NoteWorthy Art Books of the 21st Century by Kenn Sava

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
(*- unless otherwise credited)

A BookMarks Special.

What’s a NoteWorthy Art or PhotoBook? As I’ve explained here, I don’t believe such a thing as “best” exists in the Arts, in comparing Artists, works of Art, or books. Whatever criteria you use is subjective. So, I’m using “NoteWorthy” to denote books I feel are important; books that more people should know about and consider adding to their libraries. Therefore, the following are my most highly recommended Art books among all those I know about published thus far this century.

Welcome to my world. While I see shows as often as I can, I’m in bookstores much more often. Seen in January, 2025, The Strand Bookstore has an excellent selection of new & used Art books. Here, Art monographs are shelved along the wall to the left by Artist’s last name- “A,” left, to “O,” next to the third ladder (about 1/3 of an entire City block down). Your mission, should you decide to accept it- go through these and choose 50, or so, published this century as NoteWorthy- about two books a year. When you get to that third ladder, you’re half done! (In case you’re wondering, PhotoBooks are elsewhere.)

Though the research has been ongoing, unfortunately I no longer have the time to write the kind of pieces I have here for 9 1/2 years, so this piece took longer than it would have. Still, some books lack pictures, and there are no ISBN numbers- sorry. You should be able to locate the listed books by title, publisher and date of publication (i.e. of the first edition) included. The books are listed in no particular order. Note- If anyone else has done such a list, I haven’t seen it.

Further down the wall are Art monographs shelved by Artist’s last name- “P,” left by ladder, to “Z” immediate right. Take a break ’cause you’re not done. PhotoBooks await! My list of NoteWorthy PhotoBooks of the 21st Century follows this piece.

What am I looking for? Great Art, alone, isn’t enough to qualify. Why not? Over time (in my lifetime in particular), Art books have gotten better and better on all counts from the quality of the reproductions, to the paper (the proliferation of acid-free paper and the incredible range of paper now available), the materials used in bookmaking, to the entire process of printing. So, great work in a great book, sums up the books I’ve listed here. A “great book?” Insightful & informative- with, or without, essays. Design that doesn’t get in the way, and hopefully adds to the presentation. Excellent production (design & layout, paper, binding, covers, finish), and of course, high-quality reproductions in a useful size, or larger. Let’s face it, in the end, virtually all Art books are PhotoBooks since they contain Photographs of the Art. Price is a consideration for most (me, too!), but it’s not a consideration for a book making this list. Finally, in spite 25 years of looking this century at and living with Art books, and 6 months of work that has gone into this piece, I have no doubt I missed at least one.

Hard at work. I started this piece in September, early fall. I finished it six months later in early spring. My thanks to a new friend I had a book discussion with only to get home and find this in my inbox. Strand Bookstore, April 15, 2025.  *-Photographer’s name withheld by request.

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NoteWorthy Art Books of the 21st Century-

The “Golden Oof,” named for my Avatar perched in front of Brooklyn Bridge. Note- If you are listed below and would like a Golden Oof Statuette, please contact me via the link at the end for info.

Format= Artist, Title, Publisher, Date published- Kenn’s comment. (NoteWorthy books are also in bold type in the body of the piece to distinguish them from other books I mention.)

Hilma af Klint, Hilma af Klint Catalogue Raisonne, Volume II: Paintings for the Temple
A 100+ years in the making overnight sensation, after 500,000 people joined me in 2018 in seeing the unforgettable Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum Rotunda, the most people ever to attend a show there(!) in what was a brilliant paring of two visionaries. This led to an explosion of Hilma books. Of these, the 7-volume Hilma af Klint Catalogue Raisonne, published by Okförlaget Stolpe in 2023, will remain definitive henceforth, but it’s overkill for most. So, from the set, since they’re all available individually, Volume II: Paintings for the Temple is my choice as a Noteworthy Art Book of the 21st Century (thus far). It contains all 190+ of her Paintings for the Temple series, which she felt were her “most important work.” There are no essays and only a 2-page overview; it’s beautifully produced with large illustrations, and can be had quite reasonably as I write.

Installation view of the unforgettable blockbuster/landmark show, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,  2018, as seen in the Guggenheim’s catalog of the same name. When I stood on this spot at the show I felt that Wright’s Guggenheim was, perhaps, the perfect extant place to install her work.

While I’m on the subject of Hilma, among books on her work (though not included on this list), the best one-volume overview, in my view, is a toss-up between the Guggenheim’s Paintings for the Future catalog for that 2018 show, which reproduces everything that was in it, save 3 works by my count, and the more expansive Hilma af Klint- Artist, Researcher, Medium catalog published by Hatje Cantz in 2020 with 227 images (versus the Guggenheim’s 165, by my counts). I find the Guggenheim’s Paintings for the Future more concise and it gives those that missed the show, their bast chance to get a sense of it. The Hatje book is more comprehensive, with mostly smaller images, though I prefer its essays. Either one will provide a good introduction and leave a good deal to ponder well into her future.

 

Also Sprach Zarathustra, as heard in 2001, is playing somewhere…*- Estate of Francis Bacon Photo because I don’t own a set, though if someone would like to gift me one…

Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon Catalogue Raisonne, The Estate of Francis Bacon, 2016
Upon publishing this astounding set in 2016, the Bacon Estate said 8 words that sent a chill down my spine. “Once sold out, it will never be reprinted.” In 100 years, or whenever it’s sold out (which will, no doubt, come first) this set will be living in light, climate & humidity controlled cases among the most important Art books ever published. Still available as I write, at 35 pounds, find a VERY strong shelf for it, and TAKE CARE OF IT. (Support the spines and handle it with gloves on. Seriously.) Word. 

Forging a new path for Portraiture in the 21st century.

Frank Auerbach, Frank Auerbach: Revised and Expanded, Rizzoli, 2022
Francis Bacon’s contemporary and fellow Londoner, I shake my head in disbelief over HOW I didn’t see the Art of the late Frank Auerbach, who passed away at 93 in November, sooner than when I first saw this book. What was I doing? Obviously, I just didn’t get out enough as I missed two stunning and important recent Frank Auerbach shows at Lurhing Augustine here. As a result, Frank Auerbach: Revised and Expanded hit me like 432 thunderbolts, one for each of its pages. I just kept muttering “I can’t believe it….” as I went through it the first time until the customers around me at Pret A Manger were ready to call 911. I assured them I was just having one of those “moments of future regret” the infomericals incessantly warned me about. “CLAP ON!” Now, I know that Frank Auerbach was not only one of the major Artists of the 20th century, he’s one of the first major Artists of the 21st! Here you can see more of his work (in a whopping 1,200 images- 300 more than the 2009 original edition!) than you’re ever likely to see anywhere else. A desert island book.

The incredibly rare Jennifer Packer- The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing seen in the Whitney’s Bookstore on the show’s opening day. It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see this many copies of this book in one place again. With my NoteWorthy Art Book, 2021 designation.

Jennifer Packer, Jennifer Packer- The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, Serpentine Gallery, 2021
Perhaps THE overnight sensation of the decade thus far (along with her friend, Jordan Casteel), rocked me as much as it did just about everyone else who saw her traveling show of the same name. My piece on the show documented the ever-increasing crowds as the show’s run here went on. I “got it” on a member’s preview and immediately bought the book. It disappeared as quickly as any Art book has this century and currently goes for $500 in Very Good (VG) condition. Beautifully done on all counts, it’s an instant classic. Nothing has been seen of Jennifer since. Will its promise lead to Ms. Packer securing a place as one of the world’s more important living Painters? The world waits, and watches…

Peter Doig, Peter Doig, Rizzoli, 2017
The most comprehensive of the books published on the Scottish Painter who has made his mark working in other places, including Canada, to stunning effect. The first of three books on this list that are either authored by, or include an essay by (as this book does), curator & historian Catherine Lampert, the only non-Artist (as far as I know) who makes three appearances here. The second of six Rizzoli books on this list, this one features a “rule-breaking” design (unsurprisingly, in collaboration with the Artist). Most of the Art is pictured in landscape format to keep them from going over the gutter. This requires the reader to turn the book sideways! The customer reviews I’ve seen have been, surprisingly, uniformly approving of this.

As for the work itself, born of, and steeped in memory (a bit like Mohammed Sami’s work), I agree with Richard Shiff, who writes on page 357, “Doig’s art leaves memory caught between versions of itself: memory in formation, memory fading in and out. We will think that we remember whatever reality his pictures shows, but the picture itself- ‘through the materiality of pant and the activity of painting’- induces the sense of reality remembered, an abstraction of a memory already abstract.”

Eight years old, already, I’d guarantee an updated edition at some point, if I was a guaranteeing man. Still, with 432 pages in this one, there’s more than enough here to keep anyone busy for a while.

Nox, after opening the box it comes in. We should all be so lucky to have an epitaph like this.

Ann Carson, Nox, New Directions, 2010
The most unique book on this list didn’t start out as a book, or “Art book,” per se. Of it, the world-renowned Poet, Ms. Carson, says on the back cover- “When my brother died, I made an epitaph for him in the form of a book. This is a replica of it, as close as we could get.” Ms. Carson’s tribute is an accordion-fold-in-a-box multi-dimensional multimedia tribute that moves quickly beyond Poetry into the realm of Art, in my view. A personal tribute not conceived for the mass market, it’s the most personal and the closest book to a true “Artist’s book” on this list. While, for me, it helps shine a fond light on many aspects of loss, even for the rest of us who never met Nox, his book serves as a repository of memories, and through them, a powerful portrait of the man emerges, leaving him someone who will never die as long as copies of his book survive.

Rembrandt: The Complete Pantings XXL, left and The Complete Drawings and Etchings XXL, right. Fifteen pounts- each! With their NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy Art Books of 2020 designation.

Rembrandt, Rembrandt: The Complete Pantings XXL, 2019, and
Rembrandt: The Complete Drawings and Etchings XXL, 2019, and
Rembrandt: The Self-Portraits XL, 2017, or “Mini Brick,” 2023, all Taschen, and
The Rembrandt Book, Gary Schwartz, Abrams, 2006
In the early 1970s, Bob Haak’s classic Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, with its tipped-in color plates, was the first Art book to show me the possibilities of a truly comprehensive Art book. All these years later, and leaving aside the fact these books “celebrate” the 350th Anniversary of the master’s horribly sad death, I was one of those waiting with bated breath for the release of Taschen’s Rembrandt: The Complete Pantings. And wow, what a book! While each work is beautifully pictured, exactly WHAT deserves to be included in The Complete Pantings (i.e. exactly which Paintings are from Rembrandt’s hand) will be the subject of heated debate until the next edition. Twas ever thus. Published on the heels of the Rembrandt Research Project’s findings into just that (published in their 6-volume Corpus of Rembrandt’s Paintings series in 2015), Taschen’s Art XXLs remain the best way for the passionate Art lover, or the serious researcher, to see the most work by the subject Artist in the largest size. They are as close as we have to the experience of seeing the Art close-up for yourself in person, until more Art becomes available like this. Don’t think so? Well, good luck seeing all of these Rembrandt Paintings this close-up in person! Forget about seeing most of his Drawings & Etchings- they’re too light sensitive to be on display often. In these books, the Photography is uniformly excellent, the binding, paper and attention to detail, first rate. The works are uniformly reproduced at a good size, in some cases, the Drawings & Etchings are larger than actual size. Though The Complete Paintings got the headlines, sleeping on The Complete Drawings and Etchings would be a huge mistake. Or was. It’s already out of print. It’s 755 pages of unspeakably incredible Art- literally cover to cover. Any number of Artists felt and feel Rembrandt was the greatest etcher ever. His Drawings are every bit as engrossing. What he was able to express with 3 or 4 lines, in some cases, is awe inspiring. Though I am parting with my beloved Art book library to fund my writing (details at the end), these two books will be among the very last I part with. ‘Nuff said.

The European edition of The Rembrandt Book by Gary Schwartz, left, and the American edition, right. Choose one. Choose them both. Mine is the American.

With all due respect to the authors of the text in The Complete Paintings, it would be perfect, in my view, if it had a contribution from Gary Schwartz, for my money “THE” Rembrandt historian. Still, the authors can’t be too mad at me. Being named a Book of the Century (thus far) isn’t too shabby, right? To supplement TCP & TCD & E, I highly recommend Mr. Schwartz’s essential overview, The Rembrandt Book, which has been just that, with a capital “THE” for me since it came out (His earlier Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, from 1986, too early for this list, is every bit as good, and completely different! The Rembrandt Book was reissued in 2016 as  Rembrandt’s Universe in England.)

“If one wishes to discuss Rembrandt’s life and art as a whole, the first thing to do is close the rift between the documents and the works,” Gary Schwartz1.

For some reason, before Gary Schwartz published his prior monograph, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, in 1986, no one had done it. Much of the material had been ignored and the resulting avalanche of books on Rembrandt are, primarily, work focused. Gary Schwartz brings Rembrandt to life with an Art historian’s eye in the person of an expert Art writer able to express himself succinctly to both Rembrandt newbies and scholars. Coincidentally, his life-based-in -the-documents is the approach the two other biographies on this list further on (on Shakespeare and Van Gogh), share!

Kent Monkman, mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People): Welcoming the Newcomers, Both 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 11 x 22 feet. One part of a diptych seen in the Great Hall of The Met, January 17, 2020.

Kent Monkman, Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Canada Institute, 2020, and
The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island, Volumes 1 & 2, with Giselle Gordon, both McClelland & Stewart, 2023 (Reissued as boxed set of paperbacks, 2025),
and Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors, DelMonico, 2025

“Subversive, bold, unapologetic, and unforgiving, the work of Kent Monkman (b.1965) has left an unmistakable mark on contemporary Canadian art. Since the early 2000s, Monkman, accompanied by his time-travelling, shape-shifting, gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, has redefined the Canadian cultural landscape. Riffing on techniques of the Old Masters, Monkman first found fame by recreating notable landscape paintings and populating them with Indigenous visions of resistance,” Shirley Madill, Kent Monkman: Life and Work
I came very close to creating a stand-alone category titled NoteWorthy Extraordinary Accomplishment in Art Books in the 21st Century for an Artist I consider to be, perhaps, the most ground-breaking Artist of the century thus far- Interdisciplinary Cree visual Artist, Kent Monkman, a  member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba, Canada). Singlehandedly reinventing the History Painting and using them, along with his work in other mediums, to begin to attempt to counter the historical narrative surrounding Indigenous Peoples in Art history, along with other Artists working to rewrite it. Shirley Madill, director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, says (with her caps), “KENT MONKMAN IS A VISUAL STORYTELLER. For more than two decades he has subverted art history’s established canon through the appropriation of works that tell stories of European domination and the obliteration of North American Indigenous cultures. Monkman challenges the accuracy of such representations by repopulating and correcting settler landscapes in a transgressive manner. He reimagines well-known paintings in order to provide a contemporary, critical point of view-and often his agent of disruption and change is one Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (a play on “mischief” and “egotistical”), or Miss Chief for short.” According to the just-released book (the most recent book on this list), Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors, DelMonico, 2025, “Taking inspiration from Western artists such as George Catlin, as well as from the Old Masters, Monkman’s monumental history paintings feature white colonizers in violent conflict with Indigenous people. The depictions range from early colonial encounters to modern and contemporary clashes between Indigenous communities and uniformed police or clergy. In borrowing the visual language of his oppressors, Monkman reclaims the narrative written by Western art history about the brutalization and cultural genocide carried out against Indigenous North American communities,”

The other part of the mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) diptych: Resurgence of the People seen in the Great Hall of The Met, January 17, 2020.

I discovered Mr. Monkman’s work on one of my 1,900 visits to The Metropolitan Museum in January, 2020, my last visit to The Museum before it was closed for months due to covid, when two monumental (11 x 22 feet, each) Paintings of his diptych, mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) were mounted in the Great Hall, making them impossible to miss, and absolutely stunning in impact. They stopped me in my tracks and completely hijacked my visit. One of the few Contemporary works installed there to that time, they proved an ideal introduction to so much that characterizes Kent Monkman’s work, before and since. Aiding him in his mission (as outlined in the previous para) is Kent’s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (aka “mischief,” and “egotistical”), “who appears prominently in both paintings (in red), personifying Cree values and embodying the Indigenous Two Spirit tradition, which embraced a third gender and nonbinary sexuality,” per Art Canada Institute, who published the catalog for the show. Though The Met’s Max Hollein, Sheena Wagstaff and Randall Griffey were responsible for the commission, I’m left to wonder WHY The Met didn’t publish it. In any event, that gorgeous catalog, Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a lasting testament to the work, now in The Met’s Permanent Collection, in one of the most unforgettable installations I’ve seen this decade, which was, frankly, a two-Painting revolution.

The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island, Volumes 1 & 2 in addition to being best-sellersare books that are hard to describe, but of course, the publisher tries to: “For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman have featured a recurring character—an alter ego of sorts, a shape-shifting, time-travelling elemental being named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Though we have glimpsed her across the years in films and on countless canvases, it is finally time to hear her story, in her own words. And, in doing so, to hear the whole history of Turtle Island (the traditional name for North America) anew. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island is a genre-demolishing work of genius, the imagined history of a legendary figure through which profound truths emerge—a deeply Cree and gloriously queer understanding of our shared world, its past, its present, and its possibilities.”  “Genius,” they said. I realize I’m gushing, but I’m not quite ready to go there- yet. The aforementioned Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors, just published to accompany his first major U.S. solo exhibition (up at the Denver Art Museum as I write. The Met having shown only two works), seems to me they realized going in how high the Kent Monkman book bar has been set. Another beautiful, endlessly fascinating book. I have a strong feeling there are yet more Kent Monkman books I’d add here, but most of his other books were published in Canada, with virtually no U.S. distortion, making them harder to see.

