Book Review

Booksreview

Japan is opening its eyes to women photographers—and to the female gaze

Denied recognition and even credit for their work until recent times, Japan’s women photographers are challenging and subverting traditional assumptions about the female body

Booksreview

Review | ‘An utterly positive and dangerously irrelevant’ book written by the chief executive of Arts Council England

This journey through the UK’s publicly funded arts carefully averts its eyes from the many signs of crisis

Booksreview

A new monograph places the writing, painting and archive photographs of Aubrey Williams in thrilling conversation

The publication about the Guyanese-born artist includes diary entries and several works that have been photographed for the first time

Why newly appointed museum directors fail, and how to avoid it: Kaywin Feldman’s new book on leadership

The director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, offers sage advice on how non-profits can best manage personnel changes at the top

Booksreview

Mary Beale’s art of intimacy revealed in exhibition catalogue brimming with detail

A new study explores the portrait practice of Beale, the most famous of the early female professional painters in Britain

Booksreview

New book explores the art of three artists whose work is beset by demons

The author looks at the defining features and similarities of work by Hieronymus Bosch, Max Beckmann and William Kentridge

A new volume explores the intimate art of drawing, as seen through a wider lens

This “alternative” history navigates the medium through artists on the margins, as well as established practitioners

Booksreview

Compelling prose and lyrical turns in Sally Mann’s poignant and, at times, shocking memoir

The American South plays a crucial role in the photographer’s richly illustrated book

Booksreview

The stuff of nightmares: catalogue of Alfred Kubin’s work shines a light on his dark world

The macabre artist’s blood-soaked prints and drawings at the start of the 20th century foretold future wars

AI artnews

‘It surprised me’: artist finds inspiration in what AI art gets wrong

Charlie Engman is creating a counter to the “internet nerd culture” imagery widely associated with generative art

Booksreview

New book views glacier paintings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham through the eyes of poets and glaciologists

Recent publication is the first comprehensive account of works inspired by a visit to Switzerland in 1949

Booksreview

A literary homage to Peggy Guggenheim that falls short

Historical fiction on the famed bohemian collector brings her relationships to life but leaves out much of what she actually achieved

Booksreview

Intense repartee: a collection of letters that the critic John Berger exchanged with his artist son

The correspondence between John and Yves Berger is both moving and enlightening

Booksreview

Beetlejuice and beyond: the origins of Tim Burton’s world of gothic romance and its enduring influence

Catalogue accompanying exhibition at London’s Design Museum explores the US film-maker’s unique aesthetic

The life and art of Mabel Nicholson: new volume tells of the career catastrophe of domestic bliss

How lovingly raising her artistic family cost an artist of “tensile strength” her own fame

Skillful new volume explores the contradictory Neo-Classicist, Guillaume Lethière

Seven essays accompany the first-ever exhibition devoted to the Caribbean-born artist who became a leading figure in the French art world

Booksreview

Two publications show how, in Caspar David Friedrich's world, mankind is puny against nature’s power

The German artist's work is pored over in two hefty tomes, one a smart overview, the other a comprehensive guide

Booksreview

Although it is a ‘sumptuous’ tome, this survey of contemporary public art from around the world baffles at times

The self-proclaimed atlas gives voice to works from often overlooked global-majority cultures but tends to favour mainstream over more challenging works

Booksreview

Exploring the cultural legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots

A collaborative book project takes a novel approach to examining the impact of the 16th-century Scottish monarch

Booksreview

Take a romp through Ancient Rome’s great buildings with this handy (almost) pocket-sized book

Ostensibly a guide to the city's top 50 sites, a new publication by Paul Roberts offers far more

Booksreview

‘Viscerally real’: a Caravaggio painting provides inspiration for a newly translated novel

The Italian scholar Alessandro Giardino posits his theories about the Baroque artist’s Seven Works of Mercy in fictional form

Booksreview

Who really was John Soane? The man and manifesto behind the magnificent house museum

Former museum director Bruce Boucher’s room-by-room account of the architect’s collection takes far readers beyond the catalogue

Julius Bryant

Teju Cole's enigmatic new photobook is both peaceful and disturbing

The Nigerian American writer and photographer’s intriguing new book comprises a series of indeterminate images absent of human life, interspersed with enigmatic short stories that raise many unanswered questions

Booksreview

A history of the time that artists (very briefly) ruled Russia

The dramatic twists and turns of the leading figures of the avant-garde during the Russian Revolution

Booksreview

Surrealist pioneer Eileen Agar's remarkable life

A new edition of her 1980s autobiography brings this vivacious and well-connected artist back to life

Derek Jarman’s home in close-up

An intimate photographic essay by Gilbert McCarragher examines the film-maker’s Prospect Cottage

Booksreview

‘Shamefully duped’: friend of convicted art fraudster Inigo Philbrick spills the beans in new memoir

In the warts-and all publication, Orlando Whitfield discusses his 15-year friendship with Philbrick while offering insights into the world of art dealing

Booksreview

From pews to power stations: a history of interwar British architecture that some feared might not be published

Gavin Stamp’s final book offers a fitting memorial to the architectural historian and Private Eye columnist

Booksreview

Ghosts of America’s ‘Street of Dreams’: a comprehensive book brings the history of New York’s Fifth Avenue to life

Established in the early 1800s, the street was once home to the city’s grandest houses, but many were soon replaced by towering apartment buildings, shops and hotels. A comprehensive book brings this history to life