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Chinese Toggles

Culture in Miniature

By Shuxia Chen, Min-Jung Kim

Rare objects from one of the world's only major collections

This book introduces the understudied cultural artifact of the Chinese belt toggle, known as zhuizi (坠子). Similar to their better-known Japanese counterparts, netsuke, these small carved...

India's Mithila Painting

By David L. Szanton, Paula Richman

A woman's art form transforms from home to high art

Since at least the fifteenth century, Hindu women in the Mithila region of northern India have been painting images of deities, flora and fauna symbolizing fertility...

Reenvisioning Histories of American Art

Transforming Museum Practice

By Jami C. Powell, Michael Hartman

How museums are changing to embrace a more inclusive vision of American art

US museums have faced increasing pressure to reckon with their histories in light of movements against racism, violence, and the erosion of human...

Bronze Mirrors in Ancient China

Artistry and Technique

By Kin Sum Li

Examines mass production in antiquity

Highly decorated mirrors are widely sought by museums with collections of Chinese art and are the most actively exchanged items in the art market of ancient Chinese bronzes. Featuring intricate designs...

Indigenizing California Mission Art and Architecture

By Yve Chavez

Examines how native artists kept their culture alive by creatively adapting under colonial rule

Between 1769 and 1823, the Franciscans established twenty-one missions in California, colonizing the ancestral territories of many Native communities between present-day Sonoma...

Magritte

By Nicholas Chambers

Published in association with a major survey of the work of the pioneering Belgian surrealist artist

René Magritte is renowned for his thought-provoking and enigmatic paintings that challenge perceptions of reality. His exploration of the subconscious...

Salon Culture in Japan

Making Art, 1750–1900

By Akiko Yano

Celebrates the British Museum's rich collection of artworks created as part of Japanese cultural salons

In early modern Japan, cultural salons were creative spaces for people of all ages and social levels to pursue painting, poetry,...

Maidens or Monsters?

Tales of Amazons, Goddesses, Queens and Temptresses in Medieval Manuscripts

By Chantry Westwell

An illustrated collection of exceptional female figures in myth and legend

In the Middle Ages, some of the most popular and well-loved stories were about female saints, classical heroines, and the female protagonists of romance cycles....

Nordic Utopia?

African Americans in the Twentieth Century

By Leslie Anne Anderson, Ethelene Whitmire, Temi Odumosu, Ryan Thomas Skinner

Features the experiences of African American artists in Nordic Europe

During the twentieth century, Black Americans visited and lived in Nordic countries, performing, studying, working, and seeking adventure, love, freedom to explore sexuality, and distance from...

Preoccupied

Indigenizing the Museum

By Dare Turner, Leila Grothe

Interrogates the colonial underpinnings of museums

Published on the occasion of the “Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum” initiative at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this book centers Native artist voices and challenges collective understandings of Native peoples’...

Glorious Qing

Decorative Arts in China, 1644-1911

By Claudia Brown

A guided tour through centuries of exquisitely crafted objects

With over 250 color illustrations, this companion volume to Claudia Brown's Great Qing: Painting in China, 1644–1911 covers an array of superbly crafted objects of art produced...

Queer World Making

Contemporary Middle Eastern Diasporic Art

By Andrew Gayed

An abundantly illustrated look at how queerness is performed within artistic practice

Premodern archives from the Middle East show rich and diverse homoerotic worlds that were disrupted by the colonial imposition of Western models of sexuality....

Skidegate House Models

From Haida Gwaii to the Chicago World's Fair and Beyond

By Robin K. Wright

Explores the Skidegate model village carved by Haida artists for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

In 1892 seventeen Haida artists were commissioned to carve a model of HlGaagilda Llnagaay (the village of Skidegate on Haida Gwaii,...

Determined to Be

The Sculpture of John Rhoden

By Brittany Webb, Sylvea Hollis, Katelyn D. Crawford, Greg Barnhisel, Rebecca Vandiver, Kelin Baldridge Smallwood, Hannah McCoy

This richly illustrated book celebrates the groundbreaking work of an African American sculptor

Determined to Be explores the work of prizewinning American sculptor John Walter Rhoden (1916–2001). When Rhoden was young, his talent caught the attention...

Barbara Earl Thomas

The Illuminated Body

By Carolyn Swan Needell

Features work across a wide range of artistic mediums including paper, glass, and Tyvek

A talented visual storyteller, Barbara Earl Thomas has drawn from history, literature, folklore, mythology, and biblical stories over her forty-year career to...

Tengautuli Atkuk / The Flying Parka

The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska

By Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade

A unique collaboration celebrating the importance of parkas in Yup'ik material culture

Parkas are part of a living tradition in southwest Alaska. Some are ornamented with tassels, beads, and elaborate stitching; others are simpler fur or...

UnAustralian Art

Ten Essays on Transnational Art History

By Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson

UnAustralian Art: Ten Essays on Transnational Art History proposes a radical rethinking of Australian art. Rex Butler and ADS Donaldson do not seek to identify a distinctive national sensibility; instead, they demonstrate that Australian art...

Not Native American Art

Fakes, Replicas, and Invented Traditions

By Janet Catherine Berlo. Foreword by Joe Horse Capture

Explores the making and meaning of so-called Native American art

The faking of Native American art objects has proliferated as their commercial value has increased, but even a century ago experts were warning that the faking...

Life and Afterlife in Ancient China

By Jessica Rawson

The three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese civilization still in place today: an extraordinarily challenging geography and environment;...

China's Hidden Century

1796-1912

By Jessica Harrison-Hall, Julia Lovell

Cultural creativity in China between 1796 and 1912 demonstrated extraordinary resilience in a time of warfare, land shortages, famine, and uprisings. Innovation can be seen in material culture (including print, painting, calligraphy, textiles, jewelry, ceramics,...