In addition to his stunning Art, each of his books is marked by terrific design. Though I find it hard to believe the Artist did not play a hand in them,  the level of his involvement in these books is nowhere stated. Whatever it is, kudos are still due Underline Studios of Toronto, who designed Revision and Resistance, and the excellent and beautiful Kent Monkman: Being Legendary, both published by Art Canada Institute.

Kent Monkman is already marketed as an “Art superstar,” even before his work has received wide exposure in the U.S. An exceptionally prolific Painter, who’s work is already in the Whitney and the Morgan Library, in addition to The Met, here in town, MoCA in Chicago, the Walker, the Denver Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. As History is Painted by the Victors is about to open, I fully expect that his work is going to continue to make inroads into the collections of the very institutions who’s narratives the Artist is helping to rewrite. Stay tuned.

While I’m at it, R.I.P to Juane Quick-to-See Smith, who passed away in January. My look at her terrific Whitney Museum Retrospective is here.

My copy of Diego Rivera: The Complete Murals shows the happy couple up front and left of center. Such is my respect for this book that I took it and had a custom Archival book jacket made for it. Alas, I wound up selling it over the holidays to fund my writing.

Diego Rivera, The Complete Murals XXL (Out of Print), 2007, or XL, 2018, Taschen, and Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings XXL, 2021, or Brick, 2023, both Taschen
The greatest love story in Modern Art (for better or worse), so, HOW could I name one, and not the other? Hell, HOW could I ever choose one of these books over the other? Diego’s book is one of the finest Art books Taschen has ever published in my opinion- and that’s saying something. First, somehow, they got access to all of his extant Murals and came away with superb images of each of them. Second, the incredible amount of detail in his work is wonderfully rendered in the generous XXL or XL size. The XXL is already out of print, so you may want to act quickly to find it. Taschen says the XL size is still in print. Getting ALL of that detail in to a Brick-sized edition one day might be possible, but you’ll need great eyesight to see it all!

You’re looking at an heirloom. Frida Kahlo, The Complete Paintings XXL sealed in its shipping box. Quick quiz- Who was the first person to buy one of Frida’s Paintings? Answer below.

Excuse the repetition, but the point is that important- you’ll NEVER get the chance to see ALL of Frida’s immortal work as close up as you can see it in the Taschen XXL Complete Paintings– a good many of them are in private hands. Still, the Brick, which I have, is a VERY good option for those without the space for the full-strength XXL edition, or the (currently) $200.00 (versus $30 list for the Brick) asking price. Either or. IF I had the space and the funds, I’d immediately upgrade to the XXL before it goes out of print. Hear here.- To this point, XXL editions HAVE NOT been reprinted!  Quiz answer- the actor Edward G. Robinson bought 4 of her Paintings directly from her, which she credited with “showing her how to be free.”

My look at the Whitney’s Vida Americana, which included work by both Frida & Diego is here.

Sarah Sze Paintings sitting on top of its shipping box, as seen when I named it a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023.

Sarah Sze- Paintings, Phaidon, 2023
A book that almost seemed to come from nowhere, Sarah Sze was already world-renowned as a Sculptor and Multi-media Installation Artist, who had begun to include Painting in her shows (as I showed in my piece on her stunning 2020 Bonakdar Gallery show, here). I don’t know which shocked me more- that her book of Paintings totaled 400-pages, or that their style was unprecedented. To my mind, they are every bit as memorable as anything else she’s done, and that is no small feat. As a sign of how important this book is to her, she’s signed every copy.
For more, see my piece naming it a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023, here. My 2 pieces on Ms. Sze’s Guggenheim Museum show are here.

If any book on this list needs a black background, it’s this one. Almost none of his works take place in broad daylight.

Léon  Spilliaert, Léon Spilliaert: From the Depths of the Soul, Ludion, 2019
I know, I’m drawn to Artists who are or were loners. Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Hopper and on and on. Loners, even thought Hopper & Shakespeare were married, Hopper for 50 years. Léon Spilliaert was married, too. I discovered him in 2021, during that universal isolation known as the pandemic, when I was captivated by the cover of the 2020 Royal Academy, London, exhibition catalog for the first U.K. solo show of his work (a virtual tour of it is still on youtube). I would have been sorely tempted to go to London to see it save for the lockdown. However, the aptly titled From the Depths of the Soul is the one-stop book for anyone looking to explore, or further explore, the one-of-a-kind Belgian Artist’s work that I’m putting on this list. There are so many unique, and ground-breaking, aspects to his work (like very few pieces are oil on canvas- most of its on paper, much of it incorporates colored pencils, before light-fastness) and a good deal of his oeuvre seems to presage the work of much more well-known Artists, like Giorgio de Chirico and Magritte. Comparisons abound between Spilliaert, Munch, his countryman James Ensor, and others, but for me, with all due respect to all of them, he stands apart- like so many of his figures do, in a world of his own making. As always, with a book like this that has over 400 illustrations, some will quibble over this or that image size. I hear you. I’m sure any number of them would be larger if they weren’t accompanied by a seemingly all-knowing text by Anne Adriaens-Panner of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels, who was requested by Spilliaert’s family to compile the Spilliaert Catalogue Raisonne. She maintains a virtual running commentary woven into a fascinating whole covering his entire life and career that makes me forgive the occasional image I wish was larger (for them I turn to that 2020 RA catalog). It’s a price I’m more than willing to pay, and speaking of price, From the Depths can still be found quite reasonably for what it is. 

Lucy Jones, Awkward Beauty, Elephant/Flowers Gallery, 2019

“If people with disabilities were a formally recognized minority group, at 19% of the population, they would be the largest minority group in the United States,” (emphasis mine) the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability 2011 report2. UPDATE- In 2024, 70 million, or 1 in 4 people in the U.S., reported having a disability according to the C.D.C. 

Since 1989, Art has become more and more inclusive. Yet, outside of a few big names who are and were disabled (Frida Kahlo- listed above, Chuck Close, Yayoi Kusama- listed below), the disabled remain virtually invisible in the Art world! Why? If there were more books on disabled Artists, there would be more books to consider. But, there aren’t.

Lucy Jones is a British Painter who was born with cerebral palsy, yet she has gone on to create work that is in the collection of The Met (4 works) and the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her Portraits have the disarming directness and freshness of Alice Neel, while her landscapes seem to take David Hockney’s as a jumping off point before exploding with color in ways I’ve never seen (as in the detail of one on the cover, above). Perhaps not surprising for an Artist who lists Rothko, Pollock and Matisse among her influences. Here, in Awkward Beauty, the first monograph devoted to her work, we get to experience the full range of her accomplishment over 25 years, along side excellent essays that reveal the Artist’s remarkable journey in getting to this point.

Mamma Andersson, Mamma Andersson, Steidl, 2005
A GORGEOUS book that’s on the shortlist for the most beautiful Art book of the century thus far. It seemed that Steiidl, and their designers, pulled out all the stops on this one. Innovative in ways that fit the Mama Andersson’s unique Art to a “t” in my view, it uses the Artist’s trademark mystery as a jumping-off point that only enhances it, and the overall effect of her work. I lost count of how many gatefolds are incorporated as a way of minimizing the dreaded “work over the gutter,” one of the biggest complaints I hear about Art books from my fellow Art book lovers. Out of print due to its popularity and now rare, VG copies begin around $175.

Mark Bradford, Mark Bradford, Yale University Press 2010
One of  THE breakthrough Artist of the century thus far, Mark Bradford exploded on the scene and has never looked. back. The exceptional curator, Christopher Bedford, currently Director of SFMoMA, was one of the key figures who brought Mark Bradford to national attention, and he authored the first major monograph on his work. Though a number of books have follwed, I still find it the best book on him, and the best introduction to his work. Currently out of print, reasonably priced copies are still to be had.

I think they found the right cover image.

Kehinde Wiley, Kehinde Wiley, Rizzoli, 2012
Believe the hype. Kehinde Wiley is here to stay, in my view. His monumental work is matched by this oversized beauty. Heck, his Art is beautiful, deftly combining elements of his influences with the here and now, so ALL his books are beautiful! This is the most comprehensive collection to date, but it could use an update. Given Rizzoli has updated & revised their overviews on Frank Auerbach, above, and Helen Frankenthaler (which didn’t qualify for this list), among others, with superb results, I bet a Revised & Expanded edition of Kehinde will be coming one of these days.

Plant the seed.

Yoko Ono, Acorn, Algonquin Books, 2013
My admiration, love and respect for Yoko Ono knows no bounds. Being one of the great PEACE activists of our time, the term ‘avant-garde” is frequently applied to her ground-breaking Art. Good luck with that! Acorn, it seems to me, throws a monkey wrench into those attempts to box this ethereal spirit. 100 incredible “Dot Drawings,” as she calls them, accompanied by texts that continue the “instructions” she gave us in her earlier classic book, Grapefruit (which Acorn is meant to follow, she says in it), and some are “meditations,” often taken from her life. At 5 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches (with 216 pages), Acorn is, also, one of the most effective smaller Art books I’ve ever seen. Hey, publishers- We don’t all live in 1,000+ square feet of space. Remember SMALL(ER) books?
A good number of the instructions in Grapefruit begin with “Imagine…,” which inspired the immortal song by John Lennon3, one of my personal anthems (me, and millions of others…). As a result, Yoko was belatedly given co-writer status. “Imagine” starts a few of these as well.
Acorn remains the book I’ve most given to others. A head’s up! It’s becoming harder to find. If you see it new for its $18.95 list price, grab it. PEACE!

Julie Mehretu, Julie Mehretu, Prestel, 2019
If you blinked, you missed this ground-breaking book. Though far from the first book on her work (though the first full-length monograph), it’s like very few had seen the earlier books on her work given the lightning bolt effect the release of Julie Mehretu  had. Her style is unique and revolutionary. Part Architectural Drawing, part seemingly based in Abstract Expressionism, and part Photo re-envisioning, it’s unprecedented. Ms. Merehtu is now an Art “superstar,” with shows all over the world, but this book remains a great place to get up to speed (through 2018). While her work is already vastly influential, I’m not sure how many will be able to copy her incredibly intricate style. VG copies trade for $250-300, now.

Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama, Phaidon Contemporary, 2017
Phaidon has released a steady stream of books on Contemporary Artists under their Phaidon Contemporary imprint, a most welcome thing. As time has gone on, however, I’ve been disappointed by some of these books, which pains me because in many cases their books are the most comprehensive on their subject Artist. Luckily, Yayoi Kusama is one of the best in the series, in my view, it’s, also, the best overview on her work published to date, no small thing considering the many books that have been published on one of the world’s most popular Artists. It includes a rare interview with Yayoi and a number of essays that look at her life and all she’s had to overcome along on remarkable journey that just the beginning of its  96th years on March 22nd. Highly recommended for those new to her work, or for those looking to delve further into one of the most remarkable, and remarkably long, careers in 20th & now 21st century Art.

*- Capivara Editions Photo

Vik Muniz, Vik Muniz – Everything So Far, Catalogue Raisonne: 1987-2015, Capivara Editions, 2016
Quoting myself, in my piece on his 2022 show, it surprises me that Vik Muniz is not one of the world’s Art “superstars.” It seems to me that his Art has everything required to make him hugely successful with Art lovers worldwide (not that he’s not already quite successful & accomplished, here, and around the world). In the 2-volume set, Everything So Far, you get to see just that, well everything the Artist created over the first 28 years of his incredibly prolific career. TEN YEARS old already, I imagine Mr. Muniz has AT LEAST another volume of work to add to these two already.
Another reason this set is on this list- along with the high quality of the work and the beauty of the set’s production, is that as you look through it, and move from chapter to chapter, you become ever more impressed (if not amazed) that ALL of this creativity, in a seemingly endless range of styles and mediums, a good number of which he invented, comes from one Artist. Topping it off, though it seems to me that though Vik Muniz’s work has that element of mass accessibility, it doesn’t come at the expense of content.

My look at Vik’s 2022 NYC show is here.

Henry Taylor, Untitled, 2020, Acrylic on canvas. The Obamas with a copy of Henry Taylor conspicuously displayed on their table. Artistic license? Or does the Artist know they have a copy. As seen in Henry Taylor: B Side at the Whitney Museum, January 26, 2024.

Henry Taylor, Henry Taylor, Rizzoli, 2018
Henry Taylor? Who? This book was a shock to those, like me, who were unfamiliar with the work of this California-based Artist when it was released, leading to it quickly selling out. Such are the joys of being a 30-years-in-the-making overnight success. Henry Taylor shows he was BUSY during all that time, and the fault is ours for sleeping on him. It’s is  a book that still looks fresh revealing that though his work has a charm to it that belies its depth it also, already, has staying power. His work is full of surprises, but his love of Painting shines through everything he applies his brush to, which is impossible for me to resist. Reprinted, it’s currently available.
My look at Henry Taylor in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and elsewhere around town, is here. My look at Henry’s 2019 Blum & Poe Gallery show, during which he borrowed my Sharpie and amended works in the show as I watched, mouth agape, is here, and my look at Henry’s stunning mid-career Retrospective, Henry Taylor: B Side at the Whitney is here.

Philip Guston, Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting, by Robert Storr, Laurence King, 2020
One of my NoteWorthy Art Books of 2020, A Life Spent Painting is a MASSIVE tome of 348, 12.6 by 14 inch, pages with more than 850 images, and weighing almost 8 pounds! I don’t know which is longer- How long Philip Guston’s work has been deserving of a book like this, or how long Robert Storr spent working on it (30+ years)! Phitip Guston has proved to be every bit, if not more, influential since his passing in 1980 as he was in his life. Not surprising with a career that broke so much ground, there is much to appreciate. In spite of the controversy around some of his late work, which as I’ve said I believe is misunderstood, it’s good to see that long overlooked period of his Art get the attention it deserves. Also overlooked, in my view, is his 1940s work.
My look at a few NYC Philip Guston shows is here.

Kara Walker, A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be, JRP Editions, 2021
This 600-page marvel firmly established Ms. Walker’s Drawings and works on paper as important as her already classic Silhouettes. 4 years old, I wouldn’t wait long to get a copy of A Black Hole, one of the Art books of the decade.

My piece naming this a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2021 is here. My look at her 2017 show is here.

A First Edition copy of Chris Ware’s landmark Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Right from its amazingly intricate double-sided fold-out poster/cover, you know you’re in for something you’ve never seen before. “A bold experiment in reader tolerance…,” the lower right reads. That echoes what the incredibly self-effacing Artist told me when I bought Art from him in 2001- “It’s easily disposable.” Note- If ANYONE is throwing out Chris Ware Art, please contact me first!

Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Pantheon Books, 2000
The ground-breaking classic that ushered in the current era of the Graphic Novel, and made a good many people sit up and take them seriously, including The Guardian, who gave it their 2001 First Book Award, the first time a Graphic Novel won it. Jimmy is a book born of Chris Ware’s own experience with his estranged father, shrouded in what has become to be known as his signature melancholy style turned into Fine Art in the hands of one of the most innovative and ground-breaking Artist/designers of our time.
My look at the debut show for the work from his now-classic 2nd book, Building Stories, is here.

What is now a rare sealed copy seen when I named it a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023.

Martin Wong, Martin Wong: Malicious Mischief, 2022, Walther Konig
Little by little Martin Wong’s star has continued to rise this century, though the publication of Malicious Mischief coincided with what looks to have been a superb exhibition that made a number of stops in Europe, I’m calling this a monograph because it goes far beyond an exhibition catalog to be the most comprehensive book on this extremely talented Artist who died in 1999 at just 53. The Met, MoMA and the Whitney, among others in the U.S., own his work. So, WHERE is his American Retrospective? Until it happens, the beautifully designed (though I wish it was a hardcover) Malicious Mischief is THE place to see the most Martin Wong Art, in a nice size, to boot. Out of print, VG copies start around $195.00.
My piece naming it a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023 is here.

 

Es Devlin, An Atlas of Es Devlin, Thames & Hudson, 2022
Even if her Art wasn’t NoteWorthy (IT IS!) this book would still be on the shelves of countless designers for reinvisioning and expanding the possibilities of the Art book, and of Artists for Ms. Devlin’s seeming endless imagination. For me, it’s wonderful that such a cutting-edge creator still relies on “old-fashioned” pencil on paper, and Drawing! Remember Drawing?
My piece naming it a 2024 Noteworthy Art Book of the Year is here. My look at her Museum of Design show of the same name, which accompanied the publication of this book, is here.

Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings. Perhaps the sleeper book on this entire list, remarkably still in print, 18 years later. That says a lot about it lasting import.

Euan Uglow, Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings, Yale University, 2007

“Nobody has ever looked at you as intensively as I have.” Euan Uglow to one of his models in 19984.

