An exciting tour of remarkable wall art around the globe, from prehistoric caves to futuristic wonders.

People have been drawing on walls since ancient times. They do it to create beauty, to tell a story, to make a statement, or just to say, “I was here.” You can find wall art in a remote cave in Patagonia and a desert castle in Jordan, a kingly palace in the Republic of Benin and the National Palace of Mexico, a miles-long flood channel in Los Angeles and a sky-high rooftop in Norway.

In Wall to Wall, award-winning author, illustrator, and muralist Mary Ann Fraser takes readers on a worldwide journey through time, stopping to see amazing mural art along the way. Stunning color illustrations and fascinating photographs illuminate both famous and little-known examples, and lighthearted text tells engaging stories about the people who inspired or created them. A glossary, selected bibliography, and section about the preservation of murals conclude the book. No reader will ever again pass by a mural—whether in a historic building, a museum, or out on the street—without stopping to take a closer look.

Ages ten to fourteen

Walls of Algiers examines the historical processes that transformed Ottoman Algiers, the "Bulwark of Islam," into "Alger la blanche," the colonial urban showpiece—and, after the outbreak of revolution in 1954—counter-model of France's global empire. In this volume, the city of Algiers serves as a case study for the analysis of the proactive and reactive social, political, technical, and artistic forces that generate a city's form. Visual sources—prints, photographs, paintings, architectural drawings, urban designs, and film—are treated as primary evidence that complements and even challenges textual documents.

The contributors' wide-ranging but intersecting essays span the disciplines of art history, social and cultural history, urban studies, and film history. Walls of Algiers presents a multifaceted look at the social use of urban space in a North African city. Its contributors' innovative methodologies allow important insights into often overlooked aspects of life in a city whose name even today conjures up enchantment as well as incomprehensible violence.

Marking the three hundredth anniversary of Jean Antoine Watteau’s death, this publication takes a close, revealing look at his recently rediscovered painting La Surprise.
 
The painting La Surprise by Jean Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) belongs to a new genre of painting invented by the artist himself—the fête galante. These works, which show graceful open-air gatherings filled with scenes of courtship, music and dance, strolling lovers, and actors, do not so much tell a story as set a mood: one of playful, wistful, nostalgic reverie. Esteemed by collectors in Watteau’s day as a work that showed the artist at the height of his skill and success, La Surprise vanished from public view in 1848, not to reemerge for more than a century and a half. Acquired by the Getty Museum in 2017, it has never before been the subject of a dedicated publication. Marking the three hundredth anniversary of Watteau’s death, this book considers La Surprise within the context of the artist’s oeuvre and discusses the surprising history of collecting Watteau in Los Angeles.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from November 23, 2021, to February 20, 2022.

A firsthand account of the life and work of Barbara T. Smith, one of the most important yet underrecognized performance artists in the United States.
 
For over fifty years, Barbara T. Smith has been at the forefront of artistic movements in California. Her work across many mediums explores concepts that strike at the core of human nature, including sexuality, physical and spiritual sustenance, technology, and death. In this memoir, Smith weaves together descriptive accounts of her pioneering performances with an intimate narrative of her life.
 
The Way to Be covers the years 1931 to 1981, up to the artist’s fiftieth birthday, resulting in an exhaustive catalogue of her early work. It reveals the personal stories and events behind her pieces and the challenges she faced in an art world dominated by sexism and machismo. Drawing on Smith’s archive at the Getty Research Institute, this enthralling book presents previously unpublished notes, documents, photographs, and firsthand accounts of her life and practice, as well as her more recent reflections on the past. The Way to Be demonstrates Smith’s lasting contributions to the field of contemporary art and provides an engaging commentary on a recent period of great cultural and political change.
 
This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center from February 28 to July 16, 2023.