Artists, Architects & Photographers

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering....

Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials and illuminated with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul....

A riveting story of how dueling ambitions and the power of prodigy made America the cultural center of the world—and Picasso the most famous artist alive—in the shadow of World War II....

The “intimate and expansive” (Time) memoir of “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times), telling a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process....

El aclamado autor de los best sellers Steve Jobs y Einstein nos vuelve a cautivar con la vida del genio más creativo de la historia en esta fascinante biografía....

From Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of the Hugo and Locus Award finalist Astounding, comes a revelatory biography of the visionary designer who defined the rules of startup culture and shaped America’s idea of the future....

The tumultuous and heartbreaking life of a world-famous model whose riveting story of beauty, fame, passion, murder, and madness in the Gilded Age captivated a nation....

Graham Boynton's Wild is the definitive biography of photographer Peter Beard, a larger-than-life icon who pushed the boundaries of art and scandalized international high society with his high-profile affairs....

These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art....

A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake....

One of the most influential, admired, and innovative women of our time: Diane von Furstenberg shares stories about becoming the woman she wanted to be....

In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer....

Johnny Depp is considered one of the most renowned and successful actors in terms of box office, in which he draws recognition....

La mejor biografía que se ha escrito sobre Frida Kahlo, la pintora mexicana por excelencia....

Award-winning historian Mark Braude illuminates for the first time Kiki de Montparnasse's seminal influence not only on Man Ray's art, but on the culture of 1920s Paris and beyond....

Sex, Surrealism, Dali and Me was first published in 2000 and was a top-10 best-seller a year later. It tells the biographies of two remarkable men. Salvador Dali, one of the 20th century's greatest painters, and his long-term muse - the Colombian dancer Carlos Lozano....

Donna M. Lucey illuminates the lives of four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent....

Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the Rhode Island School of Design....

An intimate narrative history of porcelain, structured around five journeys through landscapes where porcelain was dreamed about, fired, refined, collected, and coveted....

Here is Jon Krakauer's portrait of the iconoclastic architect Christopher Alexander, whose revolutionary human-centered approach has shaken the foundations of modern architecture. Krakauer delves into Alexander's life and career, from his theories on a timeless "pattern language"....

An intimate biography of Richard Avedon, the legendary fashion and portrait photographer by his longtime collaborator and business partner Norma Stevens and award-winning author Steven M. L. Aronson....

Françoise Gilot was in her early 20s when she met the 61-year-old Pablo Picasso in 1943. Brought up in a well-to-do, upper-middle-class family, who had sent her to Cambridge and the Sorbonne and hoped that she would go into law, the young woman defied their wishes....

All Tomorrow's Parties is an intimate, spirited memoir of a rebellious young man's fierce pursuit of an artistic life and a portrait of a shifting Berlin in the midst of a cultural renaissance....

Role Models is filmmaker John Waters's self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities....

What Would Frida Do? explores the feminist icon's signature style, outspoken politics, and boldness in love and art, even in the face of pain and heartbreak....

In freewheeling 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse was once the symbol of bohemian Paris. But if she is remembered today, it is only for posing for several now-celebrated male artists, including Amedeo Modigliani and Alexander Calder, and especially photographer Man Ray. Kiki and Man Ray met in 1921 during a chance encounter at a cafe. What followed was an explosive decade-long connection, both professional and romantic, during which the couple grew and experimented as artists, competed for fame, and created many of the shocking images that cemented Man Ray's reputation.

A visit to a museum can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In eleven essays—each framed around a specific theme—he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art. Perry is a disarmingly charming tour guide to museums large or small. He makes even all art approachable and accessible. Along the way, he weaves in personal stories, from his own artistic journey as a painter to the days when he could sleep in his beaten-up VW Bus in the Louvre’s parking lot.

Renowned for her exquisite landscapes and fine portraits, painting has been Judy Ann MacMillan’s life from a very young age. Once again, she has turned that acute and truthful eye upon herself with a sensational new self-portrait. But this time, she is using a pen rather than a paintbrush. With startling honesty, Born Ya lays bare the unique sacrifices required of a female artist living and working in an island that can often confound even the strongest spirit. Despite all the trials and tribulations, MacMillan has remained true to her twin passions of painting and homeland.

A rich, penetrating memoir about the author's relationship with a flawed but influential figure—the painter Lucian Freud—and the satisfactions and struggles of a life lived through art. 

Author, artist, and retired Deputy Head Jo Johnson was born and brought up in Greenock in the West of Scotland. Educated at Greenock Academy until the age of 14, he experienced a profound culture shock when the family relocated to Kilwinning in Ayrshire where he found himself in a much rougher school environment. Born into a devoutly Christian family, Jo had to balance the competing demands of "church and state" at an early age. His story is peppered with entertaining, poignant, and occasionally unpleasant memories of growing up in 1960s Greenock and 1970s Ayrshire.

Meet the cool creatives behind awe-inspiring art, with this non-fiction title for kids. Pour paint onto a canvas with Jackson Pollock, laugh along with the pranks of Hokusai, and find beauty in your self-portrait with Frida Kahlo, as you follow the stories of more than 50 fabulous artists and their groundbreaking work. Through charming storytelling rich in detail, Artists covers celebrated figures as well as lesser-known trailblazers, each with a tale as intriguing as it is unique. 

Though many have never heard her name, Alice Prin—Kiki de Montparnasse—was the icon of 1920s Paris. She captivated as a ground-breaking nightclub performer, wrote a bestselling memoir, sold out exhibitions of her paintings, and shared drinks with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim, Marcel Duchamp and Gertrude Stein. She also shepherded along the career of the then-unknown American photographer: Man Ray.

From Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of the Hugo and Locus Award finalist Astounding, comes a revelatory biography of the visionary designer who defined the rules of startup culture and shaped America’s idea of the future.  

Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling chops, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance”.

After stowing away as a boy to come to America around 1905, an Italian immigrant sculptor later stands firm in his love for an unfaithful woman. Trapped behind enemy lines during World War II, he and his family go on to save over 600 Allied troops. This is the epic multi-generational true story of Salvatore Cartaino Scarpitta and family. His story was only partially told in a 1953 episode of This Is Your Life.