SmartHistory of Art: Modernism 1945 to 1980

What the possessions of eighteenth-century French artists reveal about their lives and work, from paintboxes to wigs. An original, beautifully illustrated study from the Getty Research Institute.

Katie Scott & Hannah Williams

A concise course text from Rococo and Neoclassicism to Impressionism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. Ideal for an overview of how modern art took shape.

Katherine Taylor

Written in 1914 by a collector who saw the avant-garde arrive in America, with dozens of color plates. A first-hand account of how Cubism shocked the world.

Arthur Jerome Eddy

A passionate history of painting and sculpture from the 17th century to Cezanne and the moderns. Faure writes like a novelist, which makes this classic a pleasure to read.

Elie Faure

Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism, movement by movement. Nearly 700 pages on the decades that reinvented art.

Smarthistory