West Indies I

In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the radio years, takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life the great performers and shows, as well as the ...more

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) stands among the greatest of watercolor painters, along with J.M.W. Turner, Winslow Homer, and other masters of this difficult medium. Watercolor was more than a distraction from the portrait and mural commissions Sargent labored over; after 1900, watercolor became central to his artistic vision. His aquarelles ...more

On the process of painting, American painter Richard Diebenkorn once wrote, "I want painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems ... the better." In part, he meant that the freest artistic expression was often the result of some sort of restraint. Much like Shakespeare writing within ...more

With its azure skies, blue seas, lush tropical foliage, and volcanic formations, the Hawaiian islands truly are a visual celebration—and this volume, featuring awe-inspiring photos by Elan Penn, honors its magnificence. But there’s more to America’s 50th state than amazing landscapes: Award-winning author Ellie Crowe is a superb tour guide ...more

This sumptuous survey of Cuban art reveals the development of a distinct national identity and serves as an illustrated narrative of the country s colorful past and present. Cuba s artistic tradition is as rich as its history, though its treasures are rarely appreciated outside of the country. This catalog, ...more

A staple of American popular culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the freak show seemed to vanish after the Second World War. But as Rachel Adams reveals in Sideshow U.S.A., images of the freak show, with its combination of the grotesque, the horrific, and the amusing, stubbornly reappeared ...more

While photographing the Congregation Montefiore Cemetery in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1985, Cary Herz first heard whispers about "the other people." Thus began a twenty-year search for descendants of crypto-Jews, the Sephardic Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions centuries ago. Many ...more

At Tropicana you could play the roulette wheel, dance to the latest mambo or rumba, or simply ogle the parading goddesses of the flesh. It was the brightest jewel in 1950s Cuban nightlife, and Nat “King” Cole, Liberace, Josephine Baker, and Carmen Miranda performed there before audi­ences that included Ernest ...more

Here is an exotic interior-design book for anyone who has ever dreamed of escaping to a different way of life. The elegant lifestyle, magnificent homes, and varied furniture and decor of the French, Dutch, Spanish, English, and Danish islands of the Caribbean from the late 18th century to the early ...more

Established in 1519 as a harbor city to service the fleets bound for Spain from Mexico and Peru, Havana became the busy portal to the vast Spanish colonial empire. Largely unharmed by war or weather, many great examples of Spanish colonial architecture survive today. Dozens of archival photographs from Havana’s ...more