Dowd’s ‘Reading Pictures’ featured in The New York Review
2026-11-03 • Sam Fox School
Spread from “Reading Pictures’ by D.B. Dowd
Professor D.B. Dowd’s book, “Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration,” was reviewed by Ruth Bernard Yeazell in The New York Review. Released earlier this year, the book presents a global history of illustration and its integral role in the reading experience. Yeazell’s in-depth review shares several examples from “Reading Pictures,” praising in particular its cross-cultural juxtapositions and chapter on children’s books.
Chair, Undergraduate Design | Faculty Director, Dowd Illustration Research Archive | Professor
A history of illustration from the beginning of popular print to the rise of mass literacy and into today’s age of digital media.
Of all the visual arts, illustration shares a unique relationship with the written word, often serving to visualize, enhance, or respond to a text. Reading Pictures presents a global history of this versatile art form, linking its emergence to modern developments such as the illustrated news, recreational reading, and ad-driven consumer culture.
Richly illustrated with more than four hundred images spanning the iconic to the unexpected, Reading Pictures reframes the story of illustration within the broader histories of race, gender, literacy, and the transmission of cultural memory. It reveals how reading and looking have become increasingly integrated, and that, as images have become ever more prevalent today with the digital revolution, what is meant by literacy has evolved.