Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and William Randolph Hearst. In a series of articles originally published in The New Yorker, playwright S.N. Behrman evokes the larger-than-life Duveen and reveals the wheeling and dealing, subterfuge, and spirited drama behind the sale of nearly—but not quite—priceless Rembrandts, Vermeers, Turners, and Bellinis.

    This compendium, which reads like a traditional book, is drawn from a wide range of his reflections on world peace. "It is not that I am incapable of anger, but I succeed on almost all occasions to keep my feelings under control. Such a struggle leaves one stronger for it. The more I work at this, the more I feel delight in my life, the delight in the scheme of the universe. It gives me a peace and a meaning of the mysteries of nature that I have no power to describe." - Mahatma Gandhi.

    Air Guitar pioneered a kind of plain-talking in cultural criticism, willingly subjective and always candid and direct. A valuable reading tool for art lovers, neophytes, students and teachers alike, Hickey's book--now in its eighth printing--has galvanized a generation of art lovers, with new takes on Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Perry Mason. In June 2009, Newsweek voted Air Guitar one of the top 50 books that "open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways," and described the book as "a seamless blend of criticism, personal history, and a deep appreciation for the sheer nuttiness of American life."Dave Hickey (born 1939) is one of today's most revered and widely read art writers. He has written for Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum and Vanity Fair among many others.

    What kind of person could have created this universal image, one that so vividly expressed all the uncertainties of the twentieth century? What kind of experiences did he have? In this book, the first comprehensive biography of Edvard Munch in English, Sue Prideaux brings the artist fully to life. Combining a scholar’s precision with a novelist’s insight, she explores the events of his turbulent life and unerringly places his experiences in their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual contexts.With unlimited access to tens of thousands of Munch’s papers, including his letters and diaries, Prideaux offers a portrait of the artist that is both intimate and moving. Munch sought to paint what he experienced rather than what he saw, and as his life often veered out of control, his experiences were painful. Yet he painted throughout his long life, creating strange and dramatic works in which hysteria and violence lie barely concealed beneath the surface. An extraordinary genius, Munch connects with an audience that reaches around the world and across more than a century.

    Laxman has always had a rather unique way of looking at things. His Common Man cartoons have lampooned just about every aspect of political and social life over the past five decades. Now that he has, at long last, decided to write the story of his life, the narrative is imbued with the same acerbic wit and quizzical insights we are so familiar with, while the tone is that of a relaxed after-dinner conversation.There are anecdotes here that can rival the most uncanny adventures of the Common Man. Laxman is tormented by gamblers who are convinced they can see lucky numbers concealed in his cartoons, mistaken for a Mexican and debarred from attending an invitation dinner on Park Avenue because he is carrying a raincoat, and charged with importing obscene literature into the country because a friend has sent him a copy of Playboy. These descriptions are interspersed with delightful thumbnail sketches of luminaries ranging from Graham Greene to V.K. Krishna Menon.Always looking for the contradictions that make life unpredictable and reveling in absurd juxtapositions, Laxman embellishes his canvas with a keen sense of humour and the satirist’s ability to take a whimsical, cock-eyed look at just about anything under the sun. He is a gifted storyteller and pulls the reader along on an enchanting, comical journey down the corridors of time.

    During her lifetime, she was best known as the flamboyant wife of celebrated muralist Diego Rivera. Theirs was a tumultuous relationship: Rivera declared himself to be "unfit for fidelity." As if to assuage her pain, Kahlo recorded the vicissitudes of her marriage in paint. She also recorded the misery of her deteriorating health--the orthopedic corsets that she was forced to wear, the numerous spinal surgeries, the miscarriages and therapeutic abortions. The artist's sometimes harrowing imagery is mitigated by an intentional primitivism and small scale, as well as by her sardonic humor and extraordinary imagination. In celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Kahlo's birth, this major new monograph is published on the occasion of the 2007-08 traveling exhibition. It features the artist's most renowned work--the hauntingly seductive and often brutal self-portraits--as well as a selection of key portraits and still lifes; more than 100 color plates, from Kahlo's earliest works, made in 1926, to her last, in 1954; critical essays by Elizabeth Carpenter, Hayden Herrera and Victor Zamudio-Taylor; and a selection of photographs of Kahlo and Rivera by preeminent photographers of the period, including Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Gisele Freund, Tina Modotti and Nickolas Muray. The catalogue also contains snapshots from the artist's own photo albums of Kahlo with family and friends such as Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky--some of which have never been published, and several of which Kahlo inscribed with dedications, effaced with self-deprecating marks or kissed with a lipstick trace--plus an extensive illustrated timeline, selected bibliography, exhibition history and index.