And it shows.
Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings is a Painting book that melds Catalogue Raisonne (a book that shows all known work) with a monograph (something more common of late), and does it so well it’s a model for how the two can work together in one book. Traditionally, Catalogue Raisonnes were aimed at museums, dealers or collectors looking to buy or sell a work by an Artist (where they served as the definitive reference), and so they can be very dry affairs with small images (sometimes in black & white), which disappoint Art lovers looking to see more work by the subject Artist. Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings is a book that will edify specialists, yet one that I think many Art lovers interested in knowing more about Mr. Uglow’s work will be quite happy with.
I was completely unaware of the late Mr. Uglow (1932-2000) until I began researching Art historian Catherine Lampert’s other books besides Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting (which is on this list further on), and discovered she authored this one. A somewhat legendary book, particualarly among figurative Painters, I was immediately mesmerized. Some have quibbled about the image size of some reproductions. Well, with 532 works pictured on 244, 10 by 12 inch pages, some compromises had to be made (Note- The publisher lists this book as 244 pages. Well, the Cat Rai totals 244 pages. There are an additional 79 pages of essays by Richard Kendall and Ms. Lamper twith roman numerals! 323 pages total). Catherine Lampert also contributes the Catalogue of all known Uglow works. The wonderful thing about this is that she annotates most of the entries with her special insights born of knowing the Artist for so long (she’s pictured with him in 1978, and she modeled for him, as she did for Frank Auerbach), as well as innumerable obscure quotes from the Artist, which forms a running narrative, something I’ve never seen before in a  Catalogue Raisonne, And so, she goes well beyond the standard info a C.R. usually provides (i.e. title/date/medium/dimensions/ownership history with maybe a published citation included alongside an image that might be a thumbnail or medium-sized). In my opinion, Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings reinvents the Cat Rai.

Here’s one example. Page 35. Click for full size.

Being able to see an Artist’s work from the beginning to the end has enthralled me since I was a kid, when I discovered Bob Haak’s Rembrandt, as I said earlier.. It’s like a “different kind” of “autobiography” in a way. In Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings you get to watch the Artist become just that by building on his early education with William Coldstream, and the influence of Cézanne, to developing something uniquely his. As his work becomes more and more popular and respected (both of which I expect to continue), this book will remain the essential volume on it. Though it lists for $120. new, the price has not stopped people from buying it, witnessed by the fact that, 18 years after its publication, it’s in its 8th printing! I agree with what one Artist reviewer said after saving up for it, “It’s worth every penny.”

My worn copy of Taschen’s Neo Rauch is never far from where I can reach it.

Neo Rauch, Neo Rauch, Taschen, 2013
There are now many books on Neo Rauch, including some very good ones, and though I have, or have seen, almost all of them. I keep going back to this one, as I continue to wrestle with his eternally mysterious work, even though it’s now 12 years outdated. Its generous XL size suits his often huge works wonderfully, and so gives me the best fighting chance of getting there, aided by very insightful commentary. Among my very favorite Contemporary Art books, and long out of print, VG copies can be had for $200. I live in continual hope Taschen will update it and reissue it one day soon. When I asked Mr. Rauch about just that last year, he wistfully shook his head. Well, I can dream, can’t I?

All seven of them. So far. Though handsome, I wonder why they chose these colors for the covers. It’s not like they’re so different as to make telling one from the other easy at a glance. And they each come in the same grey cardboard slipcase with no labelling on it

Ed Ruscha, Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, Seven Volumes (so far), Steidl, Volume One published in 2004
Ed Ruscha’s Paintings are finally getting the Cat Rai treatment they’ve been crying for for most of the past SEVENTY YEARS(!) he’s been making them. By the time it’s completed it will be an unprecedented set for any Contemporary Artist. Beginning in 1958, when the Artist was still in school, Ed Ruscha has continued to fascinate, mystify, and bring a smile to the face of countless viewers ever since. If there’s one major revelation these seven large, handsome, books provide it’s that Mr. Ruscha NEVER sits still! Every subject he’s revisited over his long career he’s done so with a difference, and it takes such a voluminous set that delineates each and every “thing” (often literally- like blood, gunpowder, chocolate, and on and on and on…) he’s used in creating each work to appreciate all of them, and all the innovations that have gone into them. Good thing, too. Otherwise HOW would we know such  and such Standard Gas Station piece was made using a different one of his seemingly endless technical innovations than that other one was?! These discoveries add exponentially to the appreciate of Mr. Ruscha’s accomplishment. Volume One has been out of print for a few years, so expect some of the others to follow. My one caveat is the amount of repeated material in the back of each book. Shouldn’t this have been saved for the end of the final volume when it will be the most current info? Volume Seven, published in 2017, “only” goes up to 2011, so expect a few more as the Artist continues to work full speed ahead as he approaches his 88th birthday. Many more, Ed!
My 3-part series on Ed Ruscha/Now Then at MoMA is here.

A copy of the larger first edition of Keith Haring showing it’s (quite rightly) been handled a fair amount. I imagine that had he lived to design it, Keith may well have created Art for the edges, and who knows what else.

Keith Haring, Keith Haring, Rizzoli, 2008
Jean-Michel Basquiat said he wasn’t a graffiti Artist, though it seems few have paid any attention to that, sadly. Out of everyone else who’s written on walls, buildings, and everything else, it seems to me that, so far, only Keith Haring among “graffiti Artists” has achieved a lasting place in the museums. There may be a lesson in that, but I’m not getting into that now. Meanwhile, this book is a knock-out, a glorious 528-page testament to Mr. Haring’s incessant ability to make a line dance that always surprises the eye, and his tireless dedication to causes that continue to be important. Page through this book, and when you’re done marveling at how much work Keith Haring did, shake your head at the fact that he tragically died of AIDS-related complications at just 31 in 1990. The original 2008 edition, pictured, was a beautiful 12-inch square providing lots of landscape for the Art. It’s been reprinted at smaller sizes since, still very nice, which can still be had quite reasonably.

R.H. Quaytman, Spine, Sternberg Press, 2011
Another Artist’s book on this list is, also, a Catalogue Raisonne of the Artist’s Paintings from 2001 to 2011 according to the Artist’s unique “system.” Ms. Quaytman is, perhaps, not as well known as a longtime admirer and supporter of Hilma after Klint. She curated the very first NYC Hilma af Klint show at MoMA PS1 in 1989!- the only solo Hilma af Klint show in the U.S. until the Guggemheim’s blockbuster and a show of her work occupied the upper floor of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Rotunda during the run of Hilma af Klint: Painting for the Future (see above)! A very fitting pairing- in many ways. Her work has a toe in many realms and mediums, making her impossible to box (Yay!). Spine is a Catalogue Raisonne of R.H. Quaytman’s work since 2001, so a decade of her work is included. Since 2001, she has organized her Paintings into “Chapters,” beginning with “The Sun, Chapter 1,” to “Spine, Chapter 20,” which would seem to be a natural fit for a book. Conceived and written by the Artist, the results are still unique. As is the design. The Artist has continued to work in “Chapters,” and has stated she will until she dies.

Spine struck a chord with many readers when it came out and has gone on to achieve legendary status. Long out of print, VG copies currently begin at $160. 

Frank Gehry, Gehry Draws, MIT Press, 2004
If 100 people who had never heard of Frank Gehry and were shown the Mr. Gehry’s Drawings in this book, I wonder how many of them would guess these were designs for buildings. On their own, they’re Art in my book, and the chance to see how a visionary Architect’s mind works, and how his structures begin is just extraordinary. With all the books published on the finished buildings, this is one of the few that speaks to their genesis, and containing the work of one of the great masters of Architecture of the 20th and now 21st centuries makes it even more important.

Out of print, copies remain reasonably priced. At least for now.

The first printing of the Basquiat XXL came in this pictorial shipping box. Subsequent printings came in a brown box with black type, and new copies I’ve seen in 2025 have NO shipping box at all. My copy shown, which I sold in my ongoing struggle to keep writing.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat, Taschen XXL, 2018, or Brick, 2020
It surprised me when I realized that I’ve written about Jean-Michel more than any other Artist over the 9 1/2 years of NighthawkNYC. Well, he’s certainly been the world’s most popular Contemporary Artist over that time. As a result, in researching all the pieces I’ve done on him, I acquired a very large Basquiat library. To all those who’ve asked me which one book I’d recommend on him, I say this one. It’s got the most Art, and in the XXL size, in the largest reproductions anywhere. Most of his Art is in private hands. Meaning, your ONLY shot at seeing the most Basquiat for the foreseeable future is in Taschen’s Basquiat! If you want to see it in the largest size anywhere, choose the XXL. If you want to see his work and not spend the $200. list for the XXL, choose the Brick, which lists for $30. It’s almost identical in content, but smaller.
Though not on this list, my choice for the “sleeper” book on Basquiat is a toss-up between Richard Marshall’s excellent work in the catalog for the Whitney Retrospective mounted shortly after the Artist’s death, The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Fred Hoffman, and Basquiat’s Notebooks, published to accompany the excellent show of the same name at the Brooklyn Museum.
My extensive coverage of all the Basquait shows in NYC since 2019 begins with the legendary Brant Foundation show here, includes gallery shows, and the popular King Pleasure show, mounted by his family, during the run of which, I met and spoke with both of his sisters.

NoteWorthy Exhibition Catalogs  of the 21st Century-

Charles White, A Retrospective, 2018

Charles White: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, 2018
These 25 years have been characterized by Great Black Art finally beginning to get the attention and appreciation it deserves. Unfortunately, it happened too late for Charles White, who’s work was and is so good it should have inspired just that on its own (or, along with his equally worthy contemporaries Horace Pippin, Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, among others.) But, he had to wait until 2018 for the Museum of Modern Art to mount the Retrospective he deserved. Others are still waiting…

My look at the show is here.

A very rare sealed copy.,

Nasreen Mohamedi, Nasreen Mohamedi: Waiting is a Part of Intense Living, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2015
I had never heard of Nasreen Mohamedi, when I walked into The Met Breuer for its opening day in 2015, where this show (titled Nasreem Mohamedi) and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible shared the building. I quickly fell under the spell of the Indian Artist who passed away in 1990 at about 52, and I wound up writing extensively about the show I saw about a dozen times, here. Waiting is a Part of Intense Living is by far the most comprehensive book on this fascinating Artist who remains under known in the U.S. and was published to accompany the show’s first stop in Spain.

Copies were available, here, during the run of The Met Breuer show, but have steadily dwindled since. It’s now extremely hard  to find, with used copies beginning at $200. in iffy condition, unfortunately. I hope someone will undertake an even more comprehensive look at Nasreen’s career. Her Art is not going away.

Charles Burchfield, Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield, Prestel, 2009
Edward Hopper’s favorite Painter needs more fans! I’ve heard Gregory Halpern is one, and before curating what looks to have been a revelatory traveling show that came to the Whitney in 2010, Artist Robert Gober became another in the process of doing a deep dive into “all things Burchfield,” as he says, before curating this show. What might seem to be an unusual choice for the curator of Heat Waves turns out to have been s stroke of brilliance by whoever chose him. The mystery that has made Mr. Gober a world-wide phenomenon is featured in Mr. Burchfield’s work allowing viewers to get real insights into the work of the Artist’s dual-nature. At once, his work’s feet are firmly planted in the ground (usually near his Buffalo, NY home), before suddenly being transported by marvelous visions seem to carry him to worlds unknown. At times his work (especially his Drawings) seems akin to the mysticism of Hilma af Klint. Added to all of this, Charles Burchfield chose to make Watercolors his medium of choice, and he remains one of the unsung masters of it in American Art. Here’s your chance to experience his brilliance in all its glory.

Salman Toor, Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love, Gregory R. Miller/Baltimore Museum of Art, 2022
A strong case can be made that No Ordinary Love is THE ground-breaking Art book of the 21st century thus far. It qualifies in so many ways, beginning with marking the first time a Contemporary Pakistani/American Painter has achieved U.S. museum recognition, with work in The Met, the Whitney and the Morgan Library collections, as well as the museums in Dallas, Baltimore (which mounted the show), the Walker and MoCA, Chicago in this country. I saw his first museum show at the Whitney in 2021, so it’s utterly remarkable how quickly Salman’s work has gained such wide acceptance. Remarkable. Not surprising. Why not? As the curator says in the introduction, Mr. Toor’s work mines “the complexities of being an immigrant, queer and human.”
It didn’t take long for No Ordinary Love to sell out. VG copies begin at $400.00.
My piece naming it a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2022 is here.

Denzil Forrester, Denzil Forrester: Duppy Conqueror/We Culture, Kemper Art Museum/Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 2024
One of the newest books on this list (chronologically), it took almost 40 years for Mr. Forrester to get the book his work deserves. His work is a riot of color (in the best possible way), emblematic of the passion and joy Music has brought out of him to an extent greater than that of any other Artist I’ve seen this side of the great Romare Bearden. Like Mr. Bearden, however, there’s much more to be seen and experienced in Denzil Forrester’s work. Life. No less than Peter Doig (listed earlier) and Sheena Wagstaff (who curated a recent NYC show of his) have championed Mr. Forrester’s work, and it seems that after years of toiling with a lack of attention the wheel has finally turned. Duppy Conqueror presents 45 years of his work.

Much more than an exhibition catalog, Duppy Conqueror (a 1973 song by Bob Marley), is a retrospective of 45 years of Denzil Forrester’s work, accompanied by fascinating essays that relate the history of post-war racism in Britain and how Mr. Forrester, along with Musicians and Poets worked to bring the injustices to wide attention in powerful fashion. At the height of the racism, Music and dance halls were one of the few escapes left. References to them continue in his work like a musical refrain. Duppy Conqueror strikes me as being everything a book on this list should be. It packs an incredible amount into a 408-page volume, and like the Jennifer Packer book, earlier, uses multiple papers to wonderful effect, beginning with its opening “blackout” pages (which perhaps mimic the Drawings the Artist did in those near-dark dance halls early on) which set the stage, to the wonderful design by Scott Vander Zee, to the essays, and Poems by the legendary dub Poet, Reggae Musician and activist, Linton Kwesi Johnson (one of those Musicians & Poets I mentioned who joined Mr. Forrester in the struggle), to the work, which a bit like Kent Monkman’s, serves to call attention to decades of pain, suffering and survival. Born in Grenada in 1956, Denzel moved to London at 10 or 11, and proceeded to receive a BA and MA in Fine Art. He was awarded an MBE in 2020. It took the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the Kemper Art Museum in Kansas City, in collaboration with the Mr. Forrester, to give this very important Artist his first U.S. Retrospective in 2024, and this, the most comprehensive book yet published on his Art.

The catalog for The Met’s once-in-a-lifetime Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, features a detail of his Drawing known as “The Archers.”

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, Carmen Bambach, Metropolitan Museum, 2017, and
Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered, published by Yale University, 2019
Meanwhile, 30 blocks north, and not to be outdone…As if mounting and curating one of the greatest Art shows I’ve seen in 45 years of museum going wasn’t enough, Met Museum treasure Carmen Bambach has authored one of the finest books on Michelangelo I’ve seen to accompany it. Saying it’s a book every bit as worthy as her once-in-a-lifetime show I went to 10 times is the best compliment I can give it. It also singlehandedly led to my purging my Michelangelo book collection, as it rendered so many other books unnecessary or outdated.
Ms. Bambach is also responsible for the extraordinary Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman, and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible Met Museum and Met Breuer shows respectively this century and their catalogs. As if ALL of that isn’t enough- Carmen Bambach has authored what looks to be an extraordinary book I haven’t seen-Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered,published by Yale University, 2019. With 2,200 pages with 1,500 images over 3-volumes weighing 28 pounds, it’s rumored to include “numerous discoveries.” Such is my admiration and respect for the lady that is one of those who makes The Met one of the world’s greatest museums, I’m including it on this list, sight unseen!
My extensive look at Ms. Bambach’s unforgettable Michelangelo show, that 700,000 saw, is here. My look at her Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible at the lost and lamented Met Breuer is here

Jack Whitten, Five Decades of Painting, MOCA, SD, 2015 and
 Jack Whitten: Odyssey: Sculpture 1963-2017, Gregory R. Miller, 2018
With the opening of his Retrospective at MoMA late last month, featuring six decades of his work, it’s very fair to wonder- What took so long? Since he passed in 2018, at 78, t’s terrible Mr. Witten didn’t live to see it. What a body of work he gave to the world! In my view, his status as a great Painter is still underappreciated. Though there have been a recent spate of publications on Mr. Whitten’s work, Five Decades of Paintings, published to accompany the 2015 show of the same name at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, remains the best overview I’ve seen. Out of print, and getting harder to find all the time.

Very few people knew the great Painter Jack Whitten was also a great Sculptor during his lifetime, until the posthumous show, Jack Whitten: Odyssey opened at the Baltimore Museum before moving to NYC. I got a hint of it when I saw one Sculpture included in the last show of his work (in 2017)  before he passed, which I showed here. It failed to prepare me for the utter shock I experienced when I walked into Jack Whitten: Odyssey at The Met Breur in 2018 that this gorgeous book accompanied. A lifelong expert woodworker, it’s still a bit of a mystery to me why Mr. Whitten didn’t show this amazing and amazingly accomplished work earlier. Even Picasso didn’t envious a good deal of what is to be found in its pages, and that’s saying a lot. For me, it’s just one reason I fully expect Jack Whitten’s star to keep rising in the estimation of Art historians indefinitely. Odyssey is currently available reasonably.

Kerry James Marshall, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, Skira Rizzoli, 2016
Another 35-years in the making overnight sensation, Charles White’s student, Kerry James Marshall’s blockbuster, Mastry, at The Met Breuer was the most important Painting show I saw in the 2010s, and wrote about here (under what one reader told me what the best title I’ve come up with in almost 10 years). This book sold out immediately and has been reprinted a number of times since. A book worthy of Mr. Marshall’s great Art. Mastry remains THE place to start exploring his work, or to continue to. Approaching 10 years old, I’d grab it while it’s still in print. Copies in VG condition traded for $150. when it went out of print the first time. 

