Museum Publications
The Publishing Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art develops, produces, and publishes the Museum's books, handbooks, and collection and exhibition catalogues, as well as the Bulletin, an occasional scholarly publication. The department collaborates with other institutions on joint exhibition publications, and arranges for the distribution and co-publication of its titles in the trade in the United States and abroad.
Recent Reviews
“An exhilarating exhibition accompanied by an exceptional catalog . . . beautiful reproductions, which picture every work in the show, nearly all of them newly taken by Will Brown, the Philadelphia photographer.”
— Roberta Smith, New York Times, April 11, 2013
“The catalogue itself is the book's heart, offering lavish reproductions alongside brief notes on the artists' biographies and methods. The works are smartly presented with little context outside of the biographical, encouraging the art to be considered for its visual qualities. A series of essays expands upon the questions raised by categorizing the work, both to the art itself and to the institutionalized art world; particularly useful are Francesco Clemente's lyric take on the visionary yet human impulse of the outsider artist, and Joanne Cubbs's articulation of the Black South's crucial importance to outsider art. The collection amassed by Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz offers only a glimpse at the thriving worlds of outsider art, but it's a glimpse that is invaluable, refreshing, and thrilling.”— Roberta Smith, New York Times, April 11, 2013
— Starred review in Publishers Weekly, March 25, 2013
Winner, 2010 Barr Award
“Phenomenal catalog.”—Roberta Smith, New York Times
“As absorbing to read as a whodunit. I wolfed it down, transfixed, in a night and a day.
”—Holland Cotter, New York Times
“An exhaustive account . . [and] a terrific read.
”—Holland Cotter, New York Times '09 Holiday Gift Guide
“This compilation of essays ... goes past fascinating.
”—Journal of Surrealism and the Americas
New Releases
Showcases Spanish and Portuguese artworks from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in a variety of mediums and from far-flung places, including paintings, silver, and furniture from South America and sculptures in ivory from the Spanish Philippines and from Portuguese territories in India.
The contemporary art world has been challenged and invigorated by outsider art-works by self-taught practitioners who, by definition, have little to do with mainstream art production, but are nonetheless actively engaged with the visual culture of their time and place.
This fascinating book explores the interwoven lives, radical art, and shared experimental spirit of Marcel Duchamp and four of America's most important postwar artists: composer John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham, and visual artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.
The Life Line, a thrilling scene of rescue on stormy seas, firmly established Winslow Homer (1836-1910) as one of the leading American painters of his day, and one of the foremost maritime artists of all time.
Zoe Strauss: 10 Years offers a midcareer assessment of Strauss’s achievement to date, and the first full account of her celebrated ten-year project, beginning in 2001, to exhibit her photographs under an elevated section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.
Since its founding in 1972, the Brandywine Workshop has become an internationally recognized center for printmaking and a vital part of the Philadelphia community.
The notion of a golden age set in an earthly paradise has long kindled the human imagination. Virgil envisioned such a place of bucolic pleasures-erotic and unsullied, sometimes shadowed by blunted desires and doubts-in his Eclogues, set in the valley of Arcadia in ancient Greece.
Collecting Modern explores the development and significance of the Museum's extraordinary collection of contemporary design and decorative arts.
This sumptuously illustrated book offers a completely new way of looking at the art of Vincent van Gogh, by exploring the artist's approach to nature through his innovative use of the close-up view.
