
Beady Minces is David Bailey's iconic 1973 photography monograph, capturing the energy and glamour of the Swinging Sixties and early '70s. Featuring roughly 100 black-and-white portraits and travel images, the book includes fashion models, celebrities, and cultural figures of the era, with a foreword by Terence Donovan. It includes Bailey's striking images of Penelope Tree, Jean Shrimpton, Andy Warhol, and others.

The Smell of Calpol on a Warm Summer's Night blurs the line between reality and fiction. Framed like paintings, each image is a cinematic tableau of Suburbia, with a warm glow of neon light reminiscent of hazy evenings spent in front of TV screens. Carlos Clarke presents a glance into others' living rooms and domestic environments, offering an eerie portrayal of twilight.

Trains and steamships transformed transportation in the mid-19th century and opened the world to a new breed of traveler. Louis Vuitton understood the need for more practical luggage, and strove to create products that were adaptable to all situations--and the travel trunk was born.

This book is a documentation of Daria Pyshna’s hometown, Kyiv, and the area known as Obolon, where she lived until she was 12. Most of the photographs depict static metal beams used for anti-tank defense, and were taken in the surrounding area of Pyshna's primary school.

This book explores the dynamic relationship between fashion and graphic design, revealing how clothing draws on visual communication and graphic language. Spanning streetwear, ready-to-wear, and haute couture, it showcases diverse international styles to demonstrate how typography, imagery, and layout shape contemporary fashion aesthetics and identity across global design cultures.

This book focuses on Hicks' use of fabric; his treatment of curtains, upholstery, bed-hangings, fabric-covered walls and other soft furnishings

The year in which photographer Jillian Edelstein turned 40 she came across an image of her great aunt Minna, of whose existence she had been unaware. The photograph of Minna became the catalyst for a journey to unearth her family history and the discovery of an unknown branch of her family living in Ukraine. Here and There documents Edelstein’s family odyssey and expands to encompass photographs made throughout her career, inextricably linked by the thread of human displacement.

A facsimile of surrealist artist and poet Jındřıch Štyrský's handmade artist book from 1933 - originally published in an edition of 69 numbered examples. Contains black and white examples of surrealist photography with collage.

This publication presents the Bill Brandt's entire oeuvre, with special emphasis on his investigation of life in 1930s during war-time London, and his innovative late nudes.

Figures of Speech is 500-page user’s manual to Abloh's genre-bending work in art, fashion and design.The first section features essays and an interview that examine Abloh’s oeuvre through the lenses of contemporary art history, architecture, streetwear, high fashion and race, to provide insight into a prolific and impactful career that cuts across mediums, connecting visual artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers, major brands and architects.

This is the first book to document the short yet prolific artistic career of fashion photographer and filmmaker Tom Kublin, and a celebration of his creative union with Cristóbal Balenciaga during the fashion house’s postwar heyday in Paris. More than 140 photographs and film stills by Kublin capture the golden age of Balenciaga couture in the 1950s and 1960s, from the impeccable elegance of the collection shoots – including exclusive film footage of Balenciaga himself at work – to striking covers and editorials for high-profile magazines.

Issue on apartment interiors.

Hilla and Bernd Becher's cool, objective photographs of industrial structures have earned them a special position in international photography. The Bechers' 224 photographs of watertowers comprise a unique, single minded, even obsessive mission. They were taken from as many as 8 angles, over a period of 25 years, with a stylistic approach so consistent that photographs juxtaposed from the 1950s and 1980s suggest a minute to minute account deadpan portraits of unadorned metal, concrete, and wooden structures.

Temporary Pleasure traces the evolution of nightclub culture across America and Europe since the 1960s, revealing constant reinvention. From psychedelic New York and radical Italian clubs to disco, house, rave, Ibiza retreats, and Berlin techno, each chapter explores a defining scene. Through interviews, design analysis, and vivid photography, John Leo Gillen captures nightlife’s shifting cultural and architectural identities.

