Bibliotheca Universalis

Sportive gentlemen, lascivious ladies: Since the earliest days of photography, people have been getting up to all manner of rannygazoo in front of the lens. This collection presents the finest highlights from the collection of New…

For the last couple of years, Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann have traced the latest developments in illustration around the globe-and for all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era, they're here to set the record…

Whether you’re thinking of getting a tattoo or just want to see to what lengths others have gone in decorating their bodies, this is the book to check out. 1000 Tattoos explores the history of the art worldwide via designs and pho…

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics-and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the in…

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) remains a quintessential Renaissance genius. The perfect companion to the Leonardo Graphic Work edition, this book is a compact catalogue rais…

Before reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already sculpted Pieta and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the …

Arranged alphabetically, this biographical encyclopedia features every major photographer of the 20th century alongside her or his most significant monographs. From the earliest representatives of classical Modernism right up to t…

Vincent van Gogh's story is one of the most ironic in art history. Today, he is celebrated the world over as one of the most important painters of all time, recognized with sell-out shows, feted museums, and record prices of tens …

Photographer, writer, publisher, and curator Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a visionary far ahead of his time. Around the turn of the 20th century, he founded the Photo-Secession, a progressive movement concerned with advancing …

"Girls, Gags & Giggles," ran publisher Robert Harrison's recipe for dishing up pin-up to the American male. Men loved his tasty dishes, a mixture of strippers and starlets dressed in outfits so fetishistic no one noticed they …

Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork. They turned to everyday …

A good logo can glamorize just about anything. Now available in our popular Klotz format, this sweeping compendium gathers diverse brand markers from around the world to explore the irrepressible power of graphic representation. O…

A magnificent pictorial document of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, the Hortus Eystettensis is in a class of its own when it comes to the range of flowers engraved. First published in 1613, the 367 cop…

Take a journey through the makers and shapers of celluloid history. From horror to romance, noir to slapstick, adventure to tragedy, Western to new wave, this selection gathers the greats of 20th-century cinema into one indispensa…

From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age-whether the Egyptian, Greek, or Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names such as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas, or Picasso-have succumbed to their…

With more than 280 entries, this architectural A-Z, now part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, offers an indispensable overview of the key players in the creation of modern space. From the period spanning the 19th to the 21st…

Amid the ravages of the Great Depression, the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) was first founded in 1935 to address the country's rural poverty. Its efforts focused on improving the lives of sharecroppers, tenants,…

This important addition to our understanding of art history's masterworks puts some of the world's most famous paintings under a magnifying glass to uncover their most small and subtle elements and all they reveal about a bygone t…

Over the years, talented architects have occasionally indulged themselves with the challenge of designing small but perfectly formed buildings. Today, with reduced budgets, many architects have turned in a more focused way to crea…

It was a dappled and daubed harbor scene that gave Impressionism its name. When Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was exhibited in April 1874, critics seized upon the work's title and its loose stylistic rendering of light and m…

The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is as old as humanity. In this neat TASCHEN edition, take a tour of some of our finest arboreal adventures with 50 of the most beautiful, …

Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet's Le Costume historique was in its day the most wide-ranging and incisive study of clothing ever attempted. Covering the world history of costume, dress, and st…

While the female nude has long played a conspicuous role in western iconography, the male nude has not always enjoyed such attention, or acceptance. This ode to the male physique celebrates the evolving, at one time illicit, art f…

The history of photography began nearly 200 years ago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognized as a medium in its own right. Cologne's Museum Ludwig was the first museum of contemporary art to devote a substantia…

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci remains the quintessential Renaissance genius. Creator of the world's most famous paintings, this scientist, artist, philosopher, inventor, builder, and m…

Not so very long ago, some might have considered wood a material of the past, long since replaced by more modern components such as concrete and steel. The truth is radically different. Bolstered by new manufacturing techniques an…

It was the Belle Epoque, a time before air travel or radio, at the brink of a revolution in photography and filmmaking, when Burton Holmes (1870-1958) began a lifelong journey to bring the world home. From the grand boulevards of …

Whether it's Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Big Sleep, roam a screen world of dark and brooding elegance with this essential handbook to Film Noir. From private eyes and perfect crimes to corrupt cops and doomed affairs,…

A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's major w…

George Eastman's career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak progressed from a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, and a crucial innovator in photographic history…