11 Taschen Books About Iconic LGBTQ+ Artists

Coffee table books unite the best of two different types of art, photography, and text, therefore becoming a thrilling piece of art! Some may think of them as just a trend, but in fact, they’ve been in the market for quite a while. The concept of a book intended essentially for display was first mentioned by Michel de Montaigne in his 1581 essay "Upon Some Verses of Virgil". In the late 1940s, publisher Albert Skira and others began producing large folio and quarto (4to) format art books that were significant in the development of coffee table books as known today. Only in 1961, the term "coffee table book" was invented by Arts Magazine. 

Nowadays there are hundreds and hundreds of options for coffee table books in the market. However, it’s no secret that Taschen has the best catalog! Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. Their publications are available in various sizes, from oversized tomes to small pocket-sized books. The company is mainly known for publishing Art Collection Books, Sex Books, and Architectural Books, but they also have an excellent collection of LGBTQ+ artists. 

One of Taschen’s best-selling books is 220 for 2020 by David Hockney, a luxurious piece of art about a contemporary artist who never hid his sexuality. Taschen also has different titles exploring Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work. In this list, you will find the 11 Books About Iconic LGBTQ+ Artists published by Taschen. 

This post features the following coffee table books: 220 for 2020 by David Hockney, The Pedro Almodóvar Archives, Tom of Finland XXL, Kahlo, Haring, Annie Leibovitz, Leonardo - The Complete Paintings and Drawings, Love, Sex, and Desire by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol on Basquiat: The Iconic Relationship Told in Andy Warhol’s Words and Pictures, and Andy Warhol: Seven Illustrated Books 1952–1959. 

David Hockney 

David Hockney is an English painter, printmaker, and photographer considered an important part of the pop art movement and one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. During his career, Hockney has experimented with painting, drawing, printmaking, watercolors, photography, and many other media including an iPad drawing program.

Hockney came out as gay at the age of 23, when homosexuality was still considered a Sexual Offence Act in the UK. Hockney has explored the nature of gay love in his work. In 1963 he painted two men together in the painting Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, one showering while the other washes his back. In the summer of 1966, while teaching at UCLA, he met Peter Schlesinger, who became his muse and partner. Hockney also had a relationship with Gregory Evans, who is currently his business partner at the David Hockney Studio. The artist is currently in a relationship with longtime companion Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima. 

On 15 November 2018, Hockney's 1972 work Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) was sold at Christie's auction house in New York City for $90 million, becoming the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction. 

220 for 2020 by David Hockney

Edition of 1,620, Hardcover, 2 volumes in a clamshell box; Vol. 1: 17.2 x 12.3 in., 236 pages; Vol. 2: 11 x 7.8 in., 174 pages - US$ 3,000

Locked down in Normandy, David Hockney closely followed the changing seasons, using his iPad to spontaneously depict his impressions of the surrounding landscape. The project became a lifeline for him, and a message of hope he offered to us. For this artist’s book, Hockney has compiled 220 (plus four bonus) iPad paintings from 2020, each illustration tipped in on the blue paper stock. The book is accompanied by an extra volume with facsimiles of two sketchbooks created in the build-up to the project.

Collector’s Edition (No. 401–2,020), numbered and stamped in Vol. 1 on an extra page with a preface by David Hockney Also available in four limited Art Editions (No. 1–400), each with a numbered print, dated and signed by David Hockney. Click here to Pre-Order/Buy 220 for 2020 by David Hockney. 

Click here to buy 220 for 2020 by David Hockney. 

Credit: Taschen

Pedro Almodóvar 

Pedro Almodóvar is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, and producer. He achieved international recognition for his black comedy-drama film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at The Academy Awards. His films All About My Mother (1999) and Talk to Her (2002) earned him an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay, respectively. 

Almodóvar is openly gay, and often includes elements of underground and LGBTQ culture in his films. Within his films, LGBTQ+ characters do not need to come out as they are already sexually liberated. He has been with his partner, the actor and photographer Fernando Iglesias, since 2002.

During his career, Almodóvar has won two Academy Awards, five British Academy Film Awards, two Emmy Awards, six European Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, nine Goya Awards, and one award at the Venice Film Festival, and four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. 

The Pedro Almodóvar Archives

Hardcover, 13.3 x 9.7 in., 7.71 lb, 456 pages - US$ 80

An updated edition of The Pedro Almodóvar Archives, offering inside access to the cult Spanish director who beguiles audiences worldwide with his thrilling dissertations on desire, passion, and identity. With behind-the-scenes pictures and personal reminiscences, Almodóvar himself guides the reader through his singular journey from its early days through to I’m So Excited (2013) and Julieta (2016). 

