Reddit reviews Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting

Recommend these books published by Phaidon:

• http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-P-New-Perspectives-Painting/dp/0714844462
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-P2-New-Perspectives-Painting/dp/071486160X/
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Today-Tony-Godfrey/dp/0714846317/
  
  EDIT: a few more.
  
  This is what everyone will be talking about for a few weeks:
  
  
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/arts/design/the-forever-now-a-survey-of-contemporary-painting-at-moma.html?referrer=&_r=0
  
  And looking back:
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Painting-Dialogues-Contemporary-Criticalvoices/dp/0415276292
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Whitechapel-Documents-Contemporary-Art/dp/0262515679
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Perspectives-Contemporary-Painting-Historicism/dp/0853239584
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Edge-World-Midori-Matsui/dp/0935640673

There are too many good contemporary painters to name. For an excellent survey, pick up a copy of Vitamin P or the followup. But here's one of my favorites. William Daniels is an incredibly talented contemporary painter whose work is still highly conceptual. The conceptual union of his ideas, his medium, his technique, and his subject matter is really what contemporary art (or contemporary painting) is about.

Vitamin P and Vitamin P2are really great art books, you could always see if Art 21 makes DVDs and gift him those. Those are really well regarded and interesting to watch. Find out what kind of art he is a fan out or who he is a fan of and buy him one of their books.