Artists, Architects & Photographers

London has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956)....

""Through her art, Herrera writes, Kahlo made of herself both performer and icon. Through this long overdue biography, Kahlo has also, finally, been made fully human."" — San Francisco Chronicle Hailed by readers and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter...

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....

Antony Penrose's tribute to his mother, Lee Miller, brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.

Who built the Empire State Building? Astonishingly, no list of workmen on this historic landmark was ever compiled.

Take a tour through the wilder side of art history and discover true tales of murder, forgery, trickery, and great art—featuring jaw-dropping profiles of Da Vinci, Dali, and more...

A revealing and beautifully open memoir from pioneering industrial music artist, visual artist, and transgender icon Genesis P-Orridge....

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.

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street...

The definitive, fascinating, all-reaching biography of Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss is a classic American icon. Whimsical and wonderful, his work has defined our childhoods and the childhoods of our own children. The silly, simple rhymes are a bottomless well of magic, his illustrations timeless...

You have a unique destiny, an unquenchable dream inside you that’s waiting for you to take action. Maybe you are an artist. But chances are you’ve been told that you’ll starve on the streets if you pursue your art. That’s what Elli Milan was told, too....

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

This biography reveals the true story of Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman—the man who revolutionized humor in America....

A classic work for artists of all kinds, about reconciling the call of creative work with the demands of daily life and narrated by Anne Truitt herself....

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....

It took ten years in the coal mines for Mitchell Burns to realise that no pay cheque is worth sacrificing your dreams. Now he’s making up for lost time. Mitchell Burns never wanted to be a miner. Growing up in a Queensland coal mining town with parents in the industry, pursuing his passion for...

Following Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff wrote Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge. His controversial comments shook the country....

Tracey Emin is an internationally renowned artist. Here she discusses her life and achievements in a series of interviews from the BBC radio and TV archives....

P. T. Barnum's career of showmanship and charlatanry was marked by a surprising undercurrent of honesty and forthrightness. His exuberant autobiography forms a happy combination of all those traits, revealing the whole story of his world-famous hoaxes and publicity stunts....

New York Times Notable Book “A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village Voice A bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In less than...

Few women artists feature prominently in the history of art, and even fewer who are mothers. What can we learn about ambition, limitation, and creativity from women who persist in doing both? The Mother Artist explores the fraught yet generative ties between caregiving and creative practice.

Salvador Dalí was a master of the surreal. His paintings are known as “dream photographs”: snapshots of nightmarish scenes brought to life in stunning detail....

A National Book Critics Circle finalist One of Vogue's Best Books of the Year A dazzling biography of one of the twentieth century's most respected painters, Helen Frankenthaler, as she came of age as an artist in postwar New York “The magic of Alexander Nemerov's portrait of Helen...

Alessandro Barbero segue Dante nella sua adolescenza di figlio d'un usuraio che sogna di appartenere al mondo dei nobili e dei letterati; nei corridoi oscuri della politica, dove gli ideali si infrangono davanti alla realtà meschina degli odi di partito e della corruzione dilagante...

The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. This book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment....

New York Times Notable Book “A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village Voice A bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In less than...

Who built the Empire State Building? Astonishingly, no list of workmen on this historic landmark was ever compiled. While the names of the owners, architects, and contractors are well known, and Lewis Hine's legendary portraits left us indelible images of the workers, their identities—the last generation of workmen still practicing these time-honored trades, have not been identified until author Glenn Kurtz unearthed their individual stories for this book.

Walt Disney never wrote his memoir, but this book could be considered his autobiography. In 1955, Walt gave a series of interviews to Pete Martin to be printed in multiple articles in the Saturday Evening Post. Much of that material formed the basis of this book, which was published in 1957. Walt's daughter Diane was present during those interview sessions. She acknowledged in a later edition of the book that she is not the author. "It is Pete Martin's book, and my dad's story," she wrote, further noting this book was "one of the first biographies of my dad.

Sobre el escenario, bajo las luces y frente a su público, Pastora Soler sintió el silencio y la sombra de la inseguridad. Sin embargo, ese oscuro momento se convirtió en el inicio de una historia de fuerza y superación inspiradora. En este conmovedor relato, Pastora Soler abre su corazón y nos lleva por aquellos momentos que han marcado su vida. Con humildad, valentía y gran honestidad, la autora comparte en estas páginas cómo, a pesar de la angustia y los miedos, aprendió a amarse a sí misma y encontró su auténtica melodía.

In this deeply personal memoir, architect Leaford Leven Blevins, Jr. traces his journey from a high school drafting champion in Norman, Oklahoma, to a career that spanned continents, disciplines, and decades. An Architect’s Life is not a portfolio—it’s a portrait of a life lived with intention, resilience, and a relentless pursuit of purpose.