Talking Quilts Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection (Abrams, $40) highlights more than 40 quilts from the museum's renowned collection of nearly 300, ranging from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Although notable for their rich fabrics and dazzling needlework, these quilts are equally fascinating for their relevance in the lives of their makers. Quilts were a means to express religious faith, to commemorate important family occasions and even to support political candidates during a time when women could not vote. On view at the Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE, from March 10 through September 16 (www.winterthur.org).

One of a Kind Style icon Iris Apfel took the fashion world by storm more than a year ago with the dazzling exhibition of her extraordinary clothes and accessories at the Met's Costume Institute. In Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel (Thames & Hudson, $50), photographer Eric Boman creates a worthy photographic tribute to Apfel's idiosyncratic personal style. More than 90 sumptuous color photos display daring Apfel outfits such as Dolce & Gabbana lizard trousers with 19th-century ecclesiastical vestments and pink Lanvin worn with ropes of Navajo turquoise, as well as such audacious accessories as a giant necklace made of bear claws and a parrot's-head brooch in colored glass and rhinestones. The book also includes an essay by Apfel herself, describing her lifelong love affair with style and illustrated with vintage photographs from her personal collection. On view at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, through May 27 (www.norton.org).

City Snapshot In New York Rises: Photographs by Eugene de Salignac (Aperture, $40), the talented and previously uncredited photographer finally gets his due. From 1906 to 1934, in his capacity as the sole photographer for the Department of Bridges/Plant and Structures, Eugene de Salignac documented the unprecedented growth of the city's infrastructure in more than 20,000 glass negatives of the city's bridges, roads and municipal buildings. Previously thought to be the work of a team of photographers, de Salignac's inspired images are both an invaluable portrait of the city at that time and a body of work distinguished for its artistic vision. On view at the Museum of the City of New York from May 4 through September 4 (www.mcny.org).

Power Painting Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955 – 1965 (Yale University Press, $60), focuses on the enormous impact of his work during this decade on artists of his own and subsequent generations. Through the exploration of four specific motifs in his work – the target, the mechanical “device,” the naming of colors and the imprint of the body – the book argues that during this period Johns reinvented the premises of painting at a time when painting had become subject to conceptual doubts. Many of his iconic works, such as Target With Four Faces (1968), Diver (1962), Periscope (Hart Crane) (1963) and Arrive-Depart (1963), were created during this time and are reproduced in the book.
On view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, through April 29 (www.nga.gov).

Canaletto's Vision The Venetian artist Canaletto is considered by many to be the greatest landscape artist of the 18th century. In an effort to be closer to many of his patrons who were English, Canaletto spent 1697 to 1768 in England. Canaletto in England (Yale University Press, $65) is a beautifully produced catalog of his work during this period, which included views of London as well as Italian and imaginary views he painted in response to the commissions of his clients. On view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, through April 15 (www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk).