1-Up

Jamie Brisick

Brian Lukacher

Emily Erickson

Stephanie Gilmore

Texts by Jamie Brisick and Brian Lukacher. Contributions by Emily Erickson and Stephanie Gilmore

“All this must be either surfed or painted”: This is the underlying sentiment behind Raymond Pettibon’s iconic works of surfers and waves in this quintessential volume dedicated to the motif.

Pettibon is known for his characteristically enigmatic aesthetic and sharply satirical critiques of American culture. Though drenched in cynicism, his work empathizes with the dizzying madness of our own humanity as it engages both so-called high and low culture. Perhaps most poetic among the many motifs present in Pettibon’s oeuvre is the surfer. In 1985, Pettibon began his series of surfers and waves––which he continues to work on to this day––popular for depicting a lone surfer silently carving “a line of beauty” along an impossibly large wave.

This book spotlights a selection of more than one hundred surfers from the series, from smaller monochromatic works on paper to colorful large-scale paintings applied directly to the wall. For Pettibon’s protagonist in these works, surfing exists apart from all else. Momentarily he achieves sublimity on the wave, distant yet synced with turbulent reality. We are forced to confront our own scale: small and feeble in the face of the power of nature, what is beyond our control. Pettibon’s lyrical writings on these painted surfaces—both his own and lines taken from literature—reference his own philosophies and the confusions of reality: he critiques and highlights the hypocrisies and vanities of the world he engages. To help navigate, the scholar Brian Lukacher explores art-historical antecedents in Pettibon’s work, particularly the seascapes of J. M. W. Turner, and Jamie Brisick, the writer and former professional surfer, examines the Southern California surf and music culture of Pettibon’s youth. Professional big wave surfers Emi Erickson and Stephanie Gilmore also describe the sensory experience of conquering the enormous waves depicted in Pettibon’s works.

Point Break: Raymond Pettibon, Surfers and Waves

Kandis Williams

Ebony L. Haynes

Hannah Black

Okwui Okpokwasili

Clarion

Introduction by Ebony L. Haynes. Text by Hannah Black. Conversation between Kandis Williams and Okwui Okpokwasili

The inaugural volume in a new series of books, 

 documents the Los Angeles–based artist’s exhibition 

. Interrogating issues of race, nationalism, authority, and eroticism, her topical work is made across collage, sculpture, and video.



Williams draws on her background in dramaturgy to envision a space that accommodates the biopolitical economies that inform how movement might be read. Looking at the interconnections between popular culture and myth, she relates in her work anatomy, regions of Black diaspora, and communication and obfuscation. Williams’s body of work shapes an alternative language that examines how Black moving bodies are regarded. Williams continues to make visible the inexpressible violence Black bodies have been subjected to in dance and beyond.

Featuring contributions by the curator of 52 Walker—a David Zwirner gallery space—Ebony L. Haynes and the artist and writer Hannah Black, and a stirring conversation between Williams and the artist Okwui Okpokwasili, the book serves as an extension of the exhibition. Included are high-quality illustrations of the artworks alongside rich archival materials.

Kandis Williams: A Line

Gertrude Stein

Lynne Tillman

ekphrasis

By Gertrude Stein. Introduction by Lynne Tillman

Originally published in 1930 in an edition of one hundred copies, Gertrude Stein’s 

 pairs her singular literary style with original lithographs by Pablo Picasso and other artists in Stein’s circle to create an exceptional artist book exploring written and visual portraiture.



Written between 1913 and 1929, revolutionary years in art history, 

 conveys the deep human engagement between an artist and her subject. The artist book unites Stein’s ten portraits in prose with ten sketches by five artists: Christian Bérard, Eugene Berman, Pablo Picasso, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Kristians Tonny. Utilizing the interplay between word and image, Stein’s writing and the artists’ images provide nuance and depth, balancing humor and sincerity.

With a new introduction by the writer Lynne Tillman, 

 is an unforgettable artistic collaboration. The subjects represented include Guillaume Apollinaire, Christian Bérard, Eugene Berman, Bernard Faÿ, Georges Hugnet, Pablo Picasso, Erik Satie, Pavel Tchelitchew, Virgil Thomson, and Kristians Tonny. Originally printed in an edition of one hundred copies with the lithography, and now widely accessible for the first time, Dix Portraits captures Stein’s legacy as a champion of artists and a pioneer of creativity.

