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Hindu temple at Pandrethan, south side of temple, Ca. eighth to ninth century, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art, The Ohio State University

Did you know Artstor is an excellent resource for Asian Studies? The Artstor Digital Library shares several collections that document Asian cultures, history, religion, architecture, and art.

Magnum Photos offers thousands of documentary images from Asia, beginning from the post-war period to the present, covering everything from Mahatma Ghandi’s India to the Japanese city of Obama as they capitalize on the 2008 American presidential elections. You can find a wide range of Japanese gowns, from 19^th century dressing gowns to contemporary dresses by Yohji Yamamoto, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Brooklyn Museum Costumes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also has scores of images encompasing household utensils such as needles, bowls, and saddles to ceremonial objects, armors, and costumes from all regions of Asia. Two other remarkable resources of Asian history are Southeast Asia Visions: John M. Echols Collection (Cornell University Library), which features European and American travel accounts of pre-modern Southeast Asia, and the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery (St. Lawrence University), which includes Vietnam War-era photography by American soldiers.

Temple scene, T’ongdo-sa, South Kyongsang Province, South Korea, Photographer: Carl Strom. Image and original data provided by Carl and Jennifer Strom

A number of collections offer field photography of architecture throughout Asia, such as: Alka Patel: South Asian and Cuban Art and Architecture (Islamic art and architecture from 12th to the 18th centuries in India and Pakistan); Huntington Archive of Asian Art (photographs of Asian art and architecture); American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection (University of Michigan) (Southern Asian art and architecture); and Barbara Anello: Photographs of Southeast Asia and Morocco.

Collections that focus on important religious sites and architecture throughout Asia include: the Mellon International Dunhuang Archive (Buddhist cave shrines in Dunhuang, China); Shuilu’an Temple (Northwestern University) (Buddhist sculpture at Shuilu’an Temple in Lantian, China); Deepanjana Danda Klein and Arno Klein: Cave Temples at Ellora, India (Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain cave shrines in Ellora, India); Beyond the Taj: Architectural Traditions and Landscape Experience in South Asia (Cornell University Library); and Carl Strom and Jennifer Strom: Korean Buddhist Monasteries (Buddhist temple and monastery art in South Korea). For the Dunhuang caves and Shuilu-an Temple, ARTstor offers scholars and students unique visual documentation of the sites with high resolution digital photography and QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) panoramas.

EIZAN (Yeiseu?), Japanese, Two Women Writing c.1850. Asian Art Collection (Connecticut College, New London)

And of course, Asian art is well represented in the Digital Library. Some notable examples include: Rob Linrothe: Tibetan and Buddhist Art collection; Seattle Art Museum (Asian art, including works from Japan, China, Korea, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia); Asian Art Collection (Connecticut College) (Chinese and Japanese art); Asian Art Photographic Distribution (AAPD) (University of Michigan) (Chinese painting, sculpture, and decorative arts and Japanese painting and prints); The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Chinese ceramics);  and Yao Ceremonial Artifacts (Ohio University).

Artstor has also assembled 100 eclectic, iconic, and provocative images for our Sample Topic on Asian Art. To view all our Sample Topics, visit the Digital Library and click on “Featured Groups.”

Conrat Meit, Judith with the Head of Holofernes (detail ), 1512-1514 Alabaster with gilding 30 cm high Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

In the Old Testament’s Book of Judith, the beautiful widow saved the besieged city of Bethulia by charming her way into the tent of Assyrian general Holofernes and beheading him, enabling the Israelites to defeat the invading army.

The Artstor Digital Library features more than 600 images depicting the story of Judith and Holofernes, attesting to the powerful appeal the Judith narrative has over artists. The Jessica E. Smith and Kevin R. Brine Charitable Trust sponsored 330 new images to be added to the Digital Library’s existing 300 images based on the story. Images on the theme range from an 11^th century illuminated manuscript to an unnerving tableau by Judith Greifinger Klausner from 2008 that features insects playing the parts of the two characters.

Hans Baldung, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, early 16th century. Oil on panel , 92 x 77 cm. Schloss Friedenstein Museum, Gotha.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1609-1610.Oil on canvas, 125 x 101 cm. Galleria Borghese, Source Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.

We’ve gathered six examples that illustrate how the images in Artstor can be used to enhance the teaching and learning of architecture and architectural history, along with two case studies, one by a then-doctoral candidate and another by a fine art faculty member.

A rallying economy led the United Arab Emirates cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai through a six-year building boom that transformed sand dunes into futuristic cityscapes boasting the world’s tallest building, biggest shopping mall, and The World, a man-made archipelago in the shape of the seven continents. While the building frenzy has largely been tamed by the international economic crisis, the projects it engendered have significantly expanded the vocabulary of contemporary architecture.

