Products

The illustrated story of the life and times of architect Richard Morris Hunt, his forty-year career, and his impact on American culture after the Civil War.

Celebrated internationally in the nineteenth century as America’s premier architect, Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895) is best known for his opulent Gilded Age Vanderbilt mansions, including Biltmore, the Breakers, Marble House, and other landmark works. Yet Hunt’s impact on American culture after the Civil War ranges far beyond his lavish palaces. In The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt, historian Sam Watters reveals Hunt’s remarkable influence in creating the institutions and their conventions that transformed Old World traditions into his generation’s idea of an American civilization, through architecture, interior design, sculpture, painting, and the ardent advocacy of artisan trades.

Watters repositions Hunt and his forty-year career in light of new discoveries and connections made through his meticulous study of the Richard Morris Hunt Collection at the Library of Congress. Featuring 200 illustrations, including Hunt’s drawings, images he collected, portraits of his privileged New York and Newport inner circle, and new photographs and plans, this dynamic biography follows the contours of American thought that shaped Hunt’s life and work among the ruling one percent.

Our love affair with the baseball jersey continues in this major new book on the evolution of the iconic shirt as sportswear, streetwear, cultural icon, and fashion must-have.

This magnificent new volume presents works of art from the fabled collection of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674-1723)—including masterpieces by Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Poussin, Rubens, and Rembrandt—bringing them together for the first time since the collection’s sale and dispersal more than two hundred years ago. In this book a representative group of nearly forty works—paintings, books, engravings, and portraits—tell the story of the collection's formation and exceptional character, focusing on such themes as the importance of the collection in the duke’s lifetime; the art market in early eighteenth-century Paris; the display of the collection in public and private spaces; and its widespread fame and resulting impact on visitors and contemporary artists and collectors in Paris.

This volume is both a celebration of the tricentennial of the city of New Orleans, as well as being a major contribution to art historical scholarship and is of great interest to art historians and collectors, as well as to the general public. The volume is structured to maximize scholarly interest, publish new research and consolidate what is known about Phillippe II’s collection, one of the greatest private collections of Western art ever assembled.

It features contributions by an international array of leading scholars, including Françoise Mardrus, Louvre Museum; Nicole Garnier-Pelle, Musée Condé; Alexandre Dupilet, author and historian; Xavier Salomon, The Frick Collection; Rachel McGarry, Minneapolis Institute of Art; Julia Armstrong-Totten, formerly of the Getty Provenance Index; Jean-François Bédard of Syracuse University; and Kelsey Brosnan, curatorial fellow for European Art at New Orleans Museum of Art.

A wide-ranging study of the intertwined notions of home and homeland that were central to the art and material culture of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The arts played a crucial role in reinforcing a shared sense of belonging amongst Nordic countries as they strove to identify and celebrate authentic local and national identities. “Home” was a central metaphor in the nation building activities of each country. The links between land, landscape, handicraft and domestic dwellings as dimensions of home are embedded in this survey which brings the extensive collection of David and Susan Werner into public view for the first time.

The catalogue encompasses an impressive range of paintings, drawings, furniture, textiles, glass, metalwork, and ceramics. Highlights include rare tapestries and a wooden cabinet by Norwegian artist Gerhard Munthe, Finnish ceramics by Alfred William Finch, landscape paintings by Hilma af Klint, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Gustav Fjaestad and Pekka Halonen, and functional objects by outstanding handicraft artists covering embroidery, metalwork and wooden implements.

The Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher Collection is considered the world’s greatest private collection of portrait medals, rivalling many collections in international museums. This fully illustrated catalogue documenting the Scher Collection is an essential resource for scholars, students, collectors, and curators.

Portrait medals were developed during the Italian Renaissance and are central to the history of European portraiture, flourishing as an art form through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Though less familiar to us now than painting and sculpture, these exquisitely crafted objects, typically made from lead, bronze, silver or gold, were produced (sometimes in large numbers) to commemorate individuals, to acknowledge special events, and to disseminate the identity and power of their sitters.

