Book Club

The Art Newspaper’s Book Club shines a light on art books in their myriad forms and brings you exclusive extracts, interviews and recommendations from leading art world figures. Sign up to our monthly newsletter

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Q&A | Guy Kennaway on how his comic novel was inspired by the art world taking itself too seriously

The Accidental Collector features a wealthy heiress, jet-setting dealers and a Swiss-owned mega gallery in Somerset… sound familiar?

An expert’s guide to David Hockney: five must-read books on the British artist

All you ever wanted to know about Hockney, from the best biography to the artist's “radical” investigations into art history—selected by the critic (and longtime friend) Martin Gayford

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Extract | The day Anthony van Dyck received ‘wise advice from the words of a blind woman’—the 17th-century artist Sofonisba Anguissola

New book by Jennifer Higgie gives astute insights into brilliant women artists shut out of art history

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Extract | How Sandro Botticelli brought Dante’s Divine Comedy to life

New book by Martin Kemp considers the impact of poet’s vision of divine light on artists such as Michelangelo and Titian

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Q&A | Why Alice Neel’s work has ‘extraordinary currency’ today

As a biography on the US painter is republished, its author Phoebe Hoban tells us why Neel’s work is more relevant than ever

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Lyrical Helen Frankenthaler biography and Joan Mitchell catalogue make a splash

New publications cast a light on two formidable women artists and place them at the heart of Abstract Expressionism

An expert’s guide to Yayoi Kusama: six must-read books on the Japanese artist

All you ever wanted to know about Kusama, from a detailed study of her Infinity Mirror Room to illustrations for Alice in Wonderland—selected by the Gropius Bau director Stephanie Rosenthal

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In Pictures | Rothko Chapel’s 50th anniversary celebrated in new publication

The Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko created 14 paintings for the chapel but did not live to see it completed

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No great women artists? How Linda Nochlin tore apart the art historical narrative 50 years ago

The feminist writer’s renowned essay ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’ challenged the myth of male genius and called for a new way of thinking

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Q&A | Keith Haring ‘had so much drive, was so good at promoting himself’ and artists can learn from him today

The British fashion writer Simon Doonan speaks about his new book on the artist and describes his first encounter with Haring via a t-shirt

A brush with… eight artists tell us about the books and poems that inspire their work

Artists including Rachel Whiteread, Ragnar Kjartansson and Roni Horn share texts ranging from 19th-century poetry to postmodern fiction on The Art Newspaper’s podcast

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Q&A | Philip Guston’s daughter Musa Mayer on her new book and the uproar surrounding the artist’s postponed show

Although Guston's paintings of Klansmen “remain controversial today” they are also “deeply relevant”, she says

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Read what Jenny Saville, George Condo and Victoria Beckham have to say about their favourite Old Master paintings

Exclusive extracts from a new book bringing together texts by 62 cultural figures describing their preferred works in the Frick Collection

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The Nazi art dealer who supplied Hermann Göring and operated in a shadowy art underworld after the war

A new book by Jonathan Petropoulos explores Bruno Lohse’s devotion to Hitler’s number two

An expert's guide to Francis Bacon: five must-read books on the post-war painter

All you ever wanted to know about the artist, from a deep dive into his chaotic studio to accounts of his exploits in seedy Soho—selected by the art historian Michael Peppiatt

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A selection of 2021 art publications—Musa Mayer on her father, Philip Guston; Jean Dubuffet in the spotlight

A monograph on Catherine Opie, an analysis of museums in the 21st century and an overview of Joseph Beuys also make the grade

What was the best art book you read in 2020? The Art Newspaper team reveals its favourite publications

From the catalogue for a controversial Guston show to a four-volume tome on Leonardo Da Vinci—and some lighter reads too

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In Pictures | Artists' astrological images through the ages

A new book explores the long and changing history of how horoscopes were depicted, from 15th-century Bohemian scorpions to the abstract paintings of Hilma af Klint

What was the best art book you read in 2020? The art world’s biggest names give us their top tips

The directors of the Met, Tate Modern, British Museum, Centre Pompidou and more, as well as artists such as Tracey Emin, tell us all about their favourite book—just in time for Christmas shopping

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Extract | Why I made Love is the Message—Arthur Jafa describes the inspiration for his seminal film

In a recently published Cahiers d’Art monograph, the US artist speaks about responding to “a tsunami of footage of Black people getting killed”

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In Pictures | Andy Warhol's explicit drawings from the 1950s that he never got to publish

New book brings together hundreds of images of nude young men, which “are imbued with an emotional vulnerability that few of his later works exhibit”

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Benedikt Taschen: from selling comics in Cologne to hanging out with Hockney

As the Taschen publishing house turns 40, its founder talks about starting out in his parents’ kitchen and the importance of “planting seeds”

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Extract | How artist couple Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore resisted the Nazis with their ‘paper bullets’

New book outlines the campaign led by the gender-fluid artists on the island of Jersey during the Second World War

An expert’s guide to J.M.W. Turner: four must-read books on the British painter

All you ever wanted to know about Turner, from a “rollicking read” of a biography to a “picture book with a point”—selected by the Romantic period painting specialist David Blayney Brown

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In Pictures | The eve of a US presidential election through the eyes of William Eggleston

A newly republished book by the renowned Memphis photographer documents the Deep South in the run-up to the 1976 election

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Judge a book by its cover: Centre Pompidou looks at Henri Matisse through a literary lens for new show

One of the most expansive museum surveys on the French artist in 50 years will present his book and magazine designs—and even some of his own writing

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Extract | The Guerrilla Girls say ‘get mad and keep up the fight’

An exclusive excerpt and images from a new book chronicling 35 years of “creative complaining” by the US-based feminist art collective

What has the Goldsmiths CCA director Sarah McCrory been reading this year?

The curator's interests have ranged from artist interviews and books on race, to crime fiction and a biography revealing what Walter Gropius really thought of the English