Nick Cave, Nick Cave: Forothermore, Del Monico Books, 2022
A number of Artists have done extremely elaborate, Artful outfits, yet it seems to me that Nick Cave’s Soundsuits are unprecedented. “Protection” from the outside world that didn’t accept the young Black Artist he was, they’ve now received acceptance virtually everywhere in the Art world, and even in the NYC Subway, as I showed here. Incredibly detailed, the amount of work that goes into one of these pieces boggles the mind, as does the variety of the designs. All of Nick Cave’s books are beautiful and beautifully done. Therefore, choosing one is very hard. I picked Forothermore for being the most recent, and published to accompany his stunning traveling mid-career Retrospective, the most comprehensive.
My look at Forothermore at the Guggenheim Museum is here.

There are a number of exceedingly well-done books on Sarah Sze’s work and a number of fine exhibition catalogs. Infinite Line stands apart.

Sarah Sze, Sarah Sze: Infinite Line, Asia Society, 2011
A stunning overview of the Installation/Sculpture/Multi-media work of the Artist through 2010 remains my choice to see this aspect of her oeuvre even over more recent books. Published to accompany her show of the same name at the Aisa Society, NYC, it’s hard to find, but worth looking for. Sarah Sze joins Rembrandt and Kent Monkman as the three Artists, and Bob Dylan, among Musicians, with multiple books on this list.

NoteWorthy Art Autobiography & Biography of the 21st Century-

Autobiography-


Ai Wei Wei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir, Crown, 2021
Ai is a wonderful Writer with a talent for bringing the reader right into his stories that Agatha Christie might envy. Even better, signed copies can be had for a song. 
My look at Ai Wewei’s 2015 show at the Brooklyn Museum, one of my very first pieces, is here. My look at Ai Weiwei: Laundromat is here. My look at Ai Weiwei at Paula Cooper and Lisson Gallery is here.

Autobiography & Biography-

A copy with her beautiful signature.

Patti Smith, Just Kids, Ecco, 2010
Just read it.
My look at Patti’s most recent NYC Photography show, during the run of which I met her, Photographed her, and spoke with her, is here.

Biography

It rarely leaves my hand. My $4 (including shipping) used paperback copy with my bookmarks. The red one you can barely see is a Virgin Atlantic London to NYC Boarding Pass the previous owner left inside. I use scrap paper bookmarks because I leave them in at key points, and, unlike those of stiff materials, the book still flexes. But, that’s just me.

Shakespeare, Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt, Norton, 2004
You have Shakespeare questions? I finally have, too. Harvard Professor Stephen Greenblatt has the answers. And a hell of a lot more. 400+ years of distilled Shakespeare scholarship and a lifetime of research & learning have combined to give us the Shakespeare book many have been waiting for given how long it was on the NY Times Bestseller List. A former Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winner for Non-Fiction, he was also a finalist for both for this book. It puts so many questions surrounding the immortal Bard to bed, as far as I’m concerned (“Good night, sweet Prince,” indeed), and allows readers to be just that- readers of Shakespeare, most likely knowing quite a bit more then they did before. One of the most important for me is “Why does it matter who wrote Shakespeare?” Professor Greenblatt’s book is all about how much his life may be in his work. The “Will” in the title is a giveaway to the author’s approach to humanizing the Playwright & Poet credited with “inventing humanity” (per Harold Bloom). He puts us inside what he may have been thinking and feeling while he lived his daily life, and outlines just how “Will” may have brought an incredible amount of that scarcely documented existence into his immortal work, “proving” it to be his “other” source, along with all the works of his predecessors he “poached.” (He addresses the legendary “pouching” story, too.)
Will is a book I literally have to force myself to put down. I have a beat up, $4 used paperback, the eBook AND the audiobook versions! I can’t say that for any other book I’ve ever owned. With my notes from the book totaling over 170 pages, having multiple editions is essential for me to transcribe and annotate it (there are no page numbers in audiobooks when I re-listen on the go, and those in eBooks are not reliable, and THIS SITE USES FOOTNOTES! (As you can see in my recent piece on my road to Shakespeare, which features this book, here.) 
Full of “Oh my gosh” and “Wow” moments, and drama worthy of, well, Shakespeare, Will in the World is, possibly, the most well-done, impeccably edited, biography I’ve ever read (along with the book that follows on this list). Can you tell yet that I LOVE THIS BOOK. Will is a book I’ll take with me to that desert island- IF I can figure out which version to take!

The hardcover (the two copies, right) is beautifully produced and feels wonderful in your hand, enhanced by a lovely paper. To help make it that way, they offloaded the footnotes! The first edition has a very nice, somewhat haunting, translucent dust jacket, too. I have no experience with the paperback (the two copies, left), for two reasons- 1) this book is a keeper, and the hardcover is more durable, and 2) I’m always leery of very large books in paperback. This one has 976 pages! That’s a lot of stress to put on most paperback bindings, especially with repeated handling over time. Add to that, the covers on paperbacks don’t hold up well, in too many cases. This being said, of course paperbacks have their place.

Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Random House, 2011
Having grown up with the Van Gogh fiction of Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, Van Gogh: the Life came to me like one of Vincent’s brilliant suns through a sky of clouds. Essential reading, in my opinion, for anyone who wants to know more about Vincent. Don’t we all? Though Messers Naifeh & Smith won the Pulitzer for their DeKooning biography, which I have not read, it’s hard to imagine a biography of an Artist who lived before 1900 being better than this one, and this one was sorely needed when it was published. Read it along with his immortal Letters, which it provides context for (the Taschen Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings remains my choice for the best book on his Art). As well researched (if not better) than any Vincent bio to date, the authors have a way of putting you inside his life, and particularly inside his decisions. A good many of them are hard (i.e. painful) to watch unfolding, but no matter what he gets himself into, the reader comes away with something Vincent has not always received- a better understanding. The authors also append their fascinating theory that Vincent DID NOT commit suicide- he may have been murdered! To top it off, the book is accompanied by its own website for the voluminous footnotes. All I can say is that I hope someone tops The Life in my lifetime, because we’ll always want to know more, but good luck trying to!
Those taken with The Life should take a look at Mr. Naifeh’s very nice follow-up book Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved in 2021.
My look at Vincent van Gogh in The Met’s Permanent collection is here. My piece on The Met’s Van Gogh’s Cypresses show, “Van Gogh’s Cypresses: Art From Hell,” is here.

Frank Auerbach, Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting, Catherine Lampert, Thames & Hudson, 2015
I can’t say I’ve ever seen an Art book written by a long-term model of the Artist, who also happens to be a very accomplished Art historian and curator. Wow! What a unique book it yields! Catherine Lampert first sat for Mr. Auerbach in 1978! She curated the major Frank Auerbach Retrospective at Tate Britain in 2001 and has written extensively and authoritatively on the Artist (and other Artists) since (like her Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings, listed earlier). If that’s not enough to intrigue you, it’s also superbly written, and so well done that Mr. Auerbach joined Ms. Lampert for dual booksignings, making it as close as we have to an “Artist approved” biography of Mr. Auerbach, unless and until Frank’s son, Jake, the Auerbach Documentarian, writes one.
Catherine Lampert is, then, one of two authors with more than one book on this list, joining The Met’s Carmen Bambach- both curators.

NoteWorthy Art History Book of the 21st Century-

A first edition copy. The book was later revised & expanded in a paperback edition.

David Hockney, Secret Knowledge, Viking Books, 2001
Love his work, or not, you have to grant that David Hockney is one of the most remarkable figures in Modern & Contemporary Art. Ceaselessly prolific for 65+ years, it seems to me he doesn’t get enough credit for his innovations, like his “Joiners” (his amazing Photo montages), or being the first major Artist to explore the creative possibilities of the iPhone and then the iPad. In addition to everything else he’s done, his 2001 book, Secret Knowledge, rattled a lot of windows and cages of Art historians when it came out, asking the question- Did the “old masters” use optics in creating their Paintings? It spawned a BBC TV 2-part documentary AND a BBC TV series. Aided by the double-gatefold filling “Great Wall” of postcards of great Paintings chronologically arranged from Jan van Eyck’s 1400 to the early 20th century, Mr. Hockney proceeds to make a most compelling case that they may well have. Over time, his theories have gained more acceptance (or is it less resistance), making this book something of a landmark in the ever-evolving road of Art history’s evolution. It also changed the way a lot of people look at Paintings. Which of those two is more important? You decide.

My look at his Met Museum Retrospective is here. Also: A personal favorite I am going to make a general recommendation for (though not including on this list)- David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 (Royal Academy of Arts, 2021), is a book that helped me get through the pandemic. Completely devoid of people, Mr. Hockney depicts (mostly with iPad Paintings, as he calls them), an almost day-by-day chronicle of spring arriving in his new Normandy home. Living in a place where signs of spring can be hard to find, it’s a book I look through often. Beautifully done. Available cheaply as I write.

NoteWorthy Overview Art Book of the 21st Century-

Jeffrey Gibson (ed), An Indigenous Present, DelMonico, 2023
Thank goodness this book exists, and who better to have edited it than the brilliantly talented Jeffrey Gibson, he of what looks to have been a spectacular installation at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Full of wonderful Artists I wasn’t familiar with, I have a feeling a lot of galleries bought copies and are scouring them relentlessly looking for talent to sign, and this is a great place for that, and the best book for getting up to speed on the wondrous world of Contemporary Indigenous Artists for the rest of us.
My look at the most recent Jeffrey Gibson NYC solo show is here.

NoteWorthy Art Education Book of the 21st Century-

With his trademark large flat brush. Happy trees and happy clouds abound.

Bob Ross, Bob Ross: The Joy of Painting, Universe, 2017
Wait. What? Bob Ross on a NoteWorthy Art Book of the Century list? Say what you want about Bob Ross, love or hate his work, you HAVE to give him this- NO ONE in the history of the world has taught Painting to more people than Bob Ross has. And, he did it with joy! I’m sorry, as someone who considers himself first and foremost “a Painting guy,” it’s impossible for me to argue with that- or forget it. Ok, he taught oil Painting with a wet-on-wet technique, but much of what he taught can be adapted to acrylics. The point is to paint for enjoyment and/or the love of Painting. This book has an overview of his work, in Part 1, and then a number of step by step how-to’s in Part 2, which is great at a time when his show appears to be off the air (at least here). (Personally, I love watching him Paint clouds.) If that’s true everywhere right now, then this book is more important for keeping his message alive, out there, and inspiring even more people to paint. That message? Get some paint, some brushes, some canvas or paper and ENJOY yourself! Maybe you’ll create work that will be on this list when whoever does it in 2050. Maybe not. The Joy of Painting is the point. Bob Ross paid it forward.

NoteWorthy Music Books of the 21st Century-

Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney: The Lyrics, Norton, 2021
A book for the ages, this one has been published in huge numbers and so is unlikely to be as rare as the Francis Bacon set will be. Perhaps the best compliment I can give it is that it’s full of so much great, new information, that it practially FORCES you re-listen to the songs! The slip-cased hardcovers are beautiful, and the absolutely preferred edition. The paperback, not so much. AT ALL COSTS, AVOID THE eBOOK VERSION!
My piece naming it the NoteWorthy Music Book of 2021 is here.

Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume 1, 2004, and
The Philosophy of Modern Song, 2022, both Simon & Schuster.
After countless biographies written by innumerable others, Chronicles, Volume 1, is, FINALLY, the first volume in what (I, and many others, hope) will be as many as it takes for Bob to tell his story as only he can. And, what a book it is! Beginning right at the beginning of Bob’s recording career, Bob’s prose style here is a marvel of total recall. Like Patti Smith’s immortal Just Kids, we’re instantly transported back in time, this time to the turn of the 1950s into the 1960s NYC, able to feel the biting cold of an NYC winter before global warming, down to the smallest details of rooms Mr. Dylan was in at the time. WHAT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR Chronicles V1 was when it came out after ALL the 2nd hand, unauthorized Dylan bios! It’s miraculous, in my view (a word that applies to Mr. Dylan’s other book on this list, The Philosophy of Modern Song). So much of what went on in the first part of Bob Dylan’s career is still impacting the world, the way The Beatles did. We FINALLY get to see and hear it from the inside, from behind those iconic dark glasses. Chronicles, Volume 1 left me with one overriding question- 21 years later, WHERE IS VOLUME 2????

It seems to me that Philosophy of  Modern Song is written in a completely different style! Whereas Chronicles, V 1 gives us Bob, the consummate storyteller, every sentence of Philosophy of bursts with passion, nuance and depth, belying how long Bob has lived with and thought about each and every one of the 60 songs he includes- each with its own essay. Passion, especially, flows from his pen like blood from a bullet wound. His first new book since said Chronicles, WHO better to write a book titled The Philosophy of Modern Song than Bobby D.? Hard at work crafting the greatest body of songs…maybe ever, since 1959, or so, songs with a depth that few (anyone?) can match. Filled with unexpected choices among the 60 songs he discusses, the choices are as unexpected as each accompanying essay is unpredictable. 12 years in the making, there’s a “freewheeling” (sorry!) spontaneity to his prose that packs so much information and linguistic gymnastics into each line as to leave the reader feeling like she or he has to cut back on the caffeine. Some of these songs I never gave a second listen to, or switched off when they came on. But here, in Mr. D’s hands, they get the due of their dreams.

Among all the surprises- in the choices and Bob’s essays, I was shocked to see “Pump it Up,” by Elvis Costello & The Attractions here(!), and even more shocked to read that what Mr. D. has to say about it sums up exactly how I felt about it at the time, but few who weren’t fans would listen. But, he takes it to another level only he can. This is how his look at it begins (CAPS his, for a change)-

“THIS SONG SPEAKS NEW SPEAK. It’s the song you sing when you’ve reached the boiling point. Tense and uneasy, comes with a discount—with a lot of give-a-way stuff. And you’re going to extend that stuff till it ruptures and splits into a million pieces. You never look back you look forward, you’ve had a classical education, and some on the job training. You’ve learned to look into every loathsome nauseating face and expect nothing.”

Philosophy of is a thrilling, one-of-a-kind ride into the world of songwriting, a world that seems to be getting lost today, and the fear of just that is what I sense may really be at the beating heart and soul of this book from one of the Art’s ultimate maters. (If you want to get an idea of Dylan’s encyclopedic knowledge of modern song, look for his radio series, “Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan,” which ran for about 100 episodes over two seasons.)

And? Get this- Bob is on the road RIGHT NOW as I write this barely 2 months shy of his 84th Birthday! Just LOOK at that itinerary- FIFTY-SEVEN SHOWS between March 11 and September 19th!!! And, he also Paints and makes Prints and Sculpture. PHEW! I’d like to write about his Art, but….. The man is a world treasure. So is Sir Paul. Generations yet unborn will be lucky to have these books.

NoteWorthy Art Book Publisher of the 21st Century-

A tower of “Bricks.” Not leaning, yet, but that Fashion book on the bottom looks ready to bust out.

Taschen, Cologne, Germany
Originally, the Bricks listed for $20.00(!), which earned them my NoteWorthy Art Book award in 2021. Then, someone got the great idea of releasing them in a slightly larger size under a “40th Anniversary” edition, for the slightly larger price of $30. (meanwhile, the smaller Bricks that remained in print were bumped to $25.). A brilliant way for Taschen to monetize almost exactly the same content, I’ll say it  yet again- TASCHEN’S BRICKS ARE THE BEST VALUE IN ART BOOKS TODAY! I call them “Bricks” because they’re about that size and they remain essential books for me on virtually every Artist included in the series. With usually with upwards of 500 pages with countless color illustrations, you still can’t go wrong with them. Taschen has been very busy, of course, publishing Art (& PhotoBooks) in other sizes, too. Most of their books that get reissued in other sizes are on Artists from before 1900. Their Contemporary Art books (except those on David Hockney) seem to come out in their XL size, but once they go out of print, like their Christopher Wool and Neo Rauch books (Neo listed earlier), they are not reissued in another size. So, get them while you can (Note- One Brick I would pass on is their Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Look for Andreas Mark’s “definitive” edition, which has much better, and slightly larger, plates, and is about the same price). 
My piece naming Taschen the Art book publisher of 2021, when their Bricks were TWENTY DOLLARS a copy, is here. Read it and weep.

Honorable Mention- The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Some love for a Photographer in an Art book piece! And, not just any Photographer. The great LaToya Ruby Frazier graciously holds her NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy PhotoBook of the Year, 2024, for me at its release at her stunning show of the same name. MoMA, May 10, 2024.

The Museum of Modern Art  gets the NoteWorthy Art Book Publisher of the Century Honorable Mention for the steady stream of excellent exhibition catalogs they have published this century. There are actually too many to list; Charles White: A Retrospective is on this list, two others (Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures, and Luigi Ghiri: Cardboard Landscapes)  have been on my NoteWorthy Art Book Lists, a few others (Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2016, Ed Ruscha / Now Then, Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not A Metaphor, Käthe Kollwitz: A Retrospective,) easily could have been. If that’s not enough, MoMA’s LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity was my NoteWorthy PhotoBook of 2024, AND Taryn Simon’s Expanded edition of The Innocents is on my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks of the 21st Century list! PHEW! These books join a long list of excellent MoMA publications from the 20th century (going back to their now classic catalog for the very first show I ever saw- Picasso: A Retrospective in 1980) that continues to make MoMA a first stop when researching any Modern & Contemporary Artist.

All told, 58 books are listed (counting the Ed Ruscha as one title).

This piece is dedicated to all my fellow Art book lovers, everywhere, and especially to those who’ve written to me about Art books since 2015.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “This is Radio Clash,” by The Clash, since I’m, apparently, about as underground as it gets. “Please save us, not the whales,” (their words, not mine), are words I can relate to. Save us both!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for 9 1/2 years, during which over 340 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate securely by PayPal below to allow me to continue. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

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  1. Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, Preface
  2. Health Disparities Chart Book on Disability and Racial and Ethnic Status in the United States.
  3. John is heard and seen relating this story in the Documentary John & Yoko: Above us only sky.”
  4. Richard Kendall, Uglow at work: the formative years in Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings, P.ix

Cecily Brown At The Met: Bold, As Love

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Show seen- Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid @ The Metropolitan Museum through December 3, 2023.

