Two leading curators have their day in the sun with new titles among this fall’s bumper crop of art books.

The word “curated” is no longer used solely in conjunction with galleries and museums: these days, stores, events, blogs, and even books are said to be curated. Two major art book releases this fall come from curators in the more traditional sense. In Ways of Curating, Swiss-born contemporary art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist traces the history of his craft, from the 19th-century wunderkammer to the present, and discusses his own diverse influences. And in Rendez-vous with Art, Philippe de Montebello, who was director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum from 1977 to 2008, tackles some of the big questions relating to his field—in conversation with critic Martin Gayford.

This fall will also see the release of two important art-historical surveys. In The Long March of Pop Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995, Thomas Crow, one of the dons of American art history, takes a much-written-about subject and opens up new perspectives on it. Rather than tracing the origins of pop to British art of the 1950s, Crow argues that the movement has its antecedents in the American folk music revival of the 1930s and ’40s. And Interplay: Neo-Geo Neoconceptual Art of the 1980s, by Amy Brandt, examines the neo-geo artists, a loosely defined group that came out of the East Village in the 1980s and included Sherrie Levine and Jeff Koons. Brandt situates the group within the larger New York art scene of the period and says its work is best characterized as neoconceptualism.

Anyone interested in going back to the primary sources should pick up Art in America, 1945–1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism, edited by Jed Perl, the art critic for the New Republic. This massive collection of texts includes major essays from the period by the likes of Clement Greenberg, Susan Sontag, and Hilton Kramer; journalism by Peggy Guggenheim, Dwight Macdonald, and Calvin Trillin; and much more.

And in 33 Artists in 3 Acts, Sarah Thornton (Seven Days in the Art World), shows readers how contemporary artists work and think, exploring everything from their studios to their bank accounts, and asks what it means to be an artist.

Maira Kalman, whose previous bestsellers include The Principles of Uncertainty, has a new book slated for October. In My Favorite Things, she examines, through a characteristic blend of her illustrations and her inimitable handwritten prose, the significance of objects in our lives, drawing on her own personal artifacts and a selection from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Meanwhile two new titles look at the world through the lens of photography. Vivian Maier: A Photographer Found is a comprehensive collection of the work of the elusive American nanny–cum–street photographer. The book was edited by John Maloof, who discovered Maier’s photos in 2007, after buying the negatives at a storage locker auction. Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography, edited by Elias Redstone, examines a different kind of street photography, collecting some of the best images of buildings and architectural spaces by the likes of Thomas Struth and Annie Leibovitz.

Finally, Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography by Meryle Secrest (Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography) looks at the life and work of the noted Italian fashion designer, who knew and collaborated with some of the greatest artists of her day, including Dalí and Cocteau.

PW’s Top 10: Art, Architecture & Photography

Art in America, 1945–1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism. Edited by Jed Perl. Library of America, Oct. 9

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. Meryle Secrest. Knopf, Oct. 7

Interplay: Neo-Geo Neoconceptual Art of the 1980s. Amy Brandt. MIT, Sept. 5

The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995. Thomas Crow. Yale Univ., Oct. 14

My Favorite Things. Maira Kalman. HarperCollins/Harper Design, Oct. 21

Rendez-vous with Art. Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford. Thames & Hudson, Sept. 16

Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography. Elias Redstone. Phaidon, Sept. 29

33 Artists in 3 Acts. Sarah Thornton. Norton, Nov. 10

Vivian Maier: A Photographer Found. John Maloof and Marvin Heiferman. HarperCollins/Harper Design, Oct. 14

Ways of Curating. Hans Ulrich Obrist. FSG/Faber & Faber, Nov. 4

Art, Architecture & Photography Listings

Abbeville

Rodin by Antoinette Le Normand-Romain (Oct. 21, hardcover, $135, ISBN 978-0-7892-1207-8). A definitive new perspective on the father of modern sculpture’s life and work is by a former curator at the Musée Rodin in Paris; with 350 color images.

The Golden Lands: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand & Vietnam by Vikram Lall (Sept. 23, hardcover, $95, ISBN 978-0-7892-1194-1). This in-depth, illustrated guide to the Buddhist architecture of Southeast Asia describes the interaction of Buddhist thought and ritual in creating architectural masterpieces.

