Tom’s iconic images of hypermasculine military menWhen we think Tom of Finland we first picture muscular, macho young men in military gear. Tom’s vision of masculine perfection wa...
Tom’s take on policemen and criminalsTom’s taste for police officers and felons—and for sexual tension between the two—developed late in his career. “I’ve ...
As a boy, Tom’s first crush was a strapping young farmhand who worked the fields around his family home. Finland is a land of tough physical men, catching fish in the icy sea; cutting logs in...
Leather-clad outlaws with power between their legsIn 1953 Marlon Brando donned a black leather Perfecto motorcycle jacket, military cap, denim jeans, and engineer boots to portray Johnny, sne...
The godfather of Italian designItalian architect and designer Gio Ponti (1891–1979) is difficult to pin down. With an extraordinarily prolific output and eclectic style, his oeuvre rema...
Pivotal paintings of modernityLampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is now considered a crucial figu...
Absurdity against the establishmentEmerging amid the brutality of World War I, the revolutionary Dada movement took disgust with the establishment as its starting point. From 1916 until the m...
Fernando Botero is an artist with his own style. For more than six decades, the Colombian’s “Boterismo” technique has captured collectors, institutions, and public spaces worldwid...
Volume two of the definitive exploration [br]of the [i]Star Wars[/i] galaxyFrom the moment Star Wars burst onto the screen in 1977, audiences have been in equal parts fascinated and appalled ...
The Japanese woodblock print showcased breathtaking landscapes, blush-inducing erotica, ghosts and demons that torment the living, and made sumo wrestlers and kabuki actors into rock stars. This co...
A comprehensive look at hundreds of graphic worksThrough the turbulent passage of time, graphic design—with its vivid, neat synthesis of image and idea—has distilled the spirit of...
The evolution of style from antiquity to 1888Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume historique was in its day the most wide-ranging and incis...
Albertus Seba’s unrivaled catalog of animals, insects, and “freaks of nature”The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities is one of the 18th century’s greatest natural history a...
Sublime stillnessThe king of the contemplative landscapeThe beauty of nature and man s loneliness are dominant themes in the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). The ...
A catalogue raisonné of “the painter’s painter”Manet called him “the greatest painter of all.” Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that...
Impossible staircases and startling ruins from Italy’s master engraverThe most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) made his name with etchi...
One of the greatest pioneers in the history of architectureAcclaimed as the “father of skyscrapers,” the quintessentially American icon Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was an...
The roaring twenties in BerlinIt was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret,...
Capitol Records – from 1942 to todayFrom the Beatles to Beck, Sinatra to Sam Smith, a parade of era-defining artists have passed through the doors of the Capitol Records Tower, one of H...
Only 20 paintings and eight drawings are confidently assigned to Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) but in their fantastical visions they have secured his place as one of t...