Rita Ackermann
(Skira Rizzoli)

Ackermann, a Hungary-born artist set New York City’s art world on fire in the mid-’90s with her neo-expressionist, mixed-media collages that combined vibrant, almost violent oil paintings with accurate, reminiscent line drawings. Her evolving career was a perfect tribute, the reflective of her ever-evolving career pulls together her daring collection of work with written commentary from art work staples, including the likes of historian and curator of Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art Bonnie Clearwater and filmmaker Harmony Korine

Vitamin P2

(Phaidon)

In 2002, Phaidon initiated its Vitamin series, a survey whereby contemporary art landscape featured dedicated volumes for various media, including sculpture, photography, and drawing, with Vitamin P, a look at the then-cutting-edge painters. Vitamin P2 reexamines the medium with a look at the work of 115 international artists addressing more than 30 countries. Compiled with the nominations of curators, critics, and art historians, the book is a must-read for any art lover.

De Kooning: A Retrospective
(MoMA)

This fall, New York’s Museum of Modern Art mounted the first major museum retrospective of prolific artist Willem de Kooning (closing on January 9, 2012). In addition to the exhibit, MoMA published a “look back” at de Kooning’s seven-decade legacy, starting with the early academic works, before he moved from Holland to the United States in 1926 and then ending with his late-’80s abstract paintings. The volume packs contain the history of the museum’s 17,000-square-foot exhibit with an in-depth review of 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from de Kooning’s career.

Talk to Me: Design and the Communication Between People and Objects
(MoMA)
Published in combination with MoMA’s now-closed “communications-technology-as-art exhibit”,this volume features more than 200 micro and macro, with everything in between art projects which explore the increasing and increasingly interweaved relationship between technology and humanity.

Edward Durell Stone: A Son's Untold Story of a Legendary Architect(Rizzoli)

Modernist architect Edward Durell Stonehelped with the creation of landmarks such as “New York’s Museum of Modern Art” and “Radio City Music Hall”. This made him one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. But his commercial success became scorned by critics for some of his later works. Now his youngest son, Hick Stone, also a New York–based architect, illuminates Stone’s body of work with a reference that’s part photo retrospective, part incisive biography by a son who shares his father’s passion.

Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles

(Skira Rizzoli)

Photojournalist Arthur Fellig, also known as Weegee, began his career in the 1930s capturing black-and-white photos of crime scenes in New York with a bizarre film noir flair. In 1947 when he moved to Los Angeles, he began his second deed, photographing celebrities and the pandemonium they sparked. With his eye for the unusual, he caught stars at unguarded moments, from unattractive angles, later distorting photos for a carnival-look of celebrity’s. Featuring about 200 photos currently on view at L.A.’s Museum of Contemprary Art, the book reprints Weegee’s 1953 Naked Hollywood and further explores Weegee’s career in Southern California with never-before-seen shots of Hollywood’s striking, seductive underbelly.

Wright, 1885–1916
(Taschen)

Taschen begins its three-volume look book which focuses on the career of Frank Lloyd. Wright is widely considered to be the greatest American architect of all time. Weighing in at almost 13 pounds, the first volume consists of 200 pages filled with photos and sketches of Wright’s early work, including his famed “prairie homes,” removed from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives in Taliesin, Arizona.

The Art Museum

(Phaidon)

With a massive 1,000 pages which feature more than 2,500 works of art, Phaidon’s “virtual art museum in a book” was 10 years in the making and includes work removed from 650 museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide. With a handy glossary and location map (A definite must have!), the book is a perfect crash course for art-world novices and a collectible for experts.

Dior Couture
(Rizzoli)

This book takes a look at the renowned legacy of Christian Dior haute couture, and features photos of more than 100 gowns (some designed by Dior himself) taken by photographer Patrick Demarchelier, a definite ideal for fashion-minded trend lovers.

Lady Gaga X Terry Richardson
(Grand Central Publishing)

Acclaimed photographer Terry Richardson took more than 100,000 photos of Gaga’s reining provocateur on her Monster Ball world tour, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, fashion shows. The result is the recently released 360-page photo book that mixes, in typical Gaga fashion, the candid and the bizarre.

Via: Elle

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