Abrams

Tory Burch: In Color by Tory Burch (Sept., hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1-4197-0747-6). An intimate look at the American fashion designer’s personal style and influences. The book is organized by color, each one brought to life through images of Burch’s own collections and travels.

Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute: Parties, Exhibitions, People by Hamish Bowles, edited by Chloe Malle (Sept., hardcover, $50, ISBN 978-1-4197-1424-5). An inside look at the history of the Met Costume Institute’s exhibitions and galas, seen through the lens of Vogue magazine.

W: Stories, edited by Stefano Tonchi (Oct., hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-1-4197-1417-7). W magazine is renowned for its avant-garde fashion stories—elaborate confections of magic and mystery that have inspired and captivated readers for more than two decades. This volume gathers 10 of the most remarkable stories, along with the outtakes.

Asia Society Museum

(dist. by Yale Univ.)

Nam June Paik: Becoming Robot, edited by Melissa Chiu and Michelle Yun (Oct. 28, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-20921-1). This fully illustrated catalogue on Paik (1932–2006), the celebrated progenitor of video art, brings together a host of scholars, artists, and Paik’s own collaborators to illuminate his work.

Bloomsbury

Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who

Revolutionized American Photography by Mary Street Alinder (Oct. 14, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-62040-555-0) presents an engaging, illuminating group biography of the photographers of the seminal 1930s West Coast movement.

Pen & Ink Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them by Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton (Oct. 7, hardcover, $22, ISBN 978-1-62040-490-4) grants readers access to the tattoos—and the stories behind them—of, among others, writers Cheryl Strayed, Tao Lin, and Roxane Gay, and of musicians in the bands Korn, Otep, and Five Finger Death Punch.

Broadway Books

Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement (Nov. 4, paper, $16, ISBN 978-0-553-41991-7) reveals the life and work of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, as seen through the eyes of his lover, Suzanne Mallouk.

Counterpoint

(dist. by PGW)

Creating the Future: Art and Los Angeles in the 1970s by Michael Fallon (Sept. 9, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-61902-343-7) challenges the conventional wisdom that the progress of art in Los Angeles ceased during the 1970s—after the decline of the Ferus Gallery, the scattering of its stable of artists (Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz, Ed Moses, Ed Rusha, and others), and the recession—and didn’t resume until sometime around 1984, when Mark Tansey, Alison Saar, Judy Fiskin, Carrie Mae Weems, David Salle, Manuel Ocampo, and others became stars in an exploding art market.

FSG/Faber & Faber

Ways of Curating by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Nov. 4, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-0-86547-819-0). An influential contemporary art curator explores the history and practice of his craft. In short, accessible chapters, Obrist, born in Switzerland, traces the history of curation, from the 19th-century wunderkammer to the present, including biographical sketches of a diverse array of artists and thinkers, including Sergei Diaghilev, Robert Walser, and Lucy Lippard.

HarperCollins/Harper Design

My Favorite Things by Maira Kalman (Oct. 21, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-06-212297-1). A pictorial and narrative study of the significance of objects in our lives is drawn from bestselling author-illustrator Kalman’s personal artifacts and selections from the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; with more than 50 original paintings and Kalman’s signature handwritten prose.

The Story of Chinese Art from the Pre-Qin Period to Modern Times by Pan Gongkai (Nov. 11, hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-0-06-233633-0). Spanning more than 5,000 years, from the Bronze Age to the present, this visually rich collection of artwork offers an unprecedented look into the vast cultural history of China.

Vivian Maier: A Photographer Found by John Maloof and Marvin Heiferman (Oct. 14, hardcover, $80, ISBN 978-0-06-230553-4). This comprehensive monograph of the work of American photographer Maier explores the full range and brilliance of her work and the mystery of her life, featuring 250 b&w and color images, including some unpublished works.

Harvard Univ.

Six Drawing Lessons by William Kentridge (Sept. 1, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-674-36580-3). Over the past three decades, South African artist Kentridge has garnered international acclaim for his work across media that include drawing, film, sculpture, printmaking, and theater. Based on his 2012 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, this is the most comprehensive collection of his thoughts on art, art making, and the studio.

