Another great loss this week -- R.I.P. Fred Herzog. Book of the day > Fred Herzog: Modern Color. Published by Hatje Cantz. " The most comprehensive book yet published on the Canadian color-photography pioneer Fred Herzog is best known for his unusual use of color photography in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when art photography was almost exclusively associated with black-and-white imagery. In this respect, his photographs can be seen as prefiguring the New Color photographers of the 1970s. The Canadian photographer worked largely with Kodachrome slide film for over 50 years, and only in the past decade has technology allowed him to make archival pigment prints that match the exceptional color and intensity of the Kodachrome slide, making this an excellent time to reevaluate and reexamine his work. This book brings together over 230 images, many never before reproduced, and features essays by acclaimed authors David Campany, Hans-Michael Koetzle and artist Jeff Wall. Fred Herzog is the most comprehensive publication on this important photographer to date."
 

Book of the Day > Robbert Frank: The Americans. Published by Steidl. "That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that’s what Robert Frank has captured in tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car (on Guggenheim Fellowship) and with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film. For this he will definitely be hailed as a great artist in his field… Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.” —Jack Kerouac, The Americans.

Book of the Day > Richard Diebenkorn: A Retrospective. Published by Rizzoli. “The quintessential book on the beloved California artist reveals new scholarly research and firsthand reflections by fellow artists and friends and relatives. A fresh and new overview of this treasured West Coast artist, with hundreds of his paintings, drawings, and prints covering five decades of his illustrious career. The book surveys the extraordinary achievements of Diebenkorn, who successfully explored both abstract and figurative painting. Produced in a slipcase box, this is the ultimate source for art enthusiasts, from his early work of the mid-1940s to his Berkeley and Ocean Park series. The book includes not only his iconic paintings of the California landscape and interior figures but also many of his less-well-known and rarely published works.”

Book of the Day: Jonathan Daniel Pryce: Garçon Style. Published by Laurence King. "Delve into New York, London, Milan, and Paris with close to 300 street-style images by the award-winning photographer Jonathan Daniel Pryce. From impeccable tailoring to vintage finds, these evocative images capture the myriad ways men in the fashion capitals express themselves sartorially. Featuring a foreword by Paul Smith and interviews with a selection of each city's most stylish men, this is a stunning showcase of menswear today."

Book of the Day > Kiss My Genders. Published by Hayward Gallery. “Kiss My Genders celebrates more than 30 international artists whose work explores and challenges traditional gender categories. The book features works from the late 1960s through to the present, and focuses on artists who draw on their own experiences to create content and forms that challenge accepted or stable definitions of gender. These include Lyle Ashton Harris, Sadie Benning, Nayland Blake, Jimmy DeSana, Chitra Ganesh, Peter Hujar, Juliana Huxtable, Zoe Leonard, Renate Lorenz and Pauline Boudry, Kent Monkman, Zanele Muholi, Catherine Opie, Christina Quarles and Del LaGrace Volcano, among many others. Working across mediums, many of these artists treat the body as a sculpture, and in doing so open up new possibilities for gender, beauty and representations of the human form. From pop culture and gender dissidence to the embrace of the "monstrous" or "freaky," from the politics of pose to transfeminism and politics on the street, each of these artists throws light on a different way of seeing.”