Dix Portraits

Installation view of Carol Bove at the Met, New York, 2022.

Catherine Craft

Lisa Le Feuvre

Texts by Catherine Craft and Lisa Le Feuvre. Foreword by Jeremy Strick. Introduction by Catherine Craft

Exploring the recent sculptural innovations of prominent contemporary artist Carol Bove

 presents an extensive look into the contemporary artist’s work over the past five years and her ongoing exploration of scale, color, material, and artistic traditions of the twentieth century.

Bove’s recent work engages the conceptual concerns of mid-century sculpture, such as spontaneity, industrial materials, and the potential of painted sculpture. However, within this space of familiar sculptural traditions, Bove has discovered new approaches that lead to places previously unknown. Bove’s “collage sculptures” are created from scrap metal and stainless steel that has been carefully worked into sinuous forms and are frequently painted. Considering the hard rigidity of the steel, the works possess an appearance of almost impossible softness, as if steel could become as pliable as clay. Such works range from small pedestal sculptures to large, imposing compositions. Bove’s interest in scale and how a viewer’s understanding of an artwork shifts depending on its context are explored through a selection of small works from the collection of the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Published by the Nasher Sculpture Center, the catalogue features beautiful reproductions of Bove’s work and an introduction as well as an essay by curator Catherine Craft on the development of the collage sculptures and their relationship to other artists and traditions of modern sculpture. Also included is an essay by Lisa Le Feuvre that explores Bove’s complex work by means of a thematic alphabet related to the artist’s interests.

Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures

Foreword by Flavin Judd. Texts by Johanna Fateman, Lucy Ives, Branden W. Joseph, Marta Kuzma, Thessaly La Force, Anna Lovatt, Lauren Oyler, Wendy Perron, Michael Stone-Richards, and Mimi Thompson

A sweeping selection of Donald Judd’s iconic and ambitious works alongside a diverse collection of newly commissioned writings.

One of the most significant American artists of the postwar period, Judd rigorously experimented with color, form, material, and space. The works in this catalogue range from the artist’s expansive installations to self-contained single units, yielding valuable new insights into his process and approach. The survey includes one of his largest and most intricate installations of wall-mounted plywood boxes, conceived in 1986. Other works include variations on some of Judd’s most recognizable forms, executed in materials such as Corten steel, plexiglass, copper, plywood, brushed aluminum, and painted aluminum. Brilliant and exacting reproductions capture these works in vivid detail. Following the major Judd retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2020, this book serves as a companion volume.

With contributions from a wide range of voices—art historians, critics, writers, and performers— this publication includes rich new writings on Judd’s oeuvre, art criticism, and enduring influence. 

 is published on the occasion of the eponymous 2020 exhibition at David Zwirner New York.

Donald Judd: Artworks 1970-1994

Midnight Tears, 2023. © Yoshitomo Nara. Collection of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Contributions by Mika Yoshitake, Michael Govan, and Yoshitomo Nara

Three decades of the beloved Japanese artist’s paintings, drawings, sculptures and more



Spanning 35 years (1985 to 2020), this book—which accompanies the major career retrospective organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—presents the full range of Nara’s work. It also examines the artist’s work through the lens of his longtime passion—music—and features “liner notes” written by the artist about various albums in his personal collection of 1960s and 70s folk and rock albums, published in English for the first time.

The book features paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramic figures, an installation that re-creates his drawing studio, and never-before-exhibited idea sketches that reflect the artist’s empathic eye, shining a light on Nara’s conceptual process. Readers will see the evolution of a dynamic artist who has become more contemplative with age.

Yoshitomo Nara

Texts by Markus Krajewski, Tom McDonough, and Christopher Williams

Writings, documentation and more from Williams’s 2017 play

This slipcased, four-volume set focuses on Christopher Williams’s (born 1956) theatrical work 

, first presented in 2017 at Miller’s Studio in Zürich. It contains the playscript, publicity and research documents, the artist’s series of open letters and an interview with historian Markus Krajewski on the ceramic tile façades of postwar Cologne.

