ARTnews editors compiled the definitive list of the world’s top 135 art professionals for 2024. For the second year in a row, Megan Fox Kelly Art Advisory is named one of the top 40 art advisors in the world.
Read the full list here.
Courtesy of Frieze/Linda Nylind
With Frieze London's VIP opening today and Art Basel Paris opening next week, I wrote a guide for collectors in Observer on how to make the most of their time at art fairs this season.
The prospect of acquiring art in the sometimes frenzied art fair environment can be as exhilarating as it is daunting. Yet with so many events packed into a few short months, experienced and novice collectors can use clear strategies and focus to make it rewarding.
Find out more by reading the article here.
Megan Fox Kelly was invited to speak on The Art Law Podcast, a platform that hosts discussions about topics at the intersection of art and law with art lawyers Steve Schindler and Katie Wilson-Milne and their distinguished guests.
This episode includes conversations about the proliferation of resale restrictions in art transactions, what problems they seek to address, who they purport to help, how effective they are, and the legal issues they raise.
Listen to the episode here or below.
Twenty-five years ago, our advisory practice began with the intention and commitment of providing clients thoughtful and informed advice, expertise on building collections of lasting value, and museum-quality services for the care of their art collections. Over the years, we have expanded to include sales and strategic planning for collectors and foundations, preserving artists' legacies through collection and estate planning, and advising on artwork appraisals.
We have advised and appraised numerous significant collections throughout the United States and abroad, including the collections of Michael Crichton, the Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Family, The Terra Foundation of American Art, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Thomas Hart Benton Trust, and the Star of Hope Foundation (Robert Indiana), amounting to over $5 billion in fine art assets and completing art appraisals totaling over $6.5 billion.
In 2021, we launched our interview podcast series, Reading the Art World, which presents interviews between Megan Fox Kelly and authors of recently released or upcoming art-centric books. The conversations explore timely subjects in the art world, based on artists and market trends along with published art historical writing. Podcast interviewees include art critic Jerry Saltz; journalist Georgina Adam; former President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel Weiss; Former Director of the Yale Center for British Art and current Executive Director of the Rauschenberg Foundation, Courtney J. Martin; cultural strategist, András Szántó; art collector and philanthropist, Marguerite Steed Hoffman; among many others.
We are grateful to all our clients and colleagues for being part of our practice and look forward to continuing to provide thoughtful guidance in the years to come.
Listen to Reading the Art World on Apple Podcasts or Spotify below.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Gary Garrels, curator and editor of Willem de Kooning and Italy, published by Marsilio Arte, distributed internationally by Artbook D.A.P. The associated exhibition is on view at Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia through September 15, 2024.
Willem de Kooning and Italy is the first monograph to expand upon the artist’s two impactful trips to Italy: in the fall of 1959 and in the summer of 1969. These two chapters in de Kooning’s life and career, as reflected in the development of his work from the end of the ’50s to his last works of the ’80s. In addition to essays by the two curators and editors, Gary Garrels and Mario Codognato, this beautifully illustrated catalogue includes contributions from the art historians Jeremy Bleeke, Ester Coen, Anna Coliva and Patrick Elliott.
"De Kooning, unlike so many of the abstract expressionists, was not interested in just rupture, but in continuity. A lot of the abstract expressionists had disdain for tradition and history—wanted to reinvent art and painting. But de Kooning was very steeped in the history and tradition. So he was always looking to the past and was aware of the whole, especially the European tradition of painting.”
– Gary Garrels
Gary Garrels is a highly respected and influential curator for more than thirty-five years at major museums in the United States, including: Dia Art Foundation, New York, Director of Programmes, 1987-1991; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Senior Curator, 1991-1993; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, 1993-2000; Museum of Modern Art, New York, Chief Curator, Department of Drawings and Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, 2000-2005; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programmes, 2005-2008; and again at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, 2008- 2020. He is currently an independent curator living and working in New York, focused on projects of special interest.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
Interior view of The Armory Show, 2024. Courtesy of The Armory Show.
Journalist Carlie Porterfield spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about The Armory Show’s VIP preview and the current state of the market.
