A Guide to Giving MoMA Books
Books are a staple of the gift-giving season, and for good reason. Whether you’re looking for a elegant tome for a colleague, a playful yet smart book kids will love as much as parents, or a classic edition for an art connoisseur, you’ll find a book to suit every taste from MoMA’s award-winning publications. Here are our picks in some of the most popular categories:
All photos by Matthew Pimm
Lives of Artists
Duchamp: A Biography — The definitive biography of the infamously enigmatic artist, by acclaimed critic and New Yorker staff writer Calvin Tomkins.
Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor — Published in conjunction with the first large-scale survey of Gober’s art in the United States and prepared in close collaboration with the artist, this book features an essay by Hilton Als and an in-depth narrative of Gober’s life.
Isaac Julien: RIOT — An intellectual autobiography of the artist Isaac Julien, whose trail-blazing career has pushed film through the forms of documentary, biography, dance, narrative, and multiscreen installation and into the spaces of art
Living Well Is the Best Revenge — First published in 1971, this classic volume chronicles the lives of Gerald and Sara Murphy, two American ex-pats living in France during the 1920s who befriended the likes of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Art for Kids
Matisse’s Garden — The story of this endlessly curious artist, who used scissors and painted paper to make something utterly new, features colorful cut-paper illustrations and reproductions of Matisse’s own cut-outs.
Young Frank, Architect — This whimsical children’s book follows the adventures of Young Frank, who lives in New York City with his grandfather, Old Frank, as they learn just what architects are capable of.
Girls Standing on Lawns — Featuring vintage photographs from MoMA’s collection and new paintings by Maira Kalman, this small volume is a meditation on childhood, home, family, and the act of seeing.
What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids — Organized thematically by subjects like Games, Unusual Materials, Outer Space, and Bizarre Beasts, this engaging book introduces a young audience to works by contemporary artists.
Must-Have MoMA Catalogues
Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs — Published in conjunction with the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to Matisse’s paper cut-outs, this book presents over 150 works in a groundbreaking reassessment of the artist’s colorful and innovative final years.
Gauguin: Metamorphoses — This sumptuously illustrated catalogue highlights the extraordinary prints and transfer drawings Gauguin created between 1889 and his death in 1903, and their relationship to his paintings and sculptures.
Sturtevant: Double Trouble — Published to accompany the first major exhibition of her work organized by a U.S. museum, this book presents Sturtevant as an artist who adopts style as her medium to expose aspects of art’s making, circulation, and canonization.
Alibis: Sigmar Polke, 1963–2010 — Featuring over 500 illustrations and published in conjunction with the first comprehensive retrospective of Polke’s work, this catalogue examines the full range of his exceptionally inventive oeuvre.
Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988 — As the most comprehensive volume on the artist available in English, this exhibition catalogue examines the full depth of Clark’s oeuvre and presents new translations of her own writings.
The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters from The Museum of Modern Art — With more than 100 prints and posters by Lautrec from MoMA’s outstanding collection of his work, this book also comes with a color poster of Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithograph La Troupe de Mademoiselle Églantine.
Timeless Photography
Nicholas Nixon: The Brown Sisters, Forty Years — A mesmerizing portrait series that captures four sisters each year for forty years, from 1975 to 2014
Object:Photo. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949 — By treating photographs as special objects in and of themselves, this catalogue offers an unprecedented degree of detail on photographs in the Thomas Walther collection.
Atget — 100 carefully selected photographs present Paris and the surrounding countryside in the early 1900s through the eyes of the great French photographer Eugène Atget.
William Eggleston’s Guide — Published to accompany the first solo exhibition of color photographs at MoMA, this now-classic publication heralded the use of color as an integral element of photographic composition.
Walker Evans: American Photographs — This 75th-anniversary edition meticulously recreates the original publication designed by Evans himself.
Architecture Around the World
Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes — Reflecting the geographic extension of Le Corbusier’s designs and built works around the world, as well as his indefatigable wanderlust, this publication is structured as an atlas.
Henri LaBrouste: Structure Brought to Light — This richly illustrated, award-winning volume explores the structural innovations of this French architect lionized as a precursor of modern architecture.
Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity — Featuring over 400 works plus a range of documentary images, this catalogue offers a new generational perspective on the 20th century’s most influential experiment in artistic education.
Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities — This catalogue brings together an international group of scholars, practitioners, and other experts on architecture and urbanism in an effort to address rapid and uneven urban growth around the globe.
Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement — Eleven innovative design and architectural projects on five continents respond to localized needs in underserved communities.
