History & Criticism

Incisive and absorbing, Paris in Ruins captures the shifting passions and politics of the art world, revealing how the siege and the chaos of the Commune had a profound impact on modern art, and how artistic genius can emerge from darkness and catastrophe.

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times)....

All That Glitters is a dazzling insider’s account of the contemporary art world and the stunning rise and fall of the charismatic American art dealer Inigo Philbrick, as seen through the eyes of his friend and fellow dealer.

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse—a fear of corruption or contamination through color—lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought.

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative....

Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art....

The unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them....

In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself....

The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before....

Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it's never been told before....

Spanning from the classical sculpture of Ancient Rome to contemporary performance art, this guide provides a rich overview of art history, covering many topics explored in a history of art degrees....

Plutarchs's (46-120 A.D.) epic chronicle of the lives of great Grecians and Romans....

Sasha Chapin is a victim of chess. Like countless amateurs before him - Albert Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, Marcel Duchamp - the game has consumed his life and his mind....

One of the nation’s top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers—and, in some cases, changing the course of art history....

The award-winning art historian and founder of the Vision & Justice project uncovers a pivotal era in the story of race in the United States when Americans came to ignore the truth about the false foundations of the nation’s racial regime.

Each night, when the hours of painting and drawing were over, Vincent van Gogh put pen to paper and poured out his heart through letters to his beloved brother Theo, his confidant and companion....

Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan....

La cultura egipcia está plagada de misterios que se resiste a revelar. Esta obra presenta una detallada descripción de ese Egipto que fascina aún a la humanidad y nos da las herramientas con las que abrirnos paso entre esos enigmas....

Craig Childs bears witness to rock art of the Colorado Plateau—bighorn sheep pecked behind boulders, tiny spirals in stone, human figures with upraised arms shifting with the desert light, each one a portal to the open mouth of time....

While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris....

Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case....

A riveting story of how dueling ambitions and the power of prodigy made America the cultural center of the world—and Picasso the most famous artist alive—in the shadow of World War II....

In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it....

Arriving as a young writer in an ancient Dutch town, Benjamin Moser found himself visiting—casually at first, and then more and more obsessively—the country's great museums....

This audiobook narrated by best-selling author Mary Beard explores how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power....