“A lot of collectors are responding to the pretty significant amount of press following the auctions in May. Totals were down,” Megan Fox Kelly, an art advisor based in New York who opened her advisory firm in 1999, said in the days leading up the fair. “Journalists seem to jump on (auction results) as an indicator of a market that is down, as opposed to that there weren't as many consignments and there weren't the biggest sales.”
Read the rest of Megan’s thoughts at The Art Newspaper here.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Richard Shiff, art historian and author of Writing after Art, published by David Zwirner Books.
Richard Shiff’s book is an expansive anthology of his most influential writings, many of which have shaped the art world’s understanding of 20th and 21st century artists. Throughout our conversation, Richard illuminates how he comes to observe and understand an artist's work in a way that can inspire us to do the same more thoughtfully.
"Writing is certainly itself an art. And critical writing that is probing, rather than mirroring art, is a kind of aesthetic exercise in itself, and it should stand aside the art as a kind of parallel, or as a collaborative venture that's like the other side. It's thought that becomes explicitly expressed rather than transient. It’s put down and it's permanent.”
– Richard Shiff
Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin. His interests range broadly across the field of modern and contemporary art. His publications include Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné (coauthored, 2004), Doubt (2008), Between Sense and de Kooning (2011), Ellsworth Kelly: New York Drawings 1954–1962 (2014), Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and Works on Paper 1969–2019 (2020), and Sensuous Thoughts: Essays on the Work of Donald Judd (2020). He is currently completing a comprehensive study of the art of Jack Whitten.
Writing after Art includes essays on a wide range of prominent artists, many of whom are featured in current exhibitions around the world.
Willem de Kooning - Gallerie dell'Accademia
Peter Doig - Group exhibition at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich
Jasper Johns - San Diego Museum of Art
Donald Judd - Gagosian in Basel
Ellsworth Kelly - Cahiers D'Art and Art Institute Chicago
Julie Mehretu - recently unveiled BMW Art Car collab, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia upcoming exhibition
Bridget Riley - SCAD
Richard Serra -Longleaf Art Park
Zeng Fanzhi - LACMA in Venice
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
We have put together a list of great art books to read this summer that we think you will enjoy. In the accompanying podcast episode, Megan provides insights on three recently published exhibition catalogues—wonderful to read even if you could not see the exhibitions.
We are always looking for great new art books to share with our audience that contribute to how we experience art and see the art world.
Listen to Megan’s commentary in our latest episode below.
You can find the books mentioned in the podcast below, as well as a few others to consider adding to your to-read list!
Edited with text by Erica E. Hirshler, Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, James Finch, Pamela A. Parmal. Text by Paul Fisher, Frances Fowle, Dominic Green, Rebecca Hellen, Stephanie L. Herdrich, Elaine Kilmurray, Richard Ormond, Elizabeth Prettejohn, Anna Reynolds, Andrew Stephenson.
Published by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Fashioned by Sargent is a lavish exploration of Sargent’s relationship to fashion, featuring exquisite costumes from the Gilded Age.
“Sargent used the power of costume and fashion to express the personality of his sitters. Their presence, their beauty, their stature, their place in society, in politics, in theater, or the art world.”
– Megan Fox Kelly
Edited by Sarah Kelly Oehler and Annelise K. Madsen. With contributions by Adrienne Brown, Annelise K. Madsen, Sarah Kelly Oehler, Sascha T. Scott, and Lisa Volpe
Published by The Art Institute of Chicago, Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks" and the accompanying exhibition highlights O'Keeffe's fascination with New York City. You'll see her modernist style so well known from her images of flowers and southwestern landscapes applied to urban architecture and city views, reducing what she observed to their simplest and most abstract forms.
“She called these ‘My New Yorks,’ hence the title of the book, much the way she referred to the Pedernal, the great hill near her home in Abiquiu, New Mexico, saying, ‘It is my private mountain. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.’ O'Keeffe's paintings and drawings of objects, buildings, flowers do eventually seem to make the subject her own somehow.”
– Megan Fox Kelly
Foreword by John P. Stern. Text by Adela Goldsmith, Nora Lawrence, Amy S. Weisser. Conversation between Glenn Adamson and Martin Puryear.
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co and Storm King Art Center, Martin Puryear: Lookout documents the construction and unveiling of American artist Martin Puryear's monumental site-specific installation, Lookout, at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York. In addition to the focus on this site specific installation, the book provides a broader perspective on Puryear's impactful work going back 40 years.
