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still life

Curator's Corner

National Meat Week 2024

Monday, January 29, 2024 | Karl Cole

National Meat Week, a celebration founded in 2005 by Chris Cantey and Erni Walker in Tallahassee, Florida, goes from 28 January to 4 February this year. It is meant to be a celebration of feastin ...

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Curator's Corner

October Is National Apple Month: Levi Wells Prentice

Monday, October 23, 2023 | Karl Cole

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate National Apple Month than with one of THE most incredible paintings I’ve ever seen on the subject. The first time I saw this painting by Levi Wel ...

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Curator's Corner

Thanksgiving Week 2022: John F. Francis Still Life

Monday, November 21, 2022 | Karl Cole

I don’t usually attend a large buffet-style Thanksgiving dinner, but I always observe the underlying reason for Thanksgiving: being grateful. Among the many things I am grateful for—a ...

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Curator's Corner

Swiss National Day Bundesfeier: Le Corbusier

Monday, August 1, 2022 | Karl Cole

The first of August (Erschten Ougschte in Bernese) is the Swiss “Independence Day,” celebrating the establishment of the first Swiss Confederation of thirteen cantons (districts) seeking l ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Wang Zhen

Monday, July 25, 2022 | Karl Cole

This beautiful still life is representative of a period in Chinese art when Chinese artists began to be influenced by elements of Western art, before the Communist government was established. Man ...

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Curator's Corner

Pride Month 2022: Robert Mapplethorpe

Monday, June 27, 2022 | Karl Cole

Part of a glittering gay culture of New York in the late 1970s and 1980s, Robert Mapplethorpe is most remembered for his photographs of male nudes. However, his body of work was not restricted to any ...

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Curator's Corner

Remembering Wayne Thiebaud

Monday, January 10, 2022 | Karl Cole

We lost a truly unique artist this past December 25th. I associate Wayne Thiebaud more with New Realism of the 1960s, but he has been inexorably linked to Pop Art in many Western art history texts. Re ...

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Curator's Corner

National Pear Month

Monday, December 21, 2020 | Karl Cole

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared December as “National Pear Month.” I did not realize that pears have as much potassium as bananas. And they are certainly interesting a ...

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Curator's Corner

Rethinking Classicism Part 5

Friday, August 14, 2020 | Karl Cole

Let’s consider modern classicism in the United States for today’s Rethinking Classicism post. Andy Warhol created some of the most recognizable, iconic artworks of the mid-1900s Pop Art mo ...

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Curator's Corner

Mail Art

Monday, May 18, 2020 | Karl Cole

SchoolArts magazine is currently inviting all art teachers to enter Pushing the Envelope: A Mail Art Gallery Show. The theme of the online exhibit is Quaranteaching in a Pandemic. Art educators are in ...

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Curator's Corner

Women's (Art) History Month 2020 I

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 ...

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Curator's Corner

German Expressionist Christmas

Monday, December 23, 2019 | Karl Cole

What better way to enjoy Christmas than to give yourself the gift of German Expressionist color in the work of Gabriele Münter? Who needs to listen to Christmas carols when you have this beauty t ...

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Curator's Corner

Thanksgiving Thought: Rubens Peale

Monday, December 2, 2019 | Karl Cole

Thanksgiving always gets me to thinking about early America, particularly about the many changes that happened in our country at that time, which very few of us ever think (or know) about. I’m s ...

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Curator's Corner

An April Birthday Boy

Monday, April 29, 2019 | Karl Cole

Antoine Vollon, known primarily for his excellent still-life paintings, had a birthday on April 23rd. In the glory days of the annual academic Salon in Paris (1760s–1890s)—when the self-ap ...

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Curator's Corner

Claude Raguet Hirst Realism

Monday, June 25, 2018 | Karl Cole

Nothing showcases the American obsession with realism in art during the 1800s better than the brief Trompe l’Oeil Realism movement of the 1880s and 1890s. Like the Dutch Baroque realist still-li ...

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Curator's Corner

National Plant a Flower Day

Friday, March 9, 2018 | Karl Cole

Not only is it National Women’s [Art] History Month, but Monday is National Plant a Flower Day. Due to the two major nor’easters that have rocked the Northeast, I would like to feature a h ...

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