Books

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From the archive | Caspar David Friedrich brought into focus in the first reliable catalogue raisonée of his drawings

The catalogue promises to be definitive and demonstrates why Friedrich was one of the most significant draughtsmen of his era

Books: The National Gallery’s latest Technical Bulletin makes some great discoveries

The volume is a compendium of papers presented at the Gallery in September 2009

Booksarchive

Impressive publication on the anonymous 'RA' collection of Chinese porcelain

Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos' three-volume catalogue is painstakingly researched and beautifully presented

Booksarchive

Illuminating scholarship

Illuminating scholarship

The mysteries of Leonardo: A review of the National Gallery's new exhibition on the master

An exhibition catalogue that is erudite, sound and elegant—but for scholars, not the general reader

Booksarchive

A first-rate history of photography, the V&A museum and its pioneering collecting

Collecting oneself—and a few others besides in the Victoria & Albert Museum Photographic Department

Booksarchive

Books: Art not made by artists and trends in art production

When artists subcontract technicians to make the works they design, who’s the artist?

Books: The end of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The complete correspondence of the pre-Raphaelite painter and poet has reached the last of its nine volumes

Art theftarchive

Sandy Nairne and his life as an undercover negotiator: The ethics of retrieving Tate's Turners

The National Portrait Gallery director had a sensitive, secret role in recovering the stolen paintings

"Painting the Absolute": Four volumes on Kazimir Malevich, the pioneering painter-priest of abstraction

Andréi Nakov, a leading expert on Malevich, has produced a large-scale study of the Russian avant-garde's art and life

Booksarchive

Books, Anna Jackson, Japanese country textiles

A visually rich if somewhat repetitive account

Booksarchive

The Pre-Raphaelites: three down, two to go

The Pre-Raphaelites: three down, two to go as Ford Madox Brown joins Rossetti and Holman Hunt as fully documented

Booksarchive

Books in brief: British and Irish Art, 1945-51

Despite some factual inaccuracies, this is a refreshing and invigorating presentation that challenges assumptions

Photographer Eadweard Muybridge subject of new biography and exhibition catalogue

The “discoverer” of animal locomotion influenced artists including Francis Bacon

Collectorsinterview

‘I’ve never met anyone who collects cynically’: an interview with Steve Martin

The polymath performer Steve Martin has written An Object of Beauty, a novel set in the art world. So should every dealer he’s ever met be afraid?

Books: A portrait of Ford Madox Brown through his four 'loves'

A study of the women who had the greatest impact on the life and work of Ford Madox Brown

Victoria Pomery: An expert eye on Frieze

The director of Turner Contemporary chooses her favourite works from the fair—and reveals a very British preoccupation with the weather

Booksarchive

New definitive catalogue published on the V&A’s magnificent ivories

The summation of a lifetime’s work and a triumph of scholarship

Interviewarchive

Interview with Steve Martin: "I’ve never met anyone who collects cynically”

The polymath performer has written a novel set in the art world -should every dealer he’s ever met be afraid?

Collectorsarchive

The obsessions and follies of the charismatic Joost Ritman

The fate of esoteric books and illuminated manuscripts hangs in the balance

Art marketarchive

New books on art investment aim to capitalise on the emerging field

However, too much knowledge can be confusing... even when it is as well selected as this

Booksarchive

Books: Saviour of the Habsburgs, richly rewarded

Soldier and collector Prince Eugene of Savoy’s role in the rise of the Austro-Hungarian empire

Booksarchive

Indefatigable enthusiasm in Saeb Eigner's book "Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran"

While one may not be familiar with some of the book's more niche digressions, Eigner's dexterity in referencing the ancient past never fails to impress