2020's Best Art Books for Holiday Gifting
We have put together a list of our favorite art books from 2020. While we cannot travel around the world this year to see art in galleries or museum exhibitions, we can lose ourselves in these books and feel transported.
From all of us at Megan Fox Kelly Art Advisory, we hope that you and all on your gift list enjoy!
1. Artemisia by Letizia Treves, with Sheila Barker, Patrizia Cavazzini, Elizabeth Cropper, Larry Keith, Francesco Solinas and Francesca Whitlum-Cooper .
Artemisia Gentileschi is the most celebrated female artist of the Italian Baroque era. Her career spanned more than 40 years as she moved between Rome, Florence, Venice, London and Naples, gaining recognition and praise across Europe for her representations of strong, heroic, female subjects. In 17th-century Europe, at a time when female artists were not easily accepted, Artemisia challenged conventions and defied artistic expectations, continuously depicting and empowering female subjects that were traditionally the preserve of male artists.
This beautifully illustrated catalogue has been published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of Artemisia’s work in the UK at the National Gallery, London. While the Gallery remains closed to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the museum recently launched an £8 virtual guided tour through the exhibition, thus sharing Artemisia’s work with a wider audience far beyond Trafalgar Square.
[Reopening December 3, 2020 - January 24, 2021]
National Gallery London; May 19, 2020
2. Anni and Josef Albers: Equal and Unequal by Nicholas Fox Weber
An unprecedented visual biography of the leading pioneers and protagonists of modern art and design. This 500 page study of Josef and Anni Albers is the first monograph to celebrate the rich creative output and beguiling relationship of these two masters in one volume highly illustrated and visually stunning volume.
Phaidon Press; November 18, 2020
3. Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him by Mariella Guzzoni
An insatiable reader, Van Gogh spent his time reading whenever he was not painting and drawing. He read and copied books written in Dutch, English and French by the likes of Dickens, Balzac, Zola, Shakespeare and Homer. This study by independent scholar and curator Mariella Guzzoni examines what Vincent read, what we wrote about and how these literary works influenced his artistic production.
University of Chicago Press; March 10, 2020
4. Inside the Head of a Collector: Neuropsychological Forces at Play by Shirley M. Mueller, MD
While this book was published last year, we had to include it in this year’s list. In this enlightening study, neuroscientist Shirley M. Mueller, MD, relates her own experiences as an internationally renowned collector of Chinese Export porcelain and the neuro-behavioral economics which motivate art collectors. From the pleasurable aspects of collecting—the thrill of the chase, intellectual discovery, and leaving a legacy—to the pain of overpaying or buying something fake—Mueller presents the complicated study of neuroscience in a way that is both compelling and easy to understand for non-scientists.
Lucia Marquand; August 5, 2019
5. Phillip Guston: A Life Spent Painting by Robert Storr
Philip Guston is often considered one of the most influential American painters of the last century. Best known for his cartoonish paintings and drawings from the late 1960s onwards, Philip Guston audaciously returned to figuration at the height of Abstract Expressionism. Drawing on more than thirty years of his own research, renowned critic and curator, Robert Storr maps Guston's entire career in one definitive volume, providing a substantial, accessible, and revealing analysis of his work. With more than 850 images, including key works, numerous unpublished paintings and drawings, and an extensively illustrated chronology featuring photographs, letters, articles, publications, and other ephemera from the artist’s archives, this extensive look at Guston’s life and career is a must-have.
Laurence King Publishing; September 15, 2020
6. Hollywood Arensberg: Avant-Garde Collecting in Midcentury L.A. by Mark Nelson, William H. Sherman, and Ellen Hoobler
In 1913, Louise and Walter Arensberg began assembling one of the most important private collections of art in the United States. They have long had a central role in the histories of Modernism and collecting, but images of their collection in situ have never been assembled or examined comprehensively until now. The Arensbergs were major collectors of works by Sir Francis Bacon, Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, as well as Pre-Columbian sculpture. They created meaningful associations between diverse works of art in their collection and saw the collection as a form of self-representation. Louise and Walter Arensberg were not simply buyers, but curators selecting and placing each piece with intention in their home. They stand as an example for today’s collectors who seek to grow their collection with passion and purpose.
Getty Research Institute; October 20, 2020
7. Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels by Toby Ferris
In 2012, Toby Ferris undertook the seemingly impossible task of tracking down and looking at every painting still in existence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most influential and important artist of Northern Renaissance painting. That mission led to remarkable travels across continents to major museums and out-of-the way collections.
Ferris’ analysis of the paintings reveals new insights into Bruegel’s art while at the same time teaching us how to look both at art and at our world. Beautifully illustrated, this volume is both art history, philosophical meditation and personal memoir.
Harper Collins Publishers; February 25, 2020
8. London’s New Scene: Art and Culture in the 1960s by Lisa Tickner
Extensively illustrated and researched, this book offers an unprecedented, rich account of the social field that constituted the lively London scene of the 1960s which had become a vibrant hub of artistic production a “new capital of art.” Tickner focuses on major artists of the decade including David Hockney, Anthony Caro, Peter Blake, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.
Paul Mellon Centre for British Art / Yale University Press; July 7, 2020
9. Cecily Brown by Francine Prose, Courtney J. Martin, and Jason Rosenfeld
British-born, New York-based artist Cecily Brown rose to prominence in the late 1990s and her consistently innovative paintings have made her one of the leading artist’s of her generation. Originally influenced by Abstract Expressionism, Brown has developed her unique voice, which investigates the sensual qualities of oil paint through a process inspired both by abstraction and realism. This is the first and highly anticipated monograph on one of the most influencial painters in Contemporary art.
Phaidon Press; November 18, 2020
10. Picasso’s Demoiselles: The Untold Origin of a Modern Masterpiece by Suzanne Preston Blier
Suzanne Preston Blier uncovers the previously unknown history of Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, one of the twentieth century's most important, celebrated, and studied paintings and a treasure of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Drawing on her expertise in African art, Blier reads the painting not as a simple bordello scene but as Picasso's interpretation of the diversity of representations of women from around the world that he encountered in photographs and sculptures.
Duke University Press Books; December 13, 2019
11. The Hidden Mod in Modern Art: London 1957-1969 by Thomas Crow
In this study, art historian Thomas Crow examines the outsized influence of the Mod subculture on key figures of the 1960s London Art Scene including, David Hockney, Pauline Boty, Bridget Riley and Bruce McLean. The triumphant arrival of the Mod counterculture movement forced both young Mods and established artists to reassess and regroup in novel, revealing formations.
Paul Mellon Centre for British Art / Yale University Press; October 13, 2020
12. Flavor: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage
Okay, I realize this is not an art book, but I just had to include it. The photographs are beautiful so in that way, it counts. Award winning London-based food, drinks and still life photographer, Louise Hagger, along with food stylists Emily Kydd and Jennifer Kay, are responsible for each photographic masterpiece. Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage are responsible for the culinary masterpiece recipes.
But here’s the real reason why this book makes our list: In October, I made my first business trip since the pandemic with my colleague Susan Davidson—a trip to Maine for an appraisal which was for me, an unprecedented 4 days away, eating out, and not cooking. On our long drive home, I confessed that I was so utterly bored with my own cooking after the last 7 months at home and that my poor husband likely was too (though he is far too kind to say so). Susan fixed that problem right away—opening up Instagram on my phone as I drove, and following Ottolenghi and instructing me to look at his feed for ideas. Which I did. The result has been a transformation of the daily menu at the Kelly household and a very happy husband Sean. (who left this book under the Christmas tree for me).
Ten Speed Press; October 13, 2020
Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and happy holiday season!