Frida Kahlo: An Open Life by Raquel Tibol, trans. by Elinor Randall. Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 2000, 230 pp., $15.95, ISBN 0-8263-2188-7, paperback. Published originally in Spanish in 1983, this highly readable biography of the bisexual Mexican/Jewish painter of autobiographical, surrealistic-appearing images brings Kahlo (1907-1954) and her world vividly to life.

"Tutti Nudi," Reflections on the Nude from the Greeks to the Twenty-First Century: Appreciation, Connoisseurship, and Criticism, by Christina Z. Anderson. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2000, 83 pp., $15, ISBN 1-877675-34-2, paperback. A lively, idiosyncratic discussion with an emphasis on Renaissance art.

Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture by Laura Doan. New York: Columbia U. Press, 2001, 286 pp., $16.50, ISBN 0-231-11007-3, paper; $49.50, ISBN 0-231-11006-5, cloth. Deals with Radclyffe Hall, photography, fashion, cartoons, and more in the decade following the First World War.

Ellen Lanyon, Transformations: Selected Works from 1971-1999, with an essay by Debra Bricker Balken. Washington, DC: The National Museum of Women in the Arts (dist. by U. of Washington Press), 2001, 64 pp., $19.95, ISBN 0-940979-42-X, paperback. Imagery that merges surrealism with ecological concerns by a U.S. painter active since the mid-1940s.

In Real Life: Six Women Photographers by Leslie Sills. New York: Holiday House, 2000, 80 pp., $19.95, ISBN 0-8234-1498-1, hardcover. Directed toward younger readers, In Real Life introduces the work of Mexican photographer Lola Alvarez Bravo (1907-1993); American Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953); Jewish-American Elsa Dorfman (b. 1937); and Anglo-Americans Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), and Cindy Sherman (b. 1954).

Fay Jones by Sheila Farr. Seattle: U. of Washington Press (in association with Grover/Thurston Gallery and Laura Russo Gallery), 2001, 128 pp., $19.95, ISBN 0-295-98075-3, paperback. Jones (b. 1936 in Boston), has been a central figure in Northwest and Seattle art for the last 30 years. Figurative and vaguely narrative, her paintings are odd, crude-appearing, and totally memorable.

Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies, ed. by D. Fairchild Ruggles. Albany: State U. of New York Press, 2000, 243 pp, $19.95, ISBN 0-7914-4470-8, paperback. Examines how Muslim women have represented themselves in art, architecture, and writing since Pre-Ottoman times.

Monster Beauty: Building the Body of Love by Joanna Frueh. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2001, 353 pp., $22.50, £14.95, ISBN 0-520-22114-1, paperback; $55, £36.50, ISBN 0-520-22113-3, hardcover. Monster Beauty is a narrative about erotic self-creation. Frueh, a contemporary feminist university professor, explores how beauty is constructed, performance and self-exhibition, cultural imperatives, vampires, body building, aging, passion, and aesthetic pleasure.

Beyond the Frame: Feminism and Visual Culture, Britain 1850-1900 by Deborah Cherry. New York: Routledge, 2000, 268 pp., $22.95, ISBN 0-415-10727-X, paperback; $75, ISBN 0-415-10726-1, hardcover. An excellent text for those interested in how imagery shapes who we are, how we think about ourselves, and how interventions have been made to change the status quo.

Self and History: A Tribute to Linda Nochlin, ed. by Aruna D'Souza. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001, 224 pp., $24.95, Canada $37.99, ISBN 0-500-28250-1, paperback. As an art historian, Nochlin has done a tremendous amount to make women's art issues visible at the professional level. This collection of essays deals with themes which have engaged her over the last several decades and which are here addressed by prominent art world figures.

Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties compiled by Linda M. Montano. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2001, 553 pp, $24.95 (£15.95), ISBN 0-520-21022-0, paper; $60 (£32), ISBN 0-520-21021-2. Includes approximately 50% women--Jerri Allyn, Suzanne Lacy, Martha Rosler, Cheri Gaulke, Ana Mendieta, and more--speaking on one of four topics: food, sex, money/fame, or ritual/death.

Kathy Vargas: Photographs, 1971-2000, essay by Lucy Lippard. Austin: U. of Texas Press: 2001, 112 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-916677-45-1, paperback. Photographer Vargas (b. 1950), a native of San Antonio, makes images out of her Huichol and Zapotec heritages, Catholic background, and responses to events and people in her life. For the past 20 years, she has been working with hand-colored, multiple-exposured prints that are rich and emotionally powerful.

