This major study includes contributions by a range of critics and scholars, but above all it is splendidly illustrated. Picasso came on the scene when portraiture had lost much of its old raison d'etre, and he rarely practised the genre for its own sake but his self portraits and the many paintings and drawings of his wives, mistresses (in particular) and friends add up to a kind of visual autobiography. This valuable book is particularly enlightening in that it fills in the factual and emotional background to many of Picasso's paintings and his special relation to his models. MarieTherese Walter, the mother of his daughter Maya, is shown once again to be a key figure in his entire life and output.
. Degas Beyond Impressionism, by Richard Kendall (Yale, £35 in UK)
Degas was never really an Impressionist anyway, and never called himself such, though he was one of the main organisers of its early exhibitions. His late works, the pastels in particular, were powerful and innovatory, and he also modelled a lot in clay. The landscapes are another unfamiliar feature of his output, though they were never central to it. Richard Kendall is entirely at home with this strange, embittered, innately sensitive man and some of the works he reproduces, for instance the Russian Dancers from the late 1890s, show how far Degas reached into the future.
. The Grosvenor Gallery A Palace of Art in Victorian England, edited by Susan P. Casteras and Colleen Denney (Yale, £30 in UK)
The "greenery yallery" gallery in London founded by a cultured baronet, Sir Coutts Lindsay, and his wife Blanche in 1877, was often ridiculed for its un British aestheticism and "decadence", but it was a social as well as an artistic success before financial stresses forced its closure in 1890. Burne Jones was one of its centrepieces, though it also reached beyond Symbolism and late Pre Raphaelitism to the new French realism. Without challenging the conservative RA head on, it formed a counterpoise to the philistinism of much mid Victorian art and wrote an important chapter in the history of British painting.
. French Painting in the Seventeenth Century, by Alain Merot (Yale, £45 in UK)
There was a great deal more to French art of this era than Poussin and Claude, great though they were. The Le Nain brothers were realists before the term had been invented, and even the secondary figures of the time, such as Simon Vouet, have real stature. However, perhaps the chief merit of this fine book is that it rehabilitates Le Brun, a real maitre in every sense and a figure comparable to David a century later.
. The Contemporary Print Pre-Pop to Postmodern, by Susan Tallman (Thames & Hudson, £36 in UK)
There seems to me a certain American bias to this book, written by an American, so that in some areas we are given rather more about New York artists and less about European schools than either deserve. However, there can be no doubt that the Pop generation as well as "independent" figures such as Jasper Johns, have given the print a new energy and relevance. A great many artists are discussed, and since prints generally lend themselves very well to reproduction, the book is very fully and handsomely illustrated.
. Designing Modernity The Arts of Reform and Persuasion 1885-1945, edited by Wendy Kaplan (Thames & Hudson, £38 in UK)
With design such a topical issue, particularly in Britain, this is a timely volume which covers a remarkable amount of ground. In particular, it is shown how well modern design and communications lent themselves to purposes of propaganda especially in Fascist Italy, where modern design was adventurous and strong. The editor is curator of the Wolfsonian, a respected institution in Miami.
. The Mysterious Fayum Portraits Faces from Ancient Egypt, by Euphrosyne Doxiadis (Thames & Hudson, £48 in UK)
Roman Egypt was a strange, hybrid culture which embraced many races and traditions, both local and Jewish, and Graeco Roman. In traditional Egyptian fashion, the dead were embalmed their faces were then painted either on wooden panels or on linen, which were added to their mummies rather like exterior masks. The medium was often encaustic, but tempera was also used. Some of these faces will be familiar from art histories, but many are little known and the "speaking likenesses of men, women and children have an extraordinary poignance as well as in many cases a high degree of artistic merit. A fascinating volume, in many senses.