Very much a book rather than just a photobook, The Story of Art is a classic work of criticism that takes readers through the history of art from cave paintings to 20th-century abstraction. It’s sold millions of copies and gone through more than a dozen additions – and is available in various formats, including a gorgeous cloth-bound doorstopper version with more than 400 colour illustrations. With this at hand, you’ll never be short of insight during your next art gallery date.
Les dîners de Gala by Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí was not just a surrealist artist and moustache enthusiast, but an excellent dinner host: the parties given by him and his wife Gala were legendary. Those looking to recreate his culinary imaginings can delve into this lush reprint of the cookbook he published in 1973. Some recipes are standard old-school French fare; others (“Frog Pasties”, “Toffee with Pine Cones”) take surrealism into the kitchen. It’s all illustrated with wonderful old-school photography, plus typically bizarre paintings that Dalí did especially for this.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency began life as a photographic slide show, accompanied by the music of Nina Simone, the Velvet Underground and others. Nan Goldin was deeply entwined in New York’s gay, arty subculture of the late 70s and 80s; the people she photographed were, more often than not, her friends and lovers. That comes through in the intimacy of the images – an intimacy that, as with a self-portrait candidly titled “Nan One Month After Being Battered”, can be uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, but riveting: the slide show turned into a book, which became a classic of modern photography.
Périphérique by Mohamed Bourouissa