Sheik Zayed Road (view of the traffic and metro station exterior), Dubai. Image and original data provided by Art on File.

In their most recent Artstor-sponsored campaign, Art on File photographers Colleen Chartier and Rob Wilkinson documented state-of-the-art projects in Dubai such as Burj Khalifa (Skidmore, Owings and Merrell), the world’s tallest building;  the Meydan Racecourse (TAK architects), the longest building in the world; the Burj al-Arab (Tom Wright of Atkins), a hotel constructed on an artificial island; the Dubai Marina (Emaar Properties), a man-made marina district; and the Rose Tower (Khatib & Alami Group), the world’s tallest building used exclusively as a hotel.

Capital Gate (RMJM Architects), Abu Dhabi. Image and original data provided by Art on File.

In Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Chartier and Wilkinson photographed the new Sheikh Zayed Mosque (Yousef Abdelki, architect, and Halcrow Group, engineers), an enormous project that can accommodate up to 44,000 people for prayer sessions, and the Yas Hotel (Asymptote Architects), which features a Formula One racetrack that passes through the hotel, and a net-like roof consisting of thousands of light panels that change colors.

Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club (Godwin Austen Johnson, architects). Image and original data provided by Art on File.

Other buildings in the new campaign include Capital Gate (RMJM Architects), the largest leaning tower in the world, Al Jazira Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, and the new Ferrari World (Benoy Architects), a low undulating design with a roof surface of 200,000 sq. meters still under construction.

Dubai Metro (Aedas, architects). Image provided by Art on File.

Explore Artstor’s Art on File collection in JSTOR.

Yas Hotel & Marina (Asymptote Architecture), Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. Image and original data provided by Art on File.

Christine Kuan interviews Maria Ann Conelli, Executive Director of the American Folk Art Museum

CK: What’s special about the American Folk Art Museum?

MAC: The American Folk Art Museum is the only museum in the United States dedicated to traditional folk art as well as creative expressions of contemporary self-taught artists; it is home to one of the world’s premier collections dating from the eighteenth century to the present.

CK: Many more people are interested in folk art today, why do you think that is?

MAC: I think that folk art and the art of the self-taught have an inherent accessibility people can relate to. What is amazing is that the art is made by individuals with no formal artistic or academic training who nevertheless have the need to articulate their passion to create. The result is these astounding works that speak to a broad and varied audience.

CK: What’s your favorite work in the collection?

MAC: That’s like asking a parent which child is her favorite.

CK: Why did the Museum decide to make digital images of the collection available in the Artstor Digital Library?

MAC: A large part of the museum’s focus is on education. We take great pride in our educational website, www.folkartrevealed.org, through which teachers have access to museum-generated lesson plans for grades K through 12. One of the exciting aspects about our collaboration with Artstor is that it allows us to reach a collegiate audience in ways that were not available to us before. It also allows us to share very high-resolution image files of thousands of objects in the museum’s collection that offer important details, such as stitching in textiles and signatures on paintings—details that are crucial to the study and preservation of folk art for generations to come. Providing high-resolution images to teachers, scholars, and students is extremely important to us—we want the works in our collection to be shared with as large an audience as possible.

CK: How is your museum taking advantage of digital technologies?

MAC: We are using the Internet more and more to reach a larger audience and stay in touch with those who may not be able to actually visit the museum. Digital photography, because of its ease of use, makes it possible for us to share the collection with people around the globe, and social media outlets allow us to offer behind-the-scenes looks at the museum. Through the museum’s main and educational websites, as well as Facebook and Twitter, we are able to engage audiences around the world by sharing archival and installation information that we were not able to provide in the past.

CK: What’s the biggest challenge facing American museums [or your museum] today?

MAC: I think all museums are grappling with how to attract and engage a younger audience. We have a teen docent program that we’re all really proud of—our museum educators teach high school students how to serve as gallery guides to their peers. It’s a huge time commitment for the students and our educators, but I think it’s valuable for the participants to develop not just visual literacy but also writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills. The museum’s online presence can be a great introduction to the art, especially for younger audiences—but I think they know that the “real thing” is so much more interesting.

The Artstor staff wishes you happy holidays with some extraordinary images of our hometown of New York City during the holiday season stemming back to the 19^th century. For example, the crowds of shoppers in D. Rellam’s print from 1874, “Holiday Greens–A Scene in Washington Market, New York” 1 are recognizable today. While the market was razed in the early 1970s, the image echoes the crowds in the popular Union Square Holiday Market, where many of us will be shopping this month.

