New MetPublications: Summer/Fall 2014
«The Museum's Editorial Department presents this season's new titles that celebrate the Met's collection and special exhibitions. The following are eight spectacular publications, just off the presses.»
How to Read Oceanic Art
By Eric Kjellgren
From the dense rain forests of New Guinea to the spice-rich islands of Indonesia, the tropical archipelagos of Polynesia and Micronesia, and the deserts of Australia, Oceania encompasses hundreds of distinct artistic traditions with an extensive variety of objects and mediums. An invaluable resource for art-historical study, this third volume in the How to Read series is an important gateway to wider appreciation of Oceanic heritage and visual culture.
Paperback, 176 pages, 185 color illustrations
Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
Available in four new languages and as an eBook
Now available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and as an eBook, this handsomely redesigned guide to the Metropolitan's encyclopedic holdings—the ideal introduction to almost 600 essential masterpieces from one of the world's most popular and beloved museums—features beautiful color reproductions and up-to-date descriptions.
Flexibound, 456 pages, 600 color illustrations
Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age
Edited by Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, and Yelena Rakic
Bringing together the research of internationally renowned scholars, Assyria to Iberia enhances our understanding of the exchanges that took place across the Near East and Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C. This was the world of Odysseus; of kings Midas and Croesus, legendary for their wealth; and of the Hebrew Bible, its stories brought vividly to life by archaeological discoveries. Assyria to Iberia offers a comprehensive overview of art, diplomacy, and cultural encounter at the dawn of the Classical age.
Hardcover, 448 pages, 446 color illustrations
French Art Deco
By Jared Goss
Although it quickly spread to other countries, Art Deco found its most coherent expression in France, where a rich cultural heritage was embraced as the impetus for creating something new. With its evocative text and sumptuous photographs, this is not only one of the rare books on French Art Deco in English, but an objet d'art in its own right.
Hardcover, 280 pages, 319 color and b/w illustrations
Treasures from India: Jewels from the Al-Thani Collection
By Navina Najat Haidar and Courtney Ann Stewart
India's heritage of jeweled artistry is expressed in extravagant and opulent creations that range from ornaments for every part of the body to ceremonial court objects such as boxes, daggers, and thrones. Treasures from India presents more than sixty iconic works from the renowned Al-Thani collection, including pieces created for the imperial rulers from the seventeenth century to the modern age, along with Indian-inspired jewelry fashioned by Cartier and contemporary designers.
Hardcover, 144 pages 155 color and b/w illustrations
Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry
Edited by Elizabeth A. H. Cleland
Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–1550) was renowned throughout Renaissance Europe, mainly as the designer of remarkably complex tapestries. This lavishly illustrated volume examines the full range of Coecke's work. Featuring twenty monumental tapestries, along with preparatory sketches, paintings, drawings, and printed matter, Grand Design provides a thorough reappraisal of this multifaceted Renaissance master.
Hardcover, 412 pages, 350 color and b/w illustrations
Metropolitan Museum Studies in Art Science and Technology, Volume 2
Edited by Marijn Manuels and Deborah Schorsch
Metropolitan Museum Studies in Art, Science, and Technology focuses on the relationship between physical nature and aesthetics in the visual arts. This volume features articles on the scientific study and treatment of medieval wood sculpture, Cambodian religious foundations, cast copper figures from Lebanon, and a Spanish medieval altarpiece, among others.
Paperback, 204 pages, 220 color illustrations
Cuneiform Texts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume IV
By Ira Spar
The last in a four-volume series, this volume covers administrative tablets and archives from the Ebbar Temple archive and various sites in Neo- and Late Babylonia, as well as brick, stone, bulla, cylinder, and prism inscriptions from the second and first millennia B.C. and proto-cuneiform texts.
Hardcover, 442 pages, 174 plates
Mark Polizzotti
Before joining the Met in 2010, Mark worked as an editor and editorial director for several museum and trade publishers, including the MFA Boston, Random House, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and David R. Godine. In addition to his publishing activities, he is the author of twelve books, on topics such as literature, translation, film, music, and Surrealism. He has also published numerous translations of fiction and nonfiction works from the French
Selected publications
Why Surrealism Matters (Yale University Press, 2024)
The Drunken Boat: Selected Writings of Arthur Rimbaud [ed. and trans.] (NYRB, 2022)
Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto (MIT Press, 2018)
Also published in Spanish and Chinese.
Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (Bloomsbury “33 1/3”, 2006)
Also published in Spanish, German, Turkish, Swedish, Chinese, and Greek.
Los Olvidados (Bloomsbury/British Film Institute, 2006)
Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995; revised ed., 2009). Also published in German, French, and Spanish