The cover of a new book draws you in for Kahlo, but you will stay for Mary Reynolds, the innovative bookbinder and partner of Marcel Duchamp.
Nageen Shaikh
Nageen Shaikh is an art historian and critic. She is most interested in production over ideation in South Asian art, early modern and contemporary art, artist studios, languages, and collaborations between art materials, design, and science. She may be found very sporadically on socials.
Posted inBook Review
The Brief and Illustrious Life of the Telegraph
Time Machines reveals entanglements between the largely forgotten optical telegraph and artistic movements in 19th-century France.
Posted inBook Review
Unraveling the Imperial Impulses of Chinese Textiles
Like an art history detective, Mei Mei Rado mines textiles and techniques to reveal cross-cultural Chinese-European liaisons driven by nationalism and a keen interest in design.
Posted inBook Review
An Artist’s Thirty-Year Affair With Copper
No Man’s Land, Pakistani artist Amin Gulgee’s first comprehensive monograph, maps his interest in exploring ritual, science, grief, and healing in a visual language all his own.
Posted inArt
A “Both Sides” Approach to Orientalism
An exhibition hints that Jean-Léon Gérôme and his contemporaries deserve a second look for the virtuosity of their photorealism. I don’t take the bait.
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Debunking Myths About Meiji-Era Art in Japan
Rosina Buckland’s book dispels the whitewashed argument that Meiji-era art resulted from foreign influences that watered down local forms.
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Inside the Life of the Father of Modern Anatomy
A new book on Andreas Vesalius humanizes the 16th-century scientist by focusing on his creative approaches and small frustrations.
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The Smoky Visual History of Censers
From Mesoamerican rituals to royal Asian courts, Holy Smoke explores incense vessels and their rich network of makers, biotic substances, and knowledge.
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14 Art Books to Read This Summer
From an occult Renaissance manuscript and the history of eyeliner to Salman Rushdie’s new book, our staff and contributors have got you covered.
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How Big Cats Once Symbolized France’s Colonialist Ambitions
Myth and Menagerie urges us to view lions as sentient beings and not as timeless, passive objects of representation for 19th-century French artists.
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The Legends, Luxuries, and Dreams of Imperial Mughal Ateliers
In Brush of Insight, Yael Rice charts a Mughal “visual economy” thriving between the 16th and early 17th centuries in India.
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Can AI Be Better at Art History Than Us?
Artificial Intelligence may efficiently sort images but loses out to a humanistic approach.