Elizabeth King and W. David Todd, Miracles and Machines: A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and Its Legend, Getty Publications, 256pp, 74 colour &
67 b/w illustrations, $45/£40 (hb), published 15 August
Usually viewed as products of the Enlightenment, automata at the intersection of religion, science and art in the late Renaissance are the focus here. Saints alive!
Andrea Hart and Ann Datta, Birds of the World: The Art of Elizabeth Gould, Prestel/Natural History Museum, 248pp, 220 colour illustrations, £55 (hb), published 7 September
A tribute to the spectacular and accurate illustrations by Elizabeth Gould (1804-40) of 600 birds from six continents, and the central role of women in the progress of science.
Owen Davies, Art of the Grimoire: An Illustrated History of Magic Books and Spells, Yale, 256pp, 200 colour & b/w illustrations, £25 (hb), published 10 October
A lavishly illustrated examination of magic and occult knowledge textbooks spanning millennia and civilisations, from Greek and Egyptian papyri via South American pulp prints to Japanese demon encyclopaedias.
Claudia Rankine, Sampada Aranke, Akili Tommasino, Rashid Johnson, Phaidon, 160pp, 200 illustrations, £39.95 (pb), published 12 October
This comprehensive survey explores the influential American artist’s work, labelled by art critics as “conceptual post-black art”, covering a wide-range of media from painting, sculpture and photography to video and performance.
Andaleeb Badiee Banta and Alexa Greist, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800, Art Gallery of Ontario, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Goose Lane Editions, 264pp, 500 illustrations, $60 (hb), published 17 October
Examining the full breadth and diversity of women’s contributions to European art across more than 250 works.
