What are your favorite art books?

Kate, I wasn't necessarily looking for reccomendations (though that's always nice too). I was just wondering.

I have read a few fucking annoying ones lately, but they were on Zen painting, which is a tough subject.

Right now I'm kind of a fan of small art books-- like the really little ones.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0789312093/qid=1120600591/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/103-9680169-9823003?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

xp-I mean, I read art books ofetn but I don't consider myself on expert

The Taschen series would probably be good then. I can never get enough of them.

I have two or three Edward Hopper books, I don't know which is essential. I like this one, though.

Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry for the introduction alone.

Robert Frank, Hold Still - Keep Going is incredible.

(the NFT re-screened his TV series based on it but I couldn't go) xp

finally a copy of terryworld to keep me warm

the story of art - e.k. gombrich (one of the few college textbooks that's really fun to read; good illustrations, too, if you get the latest edition)
krazy kat: the comic art of george herriman (as significant a visual artist as the 20th century produced: for evidence, see any of the huge, beautiful sunday pages in this book)
the shock of the new - robert hughes (very opinionated history of modern art; you won't agree with all of it, but it's anything but dry)
lipstick traces - greil marcus (fine chapter on dada, lots of info on lettrism, situationism, etc)

i loathe her

DPM Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopaedia Of Camoflage: Nature, Military, Culture

In my opinion, Berger is always worth reading. He writes so differently from everybody else-- a vacation from the usual condescension and pedantry of art crit. He's very intense. I liked "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos."

His essays are short, just a couple of pages, so you can find out for yourself if he's worth it just in the time it takes to boil some water for tea!

I just finished reading "The Shape of a Pocket" and loved some of the essays there. Some, though, I didn't understand.

Of his novels, "A Painter of Our Time" and "Pig Earth" are both wonderful.

http://www.bookthug.ca/miva/graphics/00000002/00498-%5BSeeing-Out-Loud%5D

is this in ref to the DPM book or the wollen book? wollen is great! i hate to be a naysayer, but the DPM book looks as intellectually thin as the rest of the "street art movement" (see: futura 2k, scrawl and the rest of the "post-graffiti" massive). this guy can't even design a cool t-shirt, let alone a whole book. i know what camoflage is, thank you.

the wollen book is really great, though! worth it just for the essay on derek jarman, yves klein and blue. here is a guy who i believe could credibly write a book's worth not just on a pattern but on a single color!

i dont know i think that the formal concentration on pattern might be really interesting, and i like the idea that camofaluge might be the central formal pattern of the 20th century from Stein and Picasso to PAllozzi o Warhol

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/cook/Images/cook9-29-1s.jpg

Has anyone read The Art Dealers? I have it on loan from the library but can't seem to open it.

http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/Files/Documents/phpNKJ0oJ_b_nara.jpg

Also Stiles and Selz "Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art."

recommend me some

e.h. gombrich - art and illusion (if it's still in print)

looks interesting, thanks!

also interested in art history, specifically. reading art threads on ilx i realize i know v v little about art history, but i <3 art, so

are there particular historical periods you are interested in? Approaches to the subject?

New one

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61o91DT3DGL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Yeah, will probably need more specifics to give you what you're looking for, but two random good ones:

Michael Fried's Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and the Beholder In The Age of Diderot

Alexander Nehamas - Only A Promise of Happiness

anything by gombrich gets approval, iirc.

Have a huge coffee table book called 'the art of looking sideways' that was a christmas present a few years back. Made the gasface at the time but it's great. No history, no theory, just great big expensive pictures and doodles and colours and stuff.

anthony's list from upthread looks amazing, btw

Let's have some more, I want some new books.

Good ones off the top of my head: Most things by Chris Kraus, Lawrence Wechsler's book on Robert Irwin, David Sylvester's Interviews with Francisc Bacon. The latter two are exceptional.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

have probably bored people repping for it elsewhere but, cassavetes on cassavetes, sorta irrespective of whether you want to file 'film' under 'art' -- particularly salient as a text on collaboration, & on ideology informing practice

OK then I will predictably rep Nathaniel Dorsky's "Devotional Cinema"

This is the point in the year when i start compiling a pre-sale Phaidon list. I'm never sure when it starts but it should only be a couple of weeks away.

