Tomkins has been married four times. His first wife was Grace Lloyd Tomkins, with whom he had three children. His second and third marriages were to Judy Tomkins and Susan Cheever (with whom he had one child). His fourth and current wife is fellow writer Dodie Kazanjian, who is both a Vogue magazine contributing editor and director of Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.[2][4]
— (1968). Ahead of the game : four versions of avant-garde. Harmondsworth: Penguin.[b]
— (1969). Eric Hoffer: An American Odyssey. New York: Dutton.
— (1970). Merchants and masterpieces : the story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: E. P. Dutton.[c]
— (1971). Living Well Is the Best Revenge: The Life of Gerald and Sara Murphy. New York: Viking Press. (Modern Library edition published in 1998). An enlarged version of a 1962 New Yorker profile of Gerald and Sara Murphy; tells of the lives of American expatriates in France in the years between World War I and World War II.
— (1974). The Other Hampton. New York: Viking-Grossman. (with co-author Judy Tomkins)
— (1976). The Scene: Reports on Post-Modern Art. New York: Viking Press. ISBN0-670-62035-1
— (1980). Off the Wall : A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg.
— (1987). Roy Lichtenstein: Mural with Blue Brushstroke. New York: Abrams. (with co-author Bob Adelman)
— (1988). Post- to Neo-: The Art World of the 1980s. New York: Henry Holt. A republication of articles published in The New Yorker between 1980 and 1986.
— (1989). Merchants and masterpieces : the story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Revised and updated ed.). New York: Henry Holt.
— (1996). Duchamp: A Biography. Henry Holt.
— (1993). Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman. New York: Knopf. (with co-author Dodie Kazanjian)
— (2008). Lives of the Artists. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN0-8050-8872-5
— (2013). Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews. Badlands Unlimited. ISBN978-193644039-9
— (2019). The Lives of Artists. New York: Phaidon. ISBN9780714879369