14 Best Art Books of 2022: Coffee Table Books That Would Make Superlative Gifts
If you’re still stumped on ideas for the stragglers on your list (and blew past the cutoff date for any of our sterling last-minute gift suggestions), might we suggest another bright idea? Art books. Whereas a physical gift—perhaps a disappointing pair of socks or a candle—can emphasize a lack of depth or thought (never one of our picks, of course), a really bang-up coffee table book does the opposite. It telegraphs your taste, your in-the-know-ness, and how much you can nail the recipient’s singular love of maximalist fashion or niche bookstores.
And any of the best art and photo books of the past year—spanning the universe of David Hockney’s latest iPad-equipped art to stylist and editor Katie Grand’s instantly recognizable spreads—would be a welcome gift for any unabashed aesthetes. Below, a curated selection of the meatiest and most brow-raising ones published in the past year, as cherry-picked by the global GQ visuals team. If you’re local to any of these brick-and-mortar establishments, pop in in-person to scoop something up. Posting up in the suburbs with fam already? Many of them are available at big box retailers if you’re stuck Prime-ing your big, beautiful book this year (sorry, we know, we know). And just think, with one of these, they’ll always have something to remember you by: They’ll be flipping through it for inspiration all year long.
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‘Steven Klein,’ by Steven Klein
Steven Klein is one of the last standing godfathers of fashion photography (and most recently photographed Zoë Kravitz for the December cover of GQ). This eponymous coffee table book is the first survey of his work, which spans decades and includes all of his greatest hit collaborations with everyone from Madonna to Rihanna to Ashton Kutcher—who you’ll find taped to a pole six feet in the air on page 257. Klein’s 1998 Fight Club-era Brad Pitt editorial for W has been a north star for GQ‘s photo team, but it’s the less familiar deep cuts like his 2004 portrait of Pitt fully shallacked in glossy red paint that makes this definitive collection a once-in-a-lifetime, must-own treasure.
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‘The Colors of Sies Marjan,’ by Sander Lak
Though the technicolor dreamcoat fashion that was Sies Marjan was short-lived (the brand was only in business from 2016-2020), this 400-page tome proves that creative director Sander Lak’s cult following will live forever. This book might as well be a Pantone fan, with its pages and pages of endlessly inspiring electric color palettes.
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‘My Window,’ by David Hockney
It’s amusing to imagine the artist David Hockney—in his mid-80s and famous for paintings like A Bigger Splash and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)—using an iPad to create work, but he’s actually been experimenting with different mediums and technology since the 80s. My Window, a collection of 120 drawings of his bedroom window in Yorkshire, was originally published as a large-format—expensive and now sold out—collector’s edition, but has been brought back as an artist’s book that won’t break the bank. Might not fit a Christmas stocking, but it will look smart on a coffee table.
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‘Notes Towards Becoming a Spell,’ by Shikeith
The artist Shikeith’s first monograph contains a series of studio portraits of the Black male that are so powerful and so spectacular that it rendered us speechless. Suffice it to say that this book is a must-have for any collection.
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‘un/Masked,’ by Elizaveta Porodina
Elizaveta Porodina, who transitioned from a clinical psychologist to surrealist portrait photographer, has published a debut book that is a rolling landscape of dark, romantic pictures that transcend fashion and beauty portraiture. A longtime GQ collaborator, most recently shooting Brad Pitt for the August 2022 issue, Porodina’s pictures feel like they were made on another planet where everyone and everything is sexier, moodier, and drenched in colors that couldn’t possibly be produced on Earth. Buy her book and follow her on Instagram for a daily view into her stunningly rendered psyche.
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‘Digital Nudes,’ by David Lynch
As a follow-up to David Lynch’s 2017 Nudes book, Digital Nudes sees the director this time experimenting with the female form as digital photographer. It’s not surprising that the man who gave us Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, and Blue Velvet can just as easily execute a dramatic, eerie love letter to the female form. Lynch’s passions have always extended beyond film—Digital Nudes is the latest intimate window into his twisted visual brain.
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‘It Was Once My Universe,’ by Marie Tomanova
Having moved from the Czech Republic to the US in 2011 knowing no one, GQ contributor Marie Tomanova carved out a brilliant career capturing New York City’s youth culture, which were well-documented in her first two books, Young American and New York New York.
Deviating from those themes, It Was Once My Universe is instead a rich exploration into Tomanova’s identity which sees her turning the lens on herself and the place she called home for much of her life. This is her third book published in three years, and with book signings in cities like Prague, Paris, NY, and Tokyo, Tomanova proves that the world is now her oyster.
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‘Tears and Tearsheets,’ by Katie Grand
If the pictures in Katie Grand’s enormous career retrospective anthology look familiar to you, it’s probably because everyone you follow on Instagram has pulled something from Grand’s ouevre for their moodboards. Thumbing through the raw scanned spreads feels like reading a mega-magazine that combines all the coolest editorials from 90s and 2000s style bibles like Dazed & Confused, Pop, The Face, Another, Love, and Perfect magazine.
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‘Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation,’ by Qween Jean
It’s a cliché for a reason: Love has healing powers. This book will help you engage with many of our culture’s enduring ills without leaving you feeling hopeless.
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‘American Polychronic,’ by Roe Ethridge
American Polychronic is an interwoven narrative of Roe Ethridge’s personal art practice with commercial assignments made between 2000 and 2021. The sprawl of color pictures includes his greatest hits and deep cuts: Andrew WK’s bloody nose, the Winklevoss twins, Telfar advertisements, and twisted still lives galore. Magazine spreads and fashion ads are shown unabashedly in their commercial layouts, creating a dialogue that elevates commerce and humbles art. It’s a must-have for any lover of modern color photography.
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‘Amiri Wes Lang,’ by Hart Leshkina
This massive collection meticulously documents Amiri’s Fall Winter 2022 collection in collaboration with artist Wes Lang. Photography duo Hart Lëshkina spent months documenting every aspect of the creative process, including pictures of the sketches to studies of Lang’s hand-painted garments in his studio in LA to behind the scenes reportage of the runway show. It’s a fascinating 360-degree view of the intimate details that make up the collaboration between artist and fashion designer.
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‘Some Of Miwa’s Favorite Dashwood Friends Of The Day,’ by Miwa Susuda and Nick Sethi
If Dashwood Books were a school, the customers would be the students and Some Of Miwa’s Favorite Dashwood Friends Of The Day its yearbook. This is a charming compilation of photographs by Miwa Susuda—Dashwood Books manager and photobook specialist—and a FOMO-inducing documentation of one of New York’s best art bookstores. Luckily for you, if you buy it from Dashwood, you’ll get a signed copy by Miwa and Nick Sethi, the photographer and founder of DAKOTA (the book’s publisher). Give a copy to your friends and maybe you’ll get voted Most Popular.
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‘Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear,’ by Wolfgang Tillmans
Comprising over 400 of his works, To look without fear is a jaw-dropping, robust survey of Wolfgang Tillmans’ career that is mostly known for photography but truly defies categorization. This book accompanies his recent exhibition of the same name—the largest of his career—at the Museum of Modern Art. Neither are to be missed.
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‘Acid House As It Happened,’ by Dave Swindells
Sometimes you just want to look at good, old, pre-cell phone collections of nightlife photography. Dark, dirty, sweaty, dancing, candid, and not a bit of self-conscious posing in sight.
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