The eternal hustle and bustle of the holidays in our metropolis is captured in abstract form in New Yorkers Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s “Christmas Card for Ray and Charles Eames” (1946) 2.

Another timeless image that many of us in New York recognize is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Angel Tree” (18^th-19^th century) 3, which was first exhibited in 1957 and has since become an annual tradition.

The audience in Inge Morath’s three photographs of “Ice skaters at Christmas Show on Madison Avenue” (1958) 4 radiates an innocence that unexpectedly reappears decades later in Erich Hartmann’s “World Financial Center; Christmas lights” (1990)4. Meanwhile, Susan Meisela’s series of Santa Claus photos (1976-1977) 4 portray the grit that we all know and—most of the time—love in the city, as does Nan Goldin’s “Sharon with the Christmas Tree, New York City” (1990) 5.

Season’s Greetings, wherever you are! We invite you to search the Artstor Digital Library for more holiday images from around the world, including places as far-flung as Cuba, Lebanon, Hungary, and Cambodia.

[1] Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Collection

[2] Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (Library of Congress)

[3] The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[4] Magnum Photos

[5] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Collection

While the digital age is opening up new ways of using images of the world’s cultural heritage in teaching and scholarship, there is no substitute for engaging with original works and sites or primary source material, or for attending conferences with colleagues. In recognition of this need, Artstor is providing five travel awards in the amount of $1,500 each (to be used by December 31, 2012) to help support the educational and scholarly activities—such as flying to a conference—of graduate students, scholars, curators, educators, and librarians in any field.

To be considered for an award, applicants must create and submit an Artstor image group (or a series of image groups) and a single accompanying essay that creatively and compellingly demonstrates why the image group(s) is useful for teaching, research, or scholarship. These submissions will help us better understand the uses that scholars and teachers are making of the Artstor Digital Library’s content and tools and will provide insight into how we can better serve the educational community. The five winning submissions will be determined by Artstor staff. Please note that this award is not intended to sponsor new photography for the Artstor Digital Library.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a three-year National Leadership grant to Artstor and The Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. The funds will be used to support the new Built Works Registry (BWR), a community-generated data resource for architectural works and the built environment. BWR will be available to scholars and catalogers from academic and cultural heritage organizations worldwide. BWR data will also be contributed to the Getty Vocabulary Program’s planned Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA). See the BWR press release.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. For more information about the 2010 National Leadership Grants, go to the IMLS website.

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974-1979, © Judy Chicago Photo © Donald Woodman, www.judychicago.com | Judy Chicago, Turn Over a New Leaf (from Resolutions: A Stitch in Time), 2000, © Judy Chicago Photo © Donald Woodman, www.judychicago.com | Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman, Bones of Treblinka (from the Holocaust Project), 1988, © Judy Chicago, www.judychicago.com

Judy Chicago is an artist, author, and educator whose work has significantly transformed the traditional art historical canon. She and her husband, photographer Donald Woodman, have collaborated throughout their marriage of twenty-five years in art projects and team teaching at such institutions as Western Kentucky University, Cal Poly Pomona, and Vanderbilt University. Through the Flower, a nonprofit Feminist art organization founded by Chicago in 1978 and based in New Mexico, serves the general public and especially K-12 schools by creating educational programs dedicated to communicating the importance of art and its power in countering the erasure of women’s achievements.

Judy Chicago, The Creation (from the Birth Project), 1984, © Judy Chicago, www.judychicago.com

CK: From the seminal work The Dinner Party (1979) to the present, do you think the art world has changed?

JC: Since the time I created The Dinner Party there have been many changes in the art world, which has become globalized. Women and artists of color are free to openly address issues of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation in their work, which was not true when I was young. Moreover, there is no dominant style but rather a plethora of approaches to art-making, along with a wide range of media, all of which is to be celebrated. At the same time, in terms of the major museums, permanent collections continue to be only 3-5% women and only 2.5% of commercial solo art publications are devoted to women. This institutional resistance is what I set out change many decades ago.

CK: Many well-known artists today are women. How has your work as artist, photographer, and educator impacted the recognition and preservation of women’s achievements?

JC: Obviously, The Dinner Party, which traveled to sixteen venues in six countries and three continents to a viewing audience of over one million people, helped to educate many viewers about women’s achievements. Its permanent housing in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum is extending its reach, as people are coming to see it from all over the world. In addition to The Dinner Party, my other collaborative projects (the Birth Project, 1980-85; the Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light, 1985-1993, created with Donald Woodman; and Resolutions: A Stitch in Time,1994-2000) helped to bring women’s experiences and perspectives into the art discourse. And over the course of its three decades of existence, Through the Flower has done exhibitions and programming aimed at highlighting women’s achievements in the arts.

