Blogs

Curator's Corner

Fiercely Independent: Ellen Day Hale

Monday, June 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

Out of nine children, Ellen Day Hale was the only daughter of the noted orator and author Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909). She came from a family filled with notable figures. Her great ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Erastus Salisbury Field

Monday, May 19, 2025 | Karl Cole

Erastus Salisbury Field was an essentially self-taught painter who produced portraits, landscapes, and history subjects in his long career. He was one of the most successful of the great early America ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Elizabeth Catlett

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 | Karl Cole

Elizabeth Catlett’s body of work as an artist was predominantly intended to connect with and honor achievements of African Americans, particularly women. Her works about women such as this army ...

Curator's Corner

An Image of Royal Power Attributed to Muhammad Hasan

Monday, November 18, 2024 | Karl Cole

In the history of portrait painting, it is fascinating to interpret what the artist is trying to convey about the sitter. Sometimes when the portrait is of a member of a ruling family, it’s pret ...

Curator's Corner

Art for National Peach Month 2024

Monday, August 19, 2024 | Karl Cole

August was first declared National Peach Month in the United States in 1982. Since August is the month when peaches are supposed to be at their peak ripeness, let’s look at some works of art tha ...

Curator's Corner

Celebrating Rembrandt's Birthday

Monday, July 15, 2024 | Karl Cole

As one of the most remarkable talents of the Dutch Golden Age of painting, Rembrandt had the distinction of becoming a fantastically successful artist. Although his contemporaries raved about him, Rem ...

Curator's Corner

Emancipated Artist: Moses Williams

Monday, June 17, 2024 | Karl Cole

In honor of Juneteenth this week, I present an earlier experience of emancipation—that of artist Moses Williams. When he was 9 years old, Williams’s parents were emancipated. At the time, ...

Curator's Corner

Pride Month 2024: Marie Laurencin

Monday, June 3, 2024 | Karl Cole

It’s the beginning of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, which was initially celebrated as a single day in late June. Over time, it evolved into a month-long celebration of the Stonewall Uprising that occurred ...

Curator's Corner

Women's History Month: Lucretia Mott

Monday, March 11, 2024 | Karl Cole

The beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the United States occurred at the same time as early developments in photography in this country. To celebrate Women’s History Month, I pre ...

Curator's Corner

An American Original: Charles Willson Peale

Monday, July 3, 2023 | Karl Cole

In England’s American colonies, it was natural for colonial artists who were eager for a vital school of painting of their own to look to British art for inspiration. By the time of the American ...

Curator's Corner

May Day Artist Birthday: Cecilia Beaux

Monday, May 1, 2023 | Karl Cole

The American Renaissance was a period when more American artists traveled to Europe in order to enrich their artistic vision. They brought back such styles as Impressionism, Dark Impressionism, B ...

Curator's Corner

Women's (Art) History Month: Isabel Bishop

Monday, March 15, 2021 | Karl Cole

If anyone documented the human (women’s) condition extensively, it was artist Isabel Bishop. Her sensitive paintings and prints of working women during the Great Depression (1929–1940) and ...

Curator's Corner

Women's (Art) History Month: Sofonisba Anguissola

Monday, March 8, 2021 | Karl Cole

Although there are records of women artists from antiquity, women artists between the 1400s and 1700s in the West were either considered anomalies or miracles. The advent of artists' guilds during the ...

Curator's Corner

The Headgear of Ancient Egypt

Monday, November 9, 2020 | Karl Cole

Since I was a child art historian (there is such a thing), I have been fascinated by the art and culture of ancient Egypt. Aside from the amazing continuity of almost 3000 years in their canonized art ...

Curator's Corner

Women's (Art) History Month: Françoise Duparc, Mary Moser, Skokomish

Monday, March 2, 2020 | Karl Cole

Since this year is the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted women the right to vote, it is especially fitting to observe Women’s History ...

Curator's Corner

Self-Taught Artists

Monday, April 23, 2018 | Karl Cole

I was recently studying the insanely wonderful art of contemporary artist Carmen Cartiness Johnson, and I noticed that her artist’s statement said right off the bat that she is “self-taugh ...

Request
Catalog
or Planner

Blogs

portraits

Topics

Most Popular

Tags

Fiercely Independent: Ellen Day Hale

Artist Birthday: Erastus Salisbury Field

Artist Birthday: Elizabeth Catlett

An Image of Royal Power Attributed to Muhammad Hasan

Art for National Peach Month 2024

Celebrating Rembrandt's Birthday

Emancipated Artist: Moses Williams

Pride Month 2024: Marie Laurencin

Women's History Month: Lucretia Mott

An American Original: Charles Willson Peale

May Day Artist Birthday: Cecilia Beaux

Women's (Art) History Month: Isabel Bishop

Women's (Art) History Month: Sofonisba Anguissola

The Headgear of Ancient Egypt

Women's (Art) History Month: Françoise Duparc, Mary Moser, Skokomish

Self-Taught Artists

Topics

Share

Most Popular

Tags

Always Stay in the Loop