Books About Artists and Art

Updated June 13, 2023
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Girl with a pearl earring
Chevalier, Tracy.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling novel by the author of A Single Thread and At the Edge of the Orchard Translated into thirty-nine languages and made into an Oscar-nominated film, starring Scarlett Johanson and Colin Firth Tracy Chevalier transports...
The birth of Venus : a novel
Dunant, Sarah.
Paper Book
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is...
The art forger : a novel
Shapiro, Barbara A.
Paper Book
Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! "[A] highly entertaining literary thriller about fine art and foolish choices." --Parade "[A] nimble mystery." --The New York Times Book Review "Gripping." --O, The Oprah Magazine Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist...
The lonely city : adventures in the art of being alone
Laing, Olivia
Paper Book
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism #1 Book of the Year from Brain Pickings Named a best book of the year by NPR, Newsweek, Slate, Pop Sugar, Marie Claire, Elle, Publishers Weekly, and Lit Hub<...
Georgia : a novel of Georgia O'Keeffe
Tripp, Dawn Clifton
Paper Book
An Indie Next PickGeorgia O'Keeffe, her love affair with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and her quest to become an independent artist come vividly to life in this sensual and exquisitely written novel, a dazzling departure into historical fiction by acclaimed novelist Dawn Tripp.
Super host : a novel
Russo, Kate
Paper Book
"Get ready to smile....[A] sweet story and the perfect antidote to the chaos that's been 2021." -the Skimm  A deeply funny and shrewdly observed debut novel about being lost in the very place you know by heart. Bennett Driscoll is a Turner...
How to be both
Smith, Ali
CD
A novel all about art's versatility, borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take. How to be both is a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There...
The age of light : a novel
Scharer, Whitney
Stand-alone player
She went to Paris to start over, to make art instead of being made into it. "Sweeping from the glamour of 1930's Paris through the battlefields of World War II and into the war's long shadow, The Age of Light is a startlingly modern love story and a mesmerizing portrait of a woman's self...
Loving Frank : a novel
Horan, Nancy.
Paper Book
I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current. So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903,...
The swan thieves : a novel
Kostova, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret...
Art 21 : art in the 21st century
Golden, Thelma.
Paper Book
This companion to a new public television series on the contemporary visual arts introduces some of the most interesting artists working in America today. In four sections -- on Identity, Place, Consumption, and Spirituality -- the authors explore such provocative issues as how artists address...
Sister Wendy's Impressionist masterpieces
Beckett, Wendy.
Paper Book
A beautiful anthology of Impressionist paintings by a dazzling roll-call of artists. One of the world's best-loved art historians, Sister Wendy Beckett combines her deep knowledge of art history with her unique powers of observation to create a personal anthology of over 50 Impressionist...
The Shock of the new
Hughes, Robert
Paper Book
A beautifully illustrated hundred-year history of modern art, from cubism to pop and avant-guard. More than 250 color photos.
The secret lives of color
St. Clair, Kassia
Paper Book
A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume. "Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers." --NPR, Best Books of 2017
Ways of seeing
Berger, John.
Paper Book
"The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled" -- so opens John Berger's revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language....
Luster
Leilani, Raven
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award...
The woman who stole Vermeer : the true story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House art heist
Amore, Anthony M.
Paper Book
The extraordinary life and crimes of heiress-turned-revolutionary Rose Dugdale, who in 1974 became the only woman to pull off a major art heist. In the world of crime, there exists an unusual commonality between those who steal art and those who repeatedly kill: they are almost...
Leonardo da Vinci
Isaacson, Walter
Paper Book
Now a docuseries from Ken Burns on PBS! The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is "a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it...Most important, it is a powerful story of an...
The art book
Bugler, Caroline
Paper Book
Learn about key movements like impressionism, cubism and symbolism in The Art Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Art in this overview guide to the subject, great for...

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