The show’s opening brought me to a dead stop. Click any image for full size.

Over the course of its generous run, from April 4th through December 3rd, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid  has had some VERY serious competition among great Art shows up in NYC’s museums for Art lover’s attention this year. Consider- MoMA had the excellent Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time (April 9th through August 12th), and now the equally excellent Ed Ruscha / Now Then (September 10th through January 13, 2024). The Whitney has Henry Taylor: B Side (October 4th through January 28, 2024). In addition to Death & The Maid, The Met had its summer blockbuster, Van Gogh’s Cypresses (May 22- August 27), and the just opened Manet/Degas (September 24th through January 7, 2024). Phew! While all of them deserve mention as “Show of the Year” candidates, in my opinion, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid is the biggest breakthrough Painting show in a NYC museum since Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, 2021-2, which I wrote about here. It provided the first opportunity we’ve had to see an overview of her work outside of books. Seeing 50 of her Paintings, Drawings, and Monotypes in person left me feeling that the show is a game-changer that will rewrite the Art world’s appreciation of Cecily Brown’s Art & her standing in Art– even though both are well-established. Her diligence and continual hard work over the past 25 years has paid off in spades. The fruits of her labors explode on the walls.

Time passes slowly. Painted during the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the stunning Selfie, 2020, Oil on linen, kept me transfixed at the entrance as minutes passed, mirroring in a small way the time the Artist spent creating it. In fact, mirrors are a key, recurring, element in the show. Anchored by the reclining figure to the right, and the vanity with the round mirror to the right rear, the whole has a feeling of claustrophobia, from too much time spent in the same place that every last detail becomes all-too-familiar. It’s perfectly chosen to begin the show in my view (or, end the show, depending on which end of the show you enter from) as it sets the stage for (or culminates) a show that covers about 25 years and includes very recent work.

One night in 2004, I met Cecily (who was born in London in 1969) when she and a date happened to sit down next to me at East of Eighth, the now-lost Chelsea bar/restaurant/Mother Ship on West 23rd Street a few doors west of the legendary Hotel Chelsea. At that point, the buzz around her was just forming. Days earlier, I had read an article about her in the Art press intrigued by the fact that she is David Sylvester’s daughter. Mr. Sylvester will always be remembered by Art history for being the interviewer in what is, perhaps, the most important Artist interview book yet- Interviews with Francis Bacon, (one of my Desert Island Art Books). A book that helped form my long-standing obsession with Mr. Bacon. It was right in the middle of my decade of drawing (small “d”) daily, which I was when she sat down. Recognizing her from the article, I quickly put my sketchbook away. I told her I had read the article and we chatted briefly, then I let her get back to her date.

No You For Me, 2013, Oil on linen. The viewer looks into the mirror on a vanity at a figure in a room. It appears there’s a spanking going on. Perhaps as close as Cecily Brown comes to the realm of Francis Bacon isn’t that close at all.

I regret I didn’t get a chance to ask her if she met Bacon. Cecily’s Art has been influenced by his, I’ve read, and they both seem to me to be on the cutting edge of “abstracting” the portrait, yet the influence might be in spirit as opposed to a direct visual or stylistic influence as far as I can see. As many have pointed out, Cecily Brown lives on the edge between abstraction and figuration, more or less. Whereas “pure abstraction” leaves nothing “familiar” for the viewer to hold on to, Cecily Brown usually does, even if it’s just the title. In the work included in the show I felt there were “handles,” so to speak, in virtually all of the pieces that lead the viewer into her world.

Francis Bacon, Seated Woman, 1961, Oil on canvas, which sold for $28 million in 2015, Oil on canvas, seen at Skarstedt, June 24, 2022.

In Bacon, the world (through his eyes) is represented to an apparent larger extent, but then the figure or figures are rendered with a selective fluidity that allows the Artist to mould them to his intentions. This often makes them seem out of place in their settings. In Cecily Brown’s work, even though many of her works depict interiors, there is no stylistic difference. Everything is rendered as part of the whole.

The moment I realized Cecily Brown had arrived as a Painter to be reckoned with. A Day! Help! Another Day!, 2016, Oil on linen, 109 x 397 inches (that’s just over 33 FEET long!) seen in Cecily Brown, A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!, Paula Cooper Gallery, October 31, 2017.

Since 2004, as I’ve followed her career and gone to her shows, her work has grown, and grown on me, continually. The record shows I’m not alone in that. Though she quickly gained major gallery representation, and shows in European museums, it seems to me the Art world has been slow to fully “get” her, like here, as incongruous as that may be to say for an Artist who has achieved her stature.

Sketchbook, 2004, Oil pastel, ballpoint pen and pencil on paper, from the year I met her. The image on the left is at the heart of the show. A woman embraces a skeletal figure, whose knee is between hers. Possibly a copy of Edvard Munch’s Death and the Woman, 1894-5, a Print in The Met’s collection, here, this motif appears in Cecily’s recent Painting Death & The Maid, 2022, shown below, revealing how long this subject has been on the Artist’s mind.

Early on, her work was quite sexually oriented, then it steadily opened up. As it did, more and more people began to see the breadth of her talent. The real turning point for me came on October 31, 2017l, when I walked into Paula Cooper Gallery and was face to face with A Day! Help! Another Day!, seen earlier, in Cecily Brown: A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

Death & The Maid, 2022, Oil on linen. The title of the famous String Quartet #14 by Franz Schubert, “Death & The Maiden,” is shortened here to “Maid,” possibly as a reference to Ms. Brown’s time working as a maid to pay for Art school. The center of her Painting shows the titular figures embracing and Death’s leg extending to the left, climaxing the influence of Munch’s Death and the Woman, as seen above. “Death & The Maiden” is also the title of a Painting by Albrecht Dürer’s remarkable student & friend, Hans Baldung, from 1517, which can be seen here. That might be the earliest use of the title.

In April, almost exactly 19 years after I met her, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid opened in the hallowed halls of The Metropolitan Museum, in the same gallery I saw Louise Bourgeois: Paintings in, an interesting coincidence (two European-born women Artists who settled in NYC for good a half-century+ apart). Having moved to NYC in 1994, after winning a plane ticket, it’s the first show she’s been given by an NYC museum. I think she might say the wait was worth it.

Installation view with The Picnic, 2006, Oil on linen in three parts, center, on the wall.

Brilliantly selected from the past three decades and installed (with the involvement of the Artist), it all hangs together seamlessly. Though her style has evolved over the years of her still-young career, the show really does all look like part of a whole. This is aided to no end by the continuity of themes- vanity, death, interiors, and influences & dialogues with Art history.

Full of Face, Full of Woe, 2008, Oil on canvas in three parts. With a title that comes from the “Monday’s Child” nursery rhyme, it’s the first Cecily Brown Painting in The Met’s Permanent Collection. It captivated me when I first saw it last year in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries, and again in the show. Note what appears to be a woman looking in a vanity mirror in the left panel.

The first thing that was apparent to me is how her work looks like no one else’s. She has achieved a style instantly recognizable as Cecily Brown. A major achievement in its own right. The second thing that stands out for me is how deeply and continually she mines Art history. There are references to Munch, Bruegel, Manet, Rubens, Hogarth, Gilbert, Frans Snyders, Dutch & Flemish Still Lifes, among others here, but the resulting work is completely her own no matter the origin, and provides for an interesting “conversation” over time. Filtered through a different viewpoint, experiences and century into nothing less than a striking personal vision, one that strikes me as unprecedented, though I do see a kinship to the work of her teacher, Maggi Hambling and occasional echoes of the late-50s work of Janice Biala.

Blood, Water, Fruit and Corpses, 2017, Oil on linen.

“My red is so confident he flashes trophies of war
And ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go ’round
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
If fact, I’m trying to say it’s frightened like me
And all of these emotions of mine keeps holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you.” *-  Jimi Hendrix, “Bold as Love”

The third thing that’s instantly apparent is her color. For the past eight & 1/4 years, I’ve posted a piece of Music as the “Soundtrack” for each piece I’ve written here. As I walked through Death & The Maid, one song screamed at me from the walls: “Bold as Love” by Jimi Hendrix.

“Bold” sums up much of Cecily Brown’s work for me. In her daring and boldness lies energy and excitement.

As for “Bold as Love,” Hendrix “paints a vivid picture of the spectrum of human emotion using colors,” as genius.com puts it. Virtually every color Jimi writes about is powerfully featured at one point or other in the show. I’m not saying this is a literal interpretation, of course. It’s a reflection of the power of color as a language. The choice is not as arbitrary as it might seem. In the early years of the past decade, Ms. Brown was so taken with the cover image for Jimi’s 3rd album, Electric Ladyland, the last album he completed in his lifetime, that she did a series of Paintings based on the original cover Photo for the U.K. release that was banned for its U.S. release.

All is Vanity (After Gilbert), 2006, Monotype

Cecily Brown’s color strikes me as being that of life. Of being alive. As Adrian Piper pointed out in her brilliant MoMA show, A Synthesis of Intuition, in 2018, “Everything will be taken away.” In death, the colors of life are one the of the first things taken away. Here, it runs as a consistent and compelling counterpoint to the theme of death. It’s interesting that in some of the work that seems to be more centered on death (not all), the color is washed out.

Untitled (Vanity), 2005, Oil on linen

The other thread is the the face/the temporality of youth/and the body (which takes many forms, including the frequent “looking in a mirror” works). Of course, any living body must confront the idea and the reality of death. In the show, it’s the central focus, but it has been one of her central themes, among others, virtually all along. This makes her unique among major Contemporary Painters. While many address it, I can’t think of anyone who makes it a main focus. The show is also interesting for a virtually complete absence of her earlier sexual work.

Vanity Shipwreck, 2021-2, Oil on linen

On the technical side, her compositions, she says, come together in the making. In a number of pieces, figures are in the center, and everything else happens around them. The same feeling occurs in Selfie, though the figure is in the lower corner, and in pieces like Carnival and Lent, below, where bits of figures pop up all over, virtually awash in all that surrounds them. “Abstraction?” What could be a more realistic representation of the chaos of contemporary life where everyone is continually bombarded from all sides, by everything?

“You start with something that’s say, a day old, and then you look at the different directions it can go. And in a way, you can argue that you’re never losing anything, because you try and always keep those things in mind. You have to be willing to lose it all. And that really does happen all the time in painting. And I always want to keep that possibility, just to go back to what kind of painter I am. That’s what I call being a painterly painter, and what’s kind of old-fashioned about it is that attitude that you can lose it all….the paint itself telling the story. The idea that paint can carry or contain a sort of life of its own. Paint traps energy1.”

Carnival and Lent, 2006-8, Oil on linen. Cecily Brown’s take on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559.

I’m struck by the fact that Jackson Pollock could only do his so-called “drip” Paintings from 1947-1952. Ms. Brown has been working in, and developing her style for almost 30 years. Then, there’s her technique, her brushwork. Whereas she said that “Paint traps energy,” her brushwork brings it. 

Detail.

It seems to me that the recent pieces included in Death and the Maid (particularly Selfie, the titular work shown earlier, and A Year on Earth, below) show her reaching a new level. Though her work probably looks very abstract to many viewers, including this one, almost all of them have titles that ground them in the “known world,” separating her from many abstract Artists (though she is not one. Cecily Brown’s work only belongs in the Cecily Brown “box“) who use “Untitled” most often. Titles which function as one of the “handles” I referred to earlier,

A Year on Earth, 2020-21, Oil on linen. Begun in the early months of the pandemic.

Mounted near the end of the show, it could be just me and my life these past 4 years, but I found her Painting BFF incredibly moving.

BFF, 2006-15, Oil on linen.

The wall card explains that Cecily’s teacher, the Artist Maggi Hambling, “once told her to make painting her best friend, as it would always be there for her.” It seems to me that’s not only true for the act of Painting for Painters, but also in the act of looking: Painting is always there for everyone!

There’s a feeling Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid gave me that made me just not want to leave it. I’ve thought about what that feeling is and why I had it since I did leave (to go see the gigantic Manet/Degas show- about 12 galleries worth!). One thing I can say is that it’s a feeling I live for. It’s not only being in the presence of great Painting- there’s plenty of that on view in Manet/Degas as well as everywhere in The Met. It’s the excitement of being in the presence of something alive, pulsing with energy and color with a vibrancy that jumps off the wall- and a lot of it! In Death and the Maid we get a first chance here to play catch up and take stock of 25 years of Cecily Brown’s Art and accomplishment, while getting set up to watch where she goes from here. That’s exciting, too.

This May, I ran into Cecily, again, when we were both leaving the opening of Rosa Loy’s wonderful new show (separately, of course), though I didn’t get the chance to speak to her. It said a lot to me that she was out and about seeing Art, even while her own show was up on the walls at 1000 5th Avenue. I took it as a sign she’s not slowing down or resting on her laurels; she remains fully engaged in the Art world around her, which has inspired her all along.

In the end, you just never know when that person who happens to sit down right next to you one night is going to wind up being one of the world’s major Painters less than 20 years later.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Bold As Love,” by Jimi Hendrix from his immortal album Axis: Bold As Love.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

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  1. Cecily Brown, Phaidon Contemporary, P.38

Kenn Sava’s Desert Island Art Books

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

A BookMarks Special. 

A reader writes, “Hey, Kenn. Leaving cost as a secondary concern, what are the Art books you’d take with you to that desert island?”

Wow…one of the hardest questions you could ask me. First, I’d never go to a desert, or any island without a museum, but I’m game. I’ll take “Art” to mean Paintings, Drawing, Sculpture, leaving Photography aside. (That way I’d get to take more books! Ha!) Well, cost is a PRIMARY concern for me, but I’ll make it secondary here. My criteria are 1) the importance & quality of the Art and 2) how well is it presented? Ok. After months of pondering it, here they are! (In no particular order…)

SPOILER ALERT! There are NO AFFILIATE LINKS in this piece! If you buy one of these somewhere, how about making a donation so I can keep helping you discover Art and books? 

Kenn Sava’s Desert Island Art Books

Format- Artist or author, Title, Publisher

Filled with a lifetime’s fruits of observations, insights, and revelations. No Art lover should be without it, in my opinion.

Sister Wendy Beckett,The Story of Painting, DK Publishing.
The first book I simply must mention is one that had a bit to do with inspiring me to start NighthawkNYC.com, which is about to begin its ninth year: Sister Wendy’s The Story of Painting. A phenomenal accomplishment, covering the history of Painting right up to very recent times, her observations are based in what she sees in the work itself! In so doing, Sister Wendy showed the world how to look at Art without the noise surrounding it from those who would tell you what you “should” see so you can see Art for yourself. I first read Sister Wendy Beckett back in her days as a contributor to the excellent Modern Painters Magazine, before her BBC & PBS TV Series make her world-famous. Still, at the moment, if you look for it (it’s out of print), The Story of Painting can be had reasonably. I prefer the hardcover, mine shown above, because I wore out my softcover copy years ago. Yes, some of the blown up details are out of focus, making me wonder about the editors, but’s that’s no reason for the slightest hesitation- most of the 450 images over 800 pages are fine. This is a book that should always be in print, so it’s past time for a new edition! There is an exceptionally well done TV Series of the same name that is available on DVD, and her other, lesser-known TV Series, like Sister Wendy’s American Collection, in which she visits 6 U.S. museums are also amazing. Seeing her in the same halls of The Met that I frequent always gives me chills. All her shows are essential and should be rerun as often as any show is. Luckily, there is a Complete Collection of her TV Series in a DVD box set. I missed her when she retired to live in seclusion in her trailer, as I wrote here, and more so since her passing, which I mourned here, but what she left us lives on in me, which I try and share here, and countless others. I hope it continues to inspire countless millions indefinitely.

Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, Taschen
If I were to take only one Art monograph, you might be looking at it. I’ve looked at it more than any other Art book besides The Story of Painting. Vincent became an Artist late in life, at about 28, and his career barely lasted 9 years. Yet, the intensity of his dedication to his craft saw him create about 2,100 works, including about 860 Paintings! The evolution of his style is continual after his earliest, “dark” period. Meanwhile, his life was full of tumult, disappointment, and unimaginable pain & suffering. Currently the “Brick” edition, which measures about 6 by 8 inches, $25. list, and/or XL edition, $60. list, are in print. Virtually the exact same book in 2 different sizes. Large or small, either is an incredible value. I’ve got both and each sees steady use. Choose small, shown above, if you want a ready reference, perfect for your bedside or backpack. Choose XL if you want to see the Art in a larger size. My look at the reinstalled Van Gogh Paintings at The Met, pondering what Vincent would think, is here. I’ve begun a piece on Van Gogh’s Cypresses, currently at The Met.

With its NoteWorthy Art Book of 2020 designation.

Rembrandt, Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings, Taschen XXL
The canon of the Master’s Oils seems to be changing daily, even 354 years after his death! It has already changed since this was published in 2019. Still, unless you hit the Mega Millions, or are able to fly around the world and see all the Rembrandts on view in the world’s museums, this is as close as you’ll ever get to seeing them all. Even if you were able to do that, you’d only see some of them because museums rotate/lend their collections and those in private hands are probably inaccessible to you. Still, even if you were somehow able to see all of them, you’ll never see them this close. Nuff said. My hope is they update it in a few more years. In selecting this, I must mention my other go-to Rembrandt book- The Rembrandt Book by the legendary Dutch Art specialist, NYC-born, Gary Schwartz. Aptly titled. Essential. My look at Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece at the Morgan Library in 2016 is here.

