Storytellers: Art Books For Your 2020 Reading List
UPCOMING RELEASES
The Eleven Associates of Alma-Marceau, by The Old School Writers Circle; Publisher: Anomie
Written collaboratively over many years, The Eleven Associates of Alma-Marceau is a mystery story with an arty edge. A page-turner rooted in the phenomena of pareidolia — the tendency to see images in textured surfaces such as clouds or dirt — it asks how much we can trust our own eyes, whether in examining great paintings, or trying to understand the world around us. Slated for release in late February.
Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels, by Toby Ferris, Publisher: Pushkin Press
Also to be released in late February, Toby Ferris’s Short Life in a Strange World promises to be a different sort of book — a spiraling meditation on the mysteries of existence, prompted by the author’s quest to see all of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 42 surviving paintings. Among discussions of the pictures, he weaves memoir, travel, and musings on everything from bear-baiting and the nature of crowds to marriage and mortality.
Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him, by Mariella Guzzoni; Publisher: Univ. of Chicago Press
“I have a more or less irresistible passion for books,” Vincent van Gogh once famously said. “Books and reality and art are the same kind of thing for me.” Described as a “thought-provoking original study”, drawn extensively from Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo, Vincent’s Books explores the painter’s lifelong love affair with the written word, from Zola and Maupassant to Shakespeare and Dickens. During journeys through Holland, Paris, Provence and beyond, Guzzoni reveals just how much Van Gogh’s favorite books and authors defined his life and art. For release in March.
Dorothea Tanning: Transformations, by Victoria Carruthers; Publisher: Lund Humphries
For release in April: Dorothea Tanning’s recent exhibition at Tate brought her out of the shadow of her husband Max Ernst. Victoria Carruthers’ book is produced in collaboration with the artist’s estate. She interviewed Tanning towards the end of her life, over a nine-year period, and this previously unpublished material will feature in the book, a definitive study positioning her as one of the most fascinating and significant creative forces to emerge during the 20th-century.
Warhol: A Life as Art, by Blake Gopnik; Publisher: Allen Lane
Slated for release in April is Blake Gopnik’s new biography Andy Warhol, on which he has spent years combing archives, and conducting over 260 interviews with Warhol’s family, lovers, friends and enemies. It follows the Warhol retrospective that begins in March at the Tate Modern in London.
Suzanne Cooper: A Forgotten Artist, by Jenny Uglow and Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Publisher: Mainstone Press
Expected for release in November, a volume from the Mainstone Press, honoring a long-neglected artist who was a rising star in the 1930s. Reminiscent of the work of Christopher Wood, but with a dynamic sense of movement and a subtle palette that are all her own, Cooper’s paintings are haunting and her fine wood engravings strikingly bold.
Suzanne Cooper, Royal Albion, oil on canvas.
RECENTLY RELEASED
Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers and the Rise of Contemporary Art, Michael Shnayerson; Publisher: Public Affairs, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.
The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers and mega dealers: tastemakers who back emerging artists and then steer them to success. Michael Shnayerson, longtime Vanity Fair contributing editor, has interviewed all of today’s so-called mega dealers, Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher, and Iwan Wirth, as well as many other global art-world movers and shakers. His gripping new book Boom is the first definitive history of art dealing in our time.
The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth, by William Feaver; Publisher: Bloomsbury
‘Lucian Freud claimed that “gossip is only interesting because it’s all there is about anyone.” Not true in his case, of course, but his life still contained enough you-couldn’t-make-it-up incidents to sate the most ravenous of gossip-hounds. The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth covers 1922-1968 and presents a riotous profusion of the artist’s world; the high- and low-society friends, lovers, children, and pictures he somehow found time to paint amid it all.
Young Rembrandt, by Onno Blom; Publiser: Prestel
Last year marked the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death, and this book about his early years posed the question: How did a humble miller’s son from south Holland become one of history’s greatest painters? Blom doesn’t offer a straightforward answer, but the instead a rich storytelling.
Gerhard Richter: Life and Work, by Armin Zweite; Publisher: Prestel
Armin Zweite, former director of Lenbachhaus in Munich and Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf, is among the international art historians who know Gerhard Richter best. In this 480 page monograph, he manages not to look at the phenomenon of Richter, but at the artist’s paintings and drawings. More than 250 excellent reproductions together with Zweite’s explanations and interpretations show why Richter, at nearly 88, is still one of the most important living artists.
Legsicon by Laure Prouvost; Publisher: Book Works
Prouvost relishes wordplay and ambiguities: the accidental meaning that appears when established rules of language are defied. Thus this lexicon (legs icon) of concerns: from “Boobs” and “Bums” through “Grand Ma” to ‘Tea” and “You”. Contributors include Prouvost’s heroes (Agnès Varda among them) but as a primer, it remains as witty as her work itself.
The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting, by Ben Lewis; Published by Ballantine Books
Lewis’ read accessible to the general public as well as being well-researched. The whole backstory about Salvador Mundi’s successive sales and misattribution are laid out in detail, tracking how it was rediscovered in an obscure auction room in the US. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.
Artists’ Letters: Leonardo da Vinci to David Hockney, by Michael Bird; Publisher; Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Artists’ Letters is a treasure trove of carefully selected letters written by great artists, providing the reader with a unique insight into their characters and a glimpse into their lives. Arranged thematically, it includes writings and musings on love, work, daily life, money, travel and the creative process. Correspondence, some of which includes sketches and drawings, is reproduced with the transcript and some background and contextual information alongside. The book brings together a collection of treasures found in letters, which in our digital age are an increasingly lost art.
The Art of Love, by Kate Bryan: Publisher: White Lion Publishing
The explosive tales of love and loss behind modern art’s greatest couples are thrust center stage in this enjoyable debut by Kate Bryan, Head of Collections for Soho House. Featuring 34 artist couples from 1880 to the present day, The Art of Love reveals how romantic relationships — whether fleeting, obsessional, tumultuous or life-long — can shape creativity, across painting, sculpture, photography and design.
All photos courtesy of the publishers.
— Christina Spearman