Summer has a way of making room for the kind of reading that gets crowded out the rest of the year — not lighter reading, necessarily, but slower reading. A biography you can actually sink into, an exhibition catalogue that rewards attention. An argument about art and the mind that you can sit with over a few days rather than racing through during weeks of deadlines and meetings. None of the books on this list are 'beach reads' in the usual sense (I can't see you lugging some of them to the b...
Aug 10
8 min
For the 47th episode of Reading the Art World, host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Ruth Bernard Yeazell, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University, about "Vermeer's Afterlives," published by Princeton University Press. Vermeer's Afterlives traces how Vermeer, who died in 1675 and was largely forgotten within decades, was reconstructed by the critics, forgers, poets, and novelists who encountered his work over the following two centuries. Yeazell argues that the quiet, enigmatic Vermeer we...
Jun 24
40 min
For the 46th episode of Reading the Art World, host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Georgina Adam, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper, about her new book NextGen Collectors and the Art Market, published by Lund Humphries in association with Sotheby's Institute of Art. Adam argues that the generational shift now underway is different from those that came before it—not just in scale, but in kind. Younger collectors grew up online, which has reshaped how they discover and evaluate art, who influen...
May 20
39 min
For the 45th episode of Reading the Art World, host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with William E. Wallace, an internationally recognized authority on Michelangelo, about his new book “Michelangelo and Titian: A Tale of Rivalry and Genius,” published by Princeton University Press. The book makes a case scholars have long resisted: that the forty-year rivalry between Michelangelo and Titian was genuinely reciprocal. Wallace shows that Michelangelo—far from the untouchable master receiving Titian's adm...
Apr 23
39 min
For the 44th episode of Reading the Art World, host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with András Szántó—cultural strategist, writer, and longtime observer of museums and markets—about his new book, "The Future of the Art World: 38 Dialogues," published by Hatje Cantz. The book brings together 38 conversations with artists, curators, sociologists, philosophers, collectors, gallerists, and institutional leaders—what Szántó describes as a “stained-glass window” onto the art world’s possible futures. Rathe...
Mar 26
51 min
For the 43rd episode of "Reading the Art World," host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Francine Snyder, Director of Archives at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, about her recently published book "I Don't Think About Being Great: Select Writings by Robert Rauschenberg," co-published by the foundation and Yale University Press. Their conversation reveals a side of Rauschenberg that many don't know: his relationship to language and writing. Despite self-identifying as dyslexic, Rauschenberg kept a...
Feb 27
35 min
For the 42nd episode of "Reading the Art World," host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Dr. Matthew Affron, Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Art Museum, about his book "Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100," published by the museum and distributed by Yale University Press. Their conversation traces Surrealism from its 1924 origins in André Breton's manifesto—which asked "how should we live?"—to its evolution as both an artistic movement and a philosophy of liberation. Aff...
Jan 14
43 min
Join art advisor Megan Fox Kelly for a special holiday episode featuring her annual selection of art books worth giving—and keeping for yourself. This year's list includes revelatory biographies, major exhibition catalogues, and essential critical writing. From Barnett Newman's political and intellectual life before he became a painter, to Monet's restless vision traced through newly translated letters, these books illuminate artists and movements with fresh insight and rigorous scholarship. ...
Dec 5, 2025
9 min
In the 40th episode of our "Reading the Art World" podcast, Megan Fox Kelly speaks with the Guggenheim's Megan Fontanella, Curator of Modern Art and Provenance, about her beautifully researched book "Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World," published by Guggenheim Museum Publications, distributed by Artbook DAP. Our conversation reveals the life and art of Gabriele Münter, a pioneering German Expressionist whose bold use of color and form helped define early modernism—yet whose place in art his...
Nov 12, 2025
41 min
For the 39th episode of "Reading the Art World," host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Susan Davidson, curator and art historian, about her landmark book "Tom Wesselmann: The Great American Nude," published by Gagosian and Almine Rech, in collaboration with the Estate of Tom Wesselmann. Distributed by Rizzoli International Publications, New York. This conversation reveals the unexpected story behind one of Pop Art's most iconic series. Wesselmann arrived in New York with no art training and couldn...
Oct 8, 2025
28 min
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