The study of the portrait medal has become, through the work of Stephen Scher and others, a burgeoning area of new scholarship. Excellent reproductions of all medals to size, with details of obverse, reverse and full captions, are accompanied by scholarly essays, interesting facts and historical references in this important new volume.

This volume, coinciding with the opening of permanent Art of the Americas galleries at the Walters Art Museum in 2025, examines how, for people in the Indigenous Americas, materials had and continue to have a life of their own.

Ancient and modern craftspeople shaped jade, gold, feathers, and clay into exquisite artworks, but the meanings of those objects are intertwined with the living essence of the raw materials themselves.

Thirty-five highlights, ancient to contemporary, provide a window into the spiritual and intellectual context in which these objects were understood by the Indigenous people who made and used them.

Este tomo, que coincide con la apertura de las galerías permanentes Arte de las Américas en 2025, examina cómo, para los pueblos indígenas de las Américas, los materiales tenían y siguen teniendo vida propia.

Al igual que lo hacían los artesanos de la antigüedad, los de hoy dan forma al jade, al oro, a las plumas o a la arcilla para crear exquisitas obras de arte cuyo significado en tanto objetos está entrelazado también con la esencia viva de las propias materias primas.

Son 35 las piezas destacadas de la colección de las Américas, tanto antiguas como contemporáneas, que permiten apreciar el contexto espiritual e intelectual en el que fueron concebidos estos objetos por los pueblos indígenas que los fabricaron y emplearon.

The story of Virginia is at the centre of the American experience. World-changing, pivotal events of the nation have most often taken place in Virginia or been meaningfully shaped by Virginians. The ideas most cherished by Americans were oft inspired and contested in the state, with lasting consequence.

The history of the “mother of states” and the “mother of presidents” is long, rich, and complex. While Virginians have offered ideas with lasting positive global impact, they also have engaged in tragic fights and have allowed unmistakable injustices.

This book presents 400 evocative objects from Museum’s permanent exhibition, and from its impressive collection, chronologically and with brief background. In a 200-page sampling of letters, documents, artefacts, paintings, furniture, silver, and other decorative objects, along with books, maps, prints, broadsides, guns, uniforms, period photographs, and utilitarian objects, a unique and lavishly illustrated history of Virginia is provided.

An entirely new exploration of the life and career of the expat American artist Julius LeBlanc Stewart (1855-1919), who spent nearly all his life in Paris, and whose oil paintings feature in private collections and those of many major museums on both sides of the Atlantic.

Stewart’s paintings are highly engaging and attractive, covering a broad cross-section of later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American Expat Parisian high society, its genteel past-times, and travel, in a style of painting that was uniquely his own, and that was lauded in both Europe and America. This new volume presents over seventy major paintings, pastels and drawings across thematic sections, with a new introduction to Stewart’s life, career, and world through essays by major specialists on nineteenth and early twentieth century American art and history.

The authors look variously at Stewart’s early career and training at the École des Beaux-Arts, his later tutelage under French and Spanish masters, Eduardo Zamacoïs, Jean-Léon Gérôme, and Raimundo Madrazo, his family's involvement in the production of sugar; then the world of the American Expat society in which Stewart circulated, and the evolution Stewart's later style, in the mid 1880s towards multi-figured, narrative scenes of his family, friends and meticulous depictions of their costumes; then for a brief period later the sensuous Arcadian nudes bathed in sunlight, celebrating the attributes of Diana and the Bachenates. Collectively these provide the first major exploration of Stewart's world and work with, new contribution to our understanding of the importance and legacy of his art, and his advocation for his community of fellow American artists in France.

The Triumph of Nature returns us vividly to an entrancing time in European decorative arts, from its beginnings in the Arts and Crafts movement and Japonisme, through to its evolution into Art Deco style.

An exuberant, radical style, Art Nouveau blithely trampled many of the Victorian Age’s orthodoxies of art and design. Exploding age-old strictures with its fanciful approach to furniture, graphic arts, jewelry, architecture and more, Art Nouveau also embraced new technologies and incorporated foreign stylistic flourishes. Designing for a range of clients and settings including domestic interiors, innovative artists such as de Feure, Majorelle, and Gallé fashioned their eclectic works to play off each other in harmonious visual arrangements, conceiving of Art Nouveau as an enveloping style.

