Книги по истории искусства

A lively introduction to and history of international contemporary art from 1960 to the present

What does it mean?
Is it really art?
Why does it cost so much?
While these questions are perpetually asked about contemporary art, they are not the questions that E. H. Gombrich set out to answer in his seminal book The Story of Art. Contemporary art is very different from what came before. From the 1960s, where Gombrich’s account concludes, artists began to abandon traditional forms of art and started to make work that questioned art’s very definition. This is where Godfrey picks up the story.

Developments in contemporary art have followed no straightforward line of progress or sequence of movements. Recognizing this, Tony Godfrey creates a narrative from a series of often dramatic creative conflicts and arguments around what art is or should be. From object versus sculpture and painting versus conceptual to local versus global, gallery versus wider world, The Story of Contemporary Art traces a history in terms of drastic changes in social and political life over the last sixty years.

How do we experience being human in a world that seems to change so quickly? In exploring art’s relationship to this question, Godfrey asserts that multiple voices must be heard: critics, theorists, curators and collectors, but also audiences and artists themselves. Key to the book is the story of how a perception that art was made almost exclusively by white men from North America and Western Europe has been radically overturned. Compelling and intelligent, but never academic, this book tells us how.

About the Author:

Tony Godfrey, former Programme Director of the MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute, London, now lives in Manila, where he works as a curator with artists from South-East Asia. He has written for the Burlington Magazine and Art in America, and is the author of Conceptual Art and Painting Today, as well as numerous exhibition catalogues.

An in-depth overview of Ukrainian art from the dawn of Modernism in the late nineteenth century to the start of the Russian invasion in Spring 2022.

This new volume in the World of Art series provides an overview of Ukrainian art, artists and art movements from the dawn of Modernism and the 1900s to the Soviet period, to post-Soviet times and the beginning of the war with Russia in February 2022. Ukrainian art and artists are discussed within historical and political contexts as well as how they have contributed to, and interacted with, Ukrainian culture and identity. Filled with rich illustrations, each chapter explores a different art period or movement.

We are at a historical moment where Ukraine and its cultural identity are in grave danger, and author Alisa Lozhkina offers a powerful opportunity to connect curious and empathetic readers with the Ukrainian art tradition.

About the Author:

Alisa Lozhkina is a leading art historian, critic, and curator. She was the editor-in-chief of the major Ukrainian art magazine Art Ukraine and served as a deputy director and chief curator of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, the largest museum and exhibition complex in Ukraine. Lozhkina has curated numerous art projects in Ukrainian and international museums and art centers, and published several books. She has contributed to numerous publications including Texte zur Kunst, The Art Newspaper, ARTnews, Etudes sur L'histoire de l'art, and Los Angeles Review of Books. She is also an artist.

The spectacular beauty of Raphael’s tapestries as you have never seen it before

In 1515, Pope Leo X commissioned the Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio (1483–1520), now generally known as Raphael in English, to make the cartoons for a series of ten tapestries with scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. This commission played an instrumental part in the stylistic development of the Flemish tapestries, a marvellous illustration of princely splendour in the sixteenth century. Under Habsburg rule, Brussels soon emerged as a leading manufactory for exquisite products. Raphael’s designs are among the most successful series in the history of tapestry production.

This publication shows the enormous richness of the tapestries through dozens of details. It accompanies a collection exhibition of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, home to the former imperial tapestry collection, from 26 September 2023 to 14 January 2024.

About the Author:

Curator of the Kunstkammer and Tapestries, Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna (Wien), Austria.
 

Brushwork and poetry – the great awakening of Venetian painting around 1500.

In the Venice of the Renaissance, master artists like Bellini, Giorgione, Palma Vecchio and Titian explored the essence of mankind and nature and their relationship to each other with an unprecedented intensity. This attractive volume shows through important portraits and landscape representations the pioneering innovations of Venetian painting, which continued to leave their mark right up to the modern age.