Harvard Univ./Belknap

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The Twentieth Century, Part 2: The Rise of Black Artists, edited by David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Oct. 31, hardcover, $95, ISBN 978-0-674-05269-7). The last volume in this critically acclaimed series marks a shift from its predecessors by focusing on the representation of blacks by black artists in the West.

Jewish Museum

(dist. by Yale Univ.)

From the Margins: Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, 1945–1952 by Norman L. Kleeblatt and Stephen Brown (Sept. 30, paper, $30, ISBN 978-0-300-20649-4) reexamines two artists whose crucial participation in the abstract expressionist movement is often overlooked.

Knopf

A Painter’s Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud by David Dawson (Oct. 7, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-385-35408-0) is a revelatory book about an important and influential painter, written by his longtime assistant, companion, and model.

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography by Meryle Secrest (Oct. 7, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-307-70159-6). Schiaparelli was a headline attraction in the international glitter-glamour shows of the late 1920s and ’30s. This is the first biography of the grand couturier and surrealist, who was more famous during her life than Coco Chanel and whose extraordinary work remains unmatched.

Library of America

(dist. by Penguin)

Art in America 1945–1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism, edited by Jed Perl (Oct. 9, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-59853-310-1). Witness the creative explosion that transformed American art in the words of the artists, writers, and critics who were there. This collection includes major critical essays by Clement Greenberg, Susan Sontag, Hilton Kramer, and other influential figures, as well as an electrifying array of responses by poets and novelists, reflecting the free interplay among different art forms: John Ashbery on Andy Warhol, James Agee on Helen Levitt, James Baldwin on Beauford Delaney, Truman Capote on Richard Avedon, Tennessee Williams on Hans Hofmann, and Jack Kerouac on Robert Frank.

Little, Brown

Ansel Adams in Yosemite Valley: Celebrating the Park at 150 by Peter Galassi, photos by Ansel Adams (Oct. 28, hardcover, $100, ISBN 978-0-316-32340-6). The release of this deluxe, oversized book will coincide with the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Yosemite Grant, an event that laid the groundwork for the National Parks Service.

Metropolitan

Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography by Sara Lipton (Nov. 4, hardcover, $32, ISBN 978-0-8050-7910-4) offers a fascinating examination of the emergence of anti-Semitic iconography in the Middle Ages. She maps the social and artistic forces that led to changes in the way Jews were depicted, leading to increasingly vicious portrayals inspired by (and designed to provoke) fear and hostility.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

(dist. by Yale Univ.)

Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, edited by Joan Aruz (Sept. 30, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-20808-5) examines the art of the first millennium B.C.E. from the Near East to Western Europe. It was a period of rich cultural exchange, as diverse populations interacted through trade, travel, and migration; includes texts by over 80 scholars.

Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, edited by Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow (Nov. 18, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-0-300-20807-8). An innovative new history of Cubism is told through some of its most significant artworks, drawn from a distinguished private collection and written by many of the field premier scholars.

MIT

Global Activism: Art and Conflict in the 21st Century, edited by Peter Weibel (Sept. 26, paper, $55, ISBN 978-0-262-52689-0) describes and documents global art practices that demand the transformation of existing social, political, and economic conditions through actions, demonstrations, and performances in public space.

Interplay: Neo-Geo Neoconceptual Art of the 1980s by Amy Brandt (Sept. 5, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-262-02753-3). Emerging from New York’s East Village art scene of the 1980s, the so-called neo-geo artists were a loosely associated group that included the painters Ashley Bickerton, Peter Halley, Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, Philip Taaffe, and Meyer Vaisman, and the sculptors Jeff Koons and Haim Steinbach. In the first in-depth study of the group, Brandt argues that “neoconceptualism” is the most precise name for their work.

On & By Christian Marclay, edited by Jean-Pierre Criqui (Aug. 1, paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-262-52661-6). Marclay’s ambitious multiscreen installations Video Quartet (2002), Crossfire (2007), and The Clock (2010) inspire viewers to contemplate the complexities of time and narrative and the role of sound in experience and representation. This volume brings together the artist’s statements and conversations with other artists and critics.