Click here to buy The Pedro Almodóvar Archives. 

Credit: Taschen

Tom of Finland

Touko Valio Laaksonen, best known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland, was once called the most influential creator of gay homoerotic images. He produced over 3,500 illustrations, that inspired generations of queer artists around the world. 

The artist created a series of drawings portraying hyper-masculine guys as a way of creating homoerotic art during a time when drawing men having sex wasn't allowed. Tom’s drawings represent the 1950s gay subcultures. Many of them are based on real photographs. 

Tom of Finland XXL

Hardcover, 9.6 x 13.5 in., 8.35 lb, 666 pages - New edition, only US$ 80, Original edition US$ 200

Discover the full range of Tom’s talent, from sensitive portraits and frank sexual pleasure to tender expressions of love and haunting tributes and young men struck down by AIDS. Essays on Tom’s social and personal impact by Camille Paglia, John Waters, Armistead Maupin, Todd Oldham, and others, plus a scholarly analysis of individual drawings by art historian Edward Lucie-Smith round out this elegant, oversized volume.

Click here to buy Tom of Finland XXL. 

Credit: Taschen

Frida Kahlo 

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter known for incredible self-portraits and works inspired by nature. In her work, Kahlo explores identity, the postcolonialism era, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. She was disabled by polio as a child, injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong medical problems, and sexually abused by a female teacher. But she was always fighting. 

Kahlo joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. They had a problematic relationship. Rivera had multiple affairs, which led Kahlo to attempt suicide by overdose once. Being a bisexual, Kahlo started to have her own affairs with both men and women.

In 2014 Kahlo was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have made significant contributions in their fields. She has become an icon for feminists, the LGBTQ community, and Chicanos.

Kahlo

Hardcover, 8.3 x 10.2 in., 1.36 lb, 96 pages - US$ 16

Feminist icon, symbol of Mexican culture, political activist, groundbreaking artist: discover the many facets of Frida Kahlo, who transformed the afflictions of her life into unremittingly powerful paintings. In this introduction, Kahlo's body of bold, arresting works are presented alongside her turbulent life to shed light on the audacious face glaring defiantly from her self-portraits.

Click here to buy Kahlo.

Credit: Taschen

Keith Haring 

At a very early age, Keith Haring learned basic cartooning skills from his father and the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. When older, he studied commercial arts at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh but didn’t finish the course. Haring moved to New York City instead, where his career began. He became friends with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat and experimented with performance, video, installation, and collage.

Haring created drawings in white chalk upon blank paper panels in the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, he produced hundreds of those and his art became familiar to New York commuters. During the 80s, Haring achieved international recognition and participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. 

The artist was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In the following year, he established the Keith Haring Foundation to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS. He died at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990.

Haring

Hardcover, 8.3 x 10.2 in., 1.25 lb, 96 pages - US$ 16

Keith Haring spent little more than a decade in the spotlight, but in his singular blend of street art, graffiti, Pop sensibility, and cartoon elements, he created stalwarts of modern pop culture as much as vivid social and political statements. From his first subway drawings through to his Pop Shop in SoHo, this concise introduction explores Haring’s innovation and activism at the heart of the 1980s New York art scene.

Click here to buy Haring.

Credit: Taschen

Annie Leibovitz 

Annie Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer best known for her celebrity portraits. One of her most famous works is the Polaroid photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken five hours before Lennon's murder. 

Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute and started her career as a staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine in 1971. She also served as the concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones' Tour of the Americas '75. 

The photographer had a close relationship with writer and essayist Susan Sontag from 1989 until Sontag died in 2004. "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan" she said in 2006.

Other names photographed by Leibovitz are Queen Elizabeth II, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore, Michael Jackson, Adele, Lady Gaga, and Barack Obama. 

Annie Leibovitz (Book)

Edition of 9,000, Hardcover with 8 fold-outs, 19.7 x 27.2 in., 476 pages, supplement book, and book stand designed by Marc Newson - US$ 7,500

A limited edition of 9,000 signed and numbered copies, the Annie Leibovitz SUMO presents some of the most famed actors, musicians, artists, writers, athletes, and businesspeople of our time. Available in four different cover photos, this at once intimate and iconic portrait collection is presented with a Marc Newson designed book stand and a supplementary essay compendium.

Click here to buy Annie Leibovitz.

Credit: Taschen

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the biggest names during the Renaissance. He was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. Da Vinci is the creator of legendary pieces of art, such as the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Vitruvian Man. 

