Hotties in Art, Jack Shoulder, John Murray Press, 160pp, £16.99 (hb)
“Raise your pulse with this cheeky celebration of hot men in art” is the tag line for a new book that takes the unusual approach to telling “the story of art… through the most sizzling portraits ever made”. The book’s author Jack Shoulder analyses seminal works across a series of chapters: “Boyfriend Material”, for instance, focuses on The Tailor (1565-70) by Giovanni Battista Moroni and David Hockney’s Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool (1966), while “Dark Desires and Heavenly Hunks” includes The Victory of Calvary, or The Crucifixion (1941)by Duncan Grant. “There’s a lot of exploring masculine beauty and different types of male archetypes, but essentially it’s analysing and exploring key artworks with beautiful men and the stories behind them,” Shoulder tells The Art Newspaper.
Tyeb Mehta, Roobina Karode and Ashok Vajpeyi (contributors), Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Mapin Publishing, 240pp, £32 (hb)
This overview is billed as the first comprehensive book devoted to the influential Indian artist Tyeb Mehta’s practice since his death in 2009. Essays discuss Mehta’s depiction of key events including the partition of India, using motifs such as the bull and the falling bird. Contributors include Roobina Karode, the chief curator at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi, Aditi Ghidiyal, an associate curator at the museum, and the poet Ashok Vajpeyi. The book accompanies the artist’s recent centennial survey at the Kiran Nadar Museum.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s Dos pares de piernas (1928-29) features in the book Instante/Revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C.
Instante/Revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography, Julieta Pestarino, Getty Publications, 216pp, £21.99 (pb)
This selection of photographs, drawn from the collection of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, maps the history of Mexico in the 20th century, capturingkey architectural features, landscapes and depictions of daily life along with portraits of Mexican artists and writers such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Octavio Paz. Almost 150 pictures feature, made between 1920 and 2017 by 13 photographers including Lola and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Graciela Iturbide and Pablo Ortiz Monasterio. The book marks a forthcoming exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles (1 September-3 January 2027).
America’s Hidden Treasures: 101 Museums of Art, Innovation & Americana, Arnold Lehman, Merrell, 432pp, £60 (hb)
Discover museums off the beaten track in the US in this comprehensive survey of cultural hidden gems. “America’s Hidden Treasures offers a beautifully illustrated journey through the cultural fabric of the United States, spotlighting 101 less acclaimed museums and collections across the country,” says a publisher’s statement. The author Arnold Lehman invited museum colleagues and collectors to recommend institutions that they felt deserved wider recognition. Institutions featured include Wichita Art Museum in Kansas, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Alabama, Speed Art Museum in Kentucky and the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, Arkansas.