Retracing the Expanded Field: Encounters Between Art and Architecture, edited by Spyros Papapetros and Julian Rose (Aug. 29, hardcover, $34.95, ISBN 9780262027595). Artists, architects, and art historians of different generations explore the impact of Rosalind Krauss’s seminal 1979 essay “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” and its impact on their disciplines. Contributors include Yves-Alain Bois, Benjamin Buchloh, George Baker, Hal Foster, and Kenneth Frampton.

Monacelli

Midcentury Houses Today by Lorenzo Ottaviani, Jeffrey Matz, and Cristina A. Ross, photos by Michael Biondo (Oct. 21, hardcover, $65, ISBN 978-1580933858) looks at how a group of classic modern houses in New Canaan, Conn., has evolved since the 1950s and ’60s, and how the houses have survived and remained livable.

New Press

Lyudmila and Natasha: Russian Lives by Misha Friedman (Nov. 4, paper, $21.95, ISBN 978-1-62097-023-2). The celebrated documentary photographer, in this collection of photographs, powerfully captures the intimacy of a relationship between two gay women in contemporary St. Petersburg. Faced with a hostile political climate, financial difficulties, and often unstable living arrangements, the subjects of this stunning book reveal the possibilities for love in the most uncertain of times.

New York Review Books

(dist. by Random)

Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War by Ian Buruma (Sept. 16, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-59017-777-8). The author turns his sharp eye for historical storytelling on the ties between the visual arts and the trauma of worldwide conflict. Covering such wide-ranging artists as Tsuguharu Foujita, Werner Herzog, and David Bowie, Buruma’s essays satisfy scholars of war, media, and spectatorship, as well as armchair historians.

Norton

33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton (Nov. 10, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-393-24097-9). The bestselling author of Seven Days in the Art World tells the story of the artists themselves—how they move through the world, create successful works, and command credibility. This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with some of the world’s most important living artists to humanize and demystify contemporary art.

Penguin Press

Windows on the World: Fifty Writers, Fifty Views by Matteo Pericoli (Nov. 13, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-59420-554-5). Fifty of the world’s great writers—including Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul; Daniel Kehlmann in Berlin; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Lagos; John Jeremiah Sullivan in Wilmington, N.C.; Nadine Gordimer in Johannesburg; Xi Chuan in Beijing—discuss the views from their windows with architect and artist Pericoli. These texts are paired with drawings, expanding readers’ perspectives on place, creativity, and the meaning of home.

Phaidon

Anthony Caro by Toby Glanville and Anthony Caro (Oct. 20, hardcover, $100, ISBN 978-0-7148-6735-9) is a complete career monograph of the postwar abstract sculptor. The book, produced in collaboration with the artist and to be published to commemorate the anniversary of his death, includes text by such artists as Anish Kapoor and Rachel Whiteread on the influence of his work.

Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography by Elias Redstone (Sept. 29, hardcover, $79.95, ISBN 978-0-7148-6742-7) showcases the critical relationship between photography and contemporary architecture, featuring work by 50 key artists, including Andreas Gursky, Annie Leibovitz, and Catherine Opie, who have photographed architectural projects around the globe by leading architects, from Rem Koolhaas to Zaha Hadid.

The 21st-Century Art Book by the editors of Phaidon Press (Sept. 15, hardcover, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-7148-6739-7) is an A-to-Z guide to the best contemporary art made since 2000, including big names like Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, and Marina Abramovic, as well as rising stars; work by 280 artists from 50 countries across a variety of mediums.

PM

(dist. by IPG)

This Is Not a Photo Opportunity: The Street Art of Banksy, photos by Martin Bull (Nov. 1, paper, $20, ISBN 978-1-62963-036-6). Banksy, Britain’s now-legendary “guerrilla” street artist, has painted the walls, streets, and bridges of towns and cities throughout the world. Bull documents Banksy’s work with more than 200 color photos taken over the course of a decade.

Princeton Architectural Press

(dist. by Chronicle)

The Buildings and Designs of Andrea Palladio by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, trans. by Emiliabianca Pisani (Nov. 18, hardcover, $85, ISBN 978-1-61689-264-7). In 1776, architect and scholar Scamozzi began documenting and analyzing Palladio’s designs, eventually publishing his results in four volumes in his native Italy. Scamozzi’s work is available for the first time in English, in a single-volume edition. This large-format work features more than 200 reproductions.