My sealed XXL before being “touched.” In this case, “XXL” equals 19 pounds!

Michelangelo, Michelangelo: Complete Works,  Taschen XXL
Michelangelo’s canon doesn’t change nearly as often as Rembrandt’s does, but it does look different when his Art is cleaned or restored (like the Sistine, which looks incredible now, as seen in here, though I hope no damage was done to it in the cleaning). But as I mentioned for the Rembrandt XXL, you’ll never seen all of it, and never this close. Trust me- The Vatican is NOT letting you up on a scaffold in the Sistine! The XXL is out of print and goes for $500. and up in VG or better condition. The $60. XL is almost as good and is still in print as are the two Bricks that include this material- Michelangelo: The Complete Paintings, Sculpture and Architecture and Michelangelo: The Graphic Work for his Drawings, My look at the monumental Michelangelo Divine Draftsman and Designer, at The Met in 2018 is here. One of the top 3 or 4 Art shows I’ve ever seen, it brilliantly revealed for all-time that Michelangelo, the Draftsman and Designer, may be the most overlooked aspect of his super-human genius, and just possibly his most under-rated talent. The Met’s catalog accompanying Divine Draftsman and Designer is one of the very best books on Michelangelo there is- and I’ve owned a lot of them.

Picasso, Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art
HOW could I do a list like this and NOT include a Picasso book? In 1980, I made two trips back to NYC while I was on the road with a band, just to see MoMA’s Picasso Retrospective. The hype leading up to it called in a “once in a lifetime, must-see show.” The reality was just WOW! It marked the beginning of my Art show-going life. If my Art-going career had ended then and there I really couldn’t complain; it’s never been topped by anything I’ve seen since. The show, which filled ALL of the “old” MoMA,  was just overwhelming…mind-boggling. Almost ONE THOUSAND Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings, Collages, Prints, Ceramics, etc., etc. MoMA lent 230 works to other institutions to make room for it. I’ll never forget seeing his earliest works, which the show began with, including Science and Charity, which he Painted at 15(!), and and already being staggered by his talent TWO GALLERIES in, with the entirety of MoMA (THREE FULL FLOORS!) still ahead of me! The catalog published to accompany the show is a classic as well. It’s still to be had quite reasonably in hardcover, like mine above, which I bought at the show, or softcover (check it for yellowing first. It’s 43 years old and my copy makes no mention of acid-free paper). It’s endlessly staggering to page through it and realize that ONE PERSON created ALL of this! If you said of it, “THIS was the ultimate testament of man’s creative accomplishment in the 20th century,” I, for one, couldn’t argue with you.

Kerry James Marshall, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, Skira Rizzoli
THE Painting show of the 2010s among all those I saw lives on in the terrific catalog that accompanied it. It’s still one of the two best books on Mr. Marshall, one of the most important Painters working today, along with the Phaidon Contemporary Kerry James Marshall book. You need both, but in a pinch I’ll take Mastry. I wrote about the show here.

I bought my copy used so it was pretty much like this. Out of print for a long time, it’s very hard to find now in VG condition for less than $200.

Neo Rauch, Neo Rauch, Taschen XXL
Perhaps the world’s most enigmatic living Painter, Neo Rauch’s work continues to both baffle me and hypnotize me in equal measures. Leave it to Taschen to create the most stunning book on his work published so far, even though his bibliography is ever-expanding and the track is fast. 12-years-old at this point it sorely needs to be updated with the work he’s done since added though the essay remain excellent. Long out of print and commanding big bucks, I’d advise holding off on it now and hope Taschen gives us a new edition with all of his work for the past decade+ added. In fact, I spoke with Neo Rauch this spring about just that and he told me another Painting book is coming out next year. It didn’t sound like it would be an Updated Taschen Neo Rauch.

*- Estate of Francis Bacon Photo

Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonne, Martin Harrison, The Estate of Francis Bacon
It seems like the Francis Bacon bibliography gets bigger every few months, but this will ALWAYS be THE place to begin, and end, when it comes to seeing his work. Especially ALL of it! His 584 Paintings are beautifully shown in 800 illustrations over 1,500+ pages in five volumes. Text by the world’s foremost living Francis Bacon authority, Martin Harrison (who also contributed to Saul Leiter’s Early Color, one of THE essential PhotoBooks of the 21st century). Here’s the thing- the Estate has said that once it’s sold out, “it will never be reprinted.” Gulp.

Edward Hopper, The Complete Oil Paintings of Edward Hopper & The Complete Watercolors of Edward Hopper, both Norton
The 4-volume Edward Hopper Catalogue Raisonne by Gail Levin and published by the Whitney in 1995 is more well-known, but it sold out and copies currently BEGIN at $1,000. per. Lesser-known is that the Whitney then sold the two volumes of The Complete Paintings & The Complete Watercolors from the set as stand-alone volumes. At this point, they’re actually probably harder to find. Recently a reader asked me for a Hopper recommendation. It’s really strange that there isn’t a comprehensive book on Hopper’s Art over his whole career currently in print. (The Whitney’s catalog for Edward Hopper’s New York is good, but it’s focused on his NYC work.), as I recommended in Part 2 of my recent look at Edward Hopper’s New York, seek out Gail Levin’s Edward Hopper: The Art & The Artist, the catalog for the last Edward Hopper Retrospective at the “old” Whitney Museum in 1981. Just beware the book is 42 years old now. Look at it before you buy a copy and make sure the pages haven’t yellowed, which this book is very prone to, since that drastically affects the color of the Art.

Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective, Guggenheim Museum
By far the most comprehensive look at almost all of Robert Rauschenberg’s career to 1997. A show I saw and will never forget. Mr. Rauschenberg was involved in its making (there’s a great video online of a brief interview with him as he stands on Frank Lloyd Wright’s ramp). The Artist would go on to live & work for another 11 years, and I am particularly a fan of his late work. Still, this is a glorious book, one I have gone through 3 copies of. The essential visual reference to Robert Rauschenberg’s Art. He remains one of THE most influential Artists on the Art I see in 2023. My look at what I called “The Summer of Rauschenberg” in 2017 is here.

Mark Rothko, Rothko by Christopher Rothko & Kate Rothko Prizel, Rizzoli Electa
Runs, doesn’t walk, to the head of its class. Some may still prefer Yale’s Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas, but it’s 25 years old now. Who better to write a book on their father than Mark Rothko’s son and daughter? They know whereof they speak on all things Rothko after spending their lives as closely involved with his work as anyone- not to mention actually living with the Artist. This all came home to me in spades when I met Kate and got to speak to her about a number of things Rothko-related. She thinks this is the better book, and when she told me that I didn’t get the feeling she was speaking out of bias. The handsome book in a slipcase includes an extremely wide range of work- on canvas and paper, from all periods. The 1999 Rothko Retrospective at the “old” Whitney changed my life, turning me back to being Art-centric from Music and made me a fan for life. My look at Mark Rothko: Dark Palette, 2016, is here.

Ralston Crawford, Ralston Crawford by William C. Agee, Twelvetrees Press
Ralston Crawford is one of the most overlooked Artists I can think of, and I’ve been obsessed with his work since the Whitney Retrospective more years ago than I care to think about. Though shows have been scarce, books have begun to appear over the past decade. This is still the best comprehensive overview, but I hope a REALLY worthy Ralston Crawford book will be coming. Oh, he was also a very talented Photographer, as Keith Davis’s fine book The Photographs of Ralston Crawford reveals.

Vermeer, Vermeer: The Complete Works, Taschen
There are other excellent books of Vermeer’s complete Paintings, including those by Arthur Wheelock of the National Gallery, DC, and the late, lamented Walter Liedtke of The Met who was tragically killed in a train accident a while back. Both of those are excellent for their texts, the Taschen book is essential for its Photography. There hasn’t been an XXL-sized edition, but Vermeer: The Complete Works is now available in either the Brick size, pictured, or the XL size. You can’t go wrong either way- see my comment on Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings for why, though when it comes to Vermeer, you can’t get TOO close!

Caravaggio, Caravaggio: The Complete Works, Taschen
The XXL is long out of print but seeing his work THAT large is an amazing experience if you can find one. The Brick and XL remain in print, and both work well. Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro has been infinitely influential, from Rembrandt on down, no less so today. And so his work remains essential for Photographers, those interested in Film, and of course Painters.

Dali, Dali: The Paintings, Taschen
Dali seems to be in a bit of eclipse these days, but anyone who saw the huge Dali Centennial Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum in 2004-5 knows this is temporary. This remarkable book contains all his Paintings from a very long and very productive career that was marked by almost as many styles as his contemporary Picasso. Originally published as a Volume 1 & 2, now in one volume, available in the Brick or XL size. If you don’t think Salvador Dalí belongs on this list, look through a copy of this book and then tell me he doesn’t.

Getting harder to find- Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings, sealed, in its shipping box.

Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings, Taschen
Unless you’re besties with Madonna, this is likely to remain THE very best place to see the astounding, indelible work of the Mexican genius. What else is there to say? Oh! My money is that Taschen will re-release it in smaller sizes, but if you want to see her work in FULL effect, the XXL, the only edition of it thus far, which seems to be disappearing, is likely to remain THE BEST place to do that. I wouldn’t wait long.

Diego Rivera, Diego Rivera: The Complete Murals, Taschen
Completing the only husband/wife team on this list, this is a terrifically important concept beautifully realized. It’s hard to feel now what a revolution Diego Rivera and the other Mexican Muralists created when they began making Murals in Mexico. They later created them elsewhere and along the way influenced many of the great Artists of 20th and now 21st century Art, including Jackson Pollock. Available in the XL size, I would have my doubts about how good it would be as a Brick.  But in the XL you can study all the marvelous detail on each Mural in a generous size.

Basquiat XXL seen here in its original, printed, shipping box, which has been replaced with an all brown box in recent printings.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat, Taschen XXL
The XXL is likely to forever be THE best place to see the most Basquiat Art as close to life size. There is a Brick edition, part of Taschen’s 40th Anniversary series, which is slightly edited, but that’s the tradeoff for the deep savings ($30 for the Brick vs $200 for the XXL). Neither can be beat among ANY Basquiat book currently in print, in my opinion, and I’ve owned or seen most of the books published on his work to date while I was doing research for the numerous pieces I’ve written on the Basquiat shows in NYC in 2019 and 2022, which can be seen here.

UPDATE, July 15, 2023- In response to my list, a reader wrote, “Basquiat? Could you tell me why he’s on your list?” Sure. Jean-Michel Basquiat is the most compositionally diverse and compositionally inventive Artist I can think of- besides Robert Rauschenberg. As I pointed out in my piece, his compositions alway surprise me, and virtually no two are alike. That’s remarkable. Jean-Michel was ahead of his time in addressing many issues that are now foregrounded in Art, and in the world, today. This is the best book to experience all of that.

Yes, my choices are books that contain Art. As an Art writer, I want to see the Art- as much as I can by any particular Artist I’m interested in. I’m also interested in his or her biography and the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Art. I don’t read Art criticism for 2 reasons. 1) I’m planning on writing my own take on the work, and 2) with all due respect, I don’t want to be influenced by what anyone else says about it. I need to see the Art for myself and I encourage (and have always encouraged) everyone to see Art for themselves. That being said, among Art books that are primarily text (well, the Sister Wendy is both), three stand out for me-

*-Van Gogh Museum/Thames & Hudson Photo

Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (6 volumes), Thames & Hudson
A long time ago I was gifted the 3-volume set of Van Gogh’s Letters edited by Johanna (“Jo”) van Gogh-Bonger who, also wrote a Preface/Rememberance of Vincent. I still have them. This will forever be a very special set. If you love Van Gogh’s Art and don’t know the name Jo van Gogh-Bonger, get thee to a nunnery! Mrs. Van Gogh-Bonger was Theo’s bride, then quickly his widow when he died 6 months after Vincent in 1891. She inherited Vincent’s estate (i.e. virtually all his Art and Letters) after his tragic suicide or murder (in spite of everything, I remain unconvinced he wasn’t ((accidentally?)) murdered. See below..). She is THE person responsible for making Vincent van Gogh the world-wide phenomenon he is today. She believed his Letters were the key to understanding his Art. She was proved right. She edited a collection of them, which has stood until this expanded edition. Her passion for Vincent’s Art led to the creation of the Van Gogh Museum, after her son donated their collection to the Dutch state who agreed to build the building. The VG Museum undertook an updated edition of Vincent’s immortal Letters in 2009, an unparalleled body of writing in Art history, and authorized the publication of Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition in six volumes. WORD!- It’s ALL available for free online, with updates, which the books don’t get! (I just saved you the thousands of dollars the set goes for on Amazon right now! PLEASE donate so I can keep turning you on to things like that. Thanks.)

An older edition with black & white illustrations inside. Get the current edition. It has color illustrations.

Francis Bacon, Conversations with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester, Thames & Hudson
I’ve never read better interviews with an Artist. Period. Mr. Sylvester is Cecily Brown’s dad. I’ve met Cecily, but didn’t get to ask her if she met Francis…

Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Random House
There are a lot of great Artist’s biographies out there, and some terrific Autobiographies, too. However, I just can’t put Van Gogh: The Life down. Like so many others, I grew up believing the fiction written by Irving Stone (Lust for Life, which became the equally fictionalized Film, though it was shot in some actual places, and his Dear Theo.). It’s way past time the record on Vincent’s life was set straight! After I discovered his Letters I began to get the picture. Here the gaps are completely filled in. The decade of research, with the help/permission of the Van Gogh Museum, shows on every page. There’s also a website especially for the book’s footnotes(!), and, unlike many/most Art biographies written by non-Artists, the Art commentary is spot on. Not an easy thing to do with someone like Van Gogh. BRAVO!  I recommend looking for the hardcover, which is out of print. The cover of the paperback is a little thin for an almost 1,000 page book, and this book is almost guaranteed to be the definitive Van Gogh biography for, at least, the foreseeable future. It includes an appendix in which the authors lay out their theory that Vincent DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE- he was accidentally murdered!!! They followed this up with an equally insightful supporting article in Vanity Fair. I find their case compelling.

The big takeaway of all this will no doubt be that I’m a big fan of Taschen. When it comes to Art books, I’ve said as much before. TEN books listed here are published by the German firm. Their Photography books, however, are VERY hit or miss, and could use a few more “hits.” I’ve said a few times that the Taschen small “Brick” sized books (with the newest releases bearing the “40th Anniversary Edition” moniker) are THE best value in Art books today. You could build a terrific Art library out of just Bricks, to coin a phrase. Taschen books consistently feature the most color illustrations of the Art in the highest quality Photographs and publication using excellent paper and always have a rock solid binding. From the Bricks to the XL to the XXL editions (of almost the exact same book, but, be aware, though Taschen doesn’t mention this: my side-by-side comparisons reveal the Bricks may be edited down subtly from the XXL in places- that’s the trade off for saving 85% of the price!), you pick your price point, and the size you want, and you’re good to go on so many of the Artists they include. In fact, only Phaidon can compare with them in terms of the roster of Artists they have published in-depth monographs on. Phaidon stands alone when it comes to their superb Contemporary Artists monograph series. Taschen’s roster is mostly older Artists, though more Contemporary Artists are being included. 

*-Soundtrack for this Piece is “Desert Island Disk” by Radiohead from A Moon Shaped Pool, 2016, the title of which is a play on the BBC Radio show Desert Island Discs.

This piece is dedicated to The Strand Bookstore, where I’ve discovered more great Art (& Photography) Books than anywhere else the past 45 years. This year, The Strand celebrates their 96th year. My previous BookMarks pieces are here.

THERE WERE NO AFFILIATE LINKS IN THIS PIECE!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

While PhotoBooks have been an all-encompassing passion of mine these past four+ years (though of course I had some earlier), Art Books have been a passion ever since I first saw one, or, for over half a century. Before I could go to a gallery or museum, here was a way to see all, or a selection of, the work of an Artist or a group of Artists- in one portable package. I was instantly fascinated by that, and I still am. Yes, physical books because Art, or Photo, eBooks are few and far between- still. The quality of the physically printed Photo, or Photo of a Painting, is still unsurpassed. In 2020, museums and galleries were closed for much of the year all over the world. For me, and perhaps innumerable others, Art Books were there, 24/7, to provide a means of exploring, seeing and studying Art. Fittingly, as they were for me before I was able to go to shows in person, this year, in my world entirely without any other people for 11 months, Art & PhotoBooks were my sole companions.

Having presented my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020, (as well as in 2019, and 2018), this year,  I’ve decided to also present my thoughts on the Art Books I’ve seen in 2020 that I most highly recommend for the first time. All of these books, I highly recommend, so I’m not picking one out of them as “most highly recommended.” Here they are-

NoteWorthy Art Books of the Year, 2020

Philip Guston Now, DAP/National Gallery of Art, and
Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting

After a gap of 15 years between retrospectives of his work, two excellent overviews of Philip Guston’s remarkable oeuvre are published in one year. Deciding which one to get is hard. Both have a lot going for them. For someone looking for one book with the most images in the largest size, along with one of the finest texts of Robert Storr’s career, Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting is the choice. For someone looking for the only place to see the most controversial show of 2020, now postponed to 2024, along with an equally excellent text, Philip Guston Now is an excellent choice. For the serious Guston aficionado, the only choice is to buy both. For someone already familiar with Philip Guston’s work who wants to learn more about his work, either book will provide countless fresh insights.

Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting may be the finest achievement in the long career of author Robert Storr. Yet, I give special credit to Philip Guston Now for being one of the most remarkable exhibition catalogs I’ve ever seen. Personally, I find its text by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin, to be nothing short of brilliant both in its content and how it flows seamlessly from period to period through the Artist’s long career, treating the whole in a fresh way. This, alone, would be enough for a high recommendation, but the book is taken to another level by the addition along the way of pieces by 10 Contemporary Artists- William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Most provide unique insights into specific works by Philip Guston and a number of them directly address the “hooded”/klan works, the focus of the controversy around the show the book was published to accompany.

Dana Schutz’ Essay in Philip Guston Now.

The show, also titled Philip Guston Now, was first postponed due to covid to July, 2021, then  controversially postponed, again, to 2024 by the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Tate Modern, London, where it is scheduled to be mounted. “We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted.1.” Like many others, I am at a loss to understand that statement. On the one hand, it denigrates the intelligence of visitors. On the other, what if 2024, isn’t that nebulous “time” the message speaks of under whatever unmentioned criteria they’re using to determine it? However, the show’s catalog did come out this year in anticipation of the originally scheduled opening. Its inclusion of the featured pieces by those 10 Contemporary Artists is exactly the kind of thing Art monographs need more of, in my view, as they struggle to remain relevant- given how many other books already exist on most Artists, and the large expense involved in creating them in what may be increasingly challenging times for museums who, largely, publish these books.

The reproductions of the Art in Philip Guston Now only adequate in terms of quality, in my opinion, are best used for reference to the points large and small being made throughout the text. Some of the Art is reproduced one image on a page with a copious border, others are 4 to a page. It does include new Photos taken in Philip Guston’s studio, which appears to be largely as he left it. The other big reason for getting this book is to see the works in, and to have a record of,  this important show, so you can prepare yourself to see it, IF it ever opens. Also important to note- many works will not appear in each of the four scheduled stops the show will make. So, the catalog is the only place to “see” the whole show.

The large 13.35 by 11.5 inch pages create an almost 27 inch spread making the images in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting the largest in any Guston book to date, and with over 850, the most images in any Guston book as well. This will make it a slam dunk choice for many, but take a look at both.

The illustrations are better and more numerous (850) in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting, whose 13 1/2 by 11 1/2 inch size is more accommodating close study. Get that book for the best current overview of the Art. As for its text, Robert Storr contributes one of his finest efforts, apparently the results of many years of work. As good as the text in Philip Guston Now is, Mr. Storr’s doesn’t take a back seat to any Guston book I’ve seen to date, which is why a recommendation for both books is the only one I can give at this point. They join Philip Guston: Retrospective, published by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2003, to accompany the last major retrospective of his work and now out of print, my go-to Guston book to this point, as standard references to the work of this enduringly contemporary Master.

Drawing for Conspirators, 1930, Graphite pencil, pen and ink, colored pencil, and wax crayon on paper, seen at the Whiney Museum in July, 2015, in America Is Hard To See, the most recent showing of this work. A number of the essays in Philip Guston Now reference this work.

Before continuing, I feel I must briefly address the controversy centered around the show’s inclusion of Philip Guston’s klan Paintings. I’ve been somewhat surprised that the attention seems to focus on his late klan pieces. I think it’s important to remember that they go back to when the Painter was about 18. In Philip Guston Retrospective, the backstory is relayed on pages 16 & 17. It begins by quoting Mr. Guston-

I was working at a factory and became involved in a strike. The KKK helped in strike breaking so I did a whole series of paintings on the KKK. In fact I had a show of them in a bookshop in Hollywood, where I was working at that time. Some members of the klan walked in, took the paintings off the wall and slashed them. Two were mutilated. That was the beginning.”

(The text then continues) “The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the Invisible Empire, had a significant membership in California in the 1930s and 1940s, and Los Angeles County was its most active Klavern. Guston and several other of his friends also painted portable murals for the John Reed Club on the theme of ‘The American Negro.’ Guston’s submission was particularly volitile. Based on the Scottsboro case, in which nine black men were sentenced (many said on false and circumstantial evidence) to life in prison for raping a white girl. Guston’s mural depicted a group of hooded figures whipping a black man. The murals were eventually attacked and defaced by a band of ‘unidentified’ vandals. The experience of seeing the effect of art on life and life on art never left Guston, and the unsettling image of the hooded figure was branded into his visual imagination.”

In the 1930s, in addition to strike breaking, the klan also targeted Jews. Philip Guston, originally Philip Goldstein, was Jewish. Of course, their main target were Blacks.

Artists don’t live in the nebulous times those 4 museum directors speak of in their postponement statement. They live, work, and often respond to, the times of their lives. Philip Guston lived long enough to see that racism was deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, possibly even in his own life. I believe those are things that may have influenced his later hooded figure/klan works, though they are for each viewer to interpret for his or herself. If this ins’t the time for all of us to look inside at ourselves and see how we can be better, how do we know 2024 will be a better time to do so?

NoteWorthy Art Book of the Year, 2020

Noah Davis, David Zwirner Books. An early candidate for the most important new Art monograph of the new decade might be hard to top for that title in the next 9 years. Noah Davis passed away of cancer at the very young age of 32 on August 29, 2015. Still, the amount he accomplished and the work he created in such a short life will live on indefinitely. Editor Helen Molesworth was Mr. Davis’ personally chosen curator, and she curated the show that opened earlier this year in NYC, which  I wrote about before it moved to The Underground Museum, L.A.., which Noah Davis founded with his wife, the Artist Karon Davis. The text includes interviews with those who knew Mr. Davis, including legendary Painter Henry Taylor, Deana LawsonLindsay Charlwood, Dagny Corcoran, Daniel DeSure, Thomas Houseago, and Venus X by Ms. Molesworth. Only the second book on his work thus far, it will remain the standard reference for the time being, and a standard reference regardless of what else comes out on one of the most important Artists of  our time. It’s only too bad Mr. Davis didn’t live to see it. Noah Davis was not only an extraordinary Painter, he was one of the Artistic visionaries of our time. He showed it was possible to succeed as an Artist without gallery representation, and then he audaciously founded his own museum to serve audiences he felt were being left out by the existing museums. Generations to come will be influenced and inspired by his Art. Generations of Artists will be, also, influenced by his example. 

From 2020, let’s set the wayyyyy back machine back to the very first Art Book to captivate me when I was a kid was Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, published by Abrams in 1969. A large (13.5 by 11 inch), 348 page hardcover, with 612 illustrations including 109 hand-tipped color plates, it had these words on the front flap-

“There emerges, in this book, a Rembrandt who is human, fallible, majestic- a man who went through all the common vicissitudes of life and yet was determined to remain true to himself as an artist.”

I’d never seen anything like it. Here was an entire world, the entire life and work of an Artist that just exploded in front of me, singeing my mind as I turned each page, as Rembrandt’s wondrous turned painfully sad life went on, accompanied by the Artist turning his hand from Painting to Drawing to Prints, and back, each among the supreme works done in the medium by anyone, before or since. Most of all, it was the incredible humanity in his Art that has stayed with me to this day. He rendered everyone, from beggars to the exalted, babies and the very old, and foremost among them, he rendered himself, continually throughout his career, from early on, until near the end, creating a body of Self-Portraits, the like of which the world had never seen. Those words on the flap turned out to be the key! As the years went by, I began to understand where that unequalled humanity in Rembrandt’s work came from. Such is the power of a truly great Art Book.

Fast forward a half century to 2020 and the release of 3 great books on the Master, each one of my NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020…

The heavyweight champions. The Complete Paintings weighs in at 17.78 pounds, The Complete Drawings & Etchings at 14.99 pounds.

Rembrandt. The Complete Paintings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Complete Drawings & Etchings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Self-Portraits. Taschen XL Series. Nothing more needs to be said- These will remain THE standard visual reference books for Art lovers on the work of the foremost Painter of humanity in this house for the foreseeable future or until the experts change their minds, yet again, on what is, and what is not, from the hand of the Master and deserves to be included. And you know they will (though not the last WORD, for that Gary Schwartz’ amazing books on Rembrandt will retain their prominence in this household). Again. In the meantime, bliss out in peace. Even Mr. Schwartz approves in an Amazon review2. With all due respect to the esteemed authors, in my opinion, these books would be closer to “perfect” if they had his contributions. Photography, paper, binding, finish are first rate all around. 

After all these years, well into the age of the selfie, this first body of Self-Portraits still remain at the top of my list of favorite Art works.

It’s a bit bold of Taschen to publish these books given the still in-flux state of what exactly is a Rembrandt, and given that the esteemed publishers have not yet issued a revised version of any of the XXL books. My guess is they felt the completion of the Rembrandt Research Project’s work, published in a six volume set, the last in 2014, provided an opportunity for a collection. I’ve recently heard of at least one change to the accepted canon, but for better or worse, anyone wanting to see the most Rembrandt in a large size will be left with these three books as the best option for the foreseeable future.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Taschen XXL Series
As I just got through saying about the original Dutch Master, if you want to see as much of the work of the late New York Master, Jean-Michel Basquiat as possible in one volume, as LARGE as possible, Taschen’s XXL Jean-Michel Basquiat is the only book for you. Yes, another Taschen XXL on this list this year. Look at the $200. list price (for this and for each of the Rembrandt Paintings and Drawings books) this way- You’d have to spend a large fortune to travel to the world to see all the Art contained in one of these, IF the work happened to be on view. Even then, you won’t get to see it this close up in what is usually, very good to excellent Art Photography. And consider that much of the key work of Jean-Michel Basquiat is in private hands because the museums were slow to accept and buy his work. They missed the boat. Private collections rarely show or lend their work making the chances to see more than 5 Basquiat Paintings anywhere at any time extremely rare! That’s exactly why I spent so much time running around seeing the 5 Basquiat shows mounted here in NYC last year. My pieces on them are here. In all that effort, I still only saw about 130 or so pieces!

David Hockney: Drawing From Life, National Portrait Gallery, London
The incredibly prolific Mr. Hockney has had a life long obsession with Drawing. That alone makes him a man after my own heart. I’ve followed along with his Drawing evolution with empathy. He’s often spoken of the challenges of Drawing and man, could I relate to them, as I spent 3 days every week Drawing at The Met for about a decade. Sometimes, I’d look at his Drawings and I could see my own efforts. But, most times I looked, he was light years beyond me. His use of an incredibly wide range of Drawing tools and media is unprecedented among major Artists 0in Art History- everything from chalk to graphite to the iPhone and iPad. With each new tool he found his own way, and achieved remarkable results (like his huge, multi page iPad Yosemite Drawings) that are all the more remarkable for being instantly recognizable as David Hockneys. He’s also been proflic in the number of books published on his Art. Yet here is the first collection of part of his Drawing oeuvre this century (the David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, 1996, the last overview I can recall). It’s wonderfully done and ingeniously designed, with chapters following the Artist’s evolution of a single subject each, culminating in his Self-Portraits. Published to accompany the show of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery, London, it’s a remarkable book that due to its ingenious concept has an unexpectedly personal feel to it- as you turn the pages, you begin to feel you know each subject. It’s particularly recommended to Drawing students and lovers of the endangered Art of Drawing.

Francis Bacon or The Measure of Excess by Yves Peyre, a friend of Mr. Bacon’s, stands in front of the new monograph on Cecily Brown. Cecily’s father, David Sylvester, was also a long time friend of Bacon’s and gave us the enduring classic Interviews with Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess, Yves Peyre, ACC Art Books.
Slowly, steadily and continually, the late, great British Artist has now established himself in the upper echelon of Artists I am absolutely obsessed with. To the point that the LAST thing I need is ANOTHER Francis Bacon book. I’d never heard of Yves Peyre, though the cover says he “was a close friend of the artist.” He’s also a poet and has authored a book on Henri Michaux. Well, some of Mr. Bacon’s other friends have already given us books on Mr. Bacon, from David Sylvester (Cecily Brown’s dad, who’s Interviews with Francis Bacon remains most essential) and Michael Peppiatt, down, including another poet, Michel Leiris, and most of them are quite good and have held up for a few decades already. Some of them also offer quite good collections of reproductions of Mr. Bacon’s Art (something EVERY Francis Bacon books seems to need to give us). Yet, as a one volume overview of Francis Bacon’s career with excellent, full 11.73 by 9.83 inch page reproduction, Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess is my current recommendation and personal choice as a one volume visual reference. The texts of the earlier books remain important, and recommended, summing in a nutshell why it’s VERY hard to have only one Francis Bacon book. Even if you have other books, Mr. Peyre shines the new light of a fresh approach to Bacon, which is somewhat remarkable given how many others have chimed in on his work already, during his life and since his passing in 1992. Of course, if you want THE Francis Bacon publication, the 5 volume Catalog Raisonne is still in print at 1,000 British Pounds a copy, plus shipping. I’ve seen it, and it is exceptionally, even remarkably well done, with Martin Harrison, the foremost authority on Bacon today, astoundingly uncovering 100 previously unseen works (Oh! To find just ONE in a flea market…). The Bacon Estate says it will never be reprinted, and so likely will never be “cheaper.”

Sofonisba’s Lesson, Michael Cole, Princeton University.
Wait. What? Who? Sofonisba Anguissola, 1532-1635, was a female Painter & educator in the Renaissance. Believe it or not, a female Painter in the Renaissance. And a great one, in my view. To say her work has been in eclipse since would be an understatement. I, for one, was unfamiliar with her or her work until I saw this incredible, irresistible face staring out at me from the cover. I doubt I’m alone in that. The Met appears to have nothing by her. Neither does The Frick. Ah, but one person who immediately saw her talent was Il Divino himself, Michelangelo, who informally gave her advice! Nuff said. There is no possible higher recommendation in the Art world than that. Into the gap of knowledge for the rest of us mere mortals steps Michael Cole’s beautifully done, concise, monograph that goes a very long way towards putting her back on all of our maps, where she belongs to stay, in my view, henceforth, as the true Master Artist she was.

As you can see both of these Portraits are first rate, but look at the table covering, left, and the collars and cuffs on the right. For me, there are number of different techniques, even styles, on views in each work and that speaks volumes about the depth of her skill.

At 2.5 pounds, it’s not as big in size or as weighty as the Rembrandt or Basquiat XXLs on this list, yet I admire this book so much that if it weren’t for Noah Davis being released this year, it might well be my NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. A lesson for all those Artists struggling for recognition today- Sofonisba’s Lesson comes 12 years before the 500th Anniversary of her birth in Lombardy in 1532. Better late, than never.

Goya Drawings, Thames & Hudson/Prado Museum.
Back in the day before Photography with chemicals ruled the world, Drawing & Painting were the primary means by which events of the day were recorded or, along with those past, recreated. Primary among the great Artists who recorded the events of their day remains Francisco Goya. While his The 3rd of May, 1808, is perhaps, his most well-known such work, though we have no way of knowing if the Artist actually witnessed this scene personally. He also created a large body of Drawings the scope of which, and the humanity of which, only Rembrandt’s can equal in my mind. Like the original Dutch Master, Goya’s Drawings magically capture a pose or an expression in an almost impossible economy of line, while looking for all the world like they were done quickly, without second thought. Ahh…Drawing at its most sublime. 

2020 saw the release (or at least the availability in this country) of two excellent Goya Drawings monographs, both of which are published by no less than the Prado Museum, home of the world’s finest & most comprehensive Goya collection, one of which is a NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. Goya Drawings immediately becomes the choice resource for the lay reader, the Drawing or Painting student or Artist, and for the serious Goya student. A remarkable overview that does not scrimp on detail, insights, or the number of color images, in manages to stay concise and succinct. I picked it and didn’t know what to make of it from very generic front cover. “Goya Drawings”? That’s a huge subject for such a small book. Once I opened it I could not put it down. Sure enough, his Drawings over his entire career are covered, period by period in depth, and while not each and every one is covered, the overview is broad enough to convey the big picture  but can be dipped in to at any point for a closer study of any one work, which is written about on the page with its illustration- quite rare in a comprehensive book like this, and an indication of its superb design.

Finally, along with the other Goya Drawings book they published this year, Francisco de Goya: Cuaderno C (or Sketchbook C), which reproduces in facsimile one of his sketchbooks, both books are part of the Prado’s continued effort to make its Goya riches available to the public, online for free, and in these two modestly priced and superb books, Goya Drawings was released in honor of it’s 200th Anniversary in November, 2019. Bravo!

I Am Still Learning, c.1825-8, Lithographic crayon on grey laid paper,  on the next to final page. Goya was about 80 when he Drew this symbolic Self-Portrait. A fitting culmination to an immortal career, …and to this piece as words to live by.

