Weekly New Releases

Published to accompany the exhibition currently on view at MFA Boston, Divine Color: Hindu Prints from Modern Bengal is a book unlike any other on our list. Filled with eye-popping, now-rare but once mass-produced vernacular religious lithographs from 19th- and early 20th-century Kolkata—aka colonial Calcutta—it shows how Bengali artists insisted upon and represented their own religious traditions and icons, while incorporating new printing techniques from the west. Pictured here, “Hari Hara Milan (Union of Shiva and Vishnu),” produced around 1895–1910 by Chore Bagan Art Studio. It’s an example of the “rainbow roll” printmaking technique that became popular among local presses, where several colors of ink were blended on a roller to create a seamless, dynamic, almost psychedelic gradient behind traditional compositions. The print depicts “an encounter between Shiva and Vishnu, each riding an animal mount and accompanied by his consort,” according to curator Laura Weinstein. “The heads of Vishnu’s elephant and Shiva’s bull merge in a visual trick with roots in South Asian art over a millennium old. While the chromolithograph resembles an earlier version by Calcutta Art Studio, certain iconographic and stylistic changes are evident. Most notably, the blue-gray sky with puffy white clouds has been replaced by a candy-colored rainbow roll.”

Villa Albertine presents Rémi Babinet launching 'No Ads Please'

Wednesday, February 25, from 6–9 PM, Villa Albertine NYC presents Rémi Babinet, renowned French creative director and founder of the international BETC agency, launching his new book, 'No Ads Please: Advertising Stories From the Founder of the World’s Most Creative Agency,' published by JBE Books.

For Chinese New Year, what could be more beautiful than Chinese Patchwork? The subject of the exhibition One Hundred Stitches, One Hundred Villages, on view now at MFA Boston, the hand-patchworking tradition has been passed down via generation upon generation of rural Chinese women. Dating back even to the garments of ancient Buddhist and Daoist monks, who dressed in patched rags to convey humility, today, the practice continues across the provinces, as highlighted by the contemporary makers featured in this catalog. Pictured here, Ma Yunfang, Yujiahe Vilage. Photo by Lois Conner.

“Ponyo loves Sosuke! I will be a human, too!” So says the unforgettable titular goldfish-princess-turned-mischevious-girl of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 hand-drawn masterpiece, Ponyo. A surreal yet childlike adaptation of The Little Mermaid, Ponyo is both a love story and a tale of powerful female curiosity and self-confidence. This Japanese poster for the film is reproduced from Hayao Miyazaki, published by DelMonico Books and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on the occasion of the museum’s inaugural exhibition in 2021—and on our minds anew this Valentine’s weekend as the Academy Museum’s highly-anticipated Ponyo exhibition opens to the public. “Having used CGI in his previous three feature films, Miyazaki decided, with Ponyo, to return to hand-drawn animation and once more push its potential by rendering the shapes and movements of a fluid world ‘where magic and alchemy are accepted as part of the ordinary,’ curator Jessica Niebel writes. “Miyazaki instructed Ghibli’s creative team to ‘get rid of straight lines. Use gently warped lines that allow the possibility of magic to exist liberating us from the curse of perspective drawing.’ The singularity of Ponyo lies in its flowing organic lines, which express a world dynamic defined by the living presence of the sea, ‘where even the horizon swells, dips and sways.’”

What did Mexican architect Luis Barragán think, see and feel while designing, redesigning, living in, entertaining in, growing old in his ever-evolving, self-designed Mexico City home? This is the question Mexican photographer duo Lake Verea asked themselves as they studied Barragán’s architectural masterpiece, Casa Luis Barragán over two decades. The results of their intimate research are gathered in new release Lake Verea: Modern Barragán, published by Hatje Cantz. “We look for Barragán in his house through his own perspective, sitting on his furniture, having lunch made by Ana Maria, who still cooks his favorite meals and continues to set the table to his specifications. We specially love the seasonal tortitas de flor de colorín. Ana Maria gathers flowers that fall from the tree in the garden and cooks them with egg in tomato sauce and serves it with Mexican style white rice and tortillas. A true delicacy. We drink tequila and lemonade. We ‘live’ the house as he did. We enjoy the essence of the surroundings and the ambiance of the house. We feel at home. We enter his world.”