CK: Are there challenges today that women artists face today that were not issues in the past?

JC: This is a difficult question for me to answer, given where I am in my career. However, from my perspective, the greatest challenge is that, as stated by the pioneering women’s historian Gerda Lerner, “women don’t know what women before them thought or taught” (and I would add created). Consequently, instead of being able to build upon the achievements of their predecessors, women artists are caught in the same cycle of repetition that The Dinner Party recounts.

CK: In recent years, “feminism” has taken on a wide spectrum of meanings both positive and negative. What does “feminism” mean to you?

JC: The definition of feminism is not a personal choice; it is a philosophy that dates back two hundred years or more, specifically to Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous tract “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” published in 1792. Since that time, there have been many feminist theories, all of which advocate the political, social and economic equality of the sexes. Successive waves of feminist movements have attempted to achieve such equality in the face of fierce resistance because sexual equality would upend the structure of power on the planet.

CK: What do you think has been the greatest accomplishment to date of Through the Flower?

JC: Through the Flower has survived over the course of more than thirty years with little support from traditional funding sources and very few grants. Instead, it has been sustained by individuals who believed in my work and the goals of Through the Flower, thereby demonstrating the power of the individual to contribute to social change. I believe that this is an important model for alternative arts organizations, particularly those aimed at enlarging the art dialogue. Over this time, Through the Flower has provided a framework for my collaborative art-making which—in addition to producing works of art—empowered many of the participants. Moreover, given its modest staff and funding base, Through the Flower has managed to accomplish many significant goals. For more information, go to throughtheflower.org.

CK: Judy, you and Frances Borzello just published the book Frida Kahlo: Face to Face. Many conversations are focused on the so-called “death” of scholarly art publishing. What do you think is the future of print art publications?

JC: I hope that print art publications never end, because there is no digital version that is even close to providing the pleasure of the printed page in terms of images and text. That said, I believe that text-based print books will be replaced by digital forms. But fine art printing will survive because I cannot imagine a reader getting the same satisfaction viewing Frida Kahlo: Face to Face online as they will by holding this large format, sumptuously illustrated book in their hands and turning the pages to discover the many beautiful images and reading the texts.

CK: You continue to exhibit and your works continue to attract large audiences. What do you hope viewers come away with from your current show, Surveying Judy Chicago: 1970-2010?

JC: Surveying Judy Chicago: 1970-2010 at ACA Gallery, New York, from October 14 through December 4, 2010 is intended to provide a glimpse into my overall body of art. Although I am gratified by the attention The Dinner Party brought me, it is my abiding hope that one day it will be seen as only one work in a large and varied oeuvre. Hopefully the ACA show will be a step towards the achievement of this goal.

CK: You’ve contributed 367 images of your works to the ARTstor Digital Library and they’ve just gone live. Why did you decide to make your images available to educational and scholarly users via ARTstor?

JC: I wanted to make my images available via ARTstor because I recognize its crucial role in providing images to teachers and professors. My study of history taught me that many women artists have been erased from history and one of my goals has been to overcome that erasure—for myself, for the 1038 women represented in The Dinner Party, along with the countless women artists Through the Flower has exhibited and honored. I am deeply appreciative that ARTstor has accepted this gift and hope that it will prove useful.

CK: Has the digital medium impacted your work?

JC: The digital medium has definitely impacted both my work and my career. For example, several of my recent lithographs (from Retrospective in a Box, seven prints surveying my career) combine digital imagery with traditional lithography. The Internet has provided a means of sharing my work with a worldwide audience through my website, judychicago.com. And Through the Flower’s K-12 Dinner Party Curriculum is available online as a series of free, downloadable pdf files. These are just a few examples of the many ways in which the digital medium is transforming our lives.

CK: What inspires you to continue working and collaborating with other artists?

JC: I have always worked both individually and collaboratively. Some projects are best realized by one’s own hand while others require the participation of people with different skills. As to what inspires me? An ongoing passion for art, something that I’ve had since I was a child.

Judy Chicago’s current exhibition, Surveying Judy Chicago: 1970-2010, is on view from October 14, 2010 to December 4, 2010 at ACA Gallery, 529 20th Street, 5th Floor in New York City.

Judy Chicago and Frances Borzello’s new book, Face to Face: Frida Kahlo is published by Prestel and launched with a lecture and book signing at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Chicago will be doing book events around the country with an English book tour to follow in June, 2011.