Roni Horn, with text by Louise Neri, Lynne Cooke, Thierry du Duve. Harrisburg, PA, and London: Phaidon, 2000, 160 pp., $29.95 ($49.95 Canada, £19.95, $45.00 Australia, 199 FF), ISBN 0-7148-3865-9, paper. Photographer and sculptor Horn (b. 1955) works in many styles and media including photography and sculpture. The most lesbian-appearing of her images is "You Are The Weather," a series of close-ups of the same woman's face which can be read as a metaphor for obsessive desire.

Venus Inferred: Laura Letinsky, essay and interview by Lauren Berlant. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 2000, 101 pp., $45, £28.50, ISBN: 0-226-47345-7, hardcover. Intimate--though not always sexual and seldom erotic--color photographs of (mostly white) heterosexual lovers by a contemporary U.S. photographer.

New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934 by Theresa Leininger-Miller. New Brunswick: Rutgers, 2001, 321 pp., $32, ISBN 0-8135-2811-9, paperback. Includes major sections on Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890-1960) and Augusta Savage (1892-1962) and brief discussions of Annie E.A. Walker (1855-1926)--perhaps the first African American woman to study art in Paris--and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968).

Carrie Mae Weems: The Hampton Project by Vivian Patterson with essays by Frederick Rudolph, Constance W. Glenn, Deborah Willis-Kennedy, and Jeanne Zeidler. New York: Aperture (in association with Williams College Museum of Art), 2001, 96 pp., $35, £22.50, ISBN 0-89381-913-1, hardcover. The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (Now Hampton Institute) was established after the Civil War to educate African Americans and Native Americans. Photographer Weems (b.1953), African American herself, has used the Institute's archives--including images by white photographer Francis Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952)--as the starting point for visual and written commentaries and responses.

Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Académie Julian, ed. by Gabriel P. Weisberg and Jane R. Becker. New Brunswick: Rutgers U. Press (with the Dahesh Museum, NYC), 1999, 146 pp., $35, ISBN 0-8135-2756-2, paperback. The Académie Julian was the first Paris art school to support the equal education of women artists, beginning in 1868. The school gave women the same training as men and taught them to compete professionally and as equals with men. This is an inspiring and highly readable volume documenting a major period of art world change and the personalities that contributed to it.

The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas, edited and supplemented by Miriam Robbins Dexter. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2001, 306 pp, $18.95, ISBN 0-520-22915-0, paperback; $35, ISBN 0-520-21393-9, hardcover. Gimbutas (1921-1994) was central to feminist debates about the function of ancient goddesses. This, her last book, is a synthesis of her thinking on the interdisciplinary connections between archaeology and mythology.

Mostly People: Photography by a German Immigrant in New York by Erika Stone. Munich: Kehayoff: (dist. by Prestel), 2001, 96 pp., $35, ISBN 3-934296-01-7, hardcover. Stone (b. 1924 in Frankfurt) came to the U.S. with her family in 1936, fleeing persecution of those with Jewish ancestry. Although known for color photographs of children, this volume contains black and white images, most from the 1950s and 1980s, of people on the streets of New York, Morocco, Paris, celebraties at an Eisenhower rally, Danny Kaye at Tanglewood.

Picturing the Modern Amazon, ed. by Joanna Frueh, Laurie Fierstein and Judith Stein. New York: Rizzoli, 2000, 176 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-8478-2247-8, cloth. This graphically strong book focuses on images of hypermuscular and physically strong women with an emphasis on women body builders.

The Life and Photography of Doris Ulmann by Philip Walker Jacobs. Lexington: U. Press of Kentucky, 2001, 352 pp., $40, ISBN 0-8131-2175-2, hardcover. After an early career photographing distinguished writers, editors, and physicians, Ulmann (1882-1934)--who grew up in an affluent New York Jewish family--was drawn to photographing African Americans and whites in the rural South, especially in Appalachia. This volume includes new information about her intimate relationship with musicologist John Jacob Niles.

Artemisia Gentileschi Around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity by Mary D. Garrard. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2001, 201 pp., $24.95, £16.50, ISBN 0-520-22841-3, paperback; $60.00, £40.00, ISBN 0-520-22426-4, hardcover. Gentileschi (1593-1652/3), born in Rome, painted realistic images on religious and allegorical themes. Garrard, who is also the author of Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art (Princeton Univ Press; ISBN 0-691-00285-1), gives a detailed study of two paintings with sexual themes: "Mary Magdalene" and "Susanna and the Elders."

*New in Paper. Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art: Critical Reading and Catalogue Raisonne by R. Ward Bissell. University Park, PA: Penn State U. Press, 1998, 646 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-271-02120-9, paperback (also available in hardcover). A study of the life and paintings of Gentileschi, Bissell challenges many feminist interpretations of this artists' life and work.