A collection of rarely seen photographs that provide an entirely fresh perspective on male friendship in the 19th century. The poignant images in more than 100 early photographs, drawn from both public and private collections, suggest a surprisingly broad-minded attitude towards physical intimacy between men, challenging the conventional view of the Victorian era.

Leading civil rights attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck of The Innocence Project commissioned photographer Taryn Simon to travel across the United States photographing and interviewing individuals who were convicted of heinous crimes of which they were innocent. Simon photographed these innocents at sites of particular significance to their illegitimate conviction: the scene of the crime, misidentification, arrest, or alibi. Simon’s portraits are accompanied by a commentary by Neufeld and Scheck.

A photographic survey of Metropolitan architecture by David Adjaye

Photographer Joseph Szabo's subject is adolescence; his rare gift is capturing the spirit of his students at Malverne High School, caught between puberty and the precipice of adulthood. Taken in the 70s and 80s, the photographs in Teenage represent a remarkable evocation of that period, and yet there is something timeless and endlessly compelling about Szabo's portrait of almost-adulthood.

This compendium includes the most creative and innovative of the celebrated fashion illustrator Lopez's step into camerawork. Most of these instamatics, spanning the 1970s, were previously unpublished prior to the release of this book.

In Cowboy Kate, a lyrical tale of the triumph of youth played out by cowgirls of the old west, Haskins reinvented the genre of the nude with stunningly well-executed photographs, a cinematic approach, and a subtly engaging narrative.

Richard Kern’s classic and long out of print book of black and white photographs of young women was published by a Tokyo Gallery in 1996 as a way to get some of his erotic images from the book New York Girls past the censors in Japan. This book, published early in Kern’s career, features nude photos of girls he knew and worked with from New York’s downtown art and music scene.

This mesmerizing collection of photography, drawing, and sculpture showcases the work of Birgit Jürgenssen, an Austrian avant-garde artist. Birgit Jürgenssen (1949 - 2003) was a strong feminist and fierce advocate for women in the arts. Her early vibrant illustrations and surrealist, dreamlike photographs explored gender and societal restraints, and blurred the lines between humans, plants, and animals.

The Afterimage Reader collects writings from the independent British film journal Afterimage (1970–1987), which chronicled radical cinema in a period of intense cultural and political change. Featuring texts by critics Noël Burch, B. Ruby Rich, and filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, and Jan Švankmajer, along with interviews with Hollis Frampton and Raúl Ruiz, the collection—edited by Mark Webber with contributions from Simon Field and Ian Christie—offers an essential record of avant-garde, Latin American, and visionary cinema.

A book on embroidery and stiching.

Future Art Ecosystems 3: Art × Decentralise (FAE3) explores how decentralised technologies—often termed web3, crypto, and the dweb—could reshape cultural infrastructure. Through interviews with specialists across art, technology, and policy, the publication examines new models for creative production, distribution, and funding, proposing strategies for cultural organisations to build interoperable systems that support innovation and resilient democratic societies.

Sounds Codes Images examines the shifting boundary between sound and image, focusing on intersections of visual art and music. Drawing on sound studies, music theory, and acoustic ecology, it maps Czech visual art and synaesthetic approaches. The book also presents Czech, Slovak, and international artists experimenting with graphic scores, sonification, visualization, resonant objects, installations, and digital media.

PARIS + KLEIN gathers together hundreds of photographs shot by Klein from the time he first picked up a camera in the 1960s until he put it down, momentarily, to put together this book. In his signature colour and black-and-white compositions, his photographs depict men in the street, celebrities, demonstrations, fashion, the police, politics, races, the metro, football, death. The whole life of a capital seen through the lively, melancholic and moving eyes of William Klein.

Jessica Madavo and Phoenix Yemi for Ayvan Black Star is about immersing yourself in the unknown. The photography, along with the poems scattered throughout the book, are a testament to opening your heart to the present moment. Taken during the artist's time in Senegal, the images encapsulate the transformative experience of movement, discovery and unfamiliarity.