Learn more about the Judy Chicago Collection in the ARTstor Digital Library.
View the Judy Chicago Collection in the ARTstor Digital Library.

To learn more about Judy Chicago, go to www.judychicago.com.

Artstor is pleased to serve as a founding member of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) along with 50 other prominent organizations. As an outgrowth of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the NDSA is headed by the Library of Congress as “a collaborative effort among government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to preserve a distributed national digital collection for the benefit of citizens now and in the future.”

Artstor was invited to join the NDSA as the recipient of a grant through the NDIIPP program in 2007. The Library of Congress recognizes Artstor for advancing the understanding of the management of born-digital still images by encouraging its contributing photographers to use embedded metadata as a means of packaging and delivering their content. In fulfillment of the original grant, Artstor advocates the use of existing metadata structures and tools for embedding metadata and has developed an application for extracting metadata — Artstor’s Embedded Metadata Extraction Tool (EMET). EMET is an open-source software tool that will be freely available for download as a stand-alone application by December 2010. EMET will facilitate the life-cycle management of digital images and their incorporation into external databases and applications.

As a member of the NDSA, Artstor will participate in two working groups:

• Standards and Practices: Developing, following, and promoting effective methods for selecting, organizing, preserving, and serving digital content.
• Infrastructure: Developing and maintaining tools for curation and preservation, and providing storage, hosting, migration, or similar services for the long-term preservation of digital content.

Johanna Bauman, Senior Production Manager, will represent Artstor in the Standards and Practices working group. Continuing the work already begun as part of the NDIIPP grant, Bauman will bring her experience to bear in collaborating with the photographers and institutions who are sharing their images in the Artstor Digital Library. William Ying, Chief Information Officer, will participate in the Infrastructure working group. Ying has years of expertise overseeing and building the architecture of the Digital Library and is now spearheading the development of Shared Shelf, a web-based image management software service. Both the Artstor Digital Library and Shared Shelf are major infrastructure projects that will further enhance the ability of institutions to curate, share, and preserve digital content.

Artstor looks forward to continuing its work with the Library of Congress and the NDSA partners to advance the standards and practices of the digital preservation.

Congratulations to the five winners of Artstor Travel Awards 2010! The following winners will receive $1,500 each to be used for their own teaching and research travel needs over the course of the next year.*

Travel Award 2010 Winners

Sara Nair James
Professor of Art History, Mary Baldwin College
A course with no book? Artstor to the rescue!

Lois Kuyper-Rushing
Associate Librarian and Head, Carter Music Resources Center,
Louisiana State University Libraries
Music Iconography and Artstor

Katherine E. Manthorne
Professor of Art of the United States, Latin America, and Their Cross-Currents, 1750-1950, Art History Program, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
Sweet Fortunes: Sugar, Race, Art and Patronage in the Americas, 1750-1950

Kristina Richardson
Assistant Professor of Islamic History, Queens College, The City University of New York
Imagining Disability through Christian and Muslim Bodies

Steven Wills
Coordinator, Wachovia Education Resource Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Proportion and Perspective

Artstor received nearly 150 fascinating submissions, which had us absolutely transfixed over the past month as we reviewed all of the essays and accompanying image groups. Through these wonderful submissions we learned about how users are finding, using, and re-thinking the images in the Digital Library. The essays revealed the creative and interdisciplinary ways that scholars, curators, educators, and students at universities, community colleges, museums, and libraries are integrating Artstor image collections into their teaching and research in a broad range of topics: musicology, geometry, film studies, the Berlin Wall, disability studies, food and cuisine, Southeast Asian studies, medieval pilgrimage roads, Gothic architecture, Native American weaving techniques, drawing methods with pen and ink, European fashion design, Renaissance literature, history of slavery, Progressive Era reforms, daguerreotype conservation, library cataloging practices, and much more.

In reviewing the submissions, we learned a great deal about how users discover the images they want to work with, how they organize that content, and how they use image groups for teaching, publishing, and research to find non-digital research materials. A number of the projects also described iterative search strategies that were employed in constructing image groups, reminding us that Artstor must continue to improve access and search in the Digital Library because users want to discover images based on the language of their discipline or area of interest.

It was extremely difficult for us to select five winners from the nearly 150 submissions from around the world due to exceptional quality of so many essays and image groups. We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Artstor Travel Awards 2010. We believe that the value of our learning from the community through this program and our supporting the research and teaching activities of our users is vital to the Artstor mission. Therefore, we will be offering the Travel Award program on an ongoing annual basis.

We look forward to your continued feedback and participation in the Artstor endeavor to share and promote image collections for educational and scholarly purposes.

Sincerely,
The Artstor Staff