Random House

Mademoiselle Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick (Sept. 30, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-4000-6952-1) delivers a probing, well-researched, and insightful biography of this familiar but endlessly surprising figure.

Simon & Schuster

Judge This by Chip Kidd (Dec. 2, hardcover, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-4767-8478-6). A fun, playful look at the importance of first impressions—in design and in life—from acclaimed book designer Kidd.

The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg (Nov. 4, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-4516-5154-6). The author reflects on her extraordinary life—from her childhood in Brussels and her days as a young jet-set princess to creating a dress that came to symbolize independence and power for an entire generation of women. She opens up about her family and her work building a global fashion brand, as well as her battle with cancer.

Thames & Hudson

(dist. by Norton)

Rendez-vous with Art by Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford (Sept. 16, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-500-23924-7). The fruits of a lifetime of experience by a cultural colossus, Phillippe de Montebello, the longest-serving director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is distilled in conversations with Gayford, an acclaimed critic. The two talked in art galleries, churches, and their own homes, and this book is structured around their journeys.

Training Days: The Subway Artists Then and Now by Henry Chalfant and Sacha Jenkins (Oct. 14, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-500-23921-6). Authentic first-person accounts from the graffiti artists whose creativity fueled the subway art movement from its beginnings in late 1970s and early ’80s New York.

Univ. of California

Come as You Are: Art of the 1990s by Alexandra Schwartz (Oct. 22, hardcover, $44.95, ISBN 978-0-520-28288-9). This catalogue accompanies the first major museum survey, opening at the Montclair Art Museum, to historicize art made in the U.S. during this pivotal decade. Showcasing approximately 65 works by 45 artists, the book features installations, paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, video, sound, and digital art.

David Lynch: The Unified Field by Robert Cozzolino (Dec. 1, hardcover, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-520-28396-1). Lynch is internationally renowned as a filmmaker, but it is less well known that he began his creative life as a visual artist and has maintained a devoted studio practice. This book features work from all periods of Lynch’s career.

David Smith in Two Dimensions: Photography and the Matter of Sculpture by Sarah Hamill (Dec. 15, hardcover, $49.95, ISBN 978-0-520-28034-2) investigates the photography of American sculptor Smith (1906–1965), who was one of the first modernist sculptors to use industrial welding as a sustained technique for large-scale sculpture, influencing a generation of minimalists to come.

Verso

(dist. by Random)

Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain by Robert Hewison (Nov. 11, paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-78168-591-4). The cultural historian shows how, from Cool Britannia in the 1990s and the Millennium Dome to the Olympics and beyond, creative Britain rose from the desert of Thatcherism, only to fall into the slough of New Labour’s managerialism.

The Intervals of Cinema by Jacques Ranciere (Oct. 7, paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-78168-606-5). In his latest book, the acclaimed French philosopher relates cinema to literature and theater. The cinema, he argues, is a real, material space in which one feels moved by the spectacle of shadows.

Yale Univ.

Another Light: Jacques-Louis David to Thomas Demand by Michael Fried (Oct. 7, hardcover, $60, ISBN 978-0-300-20817-7). In this richly illustrated book, art historian Fried has gathered eight major essays on subjects ranging from Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault, and Caspar David Friedrich to Gustave Caillebotte, Roger Fry, and recent films by Douglas Gordon and Thomas Demand.

Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art by E.H. Gombrich (Oct. 28, hardcover, $22, ISBN 978-0-300-21004-0). In this intriguing book, one of the world’s foremost art historians traces how cast shadows have been depicted in Western art through the centuries.

The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995 by Thomas Crow (Oct. 14, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-300-20397-4). An original and insightful new history of pop art, Crow’s paradigm-changing book challenges existing narratives about the rise of pop art by situating it within larger cultural tides.

The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style by David Young Kim (Dec. 23, hardcover, $75, ISBN 978-0-300-19867-6) examines how travel affected the identities and artistic styles of such Renaissance artists as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Lotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian, establishing connections between these artists’ travel and responses to their work in early modern literature.

The World Atlas of Street

Photography by Jackie Higgins (Sept. 2, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-300-20716-3). An ambitious compendium of vibrant, varied expressions of street photography, both staged and improvised, from around the globe.