“I particularly like it when exhibition catalogs include an interview with the artist. Art historians and critics provide incomparable context to works, but a first person account of the decisions, history, and building the large sculpture is thrilling. So you'll enjoy that aspect of this book as well.”
– Megan Fox Kelly
By Christopher R. Marshall
Published by Princeton University Press, this book offers a new account of the renowned Baroque painter, revealing how her astute professional decisions shaped her career, style, and legacy.
By Florian Heine
Published by Prestel, The Blue Rider: Masters of Art provides the perfect introduction European modern art’s most important movements. Founded in Munich in 1911, the Blue Rider Group was a revolutionary collective that pioneered German Expressionism and included artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Natalia Goncharova, Gabriele Münter, and Marianne von Werefkin.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Eva Respini, curator and editor of Simone Leigh, published by DelMonico Books in association with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.
Eva Respini’s book, and our conversation, offers a deep dive into the groundbreaking work of contemporary artist Simone Leigh, whose multidimensional artistry challenges conventions, and sparks meaningful conversations about race, gender, and identity.
“Because when I started looking around and doing more research, I realized that she hadn't had a museum survey exhibition, and there had been no book, no monograph published. And this to me seemed shocking for an artist that not only was so hyper visible in this moment in New York, in our little bubble of an art world, but also someone who was so confident in her practice, and had an artistic and aesthetic language that was very mature and very complex.”
– Eva Respini
Respini served as the Curator and Co-Commissioner for the 2022 US Pavilion’s presentation of Simone Leigh at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. It marked the first time a Black woman represented the United States at the Biennale, and Leigh won the 2022 Golden Lion for her groundbreaking work. Eva Respini is currently Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
The traveling exhibition, Simone Leigh, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and Eva Respini, opens at LACMA and the California African American Museum on Sunday, May 26th. The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of the richly layered work of this celebrated artist.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
Ana Mendieta’s Silueta Works in Mexico, 1973-1977, which carried a presale estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. Source: Christie’s
Journalist James Tarmy spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about her thoughts on Christie’s website hack and their 21st Century Evening Sale.
“Everybody knows it’s smaller sales in general across all three houses this week than it has been in past years,” said the advisor Megan Fox Kelly.
“We're not bidding for $10 million, $15 million, $20 million lots by clicking a button on the website,” said Fox Kelly, speaking a few hours before the auction began. “I want to see what's going on in the room and I want to get a sense of what other bidders are going after the work.”
Read the rest of Megan’s thoughts at Bloomberg here.
Christie's New York, 2012. Photo: Ben Hider/Getty Images.
Journalist Brian Boucher spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about her thoughts on Christie’s website hack and what that might mean for collectors.
“You can look at my website and find out information about my company and me and what we do, but that’s not where my company lives,” said art advisor Megan Fox Kelly, commenting on the difference between the two kinds of hacks. “I really can’t imagine that valuable data is exposed. It’s too sophisticated a company. And yet, it’s no less devastating that the promotional website goes down the week before the spring sales. Now they have to pivot to find out how to effectively stage these sales.”
Read the full article at artnet here.
Installation view of Francis Bacon, Portrait of George Dyer Crouching (1966). Image courtesy Sotheby's.
Journalist Eileen Kinsella spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about her thoughts on the New York Spring art auctions, including implications for fewer collections from estates and what types of art are on the rise.
There are fewer collections coming from estates than in other years, and those estates are smaller, but material amassed by the late Miami collector Rosa de la Cruz and the screenwriter and producer Norman Lear collection will be closely watched, art advisor Megan Fox Kelly said. “The auction houses really built these sales brick by brick, consignment by consignment,” she said. “I don’t see collectors feeling compelled to ‘cash in’ right now by selling works they own unless an artist’s auction market looks particularly compelling.”
What’s trending right now? “We’ve seen a resurgence of interest in Impressionism after a period of it feeling rather flat,” Fox Kelly said. “New buyers are turning their attention to that market. It has to be the right picture, of course, but when something great and fresh to market comes up, we’re seeing pretty competitive bidding and new price levels.”
Read the rest of Megan’s thoughts at artnet here.
Leonora Carrington, Les Distractions de Dagobert, 1945. COURTESY SOTHEBY'S
Journalist Abby Schultz spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about her thoughts on the New York Spring art auctions and and the implications for collectors.
