McCullough mixes famous and obscure names and delivers capsule biographies of everyone to produce a colorful parade of educated, Victorian-era American travelers and their life-changing experiences in Paris.

"Edward Curtis was dashing, charismatic, a passionate mountaineer, a famous photographer -- the Annie Liebowitz of his time. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: He would try to capture on film the Native American nation before it disappeared. At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Curtis's iconic photographs,...

A New York Times Notable Book: Roxana Robinson's definitive biography of Georgia O'Keeffe is a rich and revealing portrait of the iconic American artist.   Artist Georgia O'Keeffe was born into a family of strong Midwestern farmwomen and taught self-reliance at an early age. Coming of age in the modern era, she went on to defy the social conventions of her time and lead a successful and emancipated life full of creativity, feminism, and austerity...

In this film essay, multimedia artist Laurie Anderson presents a monologue touching upon her relationship with her rat terrier Lolabelle, the death of her mother, the heightening of surveillance following 9/11, and other topics.

Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school -- in her sixties -- to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance...

"The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense. From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny, deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in countless ways, from Tim Burton's movies to Anna Sui's fashion to Neil Gaiman's Coraline to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Some call him the Grandfather of Goth (which would've given him the fantods)....

A rare, never-before-seen collection of Bruce Lee's private letters and writing! Bruce Lee was an intense man with such sheer concentration of energy that no one who encountered him, on screen or in person, could help but be drawn to him and his enthusiasm for life and knowledge. A voracious and engaged reader, Lee wrote extensively, synthesizing the thought of East and West into a unique personal philosophy of self-discovery. Bruce Lee: Artist...

Meet diverse contemporary artists through revealing profiles that take viewers behind the scenes into artists' studios, homes, and communities to provide an intimate view of their lives, work, sources of inspiration and creative processes.