Nonfiction category: 1132351 books

Camille Claudel, sister of writer Paul Claudel, was a gifted nineteenth-century French sculptor who worked with Auguste Rodin, became his lover, and then left him to gain recognition for herself in the art world. With a strong sense of independence and a firm belief in her own considerable talent,...

A biographical history of Aleister Crowley’s activities in Berlin from 1930 to 1932 as Hitler was rising to power • Examines Crowley’s focus on his art, his work as a spy for British Intelligence, his colorful love life and sex magick exploits, and his contacts with magical orders •...

Painter, designer, and filmmaker Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the most colorful and controversial figures in 20th-century art. A pioneer of Surrealism, he was both praised and reviled for the subconscious imagery he projected into his paintings, which he sometimes referred to as "hand-painted...

From the late editor, writer, and critic, one of the great chroniclers of the art, fashion, and celebrity scenes: an expansive collection of thirty-five essays that offer an intimate look into the worlds of some of the most important and well-known artists, designers, and actors of our time. For...

Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and singer. She is the recipient of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy Award. She is the youngest person to acquire six Academy Award nominations, and is one of the few actresses to win three of the four major American entertainment awards (EGOT)....

La biografía del enigmático, ambiguo y genial pintor Balthus. «La vida ha sido para mí una larga tarea de la que no me arrepiento en absoluto», comenta Balthus en una de las páginas de este magnífico libro de memorias, y estas son quizá las palabras que mejor resumen la trayectoria...

All three of Anne Truitt’s artist’s journals in one e-volume, the illuminating, inspiring record of a woman’s reconciliation of the call of creative work with the demands of daily life—with a new introduction by Audrey Niffenegger. Anne Truitt kept a journal throughout her adult life,...

Denounced as a charlatan and fêted as a mystic, French artist Yves Klein (1928–62) scandalized the art world with his enthusiastic embrace of postwar mass culture and his exploitation of controversial publicity tactics. Today, we know Yves Klein not only as one of the most radical artists of the...

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is as a rule observed among the Russian artists of the Symbolist movement. Indeed, he obviously stood isolated from modern art tendencies; therefore the source of his atypical way should be finding in Byzantine and Early Renaissance art. Even in his first works, he demonstrated...

On a warm summer’s night in Athens, Georgia, Patrik Keim stuck a pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Keim was an artist, and the room in which he died was an assemblage of the tools of his particular trade: the floor and table were covered with images, while a pair of large scissors, glue,...

Nicholas Fox Weber, author of the acclaimed Patron Saints (“Exhilarating avant-garde entertainment”—Sam Hunter, The New York Times Book Review) and Balthus (“The authoritative account of his life and work”—Michael Ravitch, Newsday), gives us now the idiosyncratic lives of Sterling and...

One of the greatest art theft stories of the 20th century: André Malraux, French novelist, art theorist, and eventually France’s Minister of Cultural Affairs, and his wife, Clara, traveled to Cambodia in 1923, planning to steal and smuggle artifacts out of the country and sell them in America....

Before he started acting, Mark Wahlberg was best known as Marky Mark, the pants-dropping rapper who attained fame and notoriety with his group the Funky Bunch. In the tradition of Will Smith and Ice Cube, Wahlberg has made a successful transition from music to film, garnering particular early praise...