New York-based art advisor Megan Fox Kelly agrees estimates for the upcoming auctions are fairly conservative, noting that none are “shockingly low” or “shockingly high.”
“We’re going through a kind of crazy time in terms of what’s happening in the world,” Fox Kelly says. “There just seems to be a bit of caution and with caution, a little bit of pullback.”
Read the rest of Megan’s thoughts at Barron’s Penta here.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Martin Gayford, art critic and author of Venice: City of Pictures, published by Thames & Hudson. Gayford’s book brings the richness and complexity of Venice's centuries of history to life with his rumination on the city’s paintings, sculpture, and architecture that are both familiar to us and new revelations.
The conversation shines a special spotlight on the magical, cultural city in advance of the Venice Biennale, opening April 20, 2024.
“So there were all these people passing through, actually almost the same piece of space, looking at exactly the same view. And so there were social connections, and it also established a reputation for what it really still has, which is being the city of art. It was a city where people who were interested in the arts were drawn to go and stay.”
– Martin Gayford
Martin Gayford is an author and journalist. He studied philosophy at Cambridge and art history at the Courtauld Institute of London University. He's written prolifically about art and jazz, contributed regularly to the Daily Telegraph, and also to many art magazines and exhibition catalogs. He was art critic of the Spectator from 1994 to 2002, subsequently at the Sunday Telegraph before becoming chief art critic for Bloomberg News until 2013.
Martin's publications and writings include studies of the lives and works of van Gogh, Gauguin, Constable, Michelangelo, Lucian Freud, Antony Gormley and several beautiful collaborations with David Hockney.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Leslie Ramos, author of Philanthropy in the Arts: A Game of Give and Take, published by Lund Humphries. Ramos’ book is a guidepost for cultural institutions, philanthropists, artists, galleries, and even financial advisors and public policy advisors on the importance of supporting the arts and doing it strategically.
And what I have found is that support does come at every level. And that if institutions manage to engage potential donors, and their mission is compelling and they can make a case for why they would need support, they will get support, even if not necessarily always at the million dollar plus level.
– Leslie Ramos
Leslie Ramos is a philanthropy and strategy advisor specializing in the arts and cultural sectors. She's the co-founder of the strategic consulting agency The Twentieth that provides independent expertise around giving, fundraising, collecting, and engaging with the arts ecosystem. Alongside her professional work, Ramos supports and holds voluntary positions in multiple arts nonprofits, and contributes to various international art media outlets, universities, commenting and lecturing on philanthropy and museum studies.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
The stand of Galerie Eric Coatelem at Tefaf Maastricht's 2024 edition. Photo by Loraine Bodewes. Courtesy of Tefaf
Journalist Riah Pryor spoke with Megan Fox Kelly about her thoughts on TEFAF Maastricht’s changes to the fair, specifically in regards to encouraging younger audiences.
There were also early signs that Tefaf’s efforts to welcome new generations of buyers were paying off. “There were young collectors at the preview days—not just the young curators but young private collectors. And they were engaging not only in the more contemporary art but in Old Masters, design, Asian art and antiquities, prints and works on paper,” says Megan Fox Kelly, the New York-based art adviser.
Read Pryor’s full coverage in The Art Newspaper here.
On the occasion of TEFAF Maastricht 2024, Megan Fox Kelly was invited to participate in a panel titled The Thrill of the Chase: Stories of Great Discoveries in Art, presented by Artnet. Megan was joined by Dr. Jacques Schuhmacher (Senior Provenance Research Curator supported by The Polonsky Foundation, Victoria & Albert Museum); Will Elliott (Colnaghi Elliott Master Drawings, Founder, Elliott Fine Art); and moderated by Andrew Russeth (Editor, Artnet News Pro).
In this talk, the panelists analyze the competitive landscape of art collecting, including discussions about how the internet has democratized the search, authenticity and provenance concerns, and ways collectors can develop their connoisseurship.
Watch the panel recording in the video above or on TEFAF’s website.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Natasha Degen, author of Merchants of Style: Art and Fashion After Warhol, published by Reaktion Books and distributed by The University of Chicago Press. Degen’s book provides a unique perspective on the accelerating convergence of art and fashion, and highlights how Andy Warhol anticipated the merging of the art and fashion worlds as we see them today.
