Best Art Books

Collection by James Clear
Looking for good art books? This is my list of the best art and creativity books of all-time. If you only have time to read one or two books, I recommend looking...

Looking for good art books? This is my list of the best art and creativity books of all-time. If you only have time to read one or two books, I recommend looking at the Top Art and Creativity Books section below.

Further down the page, you'll find more art book recommendations. Many of these books are fantastic as well. I try to carefully curate all of my reading lists and you can be sure that any art book on this page is worth your time. Enjoy!

 Show More
Save
Share on Twitter Copy link
  • Collection Content
In this landmark work Keith Johnstone provides a revelatory guide to rediscovering and unlocking the imagination. Admired for its clarity and zest, Impro lays bare the techniques and exercises used to foster spontaneity and narrative skill for actors. These techniques and exercises were evolved in t
www.goodreads.com
2 Recommenders
When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog-gapingvoid.com-and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.MacLeod has opinio
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
The Creative Habit book. Read 1,142 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Creativity is not a gift from the gods, says Twyla Tharp, bes...
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the accl
www.goodreads.com
2 Recommenders
In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving st
www.goodreads.com
2 Recommenders
Imitations of Paradise is a collection of the work of Christopher Burkett. Filled with exhilarating, exuberant, and worshipful photographs of landscapes, Burkett shows why he is one of the premier color photographers of our time. Three essays by James Reid, Vincent Rossi, and Christopher Burkett com
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
A newer edition of this title can be found here. "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen t
www.goodreads.com
3 Recommenders
Present moment awareness is an essential ingredient in life if one expects to experience any degree of authentic peace and contentment. It has been acknowledged for centuries as the cornerstone of spiritual awakening in all traditions of Eastern thought. In the West, however, it is still a relativel
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
In 1964, Calvin Tomkins spent a number of afternoons interviewing Marcel Duchamp in his apartment on West 10th Street in New York. Casual yet insightful, Duchamp reveals himself as a man and an artist whose playful principles toward living freed him to make art that was as unpredictable, complex, an
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle mane
www.goodreads.com
1 Recommender
Internationally bestselling author of Last of the Amazons, Gates of Fire, and Tides of War, Steven Pressfield delivers a guide to inspire and support those who struggle to express their creativity. Pressfield believes that “resistance” is the greatest enemy, and he offers many unique and helpful way
www.amazon.com
20 Recommenders