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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: William Bell

Thursday, September 4, 2025 | Karl Cole

The Civil War (1861–1865) was one of the earliest major wars that was extensively documented by the young art form of photography. William Bell started his career as a Daguerreotype photographer ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Marion Post Wolcott

Tuesday, June 10, 2025 | Karl Cole

Starting in the middle of the 1800s, women were encouraged to pursue photography as an art form because it could be learned at home, and women would not have to risk seeing a nude model at art academi ...

Curator's Corner

Pioneering Photographer: Frances Benjamin Johnston

Monday, June 9, 2025 | Karl Cole

It’s high time we celebrate the art of photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston. She is considered by most art historians to have been the first “press photographer,” photographing fam ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Peter Henry Emerson

Tuesday, May 13, 2025 | Karl Cole

At a time (the 1880s) when photographic processes evolved to handwork and manipulation of prints in development in order to achieve “artistic” photographs, Peter Henry Emerson advocated fo ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: William H. Jackson

Friday, April 4, 2025 | Karl Cole

Jackson took photographs of Shoshone Falls numerous times from every conceivable angle. Like the other photographers who were early chroniclers of the Western territories, Jackson's photographs emphas ...

Curator's Corner

Photographs from October 1991: Sophie Ristelhueber

Monday, October 21, 2024 | Karl Cole

Ever since the Crimean War (1853–1856) between Russia, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Britain, and France and the American Civil War (1861–1865)—the first wars to be extensively docume ...

Curator's Corner

Documenting Child Labor: Jacob Riis

Monday, March 25, 2024 | Karl Cole

If we think that only adult women have played an important role in American history, then we are sadly mistaken. Before child labor laws were passed in the United States (1 September 1916), young wome ...

Curator's Corner

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Dean Brown

Monday, January 15, 2024 | Karl Cole

This year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on the actual birthday of this great American leader. To mark the day, I will show you the work of photographer Dean Brown. The artist died way too young pu ...

Curator's Corner

Poverty Awareness Month: Zoe Strauss

Monday, January 8, 2024 | Karl Cole

Poverty Awareness Month evolved out of recognition by Congress in 2009 that the U.S. poverty rate is rising at an alarming level every decade. I doubt it is any coincidence that January was chosen as ...

Curator's Corner

Art about Working People

Tuesday, September 5, 2023 | Karl Cole

The earliest ideas about a day to honor working Americans came about from labor unions in the 1880s. In fact, the idea of a national holiday is thought to have come from labor union officials in New Y ...

Curator's Corner

AAPI Heritage Month 2023: Chan Chao

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 | Karl Cole

Photography was a groundbreaking art form when it was first introduced. Quite soon after its development, numerous Western photographers explored photography for documentary and journalistic purposes. ...

Curator's Corner

Women's History Month: Lucy Ashjian

Monday, March 20, 2023 | Karl Cole

In the first half of the 1900s, there were numerous pioneering women documentary photographers who defined the genre. This was particularly true during the Great Depression (1929–1940), the seve ...

Curator's Corner

Facing the Past: Jennifer Karady

Monday, January 9, 2023 | Karl Cole

Many people would probably prefer to forget about the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is something therapeutic about facing them and admitting they happened. Artist Jennifer Karady uses h ...

Curator's Corner

A Visual Tribute to Labor Day Week 2022

Monday, September 5, 2022 | Karl Cole

Aside from the myth of Sunday as a “day of rest” in the West, it’s interesting to me that there is only one day a year that celebrates “labor” in the U.S. The movement to ...

Curator's Corner

A Christmas Card: Mary Ellen Mark

Monday, December 16, 2019 | Karl Cole

Leave it to Mary Ellen Mark to sum up the ironies of a time of year that is touted as “joyous” and “home for the holidays” in social media! Kudos to the late artist for pointin ...

Curator's Corner

Compassion in Art: Consuelo Kanaga and Zoe Strauss

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 | Karl Cole

My Compassion in Art series continues with a look at the subject in photography. ...

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Artist Birthday: William Bell

Artist Birthday: Marion Post Wolcott

Pioneering Photographer: Frances Benjamin Johnston

Artist Birthday: Peter Henry Emerson

Artist Birthday: William H. Jackson

Photographs from October 1991: Sophie Ristelhueber

Documenting Child Labor: Jacob Riis

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Dean Brown

Poverty Awareness Month: Zoe Strauss

Art about Working People

AAPI Heritage Month 2023: Chan Chao

Women's History Month: Lucy Ashjian

Facing the Past: Jennifer Karady

A Visual Tribute to Labor Day Week 2022

A Christmas Card: Mary Ellen Mark

Compassion in Art: Consuelo Kanaga and Zoe Strauss

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