Work 1961–73 chronicles the years when Rainer found herself and her work at the heart of a revolution in dance, performance and art. Written in Rainer’s wonderful frank, funny and perceptive prose, and illustrated with photographs, handwritten scores, sketches, press articles and ephemera, Work 1961–73 is a period document and an instruction manual, an archive and a manifesto.

A book about workshop traditions which have been handed down by Koreans and Japanese from the greatest period of Chinese ceramics in Sung dynasty.
For Naked City, his first collection, photographer Weegee cruised the streets of 1940s New York in the early hours of the morning in search of the sensational.

Bobby Baker is one of the most widely acclaimed and popular performance artists working today. This book brings together for the first time an account of Baker’s career as an artist with critical commentary by reviewers; transcripts of Baker's performances; and other originial materials.

Following on from the enormous success of Fruits, Fresh Fruits features the latest from Tokyo based Fruits Magazine. Fresh Fruits uncovers how street fashion has changed in the downtown districts of Tokyo as seen through the eye of Japanese fashion photographer Shoichi Aoki. Sublime in its simplicity, Fresh Fruits captures the strange and often ‘surreal’ fashion sense of Japanese teenagers

Known as the poet of glamour and the man who adores women, Peter Lindbergh has been a driving force in the world of fashion and the evolution of the supermodel. This book features not only Lindberghs print photo campaigns but also the outtakes, Polaroids, and scouting photos of the photographers little films that have redefined fashion photography with their compelling realism and depth of emotion. The 250 color and duotone photos feature never-before-published images of Milla Jovovich, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford, and Amber Valletta.


A themed collection of Araki photographs. Issue 13: Xeroxed Photo Albums

Jamaican artist Deborah Anzinger (born 1978) works at the intersection of Black feminist thought, geography and space to create sculptures, videos, paintings and installations combining synthetic and living materials. An Unlikely Birth compiles her material and conceptual experiments.

A book of the exhibition curated by Issey Miyake that explores the relationship between human body and the way things are made as a platform for considering how things will be made in the future.

Untitled is the only volume devoted to a single project by Diane Arbus, drawn from photographs taken in residences for people with developmental disabilities between 1969 and 1971, during the final years of her life. Largely unpublished until this edition, the images reveal a lyrical, emotionally direct vision that Arbus herself described as “finally what I’ve been searching for.” More mythic than documentary, the work reflects her unflinching engagement with reality and affirms the individuality and shared humanity of her subjects.

This catalogue was published to coincide with an exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago featureing established and emerging Dutch photographers – including Rineke Dijkstra, Bertien van Manen, Hans van der Meer, Celine van Balen, Koos Breukel, Juul Hondius, Hellen van Meene, and more.

The portrait is central to Fazal Sheikhs work. Often these have been people in crisis: displaced from their homes and their countries, at risk from violence, poverty and prejudice. This book takes in the full range of Fazal Sheikhs work, from his earliest portraits taken in African refugee camps, through long-term projects in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan, Somalia and Kenya, to more recent work in South America and in India.

This book presents photographs of some of the Swinging Sixties characters across Paris, London and New York shot by David Bailey.

INTRA-VENUS is Hannah Wilke’s last work before she passed away 1993 of complications from Lymphoma. During the later stages of her illness, she collaborated with her husband, Donald Goddard, on a series of photographs documenting the realities of her physical and mental transformation.

In One Day, Something Happens: Paintings of People the celebrated writer, art critic and co-editor of Frieze magazine, Jennifer Higgie, illuminates her fascination for the figure in modern British painting through the works of 40 diverse artists from the past century.

A series black-and-white photographs of natural elements—water, sand, and wood—rendered in a highly graphic, abstract style. Published in 1967, the images transform natural textures into evocative, almost painterly compositions. Accompanied by a preface by sculptor François Stahly and poems by Anne de Staël, the work combines photography and poetry in a reflective dialogue with nature.