Painting Gender, Constructing Theory: The Alfred Stieglitz Circle and American Formalist Aesthetics by Marcia Brennan. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001, 377 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-262-02488-8, cloth. Includes at least a passing mention of Jane Heap, Vernon Lee, Elizabeth McCausland, Djuna Barnes, The Little Review, and homosexual communities.

Alice Neel, ed. by Ann Temkin with essays by Ann Temkin, Susan Rosenberg, and Richard Flood. New York: Abrams (in association with Philadelphia Museum of Art), 2000, 198 pp., $45, Canada $65, ISBN 0-8109-4215-1, hardcover. Neel (1900-1984) became the Grand Old Dame of American figurative painters working in the 20th century. Her portraits--here beautifully reproduced--have an edginess and confrontive power that jump off the page. Especially rich are the stories told here by those who modeled for her.

A World of Our Own: Women As Artists Since the Renaissance by Frances Borzello. New York: Watson-Guptil, 2000, 224 pp., $50, ISBN 0-8230-5874-3, hardcover. A conversationally written introduction to the work of women artists from 1500 to the present.

Alice Schille by William H. Gerdts. New York: Hudson Hills Press (dist. by National Book Network), 2001, 216 pp., $50, ISBN 1-55595-181-3, hardcover. Schille (1869-1955), a watercolorist and art teacher who lived most of her life in Columbus, Ohio, produced luminous landscapes and street scenes, often reflecting her summer travels in Europe and time spent in Taos, N.M.

In Praise of Black Women, Volume 1: Ancient African Queens by Simone Schwarz-Bart with André Schwarz-Bart. Madison, WI: U. of Wisconsin Press, 2001, 433 pp., $60, ISBN 0-299-17250-3, hardcover. A richly illustrated volume with text gathered from oral traditions, folk legends, stories, songs, and poems.

A History of Women Photographers by Naomi Rosenblum, updated and expanded edition. New York: Abbeville, 2000, 400 pp., $65.00, ISBN 0-7892-0658-7, cloth. This handsomely-produced volume includes more than 260 photographers, a connecting narrative, biographies, and bibliographies. There is, quite literally, nothing like it.

Grandma Moses in the 21st Century by Jane Kallir with contributions by Roger Cardinal, Michael D. Hall, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, and Judith E. Stein. New Haven: Yale, 2001, 264 pp., $65, ISBN 0-300-08927-9, hardcover. At age 80, Moses (1860-1961) gained fame for her naive-appearing paintings. She continued painting for two more decades, but has been left out of most mainstream and feminist art histories. This book does much to initiate a reconsideration of her contribution to the art of the mid-20th century.

Women Designers in the USA, 1900-2000: Diversity and Difference, ed. by Pat Kirkham. New Haven: Yale, 2001, 462 pp., $80, ISBN 0-300-08734-9, hardcover. This is a fabulous collection, the kind that can inspire, inform, and drive away depression. Beautiful work elegantly presented.

*New In Paper. Pictures and Passions: a History of Homosexuality In the Visual Arts by James M. Saslow. New York: Penguin, (cloth 1999) 2001, 342 pp., $20.00 US and $28.00 Canadian, ISBN 0-14-024435-2. Winner of two Lambda Literary Awards. Covers diverse cultures from the classical world to the present.

Not new, but timely: The Heart of the Question: The Writings and Paintings of Howardena Pindell, intro. by Lowery Stokes Sims. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1997, 140 pp., $14, ISBN 1-877675-25-3, paperback. A writer and artist, Pindell (b. 1943 in Philadelphia) has been a force in the New York art world over 30 years. This volume includes "Art World Racism," "The Aesthetics of Texture in African Adornment," "Artists' Periodicals As Alternative Spaces," and other essays.

Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel by J.A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1999, 128 pp.,$9.95, £5.95, ISBN 3-7913-2005-X, paperback; $25, ISBN 3-7913-1382-7, hardcover. Starting at age 19, Claudel (1864-1943) first studied with, then became lovers with, the famous (and much older) sculptor Rodin (1840-1919). Claudel became a sculptor, but spent her last 30 years in a mental hospital. This book takes issue with some feminist art historians' interpretations of Claudel and Rodin's relationship and her influence on his work.

I haven't yet seen Sublime Mutations: Photographs 1990-2000 by Del LaGrace Volcano with texts in English and German by Jay Prosser. Tubingen, Germany: Konkursbuch, 2000, 172 pp., £24.95, ISBN: 3-88769-135-0, cloth. Distributed By Turnaround, Unit 3 Olympia Trading Estate, Coburg Road, Wood Green, London, N22 6TZ, e:orders@turnaround-uk.com. Volcano (a.k.a. Della Grace, b. 1957) "explores the eroticism and sexuality of inter-sexed and transgendered identities."

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