The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Knopf $30.00
The spellbinding story, part fairy tale, part suspense, of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, one of the most emblematic portraits of its time; of the beautiful, seductive Viennese Jewish salon hostess who sat for it; the notorious artist who painted it; the now vanished turn-of-the-century Vienna that shaped it; and the strange twisted fate that befell it. The Lady in Gold,...
Wall and Piece by Random House UK $22.95
Banksy, Britain's now-legendary "guerilla" street artist, has painted the walls, streets, and bridges of towns and cities throughout the world. 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...
Living with Art by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages $91.00
Analyze, Understand, Appreciate Living with Art provides the tools to help students think critically about the visual arts. Using a wealth of examples, the first half of the text examines the nature, vocabulary, and elements of art, offering a foundation for students to learn to analyze art effectively. The latter half sets out a brief but comprehensive history of art, leading students to...
Seven Days in the Art World by W. W. Norton & Company $15.95
Named one of the best art books of 2008 by The New York Times and The Sunday Times [London]: “An indelible portrait of a peculiar society.”—VogueThe art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In...
David Hockney by Thames & Hudson $159.49
David Hockney (b. 1937) has always been closely associated with Pop Art and California, where he has lived for much of his life. This major study of his work, published to accompany the exhibition showing at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, redefines him as an important painter of the English countryside, presenting his recent landscapes for the first time. In an attempt to renew contemporary...
The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Palgrave Macmillan $17.00
Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock’s drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million? Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works...
Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art by Cathy Fenner $45.00
Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital. The best artists from the...
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Penguin (Non-Classics) $16.00
The true story of one of the twentieth century's most audacious art frauds Filled with extraordinary characters and told at breakneck speed, Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller. But this is most certainly not fiction. It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York,...
Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion by Douglas R. Hofstadter $24.95
Astonishing creations by masters of the art, such as Escher, Dali, and Archimbolo; amazing visual trickery; and an illuminating foreword by the Pulitzer Prize--winning author Douglas R. Hofstadter make this 320-page, breathtaking collection the definitive book of optical illusions. Rings of seahorses that seem to rotate on the page. Butterflies that transform right before your eyes into two...