Books

Booksreview

Many pictures but no big picture: book struggles to capture the extraordinary life of Harald Szeemann

Volume on pioneering curator takes an admiring, rather than a critically analytical, approach

Booksreview

Pull up a pew: vast volume surveys church cabinetmaking in 17th- and 18th-century Austria

Illuminating historical overviews and a mass of documentary research covers an under-studied subject

Booksreview

Thinking with pictures: how images were used for philosophical thinking in the Early Modern period

A rich and fascinating book on what can rightly be called the art of philosophy

Booksreview

A Käthe Kollwitz renaissance is under way (and about time, too)

A pair of publications shed new light on profoundly socially committed artist

Booksreview

Before gardens had capabilities: book explores English landscaping in the 17th and early 18th centuries

After “Capability” Brown’s tercentenary in 2016, this volume looks at the places the landscape architect is often accused of destroying

Booksreview

Cottaging—an acquired taste? New book looks at England’s once-popular Cottage Orné style

An enlightening survey on the story of English architecture and the quintessential country house

Revealed: Van Gogh's failed attempt at art dealing

New book argues that artist bought Japanese prints “not for pleasure but to deal in them”

Booksreview

Drawing the mercurial mind: book poses Michelangelo’s draughtsmanship as the key to his life and works

Volume produced for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition of the artist is "a lasting contribution to scholarship"

‘Believing is seeing’: Tom Wolfe on Modern art

The novelist and journalist was also an outspoken art critic

The best new books to buy at the Frieze bookstore

For those looking for something a little more pocket-sized to take home from the fair

Modernist artist Paul Feiler’s legacy reassessed in new shows and publications

The German-born artist was a key member of the St Ives artistic community—but why does his work matter?

Booksreview

Rodin revealed as daring experimenter in centenary book

More than just bronzes, this collection of essays captures 100 years of scholarship on the 19th century's most famous sculptor

Booksreview

Books essay: naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian was a woman in a man’s world

Her work straddles the territories of art and science, bugs and flowers

Podcastspodcast

Podcast episode 24: Mural-gazing with the Dalai Lama, plus Michael Rakowitz

We speak to Thomas Laird about his new book on the murals of Tibet and to Michael Rakowitz about his fourth plinth commission unveiled next week

Hosted by Ben Luke. , produced by Julia Michalska and David Clack
Booksreview

The commercial rape of Venice is the result of a moral failing in the Italians

This is the view of a former Getty chief, who says the problems of the Serenissima are a paradigm for other historic cities

Booksreview

Peter Wilson: The man who invented modern auctioneering

Buccaneering, brilliant, art-loving—he created the power of Sotheby’s (and Christie’s learned by imitation)

Richard Avedon Foundation releases growing list of more than 200 ‘errors’ in unauthorised biography

Publisher’s lawyer says the foundation has provided “no evidence” and that memoir is a “subjective genre”

Author Don Thompson takes issue with 'the last Leonardo' tagline and casts 2018 market predictions

$450m Salvator Mundi sale too late to be included in new book, The Orange Balloon Dog, but would have filled several chapters, economist says

Booksreview

Flipping, freeports and fakers: the commodification of fine art

Second volume of Georgina Adam’s analysis of the art market looks at the darker side of the trade

Booksreview

How to read a Twombly

New book asks if late US artist’s work should be read literally or literarily

Booksreview

Histories of 16th-century French art have overlooked manuscript illumination—until now

New book is fruit of a lifetime’s research by the late Getty curator Myra Orth

Booksreview

How offsets on arms sales into Abu Dhabi have helped finance its Louvre

A French study of the Gulf museums sees them as the Versailles of the sheikhs—a step towards autocracy

Antena Los Ángeles: the secret engine behind Pacific Standard Time's bilingual outreach

The collective is helping art venues access a Spanish-speaking audience with translation and interpretation services—but they draw the line with museums they see as gentrifiers

Richard Avedon and James Baldwin's book on American identity revisited

A New York gallery show and new publication draw fresh attention to little known collaboration between the fashion photographer and African-American writer

Podcastsfeature

Podcast episode five: what's the story behind the $100m Leonardo?

What will happen when the only painting in private hands by the Renaissance master heads to auction? Plus: the New Museum's big new show on gender, and our literary editor talks 18th-century princesses

Bibliophiles rejoice: New York Art Book Fair returns this weekend

Hundreds of exhibitors are due to take part and a slew of events are planned