Da Vinci’s sexuality has been discussed for decades, with historians and even Sigmund Freud weighing in with theories about his sex life. Although there’s no way of knowing his sexual orientation, there is consensus between historians that he was probably gay. Silvano Vinceti, head of the National Committee for Cultural Heritage, believes that the Mona Lisa was actually inspired by Gian Giocomo Caprotti, known as Salai, and mentioned by historians as one of Da Vinci’s male lovers. 

Leonardo - The Complete Paintings and Drawings 

Hardcover, 11.4 x 15.6 in., 16.78 lb, 712 pages - US$ 200

Leonardo da Vinci is a key figure of the Italian Renaissance. This updated XXL monograph presents all his paintings and almost 700 drawings – the most comprehensive survey to date on the master artist, architect, and inventor. Discover the finest subtleties in the brushstrokes that revolutionized art with full-page, detailed photos.

Click here to buy Leonardo - The Complete Paintings and Drawings.

Credit: Taschen

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director, and producer, mainly known as one of the leading figures in the Pop Art movement. His work explored different artistic languages, mixing advertising, and celebrity culture. Warhols’s first commission had been to draw shoes for Glamour magazine in the late 1940s. In the late 1960s, he managed and produced the rock band The Velvet Underground and founded Interview magazine.

In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in Time magazine with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener, which became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July of the same year. He also was praised for his portrait series of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor. 

Warhol lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement. Throughout his career, he produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters in New York City. 

Andy Warhol: Love, Sex, and Desire. Drawings 1950–1962 

Hardcover, 11 x 13.3 in., 7.03 lb, 392 pages - US$ 100

Before Andy Warhol’s rise to the peak of Pop Art, he created seductive drawings celebrating male beauty. His plan to publish these drawings in a book has now been realized. This volume has over 300 of Warhol’s rarely seen, risqué images that highlight the artist’s fascination with the male form, droll humor, and ironic detachment.

Click here to buy Andy Warhol: Love, Sex, and Desire. Drawings 1950–1962.

Credit: Taschen

Andy Warhol: Seven Illustrated Books 1952–1959 

Portfolio with 7 smaller volumes inserted, 284 pages, 13.6 x 18.7 in., plus 56-page supplementary booklet - US$ 200

Andy Warhol’s 1950s hand-drawn books, created during his pre-fame years, are much-coveted jewels in the Pop art master’s crown. This portfolio contains meticulous reprints of all seven books, reproduced as closely as possible to the original and presented in an accordion case. Complete with an XL-sized guidebook contextualizing Warhol’s life alongside his unique creations, this edition offers an unparalleled glimpse of Warhol’s budding genius.

Click here to buy Andy Warhol: Seven Illustrated Books 1952–1959.

Credit: Taschen

Jean-Michel Basquiat 

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work became popular during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. The cultural scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side during the late 1970s had a huge influence on his work. At 22, he was one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. 

Unfortunately, Basquiat died at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose in 1988. In 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million. 

Although he never publicly identified as bisexual, Basquiat had sexual relationships with men according to several friends. Basquiat’s former ex-girlfriend once described his sexual preferences as multichromatic. “They could be boys, girls, thin, fat, pretty, ugly ... He was attracted to intelligence more than anything and to pain,” she said.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (Book)

Hardcover, 11.4 x 15.6 in., 13.40 lb, 500 pages - US$ 200
Get up close to the bold brushwork and scribbled words of Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the most successful artists of his time. This XXL-sized monograph gathers Basquiat’s major works in pristine reproduction. Texts by editor Hans Werner Holzwarth and curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne introduce us to a legend synonymous with 1980s New York.

Click here to buy Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Credit: Taschen

Warhol and Basquiat 

They were both introduced by a common friend in 1982, and a friendship was born. Warhol and Basquiat inspired each other and often created collaborative work, such as Untitled and Ten Punching Bags. Particularly from 1984 onwards, Warhol would write in his diary about when Basquiat would come over “to work on one of (their) joint paintings”. 

Warhol was also interested in Basquiat’s love life and sexual relationships, writing notes about every story in his diary - including when Basquiat kissed Madonna in a New York gentlemen’s club. With a 30-year age gap between the two, Warhol and Basquiat's relationship was often similar to a father-son dynamic. 

Warhol on Basquiat - The Iconic Relationship Told in Andy Warhol’s Words and Pictures 

Hardcover, 8.5 x 11.4 in., 4.34 lb, 312 pages - US$ 60
Produced in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Foundation and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s estate, this book explores the artists’ complex personal and professional relationship through hundreds of never-before-published photographs of Basquiat by Warhol, excerpts from the legendary Andy Warhol Diaries, rarely seen archival material and examples of their collaborative artworks.

Click here to buy Warhol on Basquiat - The Iconic Relationship Told in Andy Warhol’s Words and Pictures. 

Credit: Taschen

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