How to See

Painter David Salle takes up how art works, and how it moves, informs and challenges its viewers, in a collection of essays on influential artists of the 20th century. Many of his subjects are friends and contemporaries, ranging from painters to conceptual artists, among them Roy Lichtenstein, Alex Katz, John Baldessari and Jeff Koons. Salle looks both at the layered personalities of these artists and at what gives each body of work its own character. He sets aside the jargon of art theory in favor of exact, vivid description and humor, with the aim of helping readers build a personal, intuitive response to art and look at it as an artist does.

Liquan Liew, co-founder of Ripple Root, included it on a short list of books for young people considering a similar career.