The painting of the city on the lagoon captivates us not only through the wealth of colours and the nuances of the light, but also through the exceptional sensitivity with which the artists focused on their works. They created sophisticated portraits, seductive idealised likenesses and history paintings whose principal character is the atmospheric landscape. The publication examines the masterpieces in depth with regard to their remarkable innovative strength, the context in which they were produced, and contemporary interpretations.

About the Author:

Andreas Schumacher is the Director of Collections at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Published to accompany the Royal Academy exhibition from 29 June to 13 October 2024, a major study of Ukrainian art from 1900 to the mid-1930s – with loans from major museums in Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe, the United States (including MoMA) and Israel

How does artistic life flourish during revolution and conflict? Ukraine in the early 1900s endured unimaginable political upheaval, yet this became a period of true renaissance in Ukrainian art, literature, theatre and cinema.

In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s, presents the ground-breaking art produced in Ukraine in the early 20th century, focusing on the three key cultural centres of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Against a complicated socio-political backdrop of collapsing empires, World War I, the revolutions of 1917 with the ensuing Ukrainian War of Independence, and the eventual creation of Soviet Ukraine, several strands of distinctly Ukrainian art emerged.

While émigrés such as Sonia Delaunay and Alexander Archipenko found fame outside their homeland, the followers of Mykhailo Boichuk focused on Byzantine revivalism, and the artists of the Kultur Lige sought to promote the development of contemporary Yiddish culture. The first avant-garde exhibitions in Ukraine featured the radical art of Davyd Burliuk and Alexandra Exter, and the dynamic canvases of the Kyiv-based Cubo-Futurist Oleksandr Bohomazov. In Kharkiv, Vasyl Yermilov championed the industrial art of Constructivism, while Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytskyi, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov and Borys Kosarev revolutionized theatre design. The attempt to build a national identity in Ukraine resulted in a polyphony of styles and artistic developments across a full range of media – from oil paintings, sketches and sculpture to collages, cinema posters and theatre designs.

Twelve internationally renowned scholars, including curators from the National Art Museum of Ukraine, bring to life this astonishing period of creativity in Ukraine and all the movements it encompassed.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Konstantin Akinsha

I. Kyiv

From Kyiv to Paris: The Cosmopolitanism of Alexandra Exter
Katia Denysova

The Beginning: The First Avant-Garde Exhibitions in Ukraine
Olena Kashuba-Volvach

The Art Section of the Kultur Lige: Yiddish Avant-Garde Art in Kyiv (1918–1922)
Hillel Kazovsky

Oleksandr Bohomazov: The Ukrainian Version of Futurism
Olena Kashuba-Volvach

Boichukism
Myroslava M. Mudrak

Bauhaus on the Banks of Dnipro
Olena Kashuba-Volvach

II: Kharkiv

The Tragic Sensuality of the Kharkiv Avant-Garde
Tetiana Zhmurko

Constructor Vasyl Yermylov: A Captive of the Material World 
Konstantin Akinsha

Visual and Spatial Experiments in Ukrainian Scenography of the 1920s
Olena Kovalchuk

Ivan Kavaleridze: Searching for the Hero of the New Age
Oksana Barshynova

Nova heneratsiia (1927–1930)
Myroslava M. Mudrak

III. Odesa

The Odesa Society of Independent Artists
Olha Barkovska

From Symbolism to Avant-Garde: The Emancipation of Ukrainian Cinema in the 1920s
Ivan Kozlenko

IV. Aftermath

In the Shadow of Russia: Ukrainian Art at the XVI Venice Biennale of 1928
Olena Kashuba-Volvach & Maryna Drobotiuk

The Émigrés from Ukraine: Archipenko, Delaunay and Baranoff-Rossiné
Katia Denysova

From Oblivion to Glory: Spetsfond or The Special Secret Holding
Yuliia Lytvynets

Plates
Authors’ Biographies
Picture Credits
Index

About the Author:

