Deck the halls with books!

From pioneering photography to incredible artist insight, here is our pick of the best reads to inspire every creative mind this Christmas.

Zanele Muholi, Yaya Mavundla, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2014 © Zanele Muholi

For photography aficionados 

Get to grips with the pioneers of what remains an ever-expanding and complex artform, beginning with Ernst Haas’s bold images of New York during the 1950s and 1960s. His shots create a picture of life in the buzzing metropolis that has since disappeared, and also shows the powerful impact of Kodachrome on a new generation of photographers who previously swore by black and white. Meanwhile, Zanele Muholi, who describes themself as a ‘visual activist’ as opposed to a photographer, is one of the most exciting image-makers working today. Their powerful, tender and enlightening images of South Africa’s LGBT community feature in a brand-new monograph, which coincides with a major solo exhibition at Tate Modern. 

• Ernst Haas: New York in Color, 1952–1962, Phillip Prodger with foreword by Alex Haas (Prestel, £35)
• Zanele Muholi, Sarah Allen and Yasufumi Nakamori (Tate Publishing, £24.99)

  ---

   

Offset printing, March 1988 © Takenobu Igarashi

FOR DESIGN LOVERS

Mind-expanding design comes in many forms, but none so much as the joyous typography of Takenobu Igarashi. The inspired typographer shaped the visual language of the 1980s, before turning to sculptural letterforms that expand the meaning of the written word. His monograph is now available, with insight into his life, work and aspirations. For something even more out of this world, the accompanying catalogue to the Design Museum’s enormously popular exhibition Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet examines the visual possibilities of a future beyond our globe. 

• Takenobu Igarashi: A-Z, Sakura Nomiyama and Haruki Mori (Thames & Hudson, £45)
• Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet (Design Museum Publishing, £19.95)

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, c. 454. Ravenna. Looking south: clerestory, Apostles below the velarium, and doves flanking a fountain of paradise; lunette, St. Lawrence rushing to Martyrdom on the gridiron. Photo by Fabio Barry

For the architecturally minded

Delve into ancient history and discover the allure of precious stone in Fabio Barry’s enlightening new book. He takes you on a journey through the temples of ancient Greece and Rome, marble Italian palaces and a 19th-century revival, proving that this material is far more than a simple building block. For a more modern take on architecture, Peter Adam’s biography on Eileen Gray demonstrates just how influential the 20th-century architect and designer was, despite being largely unacknowledged in her lifetime.

• Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Fabio Barry (Yale University Press, £50)
• Eileen Gray: Her Life and Work, Peter Adam (Thames & Hudson, £29.95)

Frida holding court at the Casa Azul. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Archives. Bank of México, fiduciary in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust

For in-depth artist profiles

Look beyond the myth of the artist with some fantastic, thought-provoking new titles, such as Hettie Judah’s accessible yet highly informed biography on Frida Kahlo. It is something of a corrective to the mania that surround the artist’s image, dispelling the often-sanitised view of her life in favour of the grit and passion that is clearly evident in her work. Likewise, Jan Marsh’s succinct on Aubrey Beardsley looks beyond the controversies that surrounded the Victorian artist’s tragically short life and considers the legacy of his groundbreaking illustrations. Finally, a new compendium of Andy Warhol’s lesser-known erotic drawings shows another side of the ultimate celebrity artist. 

• Frida Kahlo, Hettie Judah (Laurence King, £12.99)
• Aubrey Beardsley: Decadence and Desire, Jan Marsh (Thames & Hudson, £14.95)
• Andy Warhol: Love, Sex and Desire: Drawings 1950–1962, Michael Dayton Hermann, Drew Zeiba, Blake Gopnik (Taschen, £75)

For pure visual wonder

If you thought a hotel carpet was beyond aesthetic merit then think again. US pilot Bill Young has travelled the world, snapping the floors of various establishments in an effort to find methods in the madness – the results are surprisingly satisfying. Meanwhile, a delightful survey of society’s ongoing obsession with astrology takes in everything from ancient temple inscriptions and illuminated manuscripts to contemporary art. An even more unusual – yet nevertheless stunning – compendium is found in a large-scale reprint of J C Volkamer’s 18th-century ode to citrons, lemons and bitter oranges.

• Hotel Carpets, Bill Young (Hoxton Mini Press, £9.95)
• J. C. Volkamer: The Book of Citrus Fruits, Iris Lauterbach (Taschen, £125)
• Astrology, Andrea Richards, Susan Miller, Jessica Hundley, Thunderwing (Taschen, £30)

For philosophical thinkers

Beginning with the perfect book for a year when striking out from home has been curtailed, art historian, curator and Arts Society Lecturer Dr Susan Owens takes us on a journey through the panorama of our landscape through the eyes of artists and writers in Spirit of Place. From Bede to Barbara Hepworth, these are the people who, she says, ‘do not just describe our landscape; they make it too’. Historian Fabrizio Nevola offers an alternative view of how our environment affects our psyche, through his study of the transformative power of urban architecture during the Italian Renaissance. Another Arts Society Lecturer, Pauline Chakmakjian, introducesThe Sphinxing Rabbit series, beginning with Her Sovereign Majesty. The book offers what has been described as a modern take on Aesop’s Fables, while alluding to several famous works of art. It aims to communicate tenets of freedom in an entertaining and accessible manner, asking: ‘What would you do if you were truly free?’

• Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape, Susan Owens (Thames & Hudson, £25)
• Street Life in Renaissance Italy, Fabrizio Nevola (Yale University Press, £45)
• The Sphinxing Rabbit: Her Sovereign Majesty, Pauline Chakmakjian (Panoma Press, £14.99)

For budding creative minds

Delight some younger artistic voyagers with Alice Harman’s Modern Art Explorer, featuring wonderful illustrations by Serge Bloch, which uncovers the stories behind 30 famous works in the Centre Pompidou in Paris. For slightly older readers, Elisa Macellari’s graphic novel on the life and work of Yayoi Kusama celebrates the artist’s spotty motifs and prolific output, which have garnered her enormous fame in her later years, despite blazing a trail in 1960s New York. 

• Kusama: The Graphic Novel, Elisa Macellari (Laurence King, £14.99)
• Modern Art Explorer, Alice Harman (Thames & Hudson, £12.99)

  ---

  Holly Black is The Arts Society's Digital Editor