When Maxime Gaillard opened a small bistro at 3 rue Royale, his restaurant was soon discovered by the star socialite of the moment, Irma de Montigny, who launched it as a center of Parisian nightlife. A masterpiece of Art Nouveau architecture and design, Maxim's remains faithful to this period and continues to be a symbol of Parisian luxury life. In this book, Jean-Pascal Hesse tells us the fascinating story of this legendary place along with also the restaurant most successful recipes, with accompanying illustrations.

PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince is at once a portrait of Haiti's capital, a celebration of its arts, and a visionary re-mapping of culture in the world's first Black republic. The exhibition, and this accompanying book, showcases thevibrant, complex urban art using found objects, Voodoo traditions, and street life, moving beyond rural folklore to map Haiti's dynamic culture

This book co-published by the documents the 14th Sharjah Biennial, featuring contributions from over 30 artists to explore contemporary art's response to environmental, political, and technological shifts.

This book offers an intimate look at the country’s most stylish offices, conference rooms, and dining spaces, belonging to figures such as David Rockefeller, Katharine Graham, and Halston. It highlights how each workspace reflects personal taste, from Estee Lauder’s romantic interiors to Oppenheimer & Co.’s sleek, executive designs.

Since 1988, Larry Sultan photographed on porn sets in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. The result is a dense series of pictures of middle-class homes invaded by the porn industry. His lens focuses on pedestrian details – a piece of half-eaten pie, dirty linens in a heap, "actors" taking a break – that offer clues to a bizarre other-world. The lush and intricate images adroitly play with artifice and reality, adding up to rich, elliptical narratives that circle around the concepts of "home" and "desire.

In Praise of Still Boys showcases exclusive stills and poetry from JulianKnxx’s acclaimed short film, In Praise of Still Boys (2021) – a striking testament to this very process of an ongoing reconciliation and a kind of healing.

From 11 December 2011 to 6 May 2012, the Groninger Museum presented the exhibition entitled Azzedine Alaia 2001 - 2011: displaying the most fantastic Alaïa fashion creations of the last ten years. This book is an accompaniment to this exhibition, featuring full page photographs of the House's creations.

Among the significant projects of the last year of his life, Richard Avedon (1923–2004) completed a book of his photographs of women – ranging from celebrities (Marilyn Monroe), artists (Marguerite Duras, June Leaf), and high-fashion models (Suzy Parker, Dovima) to anonymous people that simply drew his attention.

Not a Toy: Fashioning Radical Characters examines the growing influence of character design in fashion and art. Edited by ATOPOS cvc and Vassilis Zidianakis, it features avant-garde fashion, costumes, and hairstyles from a range of designers and artists, and explores how they reinvent the human form and the role of identity in fashion.


In An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), Simon compiles an inventory of what lies hidden and out-of-view within the borders of the United States. She examines a culture through the documentation of subjects from domains including: science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security, and religion.

An exhibition catalogue published by The Redfern Gallery documenting new work by the British painter. Featuring contributions from Wes Lang and Reba Maybury, it highlights his shift toward narrative-driven, observational painting, influenced by his time in St. Ives and the US.
A collection of 177 annotated photographs of Eton offering an intimate and personal insight into the school, the area and its people.

This book brings together a wealth of research and an expansive selection of photographs found at a New York Flea Market to create an enduring account of America's first known trans network, Casa Susanna.

Annotated in his wry, inimitable voice, Juergen Teller presents over three decades of fashion and editorial work in a groundbreaking volume that combines photography, collage, and candid (and often humorous) autobiography.

In this magnificent collection, the lost world of Eastern Europe's Jewish communities once again comes to life. Between 1936 and 1939, Roman Vishniac travelled through the Jewish settlements of Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland, passionately documenting a rich and vital culture that would soon cease to exist.

In this collection of classic work from the 1980s, Bailey abstains from any comment or explanation but shows the reader the world of a mature photographer whose vision has been sharpened by time.


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This book presents an overview of the developments in the use and planning of public spaces, and offers a detailed description of 9 cities and 39 selected public space projects from all parts of the World.