This stunningly illustrated comprehensive volume gathers a profusion of Art Nouveau works and accessories—furniture, paintings, sculpture, mosaics, books, posters, prints, lamps, glass, and other stunning objets d’art—all of them originally designed and coordinated to complement each other in elaborate ensembles.

This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World showcases American craft like never before. Accompanying a 2022 exhibition of the same name, it features artists’ stories of resilience, methods of activism, and highlights craft’s ability to spark essential conversations about race, gender, and representation.

This book marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the nation’s preeminent center for the enjoyment of American craft. It honors the history of the American studio craft movement while also introducing progressive contemporary narratives.

This Present Moment highlights the often-overlooked histories and contributions of women, people of color, and other marginalized communities. The volume features many of the more than two hundred recently acquired artworks to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection.

Named after Alicia Eggert’s 2019–20 neon artwork, This Present Moment looks at American craft “in the whirlwind of now,” revealing possibilities for contemporary makers to show us a more empathetic future.

Featured artists include Tanya Aguiñiga, Nick Cave, David Chatt, Sonya Clark, Cristina Córdova, Cindy Drozda, Alicia Eggert, J. Paul Fennell, Aram Han Sifuentes, Carla Hemlock (Kanienkeháka), Sharon Kerry-Harlan, Ron Ho, Katie Hudnall, Pat Kramer, Stephen Young Lee, Linda Lopez, Roberto Lugo, Wendy Maruyama, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Tom Loeser, John Mascoll, Connie Mississippi, George Nakashima, L. J. Roberts, Judith Schaechter, Preston Singletary, Polly Adams Sutton, Toshiko Takaezu, Gail Tremblay (Mi’kmaq and Onondaga), Nancy Worden, Consuelo Jiménez Underwood, and many more.

The cover of this volume is printed in 50 color variations; a purchased copy may be different from the image pictured.

New volume in the Frick Diptych series focuses on an exquisite Renaissance portrait, pairing an essay by Frick curator Giulio Dalvit with a rich contribution from contemporary artist Elizabeth Peyton.

Various identities for the richly dressed, contemplative young man in this portrait have been proposed but none with any certainty. The mood of the subject and the diffused, gentle play of light over the broadly painted surfaces are strongly reminiscent of Titian’s Venetian contemporary Giorgione. In many ways, the Frick portrait epitomizes a new tendency in Italian Renaissance portraiture in which the depiction is intended less as a description of the sitter than as an encounter with them.

A rich contribution by artist Elizabeth Peyton accompanies an illuminating essay by Giulio Dalvit which addresses the many questions of provenance, chronology, attribution and of who this mysterious young man might be.

This illuminating and richly illustrated volume celebrates the Custodia di Terra Sancta (Custody of the Holy Land), its history, its legacy,and its precious treasures.

The Custodia di Terra Sancta is a branch of the Franciscan order, established by the pope in 1342 to safeguard the church of the Holy Sepulcher and other holy sites in the Middle East. Today, the Custodia oversees eighty-two such religious sites and, in order to house its remarkable collection, is building the Terra Sancta Museum which is scheduled to open in Jerusalem in 2026.

Over the course of centuries Christian heads of state from across the Western world sent symbolic gifts to the Holy Sepulcher and other holy sites via the Franciscans of the Custodia. The objects, which range in date from the late Middle Ages through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, represent an extraordinary survival of the kinds of precious and valuable objects that were typically destroyed and melted down. Highlights include more than 60 pieces of gold- and silversmith work and textiles that date from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Among these are chalices and candlesticks in gold and silver and opulent liturgical vestments that were gifts from the Catholic kings of Europe.

New publication celebrates the dynamic tradition of narrative art among Native nations of the American Great Plains.

