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Silkworms in the Library
June 18, 2012

Silkworms in the Library

Amelia Nelson Cataloging and Digital Services Librarian Kansas City Art Institute In the spring semester the library collaborated with the Fibers Department by hosting 500 growing silkworms in one of the display cases at the library entrance. The worms were grown as part of the course “Fiber History and Properties.” The silkworms’ development was tracked […]

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REPRESENT: Women Artists in the Western Tradition
June 18, 2012

REPRESENT: Women Artists in the Western Tradition

Katherine Murrell Instructor of Art History Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design In my class on women artists from the medieval period onward, one of the first activities students were asked to do was to work in small groups and write a list of ten female painters or sculptors active before 1950, but without looking […]

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Vermeer’s Robe: The Dutch and Japan, 1600-1800
June 18, 2012

Vermeer’s Robe: The Dutch and Japan, 1600-1800

Dr. Martha Hollander Professor Hofstra University My research and teaching in art history has always focused on the ways in which a single work of art can open up an entire world of knowledge, making vivid and real the otherwise rather bland term “historical context.” For the past few years I have been working on […]

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June 17, 2012

Ingres vs Delacroix: An artistic rivalry spills over at a party

The rivalry between Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, the two titans of 19th century French painting, is often seen as embodying the conflict between the era’s tradition-based neoclassicism and non-conformist Romanticism. Writing for the journal Art History, Andrew Carrington Shelton quotes an article from 1832 by an anonymous critic as the first time the dispute was presented: It’s […]

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June 8, 2012

On this day: Frank Lloyd Wright is born

The influential American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867. Wright designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works, including the Robie House in Chicago, Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The […]

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June 4, 2012

Speaking for women’s suffrage through a quilt

On June 4, 1919, U.S. Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote, and sent it to the states for ratification. To celebrate this momentous anniversary, we are featuring an essay by Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum, on an anonymous 19th-century artist’s “Crazy” […]

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June 1, 2012

Announcing the winners of the Artstor Travel Award 2012!

Congratulations to the five winners of this year’s Artstor Travel Awards! They will each receive $1,500 to be used for their teaching and research travel needs over the course of the next year. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who submitted an essay. As in previous years, our committee had a very difficult time choosing just […]

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May 29, 2012

A peek behind Ghiberti’s Florentine Baptistery Doors

The competition for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery at the turn of the fifteenth century was the city’s most prestigious public commission. Seven artists competed by submitting a bronze plaque on the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” to be judged by a committee of thirty-four native-born citizens of Florence. The competition quickly narrowed down to […]

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May 26, 2012

On this day: Dorothea Lange is born

Documentary photographer and photojournalist Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895. Her photographs for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) depicted the human impact of the Great Depression and were tremendously influential, both politically and in the field of documentary photography. Among her many other achievements, Lange received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941, photographed the […]

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