TASCHEN: Basic Art Series Books

Through the turbulent events of the last century-and-a-half, graphic design—with its vivid, neat synthesis of image and idea—has distilled the spirit of each age. It surrounds us every minute of the day, from minimalist packaging …

From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no…

“The Shining may be the first movie that ever made its audience jump with a title that simply says, ‘Tuesday,’” proclaimed The New York Times. Never has a film evoked so much dread in its audience with so little gore than Stanley …

From the beginning of human history, individuals across cultures and belief systems have looked to the sky for meaning. The movement of celestial bodies and their relation to our human lives has been the central tenant of astrolog…

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but o…

A voyage through mysterious and haunted lands, the sixth volume of The Library Esoterica delves into the art, rituals, and global mythologies of the spirit realms. Unearthing our complex beliefs around death, rebirth and resurrect…

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centurie…

The Book of Miracles first surfaced several ago and is one of the most spectacular discoveries in the field of Renaissance art. The near-complete illustrated manuscript, created in Augsburg around 1550, is composed of 169 pages of…

This inspiring collection covers the work, the lives, and the enduring impact of five key Impressionists, in one volume that’s a primer and a celebration of probably the most popular artistic genre of all time. Each featured…

Follow photographer Frédéric Chaubin as he embarks on a unique, century-spanning journey through Europe. Featuring images of more than 200 buildings in 21 countries, Stone Age presents the history and architecture of the most dram…

Architect Albert Frey (1903–1998) saw a modernist utopia in the desert. Born in Zurich, he studied in Europe with Le Corbusier before moving to the United States in 1930, convinced it was the land of architectural opportunity. On …

Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in America in the 1940s, with lead pr…

ernando Botero is an artist with his own style. For more than six decades, the Colombian's "Boterismo" technique has captured collectors, institutions, and public spaces worldwide with a unique, fleshy, overblown approach to the h…

Emerging amid the brutality of World War I, the revolutionary Dada movement took disgust with the establishment as its starting point. From 1916 until the mid-1920s, artists in Zurich, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, and New York launche…

orn Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) is widely acclaimed as the most influential architect of the 20th century. From private villas to mass social housing projects, his radical ideas, designs, and writings prese…

There are few images of 20th-century architecture more iconic than the nighttime view of Case Study House #22. At its eagle's nest promontory above Los Angeles, the building is a vision of streamlined glass and steel, its slick li…

Famed for his motto "less is more," Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was one of the founding fathers of modern architecture and a hotly-debated tastemaker of twentieth-century aesthetics and urban experience. Mies van der Rohe…

A key figure in the international avant-garde, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was at once an extraordinary painter and leading art theoretician whose influence resonates to this day. Coining the term "Neo-plasticism", he pursued a styl…

While anchoring his practice in the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) paved the way for modern sculpture. From a very early stage, he was interested in movement, the expression of the body, cha…

It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich's rising star in theater and silent…

In the mid-1950s, Yves Klein (1928-1962) declared that "a new world calls for a new man." With his idiosyncratic style and huge charisma, this bold artist would go on to pursue a brief but bountiful career, producing more than 1,0…

With his graphic style, figural distortion, and defiance of conventional standards of beauty, Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was a pioneer of Austrian Expressionism and one of the most startling portrait painters of the 20th century. Me…

One of the key figures in the New York art world of the 1980s, Keith Haring (1958-1990) created a signature style that blended street art, graffiti, a Pop sensibility, and cartoon elements to unique, memorable effect. With thick b…

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was interested in the telling of truths. Always operating outside the main currents of 20th-century art, the esteemed portrait painter observed his subjects with the regimen and precision of a laboratory s…

Walter Gropius (1883-1969) set out to build for the future. As the founding director of the Bauhaus, the Berlin-born architect had an inestimable influence on our aesthetic environment, championing a bold new hybrid of light, geom…

In endless odes to the female form, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) traced elongated bodies, almond eyes, and his own name into art history. His languid female subjects are as instantly recognizable as they are startling, sensual, a…

In the latter half of the 19th century, in the verdant countryside near Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), busily plied his brush to landscapes and still lifes that would become anchors of modern art. With compact, intense…

Meet the artist whose majestic breaking wave sent ripples across the world. Hokusai (1760-1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also a founding father of Western modernism, whose p…

In the architecture of Richard Neutra (1892-1970), inside and outside find their perfect modernist harmony. As the Californian sun glints off sleek building surfaces, vast glass panel walls allow panoramic views over mountains, ga…

Get to know Tadao Ando, the only architect to have won the discipline’s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. This succinct introduction explores Ando’s unique blend of calm Ja…