Francis Bacon, Henri Matisse

Episode No. 507 features authors Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan; and Kathryn Brown.

Stevens and Swan are the co-authors of the biography "Francis Bacon: Revelations," a broad-ranging look at the British artist's life and work. It was recently published by Knopf. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for $18-60. Stevens and Swan's 2005 biography of Willem de Kooning won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Kathryn Brown is the author of "Henri Matisse," a critical biography just released as part of Reaktion Books' "Critical Lives" series. Brown's book offers new ideas about important paintings and presents the ways in which contemporary critics engaged with and presented Matisse's work. Amazon offers it for $10-19.