In the interim, i've been visiting Koenig on Charing Cross Road quite a lot. Their basement full of remainders is very good. Picked up Robert Lebeck's Tokyo / Moscow / Leopoldville yesterday.

http://i.imgur.com/CspWMWs.jpg

Also looking forward to getting this:

http://i.imgur.com/XEtZpp3.jpg

Any recommendations, recent purchases, things you're currently reading? Art, design, architecture, fashion, etc, etc

the guy who works in koenig is a dick, went in recently to get an artist friend a birthday present, found some cheapish architecture book that looked like something my m8 would like, took it to the counter and made a comment about it being very reasonably priced. "Well, yeah, it's Richard Maier, what do you expect?"

Phaidon's Friends & Family sale is on now so the general sale can only be a couple of days away. I have absolutely no money following the Blackwell's sale but picked up a few things with my loyalty points.

I just ordered the giant 'Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design' for cheap!

So did i! That was £144 when it first came out.

This thing arrived today - all 30 lbs of it! *Much* bigger than I thought! Since I have a toddler, I'm sure I'll actually open it and enjoy it in about 15 years.

Does anyone remember the CD-ROM where you could see Joseph Cornell's boxes in action? You could turn them 360 degrees, zoom in, open the drawers, activate the little chutes and balls...it was so great! It's out of print and obviously doesn't work on any operating system now. That was my favorite art "book"

Phaidon is having one of its ridiculous "friends and family" sales at the moment - though i think it's probably open to everyone with the right e-mail.

I just got books with a face value of £300 for £75 and somehow earned £23 in loyalty points at the same time.

Thanks!

That giant phaidon graphic design archive is $20 for Black Friday.

thx

holy hell the size of this ting

Want

Thank you for the Phiadon/Graphic design tip, just ordered, amazing!

I have been on a James Turrell kick recently so have ordered a couple of his editions, hoping that the art will translate well enough onto the page.

I just ordered that Phaidon book too, wow!

This seems to be my main vice these days, I just picked up a beautiful Ellsworth Kelly retrospective (second hand) it's big, not huge, but the paper is heavy, the whole thing is weighty and the reproductions are just beautiful.

I'm also looking through AbeBooks trying to pick off the Taschen 'Domus' hardback editions, the cheapy reprint ones are waaay too small to properly read and nearly every page of the 1970s book alone is gold so I'm starting there and working backwards.

I don't have as many of these as I used to- I think the last one I bought was at the show of Michelangelo's drawings at the Met in like 2017 ("Divine Draftsman and Designer")

A lot of pieces really do not reproduce well, books of Jackson Pollock's paintings for example invariably elicit some response of 'this is completely pointless'. OTOH, I have a little fold-out catalog of Teching Hsieh's 'One Year Performance' from Exit Art that's beautiful and quite moving. Obviously it doesn't reproduce anything.

My favorite might be a full size facsimile of the "Morgan Beatus", a Spanish illuminated manuscript of the apocalypse of Saint John

Ilya Kabokov's 'Palace of Projects' was a wonderful text-based exhibit that also translates extremely well to a book format.

I find that you can't go back much beyond the late eighties for second-hand art books as the reproductive quality mostly isn't there, or they're done in b&w. I got a Charles Sheeler book last year on spec and the whole book is tiny, depressing, and counterintuitive.

Taschen sale on now!

Taschen.com

Anything interesting on Bruegel?

I sold and gave away most of my library back in November but kept my absolute favorite art books. These are the ones I would grab in a fire: Goya “Complete Drawings”, “Velazquez: The Technique Of Genius”, Turner “Early Sketchbooks” and “Sketches 1802-20” and two small paperbacks of Hokusai drawings I picked up in Tokyo years ago.

Oh and add the Dover “Complete Etchings” of Rembrandt to that stack!

George Shiras - Hunting Wildlife with Camera and Flash Light Vol. I & II (National Geographic Press, 1936)

("hunting" in this case means taking photos, not actually hunting tbc).

Taschen.com sale starts Thursday

If you're interested in Graphic Design, the two Taschen histories/overviews are pretty incredible, nice hefty books, pretty cheap, and very well done.

Good ‘ol chill 00s ILX

(Sorry, was reading the very beginnings of this thread.)

Thanks for the head’s up on this sale, will take a look.