Happy days for art-lovers: “Art is a form of consciousness,” Susan Sontag famously wrote, and today I’m particularly conscious of it as I delightedly introduce Art Pickings — a new partnership with the wonderful 20×200, who for the the past few years have been democratizing the art world by offering exquisite artist-edition prints at normal-people prices. In this periodic pop-up gallery, I’ll be curating favorite works from 20×200 artists, often ones previously featured here on Brain Pickings — from modern masters like Wendy MacNaughton (whose illustration never fails to entrance), Paula Scher (whose obsessive typographic maps make you gasp), Lisa Congdon (whose hand-lettering is to die for), Linzie Hunter (who makes art from spam), William Powhida (who isn’t afraid to stick it to the art world), Jane Mount (who paints people’s ideal bookshelves), and Austin Kleon (who knows how to steal like an artist), to vintage treasures like Berenice Abbott’s dramatic New York City photographs, Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering locomotion studies, and even this Victorian map of woman’s heart.

Enjoy.

Many thanks to Andrew LeClair for generous helping us adapt the lovely Otlet’s Shelf Tumblr theme for the gallery.