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....

Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed) reflects how we perceive and understand the natural world....

In 1945, Edith Farnsworth asked the German architect Mies van der Rohe, already renowned for his avant-garde buildings, to design a weekend home for her outside of Chicago. Edith was a woman ahead of her time....

During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century....

Hailed by listeners and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences....

A powerful memoir that reckons with mental health as well as the insidious ways men impact the lives of women.

Perfect for old and new fans alike, Dancing on the Edge is an intimate and powerful story about the singular life of one of our most gifted storytellers, artists, and stars of the silver screen.

In the tradition of John Richardson's Picasso, a commanding new biography of the Italian master's tumultuous life and mysterious death....

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....

In the 1980s, the subways of New York City were covered with art. In the stations, black matte sheets were pasted over outdated ads, and unsigned chalk drawings often popped up on these blank spaces....

The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before....

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....

In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life....

Coco Chanel created the look of the modern woman and was the high priestess of couture. She believed in simplicity, and elegance, and freed women from the tyranny of fashion. She inspired women to take off their bone corsets and cut their hair....

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

Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, "the only person I met in my life that transcended everything." In Cosmic Scholar, John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century's most overlooked cultural figures....

Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière....

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography....

From the acclaimed biographer and author of Balzac's Omelette comes an engaging new work on the life of "the father of Impressionism" and the role his Jewish background played in his artistic creativity....

We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings....

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes comes the first major biography of John James Audubon in forty years and the first to illuminate fully the private and family life of the master illustrator of the natural world....

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....

Keith Haring is synonymous with the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s. His artwork - with its simple, bold lines and dynamic figures in motion - filtered in to the world's consciousness and is still instantly recognizable, 20 years after his death....

It is a story I have been wanting to write for a long time, telling it as it really was before that whole world that I shared with Francis vanishes....

David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother....

Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible.

Cv/VAR no.100 publishes an interview with the American artist Jim Dine, recorded by cell phone from Wales to the artists Paris studio on May 11th, 2010. In this, he discusses his beginnings as an artist, his work with Claes Oldenburg and the Happenings, the Pinocchio series, 52 Books at Pace Gallery, New York, and the relationship of drawing to his graphic work.

Bernard Marks and Martha Alford met by chance. No real reason for it, just a series of fluky coincidences. The odds were long that they would hit it off. That wasn’t in the cards they’d been dealt at birth. “It’ll never last,” people whispered after they got engaged. “Poor probability of success” was the general consensus when they married. But Bernie and Martha ignored the naysayers. Gamblers in love, they rolled the dice.

Clarence Gilyard is a celebrated Hollywood actor known for his iconic roles in "Die Hard" and "Matlock." Hailing from Moses Lake, Washington, Clarence's journey to stardom is a tale of perseverance and passion. As an African-American actor, he has been a trailblazer for diversity and representation in the entertainment industry, breaking barriers and inspiring aspiring talents worldwide. Beyond his onscreen charisma, Clarence's linguistic talents, musical abilities, and philanthropic endeavors add depth to his captivating personality. Get yourself a duplicate of this book by TOGGLING the ...

Get ready to embark on a rollercoaster ride, with Grammy & Emmy-winning artist, songwriter, producer and author, Skip Martin. He is best known for his tenure as a lead singer and trumpeter for two legendary groups, Kool & the Gang and The Dazz Band. Skip Martin unveils his life's journey through a captivating audio adventure: 'Fables of a Paid Piper.' This collection of short stories takes you on a thrilling ride through life's twists and turns, revealing the moments that shaped him and his iconic career.

In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Pamplona for the infamous running of the bulls. He then channeled that trip’s drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals, and midday hangovers into a novel that redefined modern literature. Lesley Blume tells the full story behind Hemingway’s legendary rise for the first time, revealing how he created his own image as the bull-fighting aficionado, hard-drinking literary genius, and expatriate bon vivant. In all its youth, lust, and rivalry, the Lost Generation is illuminated here as never before.

Ink, Paint and Bronze is an inspiring and informative book by the award-winning visual artist, Mike Major. Infused with a wealth of knowledge and experience spanning four decades, this book is for artists or art enthusiasts at any stage of their career.

Ayn Rand’s novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are classics of American literature, taught in schools nationwide. Her philosophy of Objectivism has ignited an intellectual movement across the globe. Forty years after her death, Rand’s cultural presence continues to grow. This book sheds light on some little-discussed yet interesting facets of Rand’s life and career. The essays collected here, presenting curated sidelights rather than a sustained narrative, are deeply sourced in the Ayn Rand Archives — the world’s most comprehensive repository of materials about Rand’s ...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes comes the first major biography of John James Audubon in forty years and the first to illuminate fully the private and family life of the master illustrator of the natural world.

The definitive, authorized, and first-ever biography of Terry Allen, the internationally acclaimed visual artist and iconoclastic songwriter who occupies an utterly unique position straddling the disparate, and usually distant, worlds of conceptual art and country music.