As fashion looks to art in its designs and its presentation and its runway shows and its marketing, then maybe there is less distinction between art and fashion. And maybe that movement between the two fields is something that is more possible now than ever before.
– Natasha Degen
Natasha Degen is Professor and Chair of Art Market Studies. She is a recognized writer and critic, having contributed to publications including The New Yorker, The Financial Times, The New York Times, Artforum, and Frieze; she serves as a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal for Art Market Studies. Among other prizes, Degen received a $30,000 art criticism award from the Andy Warhol Foundation and a Luce Scholarship which sent her to Beijing for a year. She compiled and edited The Market (MIT Press, 2013), an interdisciplinary anthology tracing the art market's interaction with contemporary practice.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Listen to our podcast conversation with Joanna Moorhead, author of Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington, published by Princeton University Press. Her book tells the dramatic story of an artist who lived life on her own terms in a way that was radically modern for the 1930s, 1940s and later how her life and art are inextricably entwined. Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) is one of the vanguards of Surrealism—one of the few women artists in the largely male circle of artists of that movement. Challenging the conventions of her time, Carrington abandoned family, society, and her home in England to embrace new experiences and forge a unique artistic style in Europe and the Americas.
“She arrived in [Paris] the autumn of 1937, and it was this great moment to be in Paris because surrealism was in its mature moment, and everybody who was anybody in that Western art world at the time was there. Picasso was there, Dalí was there, Breton was there, Duchamp was there. Man Ray was there. All these big names of 20th century art.
There were a few other women, but they were mostly men, and Leonora was by far the youngest of the group. And that was her introduction, really, to this whole new world, a world in which she could be the person and the artist that she felt she'd been born to be.” – Joanna Moorhead
Author Joanna Moorhead's career spans decades in the world of journalism. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian, The Observer, The Times (London), The Art Newspaper and many others. In her art writing, Joanna has cultivated a unique expertise for unraveling the mysteries behind artists' lives and their work, which led her to the heart of surrealist art, where she meticulously uncovered the fascinating story of Leonora Carrington, who also happens to be her distant cousin.
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple
Order the book here
Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.
Every holiday season, we love creating our list of some of our favorite art books for holiday gifting. This year, we are excited to share our list on Giving Tuesday as we will be donating proceeds from any book sales to Read To Grow, a not-for-profit whose mission is to promote language skills and literacy for children.
Which books will you add to your gift list?
By Susan Alyson Stein
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, Van Gogh’s Cypresses is the first book to study the artist’s fascination with the “tall and dark trees.” This richly illustrated exhibition catalog tells the story of van Gogh’s initial investigations to his full realization of the motif in paintings such as The Starry Night.
Why I picked this: The book, like the exhibition, tells the story of the last years and months of Van Gogh’s life, and how his return again and again to the motif of cypresses continued to fascinate and sustain him.
By Stephan Wolohojian and Ashley Dunn
With contributions by Stéphane Guégan, Denise Murrell, Haley S. Pierce, Isolde Pludermacher, and Samuel Rodary
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manet/Degas is the first book to consider the two artists’ careers in parallel—how their decisions overlapped, diverged, and shaped each other's artistic choices. This richly illustrated, in-depth study offers an opportunity to reevaluate preeminent artworks such as Manet's Olympia and Degas's The Absinthe Drinker.
Why I chose this book: Quite simply, a landmark exhibition and landmark book on arguably two of the greatest artists of the 19th century.
Edited by Claudia Schmuckli
Published by DelMonico Books and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF), Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence features a new body of work by American artist Kehinde Wiley. The sculptures and paintings highlighted in this exhibition catalog expand on the artist’s 2008 series of a group of large-scale portraits of young Black men inspired by Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521–22).
Why I chose this book: Underlying the beauty and complexity of Wiley’s masterful images are powerful messages about social injustice that should awaken all of us.
Preface by Elizabeth Smith.
Text by Douglas Dreishpoon, Suzanne Boorsch.
Roundtable with Katharina Gross, Pepe Karmel, Mary Weatherford.
Published by Radius Books in conjunction with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, this book is the first to explore the late period of Frankenthaler’s art and life and features over 90 plates and archival images from 1988 to 2009. In these later years, Frankenthaler’s practice evolved through the use of mixed media and diverse processes.