Graphic designers, typographers and Francophiles, rejoice! Letterform Archive has published the book you didn’t know you needed, but without which you will no longer be able to live. Collecting twelve gorgeous vintage alphabet albums used by 19th and 20th-century French sign painters during the golden age of hand-painted storefront signage, this oversized compendium functions as both a history lesson and a treasure-trove of templates for contemporary use. Originally published for tradesmen only, most of these familiar, yet ever so exotic abecedaria have never been published before. Expert sign painter and historian Morgane Côme writes: “As models, the plates from these portfolios are just waiting to be reused, revisited and adapted to the expectations of the twenty-first century. Designers may look to them as a valuable sourcebook for past styles or find jumping-off points to make something new. Digital-type revivals and experiments, perhaps even new tools for public lettering, could grow from the inventive letterforms and compositions that lie within. For those of us involved in sign painting, a trade that once almost vanished in France, these plates help anchor the practice in history. Now is an exciting moment. Although our numbers remain small (perhaps a hundred professionals, compared to five thousand in 1980), today we inherit a craft less closely tethered to decoration and more open to invention.”

At this moment in American history, Corita Kent’s 1966 serigraph for emergency use soft shoulder is more welcome than ever. We are in that emergency. Reproduced from new release Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent—actually a reprint of the long out-of-print monograph on the artist, activist and Catholic nun that remains the most comprehensive book on her work to date—it embodies both Kent’s “formal innovation and an acute engagement with social issues,” in the words of essayist (and original exhibition organizer) Michael Duncan. “The works of the great communicator and formal activist Corita Kent transcend the simple captioning of most politically based photo-text work, offering a life-enhancing alternative to self-congratulatory and solipsistic works found within the cacophony of today’s art-world. They set a precedent for more sophisticated styles of communication, ones that offer aesthetic, flexible, and poetic ways of looking at the printed word. … She reflects and refracts the essence of our consumer-based desires, so to lift the spirits of her media-broadsided, spiritually numbed audience.”

This week, as all the world watches the Twin Cities, we are pleased to feature a work by Minneapolis-based Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk, whose work is on view now at the Walker Art Center in the landmark mid-career survey, Love Language. “I think about how I want my work to operate in the world,” White Hawk is quoted. “What do I want it to do? What do I want it to do for Native audiences? What do I want it to do for non-Native audiences? What do I want it to do beyond my lifetime, as I send it forward? For me personally, the goal is healing.” Pictured here, Round Dance (2023), is comprised of acrylic, oblong glass beads and synthetic sinew on aluminum panel. “One can view White Hawk’s work as beautiful and grand from a Western cultural perspective,” essayist Heather Ahtone writes. “But one can also choose to engage in the conversation she is offering, a gift from one culture to another, that asks us as participants within the art world to consider our responsibilities as we carry on using the historic values that continue to harm our shared planet and resources. What if we choose to value the earth’s resources responsibly? What if we choose to care for one another over profits? These questions are offered as a gift through the work. White Hawk is asking us to think of our lineage and what we will leave behind to the next generation. Can we value kinship as much as gold?”

In honor of the 2026 Oscar nominations, announced today, we are featuring a few spreads from Bong Joon Ho: Director's Inspiration—a recently released staff favorite, published by DelMonico Books and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Featuring stills and materials from Okja (2017), Parasite (2019) and Mickey 17 (2025), these spreads only hint at the treasures within, gathered from the director’s personal archive and elucidated upon by Bong himself. “The absurdity of Korean society in itself excites me cinematically,” he writes. “It’s bewildering. When you depict it cinematically, it may look like comedy at first, but it’s actually the most realistic portrayal.” Further along, he is quoted, “My films generally seem to have three components: fear, anxiety and a sense of humor.… At least when we laugh, there’s a feeling that we’re overcoming some kind of horror.”

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