Afterword/Forward to 2021

We’re not out of the pandemic woods yet. It might be a while before we are. I hope and pray not a long while. We shall see. Still, many smaller businesses have permanently left us. Many others are hanging on. I have been staying to myself this year, which means living in complete isolation for all of 2020. Yup. You read that right. I will only go into an enclosed space if I have to. Still, I have made very brief journeys into local bookstores, and peered in the window from the street of others, to see how busy they were. Frankly, what I’ve seen is very scary. Throughout the week, you could roll a bowling ball down the aisle of almost any bookstore here and hit no one. On the weekends, they’ve been closer to normal. Part of that is, no doubt, early holiday shopping. Still, the big takeaway for me is that the time is now- today and 2021, to support independent bookstores if you want them to survive. Many of the books and Artists I discover each year (and have my entire life) I’ve discovered browsing books in bookstores- including Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, shown earlier, 40 years ago. You can’t do that online. I’ve been waiting for eBooks to begin to replace physical Art & PhotoBooks for many years now. As 2020 closes, it doesn’t seem that we’re any closer to that than we were 5 or 10 years ago. A high quality eBook could replace most Art books published today- IF the image quality was comparable. They’re not. Screen image quality is nowhere near that of printed image quality. Then, there are Artist’s Books and PhotoBooks. Many of both are painstakingly crafted in every single detail, down to each material used, which no cyber experience can match. These books are often works of Art in themselves, and for many Artists & Photographers who don’t have gallery representation, they provide a primary focus for having their work seen on their terms, the way they intend it to be seen. Physical books in general have a charm and provide a tactile experience no eBook can match. If you value books, like I do, consider supporting your favorite local indie bookstore in person or online. While you can.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Better Days Ahead,” by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson from the album Secrets, 1978…

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  1. Here.
  2. With a caveat on the Drawings volume, so he went ahead and created a concordance to ease referencing the new Schatborn reference numbers Taschen’s behemoth uses to refer to the work to the standard Benesch numbers, available here!

Art Shows, 2015 – Who Keeps Your Flame?

“But when you’re gone,
Who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?”*

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January, 2015. Goya: Order and Disorder @The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Neither snow, nor 5 hours on a train kept the Nighthawk from the Front Door of Great Art.

Since I don’t believe in comparing creative work or creative people, AND I believe that “awards” for “Best” whatever among the Arts (and Sports) are absurd 1, I thought I’d do a “List In No Particular Order” of 2015 Art Shows I saw (some opened in 2014) that may or may not have closed for good, but still continue to open doors in my mind, and that’s more important than any award I could bestow.

“Oh can I show you what I’m proudest of?”*

Goya: Order and Disorder (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. No photos permitted.) AND Goya:Los Caprichos (National Arts Club, Gramercy Park, NYC)- Two concurrent, excellent shows, 250 miles apart, one huge, the other “small” showing two views of  Goya- one all encompassing, filling the whole lower level of the MFA, one narrowly focused on a rare, complete set of his landmark 80 print, Los Caprichos,(once owned by Robert Henri, who reappears below) combined to show the enduring power, importance, relevance and eternal influence of the Spanish Master. Many saw the former, far fewer saw the latter, tucked away in a dining? lecture? room on the second floor of the NAC (Behind hundreds of chairs on one of my visits!). An artist of nightmares, both surreal and all-too-real, the likes of which perhaps only Bosch can equal, who can then turn around and paint with the utmost lyricism, Goya was all about what it is to be human. Take your pick- portraits, historical pieces, landscapes, the otherworldly or the underworldly, children, tapestries, or his graphic works that hold their own with dare-I-say-Rembrandt, he’ll blow your mind.

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Goya/MFA on the show’s elevator entrance, overlooking Dale Chihuly’s Tree.

Remember My Name. Goya’s Self Portrait casts his all-seeing eye on us 215 years later.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from The Caprichos” So? Stay up!

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Neither blizzard, nor the furniture(!), kept the Nighthawk from seeing all of Goya’s incredible Los Caprichos at the National Arts Club, but I think they tried to.

Richard Pousette-Dart (Pace 510 West 25th, Chelsea)- I walked in and was completely captivated by “abstract” Art the way I haven’t been since the Mark Rothko Show at the “Old” Whitney in 1998, which was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. (That’s not comparing.) Don’t be fooled by the apparent geometric simplicity, there is an astounding subtlety to these works that at once feel microscopically considered, often freely rendered, yet globally cohesive. Pousette-Dart had a number of styles, and this show represented one, geometric style, from the 1970’s in both large oils and smaller drawings. For any of those who think that Abstract Expressionism is “easy” to do, go ahead and try creating one of these, the largest is almost 8 foot square, and then see if it has the “Presence” of Dart’s. The amount of work that went into each piece belies their seemingly “simple” composition, is matched by an extraordinary primacy of order, and second only to their transcendent impact. Here, we see Richard Pousette-Dart as the great, “under known” abstract artist. While Pollock & Rothko have grown larger in stature, Pousette -Dart’s name deserves to be right there with theirs. There is only one word to describe this show’s effect- Magical.

Then? There’s never a chair around when you want one. Pousette-Dart @Pace- Presence, Circle of Night, 1975-6, center, Black Circle Time, 1980, left and White Circle Time, 1980, 90″ square each.

Imploding Black, 1975, six feet square. Transcendent,

Detail.

Cerchio di Dante, 1986, six foot square

Detail of the left side.

“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives
Who dies
Who tells your story?”*

Richard Estes: Painting New York City (Museum of Art & Design, NYC)- My favorite contemporary artist, and one of the greatest living realists, FINALLY gets an NYC Museum show, and it was worth the wait. A virtual time capsule of NYC from the mid 1960’s to 2015’s astounding Corner Cafe, showing the 83 year old Master is still at the height of his considerable power. Oh…Do NOT call him a “photorealist” in my presence! Estes shows us the world we live in as we do not see it, (more on this soon) and so follows in the footsteps of Edward Hopper and Charles Sheeler in advancing American realism while, perhaps, being the first to include the abstraction that is also a part of the real world. A misunderstood painter, in my eyes, who is only just beginning to be really seen, finally.

Horn & Hardart Automat, 1967. Not since Hopper has a work spoken to me of life in the City like this does.

Columbus Circle, Maine Monument, 1989. 500 years ago, or 100, they came by ship. Now? They come by bus. Frozen in time, side by side.

Times Square, 2004. Nothing captures the experience of the place better than this, though Robert Rauschenberg is capable of giving me a similar feeling (See below).

“I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings
You really do write like you’re running out of time.”*

Picasso: Sculpture (MoMA)- If he had never done anything besides paint, Picasso would be considered among the all time Masters. But, noooooooooooo… Picasso was, perhaps, the most unique genius in (known) art history in that his genius was among the most restless. He almost never stopped creating, and he never stopped seeking new outlets for his creative vision. Consider- PICASSO HAD NO TRAINING AS A SCULPTOR! NONE. Yet, that didn’t stop him from becoming, perhaps, THE most revolutionary sculptor up to his time. There is so much great work to see in this show, I don’t even know where to start talking about it. “Picasso: Sculpture” shows us the naked face of endlessly creative genius the like the world has never seen. I’ll sum it up by saying virtually all of it is wonderfully selected, though some of the Cubist works here don’t stand up to his paintings, in my opinion, and wonder- When will we see his like, again? The “other” takeaway, for me, is- Oh…MoMA. I miss you. About as much as I miss your “old” building.

Standing Figure in Wire, 1928. Unprecedented. Astounding.

Sylvette, 1954. “I see you slightly folded…in steel, my dear.” Picasso must have said.

America Is Hard To See (Whitney Museum)- I’m saving my thoughts on the “New Whitney” Building (UPDATE- They may be seen here.), but the opening show in the new place was a wonderful “Welcome Back” to one of the first 3 of NYC”s Big Four Museums and a reminder of its world class (and first anywhere) collection of American Art. My personal highlight? The first floor gallery featuring a selection of Hopper Drawings done at the Whitney Studio which predated the Museum, and the absolutely mesmerizing portrait of Museum founder, the indomitable Mrs. Gertrude V. Whitney (also an overlooked sculptor) that looked out at Gansevoort Street, and for my money? SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEFT RIGHT THERE- PERMANENTLY! It wasn’t.

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Frozen in time. Mrs Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney looks out on the new home of the collection she started.

Mrs. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Robert Henri, 1917, with her Study for the Head of her Titanic Memorial from 1922, right. Yes. She was a sculptor, too.

Before the First Whitney Museum opened in 1931, there was the Whitney Studio Club, where artists came to draw from the model. See that guy to the left of center rear with the light shining on his bald head? That’s Edward Hopper, a regular. That’s why his estate was left to The Whitney. Litho by Mabel Dwight, 1931.

America is hard to change. Excellent, rarely seen, works by Grant Wood, Study for Breaking the Prairie, 1939,…

…And Kara Walker, A Means To An End, 1995, struck me as serendipitous.

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America: Seen everywhere. Inside- Rothko’s Four Darks in Red, 1958, Pollock’s Number 27, 1950, Chamberlain, Jim, 1962 & Guston’s Dial, 1956…

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…And, Outside- sculpture from one of the countless roof decks.

“And I’m still not trough I ask myself,
what would you do if you had more time
The Lord, in his kindness
He gives me what you always wanted
He gives me more time.”*

I end this section honoring two endlessly creative American “painters,” featured in very very good shows. Like Richard Estes, these two artists also put that “more” time of a long life to superb use. Yes, despite evidence to the contrary, they both consider themselves to be painters. To me, the “lessons” of their lives, how they were able to survive following their star in this country for so long, may prove to be as important as their considerable artistic legacies.

Robert Rauschenberg- Anagrams, Arcadian Retreats, Anagrams:A Pun (Pace 534 West 25th, Chelsea)- Presaging Photoshop, the late, great Mr. Rauchenberg continues to speak to our times though he, unfortunately, left us almost 7 years ago. Light years ahead of his times, throughout his life,  Anagrams…, a show of Mr. Rauschenberg’s final development, shows that once again, his work will look “contemporary” for years to come, and more amazingly, I think it will be as relevant as what anyone else is doing at the moment! As I just said, he represents something of an American miracle- an artist who was able to spend virtually his entire life creating EXACTLY what he wanted to, answering to no one but himself. That sure must seem miraculous to today’s American artists. Interestingly, like Mr. Estes, the works here are based on Mr. Rauschenberg’s own photography, to very different results. Unlike Mr. Estes, Mr. Rauschenberg’s are directly transferred to the piece, though with such skill and subtlety they have the effect of melting into the others they’re surrounded by. A surprisingly fresh, visually rich, often beautiful show who’s spell will call me a few more times before it ends on January 16. And then, I will miss it, but it will have changed the way I see the world, like Richard Estes has.

Rauschenberg @ PACE. I just loved this show.

Frank Stella (Whitney)- An art mover’s nightmare of a show, the Artist’s helpful hand notated directional markings seen on some of the pieces notwithstanding, it must have been hard for Mr Stella, himself, to narrow his 50-some year career down to one floor at the New Whitney, handsomely displayed in the still-new space. With only one Moby Dick piece in sight, the take away for me is that here is a Triumphant overview of another rare American artist who continues to explore and evolve, fickle times and the “harpoons” of even more fickle critics & collectors be damned. Mr. Stella has devoted his career to the eternal pursuit of finding new possibilities, “new spacial complexities” 2, for the Art Form of painting. Some of these sure look like sculpture, but I’ll bow to what he says on one of the show’s signs- “Q- You still call these paintings? A- Yes. They are, in fact, paintings.” Remarkably, as he closes in on 80 this May 12, Mr. Stella continues to “start over,” as Richard Meier says on the audio guide, eternally following his muse, breaking painting out of 2 dimensions, to lord-only-knows-where-next. In this show’s case? The Journey IS The Destination. Mr. Stella strikes me as a master conceptualist with an endless font of making the unlikely, and especially the unthought-of, real. Forget this show’s afterthought of a catalog, for me, his value, “message” and influence lie in the sheer physical experience of his work- they simply must be seen, and often, walked around like sculpture to be fully appreciated. Who else “paints” like this? If you go, and you should, check out the great quotes from Mr. Stella on the wall signage- “What you see is what you see.” And then some. What I saw was a show to fire your creativity, and inspire you to see new possibilities in anything, if there ever was one. You still have a few days left to see it before it closes after February 7. Then, the art movers get to pack it up and move it out. I would pay to watch that.

50+ years of “starting over.”

“Toto, We’re Not On Canvas, Anymore.” Stella Busts Painting Out.

“Um..A Little Higher On The Right?”

And lest I forget…

Cubism (The Met No photos permitted.)- TM is on a mission to shore up its Modern & Contemporary Art holdings, as we will soon see at The Met, Breuer, but this show featuring works of a promised gift goes a very long way to solidifying TM’s Cubists holdings, and then some. So many strong works by the Masters of Cubism, Picasso, Braque, the underrated Juan Gris, and Leger abound, they made me wonder where TM is going to install them all when they finally get them!

Madame Cezanne (TM No photos permitted.)- Portraits are not the first thing most think of when they think of Cezanne. Many think of his groundbreaking landscapes and genius with color, but this show of his, no doubt long-suffering wife, says as much about this under known muse as it does about Cezanne. The hours she spent posing for him reminds me of “The Man in The Blue Shirt,” by Martin Gayford about sitting for Lucian Freud. The show is a striking look at another side of this master of impressionism, and gives us rare opportunities to see 4 versions of a painting reunited, and Cezanne’s actual sketchbooks. A rare treat for the lover of Impressionism, portraiture and great Art.

China Through The Looking Glass (TM)- Except for Picasso: Sculpture and Goya’s Los Caprichos, the above shows are painting shows, my true love, but CTTLG is in a category all its own. ANY show that can get TM to stay open till Midnight has to make the Nighthawk’s list. After setting the bar high with “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” TM’s Costume Institute topped themselves with a spectacle that the 800,000 who saw it will remember almost as long, and which will prove quite a challenge for 2016’s “manus x machina,” or MxM, as I’m calling it to equal, let alone top. I predicted 1 Million will attend it, so GO EARLY (or don’t say I didn’t warn you) & Stay tuned!

Francis Bacon- Late Paintings – (Gagosian No photos permitted.) – with one work, a triptych selling for 142 million, I can’t fathom how much 28 are worth, but here was a chance to see that many in one show, focused on the seemingly contemplative, other-worldly “late” Bacon,

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especially after seeing the following (Rembrandt show) on the same day, which brought to mind subtle, fascinating convergences- self-portraits, multiple views, or states, for Rembrandt, diptychs & triptychs for Bacon, among them.

Rembrandt’s Changing Impressions (Columbia U.)- In lieu of the “big one” I missed (see below), this was a closer-to-home chance to see 50 or so prints by the Master and a rare chance to see various “states” (versions) of works side by side. A bit light on the most well known of Rembrandt’s etchings, but very worth 4 visits none the less.

Not a triptych. Rembrandt creates 3 masterpieces from one composition.

Chuck Close Recent Paintings (Pace 534, Chelsea)- I met Mr. Close, briefly, but in spite of the fact that he is one of the greatest portraitists of the 2nd half of the 20th Century+, I know he won’t remember my face. He has Prosopagnosia. He’s ALSO paralyzed and in a wheel chair. I never cease to be absolutely astounded at what he achieves and what new ground he breaks. Already a Master before his brain aneurysm, which would have stopped 99.5% of anyone not named Chuck Close, he’s gone on to create ever new works that continue his life long exploration of his famous “grid technique.” These works add even new elements- new palettes, a new approach to focus and depth of field, and more.

Linda & Mary McCartney (Gagosian Books)- If they had taken down all the title cards, removed the iconic shots among Linda’s, and you walked in without knowing which work was by who- Linda McCartney, or her and Paul’s daughter, Mary, you’d never know. That’s how amazingly symbiotic the eyes of the two photographers are. They see as one. Walking out, and I say this with nothing but respect, it really felt like Linda had never passed away. That her work continues. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

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The daughter reflects well on her famous mother.

George Caleb Bingham (TM)- The year’s “sleeper” pick. I don’t know if he ever met Mark Twain, but if Mr. T. ever wanted an artist to illustrate “Huck” or “Tom Sawyer?” G.C.B. would get my vote. His work captured what it was to live on the River the way only Twain, himself, has, and makes a contribution to laying the ground work towards defining a truly “American” style of painting, and by the Mid-Nineteenth Century? It was about time! TM’s show reveals him to be something of a predecessor for that other great American 19th C. portraitist, Thomas Eakins, but with a style and a power of his own that still holds up.

Araki (Anton Kern, NYC)- He lost his wife…he gets prostate cancer…he says he no longer has sex…Nothing stops the indefatigable, legendary Araki. Don’t let the “casual” taping of the photos to the wall fool you- I found this show striking, poignant, meditative and moving. The images flowed one to the next, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in dissonance, but all of them speak with that sense that only Araki has. Some will say he’s a misogynist. I’m not a woman but I disagree. I see beauty and poetry in his shots of women. Reading some of the press materials on hand, I was struck by his comment that he had sex with most of his models. I couldn’t help wonder- Does that include Bjork? Live long, and much health, Araki.

Also lingering in my mind, tormenting me with what I missed, are the ones that got away-

Late Rembrandt (Rikjsmuseum, Amsterdam)- I agonized about going. For months. Like I agonize about Frank Gehry at LACMA right now! (Hello, Sponsorship?)

Bjork (Moma)- Sold out when I went. Bad reviews be damned, I love Bjork.

Overall, it was a good, but not great year. Still, these 17 shows had real staying power and lasting influence. I’m grateful that in NYC, we still have so much to see. As I said a few posts back, I live in mortal fear of missing a great show- Like all those I missed this year because I never knew about them, and still don’t.

As I look back on 2015, the Idea of great Art is what lingers in the mind, inspires, even instructs. The experience, talent and creativity of a great Artist speaks to the highest & best of mankind, in ways the rest of us can, perhaps, relate to, learn from, and even aspire to. As Mr. Pousette-Dart cosmically said-

 

In these times of so much senseless hatred, violence and the worst of human kind on display, we need this more than ever.

*Soundtrack for this post is “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells  Your Story?” from the 2015 album I listened to the most, “Hamilton– Original Broadway Cast Recording, by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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  1. Remember- Charlie Chaplin, Hitchcock, Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman or Stanley Kubrick, among others, never won an Oscar for Best Director! I rest my case.
  2. as is said on the audio tour, #508