Why I chose this book: Like so many artists, Frankenthaler’s early work dominated the conversation about her career; yet her late work demonstrates an aesthetic confidence that is now being fully appreciated.
By Elliot Bostwick Davis
Published by Rizzoli Electa, Edward Hopper & Cape Ann illuminates the history of Edward Hopper’s years in and around Gloucester, Massachusetts in the 1920’s. This period is when Hopper first began to explore watercolor painting outside, and discovered one of his favorite subjects: houses and vernacular architecture.
Why I chose this book: The beautiful story of Hopper and his artist wife Josephine Nivison and her role in his burgeoning career is evidenced in this remarkable collection of early works.
Edited with text by Stephanie Mayer Heydt. Edited with illustrated chronology by Audrey Lewis. Foreword by Rand Suffolk, Thomas Padon. Text by Ellen E. Roberts, Karli Wurzelbacher, Ara H. Merjian
Published by DelMonico Books, High Museum of Art and Brandywine River Museum of Art, this exhibition catalog is the first major monograph of Stella’s nature paintings. The exhibition and book provide an overdue spotlight on the artist’s wide-ranging body of work that ranged from strikingly realistic to poetically visionary in its unique expression of the natural world.
Why I chose this book: Stella’s pure paintings of the natural world are pure joy—rapturous Modernist creations.
Published by Fondation Louis Vuitton and Citadelles & Mazenod, this exhibition catalog highlights the first retrospective in France of Rothko’s art, bringing together 115 works from major institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Art, the Tate and the Phillips Collection, as well as from major international private acquisitions, including the artist's family collection. The works are exhibited in a presentation that closes resembles the artist’s wishes.
Why I chose this book: This once-in-a lifetime exhibition in Paris and accompanying book show us why we can never stop looking at and thinking about Rothko’s work.
By Richard Lacayo
Published by Simon & Schuster, I recently spoke with Richard Lacayo on my podcast series, Reading the Art World, where we discussed the careers of six great artists, including Monet, Renoir, Pollock, Hopper and Nevelson, many of whom produced some of their best works in old age.
Why I chose this book: Each chapter on each artist tells the story of their transformative inspiration and creativity in their later years.
By Patrick Bringley
Published by Simon & Schuster, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me provides an intimate portrait of the museum from the perspective of a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard. Readers follow Bringley as he guards delicate treasures, strolls the galleries, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care.
Why I chose this book: Bringley reminds us how visits to art museums can be transformative and inspiring experiences—-if we slow down enough to really look.
By Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
Published by Penguin Random House, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us illuminates the science of neuroaesthetics, which offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the arts. Authors Magsamen and Ross provide research that shows how engaging with art for even short periods of time reduces cortisol—ultimately extending your life and improving your health.
Why I chose this book: We know that art inspires our lives—this book shows us the science behind the experience.
Edited with introduction by Eva Respini. Foreword by Jill Medvedow.
Text by Vanessa Agard-Jones, Rizvana Bradley, Dionne Brand, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Malik Gaines, Saidiya V. Hartman, Daniella Rose King, Simone Leigh, Jessica Lynne, Nomaduma Masilela, Katherine McKittrick, Uri McMillan, Sequoia Miller, Steven Nelson, Tavia Nyong’o, Lorraine O'Grady, Rianna Jade Parker, Yasmina Price, Anni Pullagura, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Christina Sharpe, Hortense J. Spillers
Published by DelMonico Books and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Simone Leigh is the first major monograph of the artist’s sculptures, videos, installations and social practices exploring ideas of community, Black feminism and the African diaspora.
Why I chose this book: Multiple writers, scholars, artists, sharing their perspective on Simone Leigh’s multi-faceted work.
Edited by Gregor J M Weber, Pieter Roelofs and Taco Dibbits (all of whom work at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Published by Thames & Hudson,Vermeer was created to accompany the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The book is the first major authoritative study of Vermeer's life and work for many years, shedding light on all thirty-seven of his paintings. Richly illustrated using thoughtfully chosen printing materials, Vermeer is the definitive volume for any admirer of the Dutch masters.
Why I chose it: I love it for everyone, including me, who was unable to see the once in a lifetime exhibition.