    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.

    A meticulous testimony, this book at last records the rare vitality of these gifted and ambitious women. Delivering them from a century of masculine misrepresentation, Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood is a fascinating tribute to their spirit of independence in circumsaatnces which conspired to suppress it. It includes an intriguing set of photographs as well as reproductions of the paintings and studies they inspired.

    Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds marked the moment, the first "field guide" for ordinary people, illustrated with woodcuts of astonishing accuracy and beauty. But his work was far more than a mere guide, for in the vivid vignettes scattered through the book, Bewick captured the vanishing world of rural English life.In this superb biography, Jenny Uglow tells the story of the farmer's son from Tyneside who influenced book illustration for a century to come. It is a story of violent change, radical politics, lost ways of life, and the beauty of the wild -- a journey to the beginning of our lasting obsession with the natural world.

    . .out, out, out he runs! flying through the garden--marigold, geranium, blackberry, raspberry--past the church with its tall steeple, down rolling hills and sandy paths meant for sheep, He dives at last into the velvety, violet heath, snuggles under a blanket of sapphire sky, and looks up, up, up . . . to visit with the stars. Vincent van Gogh often found himself unable to sleep and wandered under starlit skies. Those nighttime experiences provided the inspiration for many of his paintings, including his most famous, The Starry Night. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime--but he continued to pursue his unique vision, and ultimately became one of the most beloved artists of all time.

    But late in life a serious illness confined him to a wheelchair, and amazingly, it was from there that he created among his most beloved works—enormous and breathtaking paper cutouts. Based on the life of Henri Matisse, this moving and inspirational picture book biography includes a note from the author, dynamic quotes from Matisse himself, and an illuminating look at a little-known part of a great artist’s creative process.

    Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own groundbreaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art.Kandinsky's ideas are presented in two parts. The first part, called "About General Aesthetic," issues a call for a spiritual revolution in painting that will let artists express their own inner lives in abstract, non-material terms. Just as musicians do not depend upon the material world for their music, so artists should not have to depend upon the material world for their art. In the second part, "About Painting," Kandinsky discusses the psychology of colors, the language of form and color, and the responsibilities of the artist. An Introduction by the translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, offers additional explanation of Kandinsky's art and theories, while a new Preface by Richard Stratton discusses Kandinsky's career as a whole and the impact of the book. Making the book even more valuable are nine woodcuts by Kandinsky himself that appear at the chapter headings.This English translation of Über das Geistige in der Kunst was a significant contribution to the understanding of nonobjectivism in art. It continues to be a stimulating and necessary reading experience for every artist, art student, and art patron concerned with the direction of 20th-century painting.

    A talented artist, she held sway with her acuity, integrityand a sense of humour. Yet she remained inscrutable, glimpsesof her life only appearing through her sister, Virginia Woolf. In this authorised biography, Frances Spalding draws upon amass of unpublished documents to reveal Vanessa Bell's considerableachievements, in both her art and her increasingly unorthodoxlife. A sympathetic account is given of her marriage toClive Bell, her affair with Roger Fry and the complex nature ofher lasting relationship with Duncan Grant. It is a fitting tributeto a woman of great paradox, wit and honesty.

    Their lyrical text, drawn from Pollock's own comments and those made by members of his immediate circle, is perfectly complemented by vibrant watercolors by Robert Andrew Parker that honor his spirit of the artist without imitating his paintings.A photographic reproduction of the finished painting, a short biography, a bibliography, and a detailed list of notes and sources that are fascinating reading in their own right make this an authoritative as well as beautiful book for readers of all ages.Action Jackson is a Sibert Honor Book, a New York Times Best Book of the Year, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

    To be a six-hour ABC miniseries from the producer of Roots and The Thorn Birds. 32 pages of photos.