doty succeeds in rendering this most contemplative of arts-the still life-into a riveting drama." -Patricia Hampl, author of I Could Tell You Stories

Michelangelo


Howard Hibbard - 1974
    What emerges is both a perspective appraisal of his work and a revealing life history of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of all time.