Unbound shows the full expression of Plains narrative art, from historical hides, muslins, and ledger books to contemporary works. Illustrating everything from war deeds and ceremonial events to family life, Indigenous identity, and pop culture, the artworks are as diverse as the individuals who created them.

Early narrative warrior-artists recorded their battle exploits on buffalo-hide shirts, and robes. In the late nineteenth century, as trade broadened, artists painted elaborate scenes of battles and ceremonies on large muslin tipi liners. When ledger books became available, artists filled their pages with narrative drawings. Native artists began reviving “ledger art” in the 1970s, creating a vibrant form that takes on contemporary topics, uses a variety of media, and is widely collected.

A vital new volume exploring the history of Virginia’s free Black population prior to emancipation.

On the eve of the Civil War, around 60,000 Black men, women, and children lived free in the state of Virginia, often alongside enslaved neighbours. This volume is a history documenting the richness and variety of their lives. Although many stayed in Virginia, living, working, and thriving despite serious threats to their lives, some moved north or, further still, across the Atlantic to Liberia. In studying the lives of free Black Virginians prior to emancipation, this volume explores an under-told and inspirational story of Virginia’s past.

By delving into collections across the Commonwealth, whether the records of the state or testimonies left by free Black people themselves, this new volume fills a critical gap in our understanding of Virginia’s Black history.

The subject of writing and receiving letters, which recurs frequently in the work of Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), is given dramatic tension in this masterful painting of two women in a mysterious moment of crisis. The artist seldom, if ever, surpassed the subtly varied effects of light seen here as it gleams from the pearl jewellery, sparkles from the glass and silver objects on the table, and falls softly over the figures in their shadowy setting.

Each book in the Frick Diptych series illuminates a single work in the Frick’s rich collection with an essay by a Frick curator paired with a contribution from a contemporary artist or writer.

A long overdue volume which re-establishes Vivian Browne as an important and dynamic American artist with an expressive hand and expansive world view.

Vivian Browne’s (1929-1993) varied career spanned more than three decades, from her early portraits and landscapes in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, her Little Men series of 1966-69, through her final San Joaquin and King’s Canyon paintings of the very early 1990s, completed just before her death in 1993. This highly active career was framed by Browne’s lasting political engagement and activism, that included being an initial director of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), born out of a response to the Metropolitan Museum’s failure to include a single Black Harlem-based artist in its 1969 exhibition, Harlem on My Mind, and her active memberships of Where We At (WWA), the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), and the feminist art collective Heresies, from the early 1970s through her death in 1993.

This volume presents about 62 paintings, prints, and works on paper across several major bodies of work, alongside ephemera highlighting Browne’s enduring activism and teaching work. Drawing upon previously unknown works and archives that have recently become available, this is a significant contribution to the history of twentieth century American art. It accompanies a major exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH, and at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, in 2025.

This volume, the first to explore this major artist's experiments in watercolor and his interesting and beautiful forays into ceramic decoration, features a brief note by Françoise Marquet-Zao.

Zao Wou-Ki (1920–2013) was the first artist of the Chinese diaspora to achieve international recognition and was one of France’s most important painters of the post-war era and beyond. His large abstract canvases were in step with those of New York School artists of the late 1940s and 50s and emerged from the growing international impulse for non-objective painting. Zao married western vanguard painting with Chinese traditions of calligraphy and ink-drawing and in doing so created a powerful personal aesthetic that was uniquely his own.

Drawn largely from European private collections, the works of art in this catalog have almost never been exhibited before and were deeply personal to the artist. Zao worked in watercolor throughout his long life and this catalog features examples from as early as 1960. But during his last years, the artist rediscovered the medium with newfound enthusiasm and turned increasingly to nature as the source of inspiration. In 2008, he gave up oil-painting entirely, and for the next two years, watercolor was his primary form of expression.

The ceramics consist of two main groups – plates produced in the late 1970s in association with Sèvres, bearing designs created by Zao expressly for this purpose, and later designs from the 2000s painted directly on vases, bowls and plates that were subsequently editioned by Maison Bernardaud in Limoges.