Blog Category: Collection release

Fernando Romero, Soumaya Museum; overview, 2011, Mexico City, Mexico. Image and original data provided by Art on File; artonfile.com

Artstor Digital Library and Art on File are now sharing more than 1,500 new direct-digital capture photographs of architecture, built environment projects, and landscape architecture in Mexico City.

The focus of this release is on the most recent developments in the architectural evolution of the city, as well as modernist buildings, UNESCO world heritage sites, iconic murals, historic parks, monuments, and colonial edifices.

Sites and locations documented include the Museum of Memory and Tolerance, Arditti + RDT Architects; the National Museum of Anthropology, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Jorge Campuzano, and Rafael Mijares; Soumaya Museum, LAR + Fernando Romero; Plaza Juarez Complex, Legorreta + Legorreta Architects; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro Gonzales de Leon; Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez; XXI Century National Film Archive, Rojkind Arquitectos; Arcos Bosques, Teodoro Gonzales de Leon; Escuela Nacional de Arte Teatral; Spain’s Cultural Center, Javier Sanchez; and Museo Estudio Diego Rivera, Juan O’Gorman.

Artstor and the Asia Art Archive (AAA) are now sharing approximately 9,900 images of contemporary Asian art in the Digital Library. The AAA’s extensive collection of material includes contemporary artists in several Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, and Pakistan, as well as artists of Asian descent active worldwide and artists of non-Asian descent living in Asia. Selections from the portfolios of individual artists will be included, materials from personal archives donated by artists, art historians, and critics, as well as documentation of contemporary art installations and art events (exhibitions, biennials, triennials, etc.) from across Asia.

Based in Hong Kong, Asia Art Archive is a non-profit organization and registered charity dedicated to the documentation of the recent history of visual art from Asia within an international context. Initiated in 2000, AAA’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make information on contemporary Asian art easily accessible in order to facilitate understanding, research and writing in the field. Over the course of ten short years of collecting and documenting, AAA has amassed the world’s most comprehensive collection of primary and secondary source material on contemporary Asian art in the field.

Artstor and the RISD Museum are collaborating to share 3,200 images from the Museum’s permanent collection in the Digital Library.

The RISD Museum is an internationally renowned art museum distinguished by its relationship to one of the world’s leading colleges of art and design. Founded alongside the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1877, the Museum houses seven curatorial departments and approximately 100,000 objects dating from 3700 BCE to the present day, and featuring major figures in the history of visual art and culture. Highlights include one of the nation’s finest collections of costume and textiles, with more than 26,000 objects created since 1500 BCE; the world’s largest collection of Gorham silver, housed in the first museum wing devoted to American decorative arts; a 12th-century seated Buddha, one of the largest Japanese statues in the United States; and significant collections of ancient Egyptian objects, Impressionist paintings, contemporary British art, 20th- and 21st-century design, and more.

Artstor and the Bard Graduate Center are collaborating to share approximately 1,400 exhibition installation photographs in the Artstor Digital Library.

The Bard Graduate Center (BGC) is a graduate research institute of Bard College specializing in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture. The BGC opened in New York City in 1993. Its Gallery is an intimate environment for viewing exhibitions curated by the Center’s faculty, staff, students, or specialized curatorial consultants, sometimes in collaboration with renowned institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the New-York Historical Society.

The Main Gallery annually presents two exhibitions, with related programming, centering on the decorative arts and design. Many exhibitions consider issues and ideas outside the established canons of art history. For example, the BGC has organized monographic exhibitions that examined specific architect-designers and thematic ones addressing the role of women in the history of 20th century design.

Artstor and the University of Puget Sound are collaborating to release 150 images of works by the painter, activist, and writer Abby Williams Hill in the Digital Library.

Abby Williams Hill (b.1861) is best known for her commissions for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railways. Her railway works were exhibited at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, the Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland in 1905, the Jamestown Tricentennial in 1907, and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle in 1909. These pieces, along with her other landscapes, offer a rich portrait of the natural landscape of the American West during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The accompanying archive of papers and personal materials offer insight into Hill’s life and provides an example of the American experience between the Civil War and World War II.

Meissen Porcelain Factory, Figurines of Pug Dogs, Mid 18th century. Image © Hillwood Estate, Museum and Garden

Artstor has released approximately 1,000 images from the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens’ permanent collection in the Digital Library.

Marjorie Merriweather Post bought Hillwood in 1955 and renovated the property with the intention of leaving it as a museum that would inspire and educate the public. The Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens opened as a public institution in 1977, endowing the country with the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia, a distinguished 18th-century French decorative art collection, six working greenhouses boasting one of the country’s finest orchid collections, and twenty-five acres of serene landscaped gardens and natural woodlands for all to enjoy.

Artstor and the Garth Greenan Gallery are collaborating to release 20 images of works by the artist Howardena Pindell in the Digital Library.

Howardena Pindell (b.1943) explores issues of racism, feminism, violence, slavery, and exploitation through the language of abstraction. She is known for her use of unconventional materials in her otherwise formalist paintings, including string, perfume, glitter, and postcards. Pindell also occasionally works in video.

Artstor and The University of Texas at Austin are collaborating to release more than 900 images in the Digital Library documenting two significant renovation projects of Mexican architectural landmarks: the restoration of Teposcolula’s Open Chapel’s vault, and the restoration of the Templo y Exconvento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Oaxaca.

The Teposcolula Open Chapel is considered one of the best examples of an ‘open chapel’ – a characteristic structure of Mexican Christian architecture. The nearby Santo Domingo church, founded by Dominican friars in the 1570s, is an impressive baroque church and adjoining convent. The expansive site, built up over 200 years, features a series of cloisters and courtyards, and a large sanctuary. Retablo paintings by Spanish master Andrés de la Concha are still visible inside the church.

Aelbert Cuyp, The Maas at Dordrecht, 1650. Image: Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington

Artstor Collections Summary 2014

This past year we added more than 151,000 new images to the Artstor Digital Library from prestigious collections across a wide array of disciplines. With the support of our contributors, the Digital Library now boasts more than 1.8 million images for education and scholarship.

We are proud to be able to share collections from institutions as varied as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum at FIT, the New York School of Interior Design.

Artstor and The International Museum of Children’s Art are collaborating to share approximately 200 images of works of art from the museum’s collection in the Artstor Digital Library.

The International Museum of Children’s Art (Det Internasjonale Barnekunstmuseet) in Oslo, Norway is the world’s first museum dedicated to art created by children, and today contains artworks by children and young adults from more than 180 countries. The collection is not only of interest to art appreciators, but will intrigue researchers across disciplines, from psychology to education.