National Let's Laugh Day
Although the origin of Let’s Laugh Day is unknown, it has been celebrated since 2019 as a way of stressing “laughter is the best medicine.” The national day stresses the benefit of l ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822 US)
Charles Peale Polk faced a rough childhood when both parents died in the same period, but Polk was fortunate to have a successful artist uncle in Philadelphia, with whom he went to live at the age of ...
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Curator's Corner
Spring is Almost Here...Really
I have not shown a Childe Hassam (1859-1935 US) since around 2012, and I am such a big fan of his painting, I could not resist celebrating the coming of spring (on 20 March) with this spring green of ...
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Curator's Corner
This Day in History 11 March, 1895: Boston Public Library
On this date, the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library was opened to the public. Called by the city the “palace of the people”, the library was the first public building in the Beau ...
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Curator's Corner
March is Women's History Month
There was a period in the early 1900s, before World War I (1914-1918) when many American artists looked to European painting for inspiration and modern modes of expression, including abstraction. Even ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Anna Claypoole Peale (1791-1878 US)
Anna Claypoole Peale was a member of the first established “dynasty” of American painters that started with Charles Willson (1741-1827) and James (1749-1831) Peale of Philadelphia. The las ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Asger Jorn (1914-1973 Denmark)
Asger Jorn was a leading painter of the European post-war CoBrA artists group. The CoBrA artists sought to distance European abstraction from its tradition of geometric forms, introducing more express ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Eleanor Antin (born 1935 US)
Eleanor Antin is a performance artist, filmmaker, conceptualist artist and college professor. Her body of work dates back to the early days of the Women’s Art Movement of the early 1970s. Her pi ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Elihu Vedder (1836-1923 US)
The American painter Elihu Vedder is remembered primarily for his Symbolist style of painting, which emphasized Gothic and Romantic fantasy. His early work was soundly within the mid-century Realism m ...
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Curator's Corner
African American History Month: Joseph Yoakum (1890-1972 US)
Self-taught artists are often well into their middle age when they begin to take up their artistic practice. Having reached their middle years, many of them bring to their work valuable practical know ...
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