Christopher Williams: Stage Play, Walther Koenig, 2021

Christopher Williams: Stage Play

Text by Sarah Roberts and Katy Siegel. Contributions by Paul Auster, Gisele Barreau, Eric de Chassey, Jennifer Hickey, David Reed, Eileen Myles, Richard Shiff, Joyce Pensato and Jenni Quilter

A sweeping retrospective exploring the oeuvre of an incandescent artist, revealing the ways that Mitchell expanded painting beyond Abstract Expressionism as well as the transatlantic contexts that shaped her



Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) was fearless in her experimentation, creating works of unparalleled beauty, strength, and emotional intensity. This gorgeous book unfolds the story of an artistic master of the highest order, revealing the ways she expanded abstract painting and illuminating the transatlantic contexts that shaped her. Lavish illustrations cover the full arc of her artistic practice, from her exceptional New York paintings of the early 1950s to the majestic multipanel compositions she made in France later in her career. Signature works are represented here along with rarely seen paintings, works on paper, artist’s sketchbooks, and photographs of Mitchell’s life, social circle, and surroundings.

Featuring scholarly texts, in-depth essays, and artistic and literary responses, this book is organized in ten chronological chapters. Each chapter centers on a closely related suite of paintings, illuminating a shifting inner landscape colored by experience, sensation, memory, and a deep sense of place. Presenting groundbreaking research and a variety of perspectives on her art, life, and connections to poetry and music, this unprecedented volume is an essential reference for Mitchell’s admirers and those just discovering her work.

Joan Mitchell, Yale University Press, 2021

Joan Mitchell

Detail view of Alice Neel's 1967 painting titled Richard

The ultimate Alice Neel collection takes readers on an expansive journey through the iconic painter's work and life. With a practice spanning from the 1920s to the 1980s, Neel is widely regarded as one of the foremost American figurative painters of the twentieth century.

Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty

 is a definitive biography of the renowned American artist, whose life spanned the twentieth century, from women’s suffrage through the Depression, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and second-wave feminism.

shows that Alice Neel, known for her portraits of family, friends, writers, poets, artists, students, singers, salesmen, activists, and more, created forthright, intimate, and, at times, humorous paintings that quietly engage with political and social issues.

 documents the solo exhibition of the artist’s work at David Zwirner in New York in 2019. The exhibition and catalogue reveals that Alice Neel was a humanist—she was fascinated by people.

Alice Neel Collection

 is a new zine designed by the Marcel Dzama on occasion of the exhibition at David Zwirner in New York in 2021. The zine features details from an array of new drawings featured in the show, which expand on Dzama’s interest in travel and nature.

Marcel Dzama: Who Loves the Sun

Sherrie Levine, Dark Blue Moonlight After Man Ray: 11, 2016

Larry List

Jeanne Siegel

Spotlight Series

Text by Larry List. Interview with the artist by Jeanne Siegel

Exploring the development of groundbreaking artist Sherrie Levine’s work, this catalogue looks at four series central to her practice.

, which focuses on new bodies of work by contemporary artists, 

 showcases several series that distinctly engage the artist’s ongoing inquiry into notions of authorship, originality, and authenticity.

Many of the works are consistent with Levine’s practice—the deliberate reproduction of other artists’ works and styles, so that her work and the original are nearly indistinguishable (as with the 

 (2021) series). A number of the works make reference to modernist masterpieces, questioning the stereotypical construct of the heroic male artist. In her 

 (2016) series, Levine used a computer program to calculate the average tone of the nude figures in Renoir’s paintings and then used this color to create monochrome panels. Published for the first time, 

 (2017) replicates the patterns of a set of dominoes that Levine purchased in Hong Kong, evoking both minimalist art and popular games.

The catalogue also features a new essay by Larry List, which tracks the history of Levine’s inspirations and artistic practice, and an interview with Levine by Jeanne Siegel, originally published in the June/ Summer 1985 issue of 

, which explores the artist’s use of appropriated imagery.

Sherrie Levine: Hong Kong Dominoes

Virginia Woolf

Claudia Tobin

By Virginia Woolf. Introduction by Claudia Tobin

 series, this collection of Virginia Woolf’s writings on the visual arts offers a whole new perspective on the revolutionary author.

Despite wide interest in Woolf’s writings, and in the artists and art critics in her Bloomsbury circle, there is no accessible edition or selection of essays dedicated to her writings on art. This volume collects her longest essay on painting, “Walter Sickert: A Conversation” (1934), alongside shorter essays and reviews, including “Pictures and Portraits” (1920) and “Pictures” (1925).

These formally inventive texts reveal the centrality of the visual arts to Woolf’s writing and vision. They show her engaging with contemporary debates about modern art and are innovative in their treatment of ideas about color and form, including in response to the work of her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, who designed many of her book covers and jackets. In these essays and reviews, Woolf illuminates the complex and interdependent relationship between the artist and society, and reveals her own shifting perspectives during decades of social and political change. She also provides sharp and astute commentary on specific works of art and on the relationship between art and writing.

An introduction by Claudia Tobin situates the essays within their cultural contexts.

Oh, to Be a Painter!

Mamma Andersson, 2023. Photo by Pierre Björk

Karl Ove Knausgaard

This volume celebrates the Swedish artist Mamma Andersson’s new body of work—melancholic, evocatively colored paintings that explore femininity, fantasy, and memory.

Andersson’s works embody a new genre of landscape painting that recalls late nineteenth-century romanticism while also embracing a contemporary interest in layered, psychological compositions. Her panoramic scenes draw inspiration from a wide range of archival photographic source materials, filmic imagery, theater sets, and period interiors as well as the sparse topography of northern Sweden, where she grew up. The paintings utilize a selection of motifs from throughout her career: barren branches and thick-barked pine trees, domestic interiors, horses, and young women. Resembling still lifes, they further a tradition of quiet, dreamlike domestic scenes by Scandinavian artists such as Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916) and Edvard Munch (1863–1944). Part of a self-conscious effort to capture an experience rather than a specific event, the compositions are freer and more abstract and mark a departure from her earlier work.

Splendid color reproductions bring the artist’s textured brushstrokes, loose washes, and stark graphic lines to life on the page. The book also features a new essay by critically acclaimed author Karl Ove Knausgaard. 

 is published on the occasion of an eponymous exhibition presented at David Zwirner New York in 2020.

Mamma Andersson: The Lost Paradise

Doro Globus

Rose Blake

By Doro Globus and Rose Blake. Illustrated by Rose Blake

An exciting insight into the workings of artists and museums, Making a Great Exhibition is a colorful and playful introduction geared to children ages 3 to 7.

How does an artist make a sculpture or a painting? What tools do they use? What happens to the artwork next? This fun, inside look at the life of an artwork shows the journey of two artists’ work from studio to exhibition. Stopping along the way we meet colorful characters—curators, photographers, shippers, museum visitors, and more!

Both illustrator and author were raised in the art world, spending their time in studios, doing homework in museum offices, and going to special openings. They have teamed up to share their experiences and love for this often mysterious world to a young audience. London-based illustrator Rose Blake is best known for her work in 

, by David Hockney and Martin Gayford, which has been a worldwide success. Author Doro Globus brings her love for the arts and kids together with this fun journey.

Interior spread, Making a Great Exhibition, David Zwirner Books, 2024

Making a Great Exhibition

Bob Nickas

Laura McLean-Ferris

Text by Laura McLean-Ferris. Interview with the artist by Bob Nickas

In his rich new body of work, the Belgian artist Harold Ancart turns an immersive landscape of trees, mountains, and seas into a meditation on painting itself.

Ancart often paints subjects that naturally invite contemplation, such as the horizon, clouds, flowers, flames, and icebergs. His newest body of work captures the experience of landscape seen in motion or from a distance: trees blurred while driving past, a far-off inky-black sea, an evocative Martian mountain range. Recalling René Magritte, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Piet Mondrian, who approached this subject matter in distinct ways, Ancart blurs form and color, figure and ground, and figuration and abstraction.

Reproduced here in magnificent foldouts, two multipanel canvases situate the viewer between a mountainscape and a seascape, both monumental in scale. Ancart segments the seascape with a stark horizon line, dividing sky and ocean. Like other comparable motifs within the artist’s oeuvre, the vividly colored cloudy sky functions in an anthropomorphic way, alluding to the endless possibilities and personalities of organic forms.

Including an interview with the artist by Bob Nickas, this catalogue offers insight into Ancart’s frank reflections on painting, writing, nature, and more. The publication also features a new essay by Laura McLean-Ferris. Taken together, the works in 

 meditate on the expansive possibilities of painting.

Harold Ancart: Traveling Light

A painting by Giorgio Morandi titled Natura morta (Still Life), dated 1956.

Laura Mattioli

David Leiber

Heinz Liesbrock

Nicholas Fox Weber

Text by Laura Mattioli. Conversation between David Leiber, Heinz Liesbrock, and Nicholas Fox Weber

An unprecedented catalogue exploring the formal and visual affinities and contrasts between Josef Albers and Giorgio Morandi—two of modern art’s greatest painters.

Rarely seen together, the artwork of Josef Albers (1888–1976) and Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) shares many similarities. Although they never met, both artists worked in series as they explored difference and potential through their distinctive treatment of color, shape, form, and morphology. They were also both influenced by Cezanne. As master illusionists and experts in proportion, they tackle similar conceits from different perspectives. Albers focused on the effects of subtle or bold changes and interactions in color, while Morandi made still lifes that treat simple objects as a cast of characters on a stage, exploring their relationship in space.

Published on the occasion of the critically acclaimed exhibition 

, the book illuminates the visual conversation between these two artists. With the exhibition hailed by 

’s Peter Schjeldahl as “one of the best … I’ve ever seen,” this publication brings this unusual, thought-provoking pairing to your home. Gorgeous reproductions are accompanied by a roundtable about form and color between the exhibition’s curator, David Leiber; Heinz Liesbrock, the director of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany; and Nicholas Fox Weber, the director of Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, as well as an essay by the Morandi expert and founder of the Center for Italian Modern Art, Laura Mattioli.

Albers and Morandi: Never Finished

Zhu Zhu

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Text by Zhu Zhu. Translated by Denis Mair. Interview with the artist by Hans Ulrich Obrist

The Chinese artist Liu Ye’s meticulous, colorful canvases convey his love of literature in the first publication dedicated to his paintings of books.



Beijing-born painter Liu Ye (b. 1964) investigates the intersections of history and representation through a distinct vocabulary that transcends time and place, evoking distinct conceptual and emotional registers of meaning. Carefully balanced and lushly rendered, his works encompass a diverse range of aesthetic and cultural sources, from literary and artistic inspirations to his family and pets. In this new publication devoted to his book paintings, the artist examines the book as both a physical object and cultural totem. Playing with geometry and perspective, Liu creates extraordinary and disorienting portraits of this most familiar subject.

Liu’s 

 series, begun in 2013, depicts close-up views of books that are turned open to reveal empty pages, an approach that emphasizes the object’s form over its content. Rendering books’ material structure—endpapers, binding, spine—in sensual detail, these paintings indicate an obsession with the book as an object and a lifelong love of literature. Liu’s father was a children’s book author who introduced him to Western writers at a young age, fueling his curiosity and imagination. Many of the books in Liu’s father’s collection were banned in Cultural Revolution–era China and the artist read them secretly throughout his childhood. This formative experience figures in his popular 

 series and in his book paintings in general.

Published on the occasion of a solo exhibition presented at David Zwirner, New York, in 2020, this catalogue includes new writing by the acclaimed poet Zhu Zhu, who traces the evolution of the book form in Liu’s work, as well as an interview with the artist by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Liu Ye: The Book Paintings

Charles Baudelaire

Michael Fried

By Charles Baudelaire. Introduction by Michael Fried

In his introduction to Charles Baudelaire’s 

, the renowned art historian Michael Fried presents a new take on the French poet and critic’s ideas on art, criticism, romanticism, and the paintings of Delacroix.

Charles Baudelaire, considered a father of modern poetry, wrote some of the most daring and influential prose of the nineteenth century. Prior to publishing the international bestseller 

 (1857), he was already notable as a forthright and witty critic of art and literature. Captivated by the Salons in Paris, Baudelaire took to writing to express his theories on modern art and art philosophy.

 expands upon the tenets of romanticism as Baudelaire methodically takes his reader through paintings by Delacroix and Ingres, illuminating his belief that the pursuit of the ideal must be paramount in artistic expression. Here we also see Baudelaire caught in a fundamental struggle with the urban commodity of capitalism developing in Paris at that time. Baudelaire’s text proves to be a useful lens for understanding art criticism in mid-nineteenth-century France, as well as the changing opinions regarding the essential nature of romanticism and the artist as creative genius.

Acclaimed art historian and art critic Michael Fried’s introduction offers a new reading of Baudelaire’s seminal text and highlights the importance of his writing and its relevance to today’s audience.

The Salon of 1846

Rudolf Zwirner

Nicola Kuhn

Gérard Goodrow

Lucas Zwirner

By Rudolf Zwirner, written with Nicola Kuhn. Translated by Gérard Goodrow. Edited by Lucas Zwirner. Foreword by Lucas Zwirner

Rudolf Zwirner, “the man who invented the art market,” as coined in Der Spiegel, reflects on more than sixty years in the art business in his authoritative autobiography.

An art dealer of the ages, Rudolf Zwirner, father of the esteemed gallerist David Zwirner, reached many milestones in his career. From cofounding Art Cologne, the first fair for contemporary art, in 1967, to showing works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol, Zwirner transformed the contemporary art scene in Cologne. Born in 1933, he presented more than three hundred exhibitions from the early 1960s to 1992. In his autobiography, Zwirner reveals stories of artists, his gallery, and his most important collector, Peter Ludwig, whose collection forms the cornerstone of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.

First published in 2019 in German, and translated and adapted here for the first time in English, the book explores the most significant moments of Zwirner’s career and the fast-changing postwar art world. Also included in this edition is a new introduction by Lucas Zwirner, Rudolf’s grandson, who reflects on his grandfather’s role in bringing us to the global art landscape we find ourselves in now.

An Autobiography

Rudolf Zwirner: Give Me the Now

Phoebe Hoban

By Phoebe Hoban. With a new introduction by the author

Phoebe Hoban’s definitive biography of the renowned American painter Alice Neel tells the unforgettable story of an artist whose life spanned the twentieth century, from women’s suffrage through the Depression, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and second-wave feminism. Throughout her life and work, Neel constantly challenged convention, ultimately gaining an enduring place in the canon.

Alice Neel’s stated goal was to “capture the zeitgeist.” Born into a proper Victorian family at the turn of the twentieth century, Neel reached voting age during suffrage. A quintessential bohemian, she was one of the first artists participating in the Easel Project of the Works Progress Administration, documenting the challenges of life during the Depression. An avowed humanist, Neel chose to paint the world around her, sticking to figurative work even during the peak of abstract expressionism. Neel never ceased pushing the envelope, creating a unique chronicle of her time.

Neel was fiercely democratic in selecting her subjects, who represent an extraordinarily diverse population—from such legendary figures as Joe Gould to her Spanish Harlem neighbors in the 1940s, the art critic Meyer Schapiro, Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, Andy Warhol, and major figures of the labor, civil rights, and feminist movements—producing an indelible portrait of twentieth-century America. By dictating her own terms, Neel was able to transcend such personal tragedy as the death of her infant daughter, Santillana, a nervous breakdown and suicide attempts, and the separation from her second child, Isabetta. After spending much of her career in relative obscurity, Neel finally received a major museum retrospective in 1974, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York.

In this first paperback edition of the authoritative biography of Neel, which serves also as a cultural history of twentieth-century New York, Hoban documents the tumultuous life of the artist in vivid detail, creating a portrait as incisive as Neel’s relentlessly honest paintings. With a new introduction by Hoban that explores Neel’s enduring relevance, this biography is essential to understanding and appreciating the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists.

Book cover for Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty from David Zwirner Books.

Spread of Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, David Zwirner Books, 2021

Leslie Jamison

Seeing Shakespeare

Text by William Shakespeare. Artwork by Marcel Dzama. Introduction by Leslie Jamison

Set in an enchanted forest, Shakespeare’s 

is the ideal subject for artist Marcel Dzama, whose work frequently references dreams, fairy tales, and mythical worlds.

, Shakespeare’s celebrated romantic comedy intertwines multiple narratives under the influence of transformation and witchcraft. The play is often staged with actors wearing animal masks, an aspect that appeals particularly to Dzama, whose work is characterized by the fusion of human and animal, fantasy and reality.

As the second title in David Zwirner Books’s 

series, this book revisits this ultimate fairy tale through the eyes of a contemporary artist who feels a special affinity for its imagery.

William Shakespeare × Marcel Dzama: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Robert Storr

R. Crumb’s obsessions—from sex to the Bible, music, politics, and the vicissitudes and obscenities of daily life—are chronicled in this comprehensive book of work by the illustrious American comic artist.

Instrumental in the formation of the underground comics scene in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, Crumb has ruptured and expanded the boundaries of the graphic arts, redefining comics and cartoons as countercultural art forms. Presenting a slice of Crumb’s unique universe, this book features a wide array of printed matter culled from the artist’s five-decade career—tear sheets of drawings and comics taken directly from the publications where the works first appeared, magazine and album covers, broadsides from the 1960s and 1970s, tabloids from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, Oakland, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and other counterculture enclaves, as well as exhibition ephemera. Complementing this volume are historical works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have inspired Crumb and pages from his rarely seen sketchbooks from the 1970s and 1980s that reveal his exemplary skill as a draftsman.

Documenting the critically acclaimed exhibition 

Drawing for Print: Mind Fucks, Kultur Klashes, Pulp Fiction & Pulp Fact by the Illustrious R. Crumb 

at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, curated by Robert Storr, this publication offers an opportunity to immerse oneself in Crumb’s singular mind. In the accompanying text, Storr explores the challenging nature of some of Crumb’s work and the importance of artists who take on the status quo.

Crumb’s World

A sculpture by Ruth Asawa, called Untitled (S.175, Hanging Single-Lobed, Four-Layer Continuous Form within a Form), dated c. 1992.

Edited by Timothy Anglin Burgard and Daniell Cornell

An expanded edition of the definitive book on Ruth Asawa’s fascinating life and her lasting contributions to American art.



The work of American artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) is brought into brilliant focus in this definitive book, originally published to accompany the first complete retrospective of Asawa’s career, organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2006. This new edition features an expanded collection of essays and a detailed illustrated chronology that explore Asawa's fascinating life and her lasting contributions to American art. Beginning with her earliest works—drawings and paintings created in the 1940s while she was studying at Black Mountain College—this beautiful volume traces Asawa’s flourishing career in San Francisco and her trajectory as a pioneering modernist sculptor who is recognized internationally for her innovative wire sculptures, public commissions, and advocacy on behalf of public arts education.

Through her lifelong experimentations with wire, especially its capacity to balance open and closed forms, Asawa invented a powerful vocabulary that contributed a unique perspective to the field of twentieth-century abstract sculpture. Working in a variety of nontraditional media, Asawa performed a series of remarkable metamorphoses, leading viewers into a deeper awareness of natural forms by revealing their structural properties. Through her art, Asawa transfigured the commonplace into metaphors for life processes themselves.

establishes the importance of Asawa’s work within a larger cultural context of artists who redefined art as a way of thinking and acting in the world, rather than as merely a stylistic practice.

This updated edition includes a new introduction and more than fifty new images, as well as original essays that reflect on the impact of American political history on Asawa's artistic vision, her experience with printmaking, and her friendship with photographer Imogen Cunningham. Contributors include Susan Ehrens, Mary Emma Harris, Karin Higa, Jacqueline Hoefer, Emily K. Doman Jennings, Paul J. Karlstrom, John Kreidler, Susan Stauter, Colleen Terry, and Sally B. Woodbridge.

The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air

A painting by Lisa Yuskavage titled Night Classes at the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture, dated 2018-2020

Lisa Yuskavage, 2020. Photo by Jason Schmidt

Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness, Gregory R. Miller & Co. 2020

Text by Christopher Bedford, Helen Molesworth, Heidi Zuckerman. Interview by Mary Weatherford

A new focus on the sublime landscapes in Lisa Yuskavage’s voluptuous figure paintings

Though she is arguably best known for the voluptuous female nudes that populate her paintings, Lisa Yuskavage’s work is just as focused on the ethereal settings in which these subjects appear. Yuskavage creates finely detailed landscapes that blur the line between the fantastical and the familiar, melding abstraction with realism to depict self-contained worlds. These outdoor scenes defy conventions of landscape painting with surreal color palettes of lush greens and delicate pinks, cast in a gauzy light quality that highlights the almost magical nature of her paintings.

Published in conjunction with a joint exhibition between the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland, this volume includes color reproductions of Yuskavage’s paintings and watercolors from the early 1990s to the present, as well as an interview between Yuskavage and fellow artist Mary Weatherford.

Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness

All Books

Collect: Discover, Buy and Sell Art

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.