The Art Book
The Art Book is small, nearly pocket-sized. You don’t get big beautiful reproductions, but you do get a whole heck of a lot of reproductions, five hundred of them to be precise. 500 artists are covered in alphabetical order: one photo per artist, a paragraph about the artist and the work, and the date and place of the artist’s birth and death. In itself, it won’t teach you much, but as a reference it’s invaluable. In seconds you can find the relevent data and one representative piece of art for nearly any artist of significance.
This book was recommended by the Barnes & Noble Intro to Art course I took and I’m glad I picked up a copy. Cheap too.