Konstantin Akinsha studied at the Shevchenko Art School in Kyiv, Ukraine, and in 1986 completed an MA in art history at the Moscow State University. He completed a PhD in art history at the University of Edinburgh. In the course of his career, Konstantin Akinsha has been curator at the Kyiv Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Moscow correspondent for ARTnews, contributing editor for ARTnews magazine, New York, as well as a Research Fellow at both the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, and Bremen Kunstverein, East European Institute of Bremen University. From 1999 to 2000 he was also Deputy Research Director, Art and Cultural Property, Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, Washington, D.C. In 2006 he became the European Correspondent for ARTnews magazine in Budapest, and in 2007 he also became a Eugene and Davmel Shklar Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. Akinsha has written a number of books, including Stolen Treasure (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995), co-authored with Gregorii Kozlov, and The Holy Place, co-authored with Gregorii Kozlov and Sylvia Hochfield (Yale University Press, 2007).

An accessible and hugely popular history of art explained through many of the world’s most famous masterpieces

This comprehensive, vibrant book leads you through the world’s iconic images – those that we encounter every time we open a newspaper, visit a gallery, or look at the front cover of a novel

Art: The Whole Story traces the development of art period by period, with the illustrated text covering every genre, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art and performance art. Cultural timelines are there too, to help the reader with historical context.

• The most accessible history of world art ever assembled
• More than 1,100 colour illustrations of iconic pieces
• Covers every genre of art, from painting and sculpture to conceptual art
• Designed in an easily navigable and user-friendly fashion

Written by an international team of artists, art historians and curators, this absorbing and beautiful book will give you insight into the world’s most iconic images.

Masterpieces that epitomize each period or movement are highlighted and analysed in detail. Everything from the use of colour and visual metaphors to technical innovations is explained, enabling you to interpret the meanings of world-famous masterpieces – Mughal miniatures; Japanese prints in the nineteenth century; the colour theories behind Seurat’s remarkable La Grande Jatte; and why Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon was so shocking in its day.

This stunningly illustrated book examines the history of poster design and its relation to the arts and broader culture

The poster is a versatile marketing tool widely used from the 19th century to today for everything from political events to movies. A good poster has many layers, it goes beyond advertising and makes statements about style, history, fashion, and taste at the time. It is these layers that can turn a poster into a work of art. This book showcases 480 posters by more than 200 artists and designers and tells a comprehensive history of the poster. The book includes art nouveau, Bauhaus, pop art, and contemporary posters from preeminent artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol and from noted designers ranging from Lucian Bernhard and A.M. Cassadre to Saul Bass, Tadanori Yokoo, and Stefan Sagmeister. The book also introduces many other leading poster designers whose names are less well-known. Contemporary advertisements for Calvin Klein, United Colors of Benetton, and Coachella are also explored. By tracing the history of the poster, this book shows social developments throughout the world and illuminates how art styles have changed over time.

About the Author:

Jurgen Doring is Head of the Department of Graphics and Posters at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany.

The excellence of Italian design through 100 vases from the beginning of the last century to the present.

What, if anything, sets an “Italian” vase apart from the vast numbers of vases produced worldwide? A vase is both an everyday object and an object that lends itself to a huge variety of interpretations, a field in which Italian designers excel in terms of originality and recognizability (not to mention the inherent “sustainability” of the vase as object, typically made from the most ecological of materials, like clay or silica glass).

The intention behind 100 Vases of Italian Design is to analyse and provide a possible response to the concept of Italian style by exploring one of its most common and enduring expressions.

Materials, forms, tradition, and innovation unfold before readers’ eyes, page after page, helping them seek meaning in the challenge posed by the title: the selection comprises vases — all of which have gone into production, sometimes as a small or very small series — from the past century, from Galileo Chini to Fabio Novembre, spanning the golden era from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Introduced by the essays by Marco Meneguzzo and Enrico Morteo on the concept and the history of Italian vases, the book invites the reader to discover 100 years of materials, forms, tradition and invention.

