
Art Work
On the Creative Life
Abrams Press · Print & ebook · September 9, 2025
“A big and beautiful gift-worthy holiday art book” (New York Times), this new bookby artist Sally Mann about the challenges and transcendent pleasures of the creative process, is now a New York Times bestseller. “Erudite, frank, and funny.” —Amor Towles, bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway Offering a spellbinding mix of wild and illuminating stories, practical (and some impractical) advice, and life lessons, Art Work, by photographer and writer Sally Mann, is not to be missed.
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- Who it’s for
- Sally Mann considers creativity in frank, funny prose, alongside photographs, journal entries, and letters.
- Themes
- Creativity and the creative process, Hard work, rejection, and risk-taking
- Genres
- Artists' Lives, Photography Writing, Unlocking Creativity
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For younger readers: Time to Make Art, This Is What I Know About Art, Phenomenal Moments: Revealing the Hidden Science Around US
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Start with this bookAbout this book
“A big and beautiful gift-worthy holiday art book” (New York Times), this new bookby artist Sally Mann about the challenges and transcendent pleasures of the creative process, is now a New York Times bestseller.
Continue reading
“Erudite, frank, and funny.” —Amor Towles, bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway Offering a spellbinding mix of wild and illuminating stories, practical (and some impractical) advice, and life lessons, Art Work, by photographer and writer Sally Mann, is not to be missed. Written in the same direct, fearless, and occasionally outrageous tone of her bestselling memoir, Hold Still, this new book reaffirms Mann as a unique and resonant voice for our times and is destined to become a classic. Illustrated throughout with photographs, journal entries, and letters that bring immediacy and poignancy to the narrative, Art Work is full of thought-provoking insights about the hazards of early promise; the unpredictable role of luck; the value of work, work, work, and more hard work; the challenges of rejection and distraction; the importance of risk-taking; and the rewards of knowing why and when you say yes. In sparkling prose and thoughtfully juxtaposed visuals and ephemera, Art Work is a generous, provocative, and compulsively readable exploration of creativity by one of our most original thinkers.
Making the Work
Sally Mann considers creativity in frank, funny prose, alongside photographs, journal entries, and letters.
Come here for
- Thoughtful company on risk, rejection, luck, and the working life
- A vivid blend of stories, advice, and visual ephemera
Expect
- Direct reflections on the challenges and pleasures of creating
- A mix of practical and impractical advice
Where it sits
| Unlocking Creativity | 55% |
|---|---|
| Artists' Lives | 27% |
| Photography Writing | 27% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Studying Artists
- Personal Memoirs
- Photography Writing
- Unlocking Creativity
- Authors
- Sally Mann
- Publisher
- Abrams Press
- Published
- September 9, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Creativity and the creative process · Hard work, rejection, and risk-taking
- Reading lane
- Studying Artists