The Artistic Legacy of Conquest, part 2
This week's look at Spanish Colonial art continues, inspired by the exhibit Highest Heaven, currently on view at the Worcester Art Museum. ...
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Curator’s Corner
It's All in the Details, part 3
I’m not sure if the Benjamin Latrobe-like klismos side chair in the foreground is original to Lemon Hill, but the curving door is. This interesting detail is on the second-floor landing of the c ...
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Curator’s Corner
African American History Month 2017 #1
The landmark first retrospective exhibition of African American artists from slavery to contemporary took place forty years ago. Between September of 1976 and August of 1977, the exhibition Two Centur ...
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Curator’s Corner
What's in a Snake? part 3
Today’s post in my Snakes in Art series shifts to modern design. I guess a chair is an example of a good serpent! There’s something both ironic and logical in the combination of a serpent ...
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Curator’s Corner
First Snow Response
In the last week we had our first measurable snow in Massachusetts. I’m totally the kind of dork who’s all “it’s so pretty to walk around when it’s snowing.” And si ...
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Curator’s Corner
Letters Are Beautiful
I learned long ago how venerated calligraphy is in some cultures, and we speak of that in many of our Davis books. A short while ago as I was reading about contemporary Iranian artist Parastou Forouha ...
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Curator’s Corner
It Isn't Just Wood
The American revolution in modernism in the mid-1900s was not confined to painting and sculpture alone (i.e., Abstract Expressionism). Aside from the New York School’s exploring the question of ...
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Curator’s Corner
It's the Little Things in Life
I despise the terms “decorative arts” and “minor arts” to categorize any art work that is not a painting, print, photograph, or sculpture. I prefer the word “miscellaneou ...
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Curator’s Corner
Utilitarian Object or Sculpture?
First of all, let me clarify the use of “utilitarian” or “decorative arts.” These are unfortunately terms art historians are stuck with from the 1800s art history gods in Weste ...
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