About the Author:

Art and design historian, author and curator, Marco Meneguzzo teaches History of contemporary art and Museology and Management of exhibition systems at Accademia di Brera, Milan. He is member of the scientific committee of the official archives of Mario Schifano, Vincenzo Agnetti, Marcello Morandini, Letizia Battaglia, Ugo La Pietra and is president of the Giò Pomodoro Archive. Enrico Morteo, architect, critic and historian of design and architecture, collaborates with major international design magazines.

This dazzling book showcases the history of modern and contemporary art using one hundred of the most significant art works -- one per year -- of the past 100 years.

Starting with Marcel Duchamp's 1919 whimsical, brilliant L.H.O.O.Q., this compendium offers a year-by-year tour of iconic paintings, photography, sculptures, installations, and performance pieces from all over the world. The works are carefully selected to showcase a diverse range of artists. Read from cover to cover, this volume offers an evocative summary of stylistic trends, historic events, and technological innovations that changed art over the past 100 years. 

Opening the book to any random page will illuminate a singular perspective and aesthetic delight. Each work is impeccably reproduced and presented in double-page spreads alongside informative and engaging texts. 

From Georgia O'Keeffe and Man Ray to Kara Walker and Ai Weiwei, this unique survey will both satisfy and surprise art lovers everywhere.

__________

Пролистать книгу 100 Years, 100 Artworks: A History of Modern and Contemporary Art

1000 VASES shines a light on unique pieces made by independent designers from over 35 countries

A vase is never merely a container. As Georges Braque once said, "the vase gives form to emptiness": ever since the earliest human civilizations, this object has had a purpose that is greater than its function and it perennially seeks experimentation in shape and expression.

The 1,000 vases presented in this book are an eloquent demonstration of this. They come from 35 different countries and more than 80% have been made by women or independent designers and artists born between 1988 and 1993, each of whom was invited to create a free interpretation of the same archetype, resulting in a spectrum of the infinite creativity inspired by the many possible versions of a single item. Made from an enormous range of materials (ceramic, terracotta, porcelain, metal, wood, glass, as well as natural fibers, industrial waste and recycled plastic), using techniques both ancient and ultra-modern (3D printing) and belonging to different categories (from amphora to jar, jug to carafe), almost all sit on the borderline that simultaneously unites and separates art, design and craftsmanship.

About the Author:

Pier Paolo Pitacco lives and works between Paris and Milan, where he has been at the centre of the most important editorial events related to the success of Italian Style. Responsible for the artistic realization of Uomo Vogue, he then developed the projects of Donna and Mondo Uomo as art director. He has been the Artistic Director also of Elle Italia from 1988 to 1999.

An accessible, comprehensive, freshly-updated celebration of the vast range of human artistry from 28,000 BC to today

Brought completely up to date for this revised edition and now available in a compact new format, this new edition of Phaidon's groundbreaking book presents art differently from all other compendia by revealing the huge diversity – or in many cases, the similarity – of artistic achievements around the globe. Images of more than 600 works from all periods and regions are arranged in chronological order, each with a short text that puts the work in critical context and explains its contribution to the development of art history.

A new edition of this definitive world history of glassmaking and decorative techniques from 2500 BC, updated to cover the first decade of the 21st century.

This classic book traces the history of glassmaking from its origins in Western Asia some 5000 years ago, through the invention of glassblowing around the first century BC, to the introduction of mechanised processes and new styles in the 19th and 20th centuries. It highlights the flourishing industries of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the extraordinary achievements of the Roman Empire, the elegant vessels of the Islamic Near East, the superb mastery of Renaissance Venice and the wide-ranging experiments of modern Europe and America. With a new final chapter by John P. Smith, Editor of The Glass Circle journal, to bring the book right up to date with the latest developments, 5000 Years of Glass is still the definitive single-volume general history of this most versatile art form.

