Art in focus
Eschewing the heavyweight doorstop format of many art books, these beautiful and compact Phaidon Focus artist monographs are small and slick, and refreshingly affordable.
Each book provides an overview of a single artist’s work, managing to cover the origins, development, style and theme of their work in a neat, 144 page edition.
The series has been designed by Julia Hasting, the Zurich-based design director at Phaidon Press, who manages to create a clean, fresh look that – as art book design should – put the artists’ work centre stage.
The first six titles cover the artists Francis Bacon, Anselm Kiefer, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, David Smith and Andy Warhol; and the series will then launch a further six books in October, covering artists including Cindy Sherman and Joseph Beuys.
Each year, more artists will be added, aiming to eventually form a complete introduction to visual art.
Coated in a translucent grey plastic with a clear window, the book’s pared back approach continues with clean, black typography on a white background. Never cluttered, but resolutely in-depth, the series manages to condense some of the 20th century’s most famous artists’ work into small, but by no means diminutive introductions.
The Phaidon Focus series is available now, with each book priced £14.95
-
Post a comment