In 1970, the New York Times launched Op-Ed, a groundbreaking phenomenon that transformed journalism. Not only did Op-Ed’s nonstaff bylines shatter tradition, but its pictures were revolutionary. Unlike anything ever seen in a newspaper, Op-Ed art became a globally influential idiom that reached beyond narrative for metaphor and changed illustration’s very purpose and potential.

Written by thirty-year Times insider Jerelle Kraus, whose thirteen-year tenure on the volatile Op-Ed page far exceeds that of any art director or top editor, All the Art reveals Op-Ed’s story from conception to today and recounts many stormy confrontations between artists and editors.

This book reproduces 324 striking images by 142 of our finest international artists. Scores of illustration gems killed by Times editors for being provocative, blasphemous, or politically incorrect are published here for the first time. A rich storehouse of visual concepts, All the Art is also a stunning pictorial of the events and personalities that shape our lives.

Frank and sassy, Kraus’s intimate tale takes us behind the scenes of the newspaper of record, where ego and ambition, stoicism and humor, can collide over a two-inch spot of art.