About the Author:

Hugh Tait - former Deputy Keeper of the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at the British Museum, Honorary Fellow of the Corning Museum of Glass, former President of the International Association for the History of Glass.
Carol Andrews - former Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum.
William Gudenrath - former President of the New York Experimental Glass Workshop, Resident Adviser of The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York.
Ralph Pinder-Wilson - former Deputy Keeper of Islamic Collection at the British Museum.
Veronica Tatton-Brown - former Assistant Keeper in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum.
John P. Smith - Editor of The Glass Circle journal. Recently retired from world-renowned antique dealers, Mallett.

An authoritative and concise history of witchcraft from the ancient world up to the present day

Witchcraft has always been a fluid and intriguing belief system that has enchanted and sometimes terrified humanity. For over forty years, A History of Witchcraft has provided the authoritative history of witchery and the occult. Jeffrey Russell explores the definition of witchcraft in its many diverse forms, from the worship of the Greek goddess of magic, Hecate, through the medieval witch-crazes to the development of modern witchcraft in the early 20th century. Brooks Alexander analyses the development of neopaganism to the present day, charting the dissemination of witchcraft through modern media and the tensions that arise when a secretive cult becomes an open and recognized religion.

Whether or not one believes in the powers of witchcraft, one must believe in the existence of witches.

Contents List:

Introduction: What is a witch?
PART I: SORCERY AND HISTORICAL WITCHCRAFT
1 Sorcery
2 The roots of European witchcraft
3 Witchcraft, heresy, and inquisition
4 The witch-craze on the continent of Europe
5 Witchcraft in Britain and America
6 Witchcraft and society
7 The decline of witchcraft
PART II: MODERN WITCHCRAFT
8 Survivals and revivals
9 Neopagan witchcraft: the sources
10 Neopagan witchcraft: the movement
11 The role of witchcraft

About the Author:

Jeffrey B. Russell (1934–2023) was an American historian of medieval Europe and religious studies scholar. Brooks Alexander is author of Witchcraft Goes Mainstream and has written numerous articles on witchcraft, neo-paganism and other new religious movements.

A new way of appreciating art that puts the artwork front and centre, brought to us by one of the freshest and most exciting voices in cultural criticism

What makes great art great? Why do some works pulse in the imagination, generation after generation, century after century? From Botticelli’s Birth of Venus to Picasso’s Guernica, some paintings and sculptures have become so famous, so much a part of who we are, that we no longer really look at them. We take their greatness for granted; our eyes have become near-obsolete. We need a new way of seeing.

Unsatisfied with traditional interpretations of masterpieces, which are so often interested only in learning about art, and not from it, Kelly Grovier combed the surface of revered works from the Terracotta Army to Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, in a quest to find the key to their lasting power to move and delight us. He discovered that every truly great work is hardwired with an underappreciated detail that ignites it from deep within.

Stepping away from biography, style and the chronology of ‘isms’ that preoccupies most art history, Grovier tells a new story in which we learn from the artworks, not just about them.

Contents List:

Introduction: A Touch of Strangeness

Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions (c. 645–635 BC)
Parthenon Sculptures (c. 444 BC)
Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor (c. 210 BC)
Villa of the Mysteries murals (c. 60–50 BC)
Laocoön and his Sons (c. 27 BC–AD 68)
Trajan’s Column (AD 113), Apollodorus of Damascus
The Book of Kells (c. AD 800)
Travellers among Mountains and Streams (c. 1000), Fan K’uan
Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1077 or after)
The Universal Man (c. 1165), Hildegard of Bingen
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (c. 1427), Masaccio
Ghent Altarpiece (1430–32), Jan van Eyck
The Descent from the Cross (1430–32), Rogier van der Weyden
The Annunciation (c. 1438–47), Fra Angelico
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1480), Andrea Mantegna
The Birth of Venus (c. 1482–85), Sandro Botticelli
Mona Lisa (c. 1503–6), Leonardo da Vinci
The Garden of Earthly Delights (1505–10), Hieronymus Bosch
Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes (1508–12), Michelangelo
The School of Athens (1510–11), Raphael
Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–16), Matthias Grünewald
Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–23), Titian
Self-Portrait (1548), Catharina van Hemessen
Crucifixion (1565–87), Tintoretto
The Supper at Emmaus (1601), Caravaggio
The Ecstasy of St Teresa (1647–52), Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Las Meninas (1656), Diego Velázquez
Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665), Johannes Vermeer
Self-Portrait with Two Circles (c. 1665–69), Rembrandt van Rijn
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), Joseph Wright of Derby
The Nightmare (1781), Henry Fuseli
The Third of May 1808 (1814), Francisco Goya
The Hay Wain (1821), John Constable
Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway (1844), J. M. W. Turner
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother) (1871), James Abbott
McNeill Whistler
The Thinker (1880–1904), Auguste Rodin
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), Édouard Manet
Bathers at Asnières (1884), Georges Seurat
The Scream (1893), Edvard Munch
The Large Bathers (1900–6), Paul Cézanne
Group IV, No. 7, Adulthood (1907), Hilma af Klint
The Kiss (1907), Gustav Klimt
Dance (1909–10), Henri Matisse
Water Lilies (1914–26), Claude Monet
Fountain (1917), Marcel Duchamp
American Gothic (1930), Grant Wood
The Persistence of Memory (1931), Salvador Dalí
Guernica (1937), Pablo Picasso
L’Égypte de Mlle Cléo de Mérode: cours élémentaire d’histoire naturelle (1940), Joseph Cornell
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), Frida Kahlo
One: Number 31 (1950), Jackson Pollock
Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953), Francis Bacon
Brillo Boxes (1964), Andy Warhol
Backs and Fronts (1981), Sean Scully
Betty (1988), Gerhard Richter
Maman (1999), Louise Bourgeois
The Artist is Present (2010), Marina Abramovic

Sources and Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Picture Credits
Index

About the Author:

Kelly Grovier is a feature writer for BBC Culture and the author of several acclaimed studies of art, including 100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age, Art Since 1989 and On the Line, all published by Thames & Hudson. His writings have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, the Sunday Times, the Observer, the RA Magazine and Wired magazine. His history of London’s Newgate Prison, The Gaol, was a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’. He is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.

Let’s Get Abstract. Making sense of revolutionary new forms

The 20th century saw art go abstract. Where once clear certainties and indisputable forms prevailed, now anarchy seemed to reign supreme. Sensibilities diffused into strange new shapes, colors assumed new significance, lines abandoned literal meaning. Dive in and discover some of the most dynamic and progressive art of modernity.

Abstraction shook Western art to its core. In the early part of the 20th century, it refuted the reign of clear, indisputable forms and confronted audiences instead with vivid visual poems devoid of conventional representational imagery and characterized by allegories of emotion and sensation.

This radical artistic adventure established new artistic means, as much as narratives. Expression became characterized by shocking juxtapositions of color, light, and line. Artists abandoned the conventions of brush and easel and played with new materials and methods of artistic gesture: commercial paints and housepainter’s brushes, working on unstretched and unprimed canvases, moving the canvas to the floor, and applying paint with hands.

This essential introduction spans the international breadth, conceptual depth, and seismic impact of abstract art with a thorough survey not only of the big names such as Picasso, Klee, Kline, Rothko, and Pollock, but also lesser-known figures who made equally significant contributions, including Antoni Tàpies, K. O. Götz, Ad Reinhardt, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

The author:

Dietmar Elger studied art history, history, and literature at the University of Hamburg. In 1984/85, he was secretary of Gerhard Richter’s studio and between 1989 and 2006 curator for painting and sculpture at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover. He has organized numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and has directed the Gerhard Richter Archive at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden since 2006. For TASCHEN he has authored the volumes Expressionism, Dadaism, and Abstract Art.

About the series:

Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. 

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features:
- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions