Art Fan? Read These Books!

The perfect medium for an artist biography is graphic nonfiction. I mean, what better way to celebrate an artist than with graphic illustrations?! That’s why I’m starting this list with two of them. In this graphic biography, you get to watch Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama from a young artist in Japan to 1960s New York and finally back to Japan as she rises in fame around the world. The illustrations really do such a wonderful job representing Kusama’s life and art. This is one to linger over the pages and read more than once.

A wonderful way to experience and get to know artists you may not have heard of is graphic biographies. I love Isabel Quintero (Gabi, a Girl in Pieces), and then I saw the cover of this book and immediately bought it knowing nothing else. It tells the life of Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide and how she sees the world around her through her camera lens. It’s told through a wonderful mix of black and white comic strips, photographs, and collages. It’s beautiful and powerful.

I recently started reading a picture book a week, and it’s one of the best life decisions I’ve made. Biographical picture books are an excellent introduction into people, and like graphic nonfiction, the illustrations are perfect to showcase artists. Here we learn about Judith Scott, who was Deaf, nonverbal, and had Down syndrome. Her story is told by her twin sister Joyce, who enrolled her in art classes, a step that would later result in Judith’s work being displayed in galleries and museums around the world.

This is a missing person mystery: a famous artist that a gallery is relying on to revive their business disappears on opening night. Her exhibit is paintings of famous crime scenes where women were murdered that she has painted herself into. The beginning half of this book is an exploration of the art world and of our obsession with violence towards women.

I love a fascinating and informational book that you can dip in and out of. Maybe today you’re feeling like a sunflower and want to learn about yellow, so you pop into Blonde or Acid Yellow. Tomorrow, you may be feeling like you want to know more about Cochineal. Or maybe you want to learn about the language around colors and if it affects how we see the color. It’s a great book to also leave on the coffee table and see what section people gravitate towards.

This literary crime novel is inspired by Chinese art vanishing from Western museums and focuses on the diaspora and Chinese Americans while firing at the colonization of art. Oh, and the ringleader, Will Chen, is an art history major hired to steal back bronze Chinese sculptures from museums.

Here’s a YA graphic novel tackling big things while set at a summer art intensive. Jade was thrilled to be going to the Art Farm to get to be purely artistic, but before leaving, her best friend Phoebe attempted suicide. Now, Jade doesn’t know what to do with all her emotions, and her ceramic pieces are coming to life in the kiln…Jade will get to find her voice through her art while having to deal with real tough things, like someone you love going through a mental health crisis.