Book Club

The Art Newspaper’s Book Club shines a light on art books in their myriad forms and brings you exclusive extracts, interviews and recommendations from leading art world figures. Sign up to our monthly newsletter above

Rain, insomnia and finding a model: how Morocco challenged and changed Matisse

The author of a new book, Jeff Koehler, tells us about the French artist’s fruitful but sometimes tricky sojourns in Tangier

Ultimate reading lists

Interviews with writers

Features

The trials and tribulations of putting together Lucian Freud’s catalogue raisonné

The forensically researched volume on the British artist's oil paintings offers a depth of scrutiny that he himself was famous for

‘The painter in me did not die’: novelist Orhan Pamuk turns his hand to art

Notebooks filled with the Turkish author's drawings reflect events spanning the past decade

How a Persian manuscript was swapped for a Willem de Kooning owned by the Iranian government

Oliver Hoare's memoir details the story of the ambitious exchange of an Iranian masterpiece for a painting by the Abstract Expressionist

What is the art world reading?

Book extracts

In Pictures

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‘Cultural innovation comes from the margins’—tales of artists pushing boundaries in 1960s New York

The critic J. Hoberman’s take on Manhattan counterculture charts the rise of artists such as Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono

An expert’s guide to Postmodernism: five must-read books on the movement

All you ever wanted to know about the subject, from a pivotal novel to a book on how Postmodernism “shapes all aspects of contemporary life”—selected by The Cosmic House director Eszter Steierhoffer

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The Voynich Manuscript revealed: five things you probably didn't know about the Medieval masterpiece

Scholars have speculated for centuries about the meaning behind the 15th-century codex and its peculiar illustrations

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Sex, beauty and the body: how Helen Chadwick shaped British contemporary art

The “provocative, punky, perverse” artist died far too young but her work’s influence endures, argues a new biography

An expert's guide to artists' books: four must-read publications on the genre

All you ever wanted to know about artists' books on the eve of a major exhibition at London’s Warburg Institute—selected by the show's co-curator Arnaud Desjardin

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New book looks at the shaping of Modern art in the Middle East beyond politics and war

The Arab art specialist Saeb Eigner talks about his comprehensive new biography spanning from 1900 to today

An expert’s guide to Ruth Asawa: five must-read books on the Japanese American artist

All you ever wanted to know about Asawa, from a graphic novel biography to tales from her time at the celebrated Black Mountain College—selected by the curator Janet Bishop

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Tacita Dean on why she has made a book about her night in a museum with Cy Twombly’s art

The British artist has published a new book of detailed photographs of her hero’s work

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‘He could be grotesquely, wildly intemperate’: biographer Blake Gopnik tells us about the great collector Albert C. Barnes

A new biography on the renowned businessman, who amassed one of the most important collections of Modern art in the US, looks at what made him tick

An expert’s guide to Vanessa Bell: five must-read books on the Bloomsbury Group artist

All you ever wanted to know about Bell, from a comprehensive biography to a controversial memoir by her daughter—selected by Charleston’s head of collections Darren Clarke

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‘I thought I would be trampled to death’: travelling with Gilbert & George to put on a show in 1990s Beijing

An exclusive extract from a new book by James Birch who helped organise exhibitions for the artist duo in Communist Russia and China

An expert’s guide to Anselm Kiefer: five must-read books on the German artist

All you ever wanted to know about Kiefer, from a deep dive into his studios to the poetry that inspires him—selected by the curators Emilie Gordenker, Edwin Becker and Leontine Coelewij

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Don McCullin on swapping war zones for museums and why his ‘printing days are over’

The revered photojournalist has turned his focus to ancient statues for a new photography book

An expert’s guide to Brazilian Modernism: five must-read books on the subject

All you ever wanted to know about the topic, from its impact on global Modernist art to a novel capturing the “atmosphere of heady excitement”—selected by the curator Rebecca Bray

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‘An impossible stillness that artists have chased’: Alvaro Barrington on Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ

In this exclusive extract from a new book, the London-based artist explains why Piero’s painting is his favourite in the National Gallery collection

Some of our favourite books of 2024—picked by The Art Newspaper’s books team

Our literary editors share what has delighted them this year, from art-themed novels to edifying histories

An expert’s guide to the Venetian Renaissance: five must-read books on the period

All you ever wanted to know about the subject, from the story of Carpaccio and Bellini's narrative painting to a Venice guide for little explorers—selected by the curators Annette Hojer and Christine Follmann

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Magnum’s opus of America: a new photography compendium reveals the many sides of the US

The publication’s co-editor Peter van Agtmael chooses seven key images from legendary agency’s new book

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‘He laughed like a madman’: when Édouard Manet decided to touch up one of Berthe Morisot's paintings

An extract from a new book by Sebastian Smee—about the Impressionists during the Siege of Paris and Paris Commune—brings to life the peculiar episode of artistic intervention

Five must-read art history books for the under-fives

All you ever wanted to know about art (if you are little), from a cat that wanders round Tate Modern at night to why Louise Bourgeois made giant spiders—selected by The Art Newspaper's Anna Brady

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‘The artist the critics love to hate’: the colourful life of sports star painter and Playboy illustrator LeRoy Neiman

We speak to the author of a new biography that reassesses the legacy of the “hustler” artist who rubbed shoulders with celebrities

In Pictures | Artist billboards across America tell a story of US politics today

Ahead of the November presidential election, a new book by the For Freedoms organisation brings together the topical and political posters that it has commissioned since 2016