Books

Book Club

The Art Newspaper’s Book Club shines a light on art books in their myriad forms and brings you exclusive extracts, interviews, picture galleries and recommendations from leading art world figures. Sign up to our newsletter and follow us on social media using #TANbookclub

Some of our favourite books of 2024—picked by The Art Newspaper’s books team

Our literary editors share what has delighted them this year, from art-themed novels to edifying histories

Book Reviews

Beetlejuice and beyond: the origins of Tim Burton’s world of gothic romance and its enduring influence

Catalogue accompanying exhibition at London’s Design Museum explores the US film-maker’s unique aesthetic

Tom Seymour1 day ago

Ultimate reading lists

Full colour: celebrating 15 years of street art in Miami’s Wynwood

A new book reveals the exuberant and varied work created by numerous artists that has been key to the rejuvenation of the district north of the city’s downtown

Booksreview

Intense repartee: a collection of letters that the critic John Berger exchanged with his artist son

The correspondence between John and Yves Berger is both moving and enlightening

An expert’s guide to the Venetian Renaissance: five must-read books on the period

All you ever wanted to know about the subject, from the story of Carpaccio and Bellini's narrative painting to a Venice guide for little explorers—selected by the curators Annette Hojer and Christine Follmann

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Magnum’s opus of America: a new photography compendium reveals the many sides of the US

The publication’s co-editor Peter van Agtmael chooses seven key images from legendary agency’s new book

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Two books explore Piet Mondrian's journey into abstraction—and his posthumous influence on 1960s fashion

How, two decades after his death, did Mondrian become a brand icon, and make a lasting contribution to the “youthquake”?

Booksreview

This newly translated volume compiles the photographic traces of a libidinous love affair

Author Annie Ernaux and journalist Marc Marie’s collaborative memoir documents a passionate yet haunted relationship

Booksreview

The arts should be recognised as a key part of what it means to be human, argues a new publication

An urgent treatise on the decommodification of culture by the professor of cultural economy Justin O’Connor

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How Korean feminist art developed alongside the country’s move to democracy is explored in new book

An exploration of the driving force of so-called “K-feminism” and the connection between art and politics in Korea

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‘He laughed like a madman’: when Édouard Manet decided to touch up one of Berthe Morisot's paintings

An extract from a new book by Sebastian Smee—about the Impressionists during the Siege of Paris and Paris Commune—brings to life the peculiar episode of artistic intervention

Five must-read art history books for the under-fives

All you ever wanted to know about art (if you are little), from a cat that wanders round Tate Modern at night to why Louise Bourgeois made giant spiders—selected by The Art Newspaper's Anna Brady

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Dealer’s memoir offers a wild ride through the 1960s New York art scene

Michael Findlay reveals his art world beginnings as a lucky 18-year-old Scot in the Big Apple

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How American artist Charles J. Connick’s poetically reimagined Medieval stained glass

A new book shows how Connick harnessed the ancient medium as ‘a potent means of contemporary visual expression’

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A sensitive portrait of collector Isabella Stewart Gardner—Boston's millionaire Bohémienne

A biography of Gardner captures her extraordinary life story with empathy

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A new monograph highlights Jamaican-born sculptor Ronald Moody as one of Britain's most important Modernists

Moody defied family expectations to pursue his art, and is now celebrated in an exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield

Frieze, UK critics The White Pube, Giuseppe Penone and Arte Povera — podcast

We find out how the London fair went this year, speak to Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad about their new book and to Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev about her new show at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris

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In an epic new volume, Chris Killip captures an English community in the grip of industrial decline

Never straying from the documentary tradition, the image maker explores the gradual erosion of traditional forms of labour

Booksreview

The liberated lens: a chronicle of African cinema and photography

A new book celebrates the pioneering artists who took control of the post-colonial agenda

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‘The artist the critics love to hate’: the colourful life of sports star painter and Playboy illustrator LeRoy Neiman

We speak to the author of a new biography that reassesses the legacy of the “hustler” artist who rubbed shoulders with celebrities

In Pictures | Artist billboards across America tell a story of US politics today

Ahead of the November presidential election, a new book by the For Freedoms organisation brings together the topical and political posters that it has commissioned since 2016

An expert’s guide to Helen Frankenthaler: five must-read books on the Abstract Expressionist

All you ever wanted to know about Frankenthaler, from a seminal monograph to the story of the bohemian world that forged her—selected by the curator and writer Douglas Dreishpoon

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'Understanding our things in action': innovative book gives new life to objects owned by 18th-century artists

We rarely consider the everyday items owned by artists—this volumes' authors aim to change that

The life and art of Mabel Nicholson: new volume tells of the career catastrophe of domestic bliss

How lovingly raising her artistic family cost an artist of “tensile strength” her own fame

Glenn Ligon in Cambridge, new Gauguin biography, Teresa Margolles’s Fourth Plinth commission — podcast

The American artist on his interventions at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a chat about a new publication exploring Gauguin’s complex character, and the details on a new London sculpture paying tribute to trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities

Van Gogh blockbuster, the birth of Impressionism, Juan Pablo Echeverri — podcast

A tour of the National Gallery’s landmark exhibition with our Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey, plus a new book zoning in on the Impressionists’ “Terrible Year” and a highlight from Museum Folkwang’s hair-themed show

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Two publications show how, in Caspar David Friedrich's world, mankind is puny against nature’s power

The German artist's work is pored over in two hefty tomes, one a smart overview, the other a comprehensive guide

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My five-year-old could do that! The impact of childhood on the work of artists

A new book gathers together anecdotes from artists' early years and looks at how these formative experiences shaped their careers