Stutter was Kingsley Ifill’s debut solo show, an exhibition of striking composite works curated by filmmaker and photographer Tom Beard. Excavating defunct technologies and commandeering outmoded techniques, Ifill’s distinctively analogue style generates a startling effect in a world characterised by the faultless and infinitely repeatable replica. Although the abandoned or out-dated processes he appropriates were themselves created to allow the production of multiple images, Ifill rejects the principle of mass-reproduction and insists on unique, one-off editions produced at large scale.

This is the first monograph of Gabriel Moses, filled with lusciously colored images that capture Moses' eye for beauty and talent for storytelling.

Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought”, and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems.


Master photographer Larry Fink offers a surreal window into the fashion world, from Milan to New York, focusing on the major players, behind-the-scenes preparations, and strange industry doings that constitute the runway scene.

The book explores the daily lives and experiences of Black people in Paris during the early 1980 through the photographs of Nicolas Silatsa.

A documentation of Black style through portraits of people on the streets of Chicago.

This book explores the quirky, anarchic world of photocopied ephemera from the archive of Jamie Reid. Celebrated for his iconic Sex Pistols album covers—Never Mind the Bollocks, Anarchy in the UK, and God Save the Queen—Reid’s work captures the rebellious, irreverent spirit of punk through Xeroxed flyers, zines, and playful visual experimentation.

This book is a round up of all forms of aesthetic taste in America – from politics, to religion, to home decoration and advertising.

A periodical book on modern houses from around the globe. Featuring work of architects Jørn Utzon, Hans Scharoun, John Portman & Associates, Cesar Pelli/Gruen Associates

Jonas Mekas in conversation film makers – including Andy Warhol, Nico Papatakis, Albert and David Maysles, Peter Kubelka, Agnes Varda, Harry Smith, John Cassavetes, Stan Brakhage.

In the late 1960s, Tadanori Yokoo explored mysticism and psychedelia, influenced by travels in India. Though often compared to Andy Warhol or Peter Max, his layered imagery was deeply autobiographical and original. Internationally recognized, he appeared in MoMA’s 1968 “Word & Image” show, and in 1972 the Museum of Modern Art held a solo exhibition of his graphic work.

Richard Billingham's Ray's a Laugh is considered one of the most important contemporary photobooks from Britain. Centered around Billingham's working-class family who live in a cramped Birmingham high-rise tenement apartment and his father Ray - a chronic alcoholic - these candid snapshots describe their daily lives in a visual diary that is raw, intimate, touching and often uncomfortably humorous.

Everyday Things, White City Generation 88-97 is a photobook that attempts to answer two pivotal questions; what is the everyday and what our are our everyday things? This photobook is compromised by a series of photographs made with a familial group of young Black adults living in White City, Shepherd's Bush, West London. Throughout the photobook, annotative reflections exploring what it was like to grow up in and live the area, are shared by the familial group alongside their perceptions of White City’s historical and contemporary representations.

For more than twenty years, Jefferson Hack has pioneered the idea of magazines as communities through his co-founding editorial of Dazed & Confused, AnOther Magazine and Another Man. Featuring contributions from cultural provocateurs Tilda Swinton, Rankin, Douglas Coupland, Björk, Aimee Mullins, and many more, We Can't Do This Alone: Jefferson Hack the System re-defines the purpose of alternative media in the 21st century drawing on a wealth of innovative projects to artfully map out a bright future for radical publishing.

In this book, Mayall identified the dangers and difficulties created for machine operators by the increasing complexity of modern machines and examined the development of the "machine aesthetic" against social, technical and marketing factors. He also believed that organizing machines into coherent visual fields would help prevent accidents.

For ten years - from 1984 until 1995 - Newton published his best photographs in his own magazine, Helmut Newton's Illustrated. During this period, four editions appeared: No. 1 "Sex and Power," No. 2 "Pictured from an Exhibition," No. 3 "I was there" and No. 4 "Dr. Phantasme." This edition brings them all together.

