Persona: Masks of Africa Hidden and Revealed Identities by Anne-Marie Bouttiaux

Based on an exhibition of 180 masks—more than 100 from the outstanding collection at the Royal Museum of Central Africa of Tervuren, Belgium—and works by contemporary African artists, this extraordinary book offers a new interpretation of the mask as the universal object that both hides and reveals. Beautifully designed, Persona presents masks organized by their usage, the dances, and rituals they serve and the belief system they display. The contemporary works, selected for their artistry, formal boldness, and intrinsic message, arouse a similar aesthetic response, but serve a different function from the ritual masks. This stunningly illustrated and engaging book explores both the real and emblematic roles of the mask, as objects which are “devitalized” when placed in museums but which nevertheless prompt questions of identity, self-esteem and conceptions of the Other in Western society.

Cezanne and American Modernism by Gail Stavitsky, Katherine Rothkopf, Gail Stavitsky

Examining Cézanne’s influence on more than a generation of American artists, this handsomely illustrated book features paintings and photography by Paul Strand, Marsden Hartley, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Demuth, Arshile Gorky, Charles Sheeler, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Maurice Prendergast, Morgan Russell, Max Weber, and many others. Cézanne’s far-reaching transformative impact on each artist’s aesthetic vision is explored, while extensive essays shed new light on a wide range of subjects from American collectors of his work and his shaping of modernism in the American West to the lasting resonance of his art on Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s.

Botanica Magnifica: Portraits of the World’s Most Beautiful and Rare Flowers and Plants, by Jonathan Singer, John Kress, Marc Hachadourian

An extraordinary collection of two hundred and fifty richly detailed photographs of rare and exotic plants.

Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin, and Florence Miller Pierce by Karen Moss

This book celebrates the careers of four extraordinary American women artists, and is the first publication to bring together their work, featuring 100 superb paintings, drawings and archival images

Kandinsky by Wassily Kandinsky (Artist), Tracey Bashkoff (Editor), Vivian Endicott Barnett, Christian Derouet

Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra by Walton Ford, Bill Buford

Executed with the deft skill of a natural history artist, Ford’s works vibrate with an intensity of uncanny familiarity; they are both reassuring in style and disturbing in content. With titles like Au Revoir Zaire, Dirty Dick Burton’s Aide de Camp, and Space Monkey, his paintings not only blur the lines between human and animal history, but also open the doors to a world of real-life fantasy, dreams, and nightmares. For this hand crafted, limited-edition volume, Ford’s paintings have been color-separated and reproduced in Pan4C, the finest reproduction technique available today, providing unequalled intensity and color range. The book includes 12 horizontal and 4 vertical foldouts, along with dozens of details, which present the work at a scale that practically allows the viewer to enter the ancient and peopled landscapes, feel the brush of a bird’s feathers against flesh, and experience the hot breath of a wild cat about to go for the jugular.