World of Art is a long established series of pocket-sized art books from the British publisher Thames & Hudson, comprising over 300 titles as of 2021. The books are typically around 200 pages, but hea
Evolution of the cover design. 1, Herbert Read's A Concise History of Modern Painting, originally published in 1959 in the series, which became a foundational text for art students everywhere. 2, Michael Levey's A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne. 3, Whitney Chadwick's Women, Art, and Society. 4, Richard J. Powell's Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. 5, Patrick Waldberg's Surrealism. 6, James H. Rubin's Monet.
Some earliest hardbacks with glossy dust jackets, spanning the period 1961–1980, the majority of these publications date back to the 1960s.