Chasity in Focus explores the catalogues of British Lingerie designer Janet Reger.

In the South Bronx of America is a work which, through documentary photographs, counterpointed with statements by residents and by newspaper reports and statistical information, offers both an intimate view of life in this neighbourhood and a context for understanding accelerated social decay.

Sheila Metzner's unique photographic style has positioned her as a contemporary master in the worlds of fine art, fashion, portraiture, still life and landscape photography. This book contains some of a collection of her photographs, with a foreword by Ralph Lauren.

Manhole Covers documents this singular form of urban industrial art and its place in American culture.

Book detailing the practice of architectural training at the Bauhau based on the lecture notes made by the Dutch ex-Bauhaus student and architect J.J. van der Linden of the Mies van der Rohe curriculum.

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This publication developed from the exhibition and research project The Place Is Here (2016–19), which traced the urgent and wide-ranging conversations taking place between black artists, writers, and thinkers in Britain during the 1980s.

Cage voices his concerns on the nature and future of music, they ways of dancers, the West's interpretation of Eastern ideas in this thought provoking collection of anecdotes and epigrams.

John Galliano has truly reinvented the art of haute couture, redefining its tropes into a new type of contemporary fashion and vision of Christian Dior. This book highlights the exceptional silhouettes he created for Dior collection after collection from 1996 to 2011, as photographed by Steven Meisel, Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn and more.

A book on street art and graffiti.

GA Document is a Global Architecture focusing on contemporary international architecture and design projects.

A photographic survey of Metropolitan architecture by David Adjaye

This entry into the Gwent College of Higher Education's 'Newport Survey' series takes an eye towards the domestic. Featuring photographic essays on employment, the area's Muslim community and conditions in housing estates, this is a vital piece of ephemera for those interested in the Welsh experience of the turbulemt 1980s.

A collection of black and white photographic portraits by Laon Maybanke presenting the many expressions, gestures and faces of humanity.

The Mechanical Hand: Artists' Projects at Paupers Press focuses on the work of Paupers Press, a fine art print studio that concentrates on etching, lithography and relief printing. The studio has worked with many of the leading contemporary artists working in collaboration with the artists to produce limited edition and unique prints, books and portfolio collections. The book examines the collaborative relationship of the studio and the contemporary artists they work with.

Kitchen Table Series is the first publication dedicated solely to this early and important body of work by the American artist Carrie Mae Weems. The 20 photographs and 14 text panels that make up Kitchen Table Series tell a story of one woman’s life, as conducted in the intimate setting of her kitchen.
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Over the past eleven years, the photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber and his partner Nan Bush have published the book series All-American featuring works by artists, photographers, essayists, poets, and personalities whose lives and accomplishments they wish to celebrate. This edition features a portfolio of elephant photographs by Bruce Weber, Kennedy family portraits by Betty Kuhner, and Marlon Brando, as seen by Sam Shaw. Also included are Gilles Larrain, Phil Ochs, Mary Lloyd Estrin, Mary Randlett, Joel Sternfeld, Ranee Flynn, paintings by Forrest Bess, and Joe Coleman collages.

In early 1986, Consumers Union commissioned esteemed photographer Eugene Richards to travel across the country to document the dimensions of American poverty. In 144 unforgettable photographs and 14 essays, Richards captures the hoplessness of urban youth, the struggle of Midwestern farmers, the squalor of day-to-day existence for Mexican-American immigrants living in Texas border towns.
The Library
Our Library is the heart of Reference Point and from where all other elements take their philosophy and context. An evolving and growing collection of rare books, ephemera and printed matter focused on Post-War Radical Art, Architecture, Design, Fashion and Culture. The library exists to create inspiration and conversation, and provide creatives of all stages and disciplines reference points for their projects.
Our librarians are always on hand to serve as research assistants but you can also email us with your interests and project brief and we can prepare a selection of works in advance of your visit.
Reference Point
2 Arundel Street
WC2R 3DA, London