Nina Chanel Abney
This definitive monograph of over 300 images captures both the political urgency and the sheer razzle-dazzle engagement of the contemporary art star’s work — a riot of Pantone shades and playful shapes, executed in several mediums and often daubed with onomatopoeic pops of text. (Monacelli, $69.95.)
Richard Avedon Immortal
edited by Paul Roth
Avedon’s photographs graced the pages of Vogue and other 20th-century fashion bibles for decades. Here, though, his portraits of various luminaries (Duke Ellington, Dwight Eisenhower, Gloria Swanson) in their senescence expose something more than skin deep; whole worlds are contained in these well-earned crags and crevices. (Phaidon, $79.95.)
Feline
by Tim Flach
While Flach’s latest animal opus offers a cabinet of cat curiosities — hairless! Persian! polydactyl! — and brisk, erudite lessons in their subjects’ evolution (thanks to the accompanying text by Jonathan Losos), the primary takeaway here is the marvelous, almost surreally detailed photographs; you won’t miss a whisker. (Abrams, $70.)
Comics: 1964-2024
edited by Anne Lemonnier and Emmanuèle Payen
The case for comics as more than a dime-store distraction is assertively made by this comprehensive but not-too-scholarly compendium, which examines the continuing expansion of the form via some of its most gifted practitioners. (Thames & Hudson, $60.)
Lee Friedlander: Christmas
Have yourself a very realistic Christmas with these wonderfully quotidian images of the holiday, decked in tinsel and plastic dross. Seven decades of sex-store mannequins, suburban lawns and tired-eyed mall Santas all become rich (if questionably festive) fodder for seasonal drapings, captured by Friedlander’s quietly sardonic eye. (Eakins Press Foundation, $65.)
Banksy: The Prints
by Roberto Campolucci-Bordi and Paul Coldwell
The art-world provocateur has long championed the democratization of both creative expression and its ownership — as evidenced by the screen prints showcased here, from an image that impishly portrays a chimpanzee as Queen Elizabeth to the somewhat self-explanatory “Christ With Shopping Bags.” (Thames & Hudson, $50.)
The Contemporary Garden
by Annie Guilfoyle et al.
From a concentric monument located in a Japanese cemetery to a verdant hillscape overlooking the Côte d’Azur and an artful swirl of rock-studded Australian sand, these enviable green spaces traverse the globe and all manner of flora with their thoughtful, site-specific designs. (Phaidon, $64.95.)
Hiroshige
by Henri-Alexis Baatsch
Considered the last great artist of the Ukiyo-e (which translates as “images of the floating world”) tradition, Hiroshige, a fire warden turned printmaker who died in 1858, captured the world of preindustrial Japan via his atmospheric woodblock prints. (Thames & Hudson, $125.)
E Is for Edward
by Gregory Hischak
A quarter-century after his passing, the impish transgression of the writer and illustrator remains fresh. This lively book traces Gorey’s career peaks and personal obsessions, from his piquant A-to-Z of doomed children, “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” to his abiding fandom of George Balanchine and New York City Ballet. (Black Dog & Leventhal, $60.)
Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley
A cast-bronze love seat upholstered in tufts of reindeer fur; glass-beaded creatures of impossible provenance; purple porcelain mushrooms: This is the world of the twin multimedia artists Nikolai and Simon Haas, captured here in vibrant, tactile images — even the padded hot-pink cover feels squeezable. (Monacelli, $79.95.)
Patti Smith
by Claude Gassian
This predominantly black-and-white time capsule captures the musician in the thick of promoting her 1975 debut album, “Horses,” in France: visiting Jim Morrison’s grave, palling around with the German chanteuse Nico, but mostly preparing, performing and shaping the punk-laureate persona for which she would become known. (Abrams, $50.)
Dear New York
by Brandon Stanton
Having turned his popular photo blog “Humans of New York” into a small multimedia empire over the past 15 years, Stanton returns with his fourth physical book — a combination of on-the-street portraiture and micro-storytelling most recently displayed (naturally) in an installation this fall at Grand Central Terminal. (St. Martin’s, $42.)
Annie Leibovitz: Women
Hotel maids, farmers and Army recruits live alongside images of Supreme Court justices, Nobel laureates and Oscar-winning actresses in this two-volume reissue, which contains more than 250 portraits in both color and black-and-white culled from the photographer’s considerable archives. (Phaidon, $99.95.)
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