Grant Wood. Spring turning. 1936. Oil on masonite. Image and data from Reynolda House Museum of American Art.
Welcome to all new participants and welcome back to old friends. For a quick refresher on tips and tools, new content, and our growth at Artstor, check out these handy resources to get the lay of the land:
Artstor is offering up a beastly alphabet in observance of this month, dedicated by the ASPCA to the prevention of cruelty to animals. You may be surprised at the creatures we can conjure.
A is for Anteater long in the nose
B is for Bear who wanders the globe
C is for Cat, because it must be
Unknown. Young women with sign ‘Self Supporting Women.’ May, 1914. Gelatin silver print. Image and data from The Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection.
In 1909, we honored the first International Women’s Day. That day has extended from a week to a month in many countries – the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. In celebration of this hopeful rite of March, we have identified some of the resources, both licensed and public, that Artstor provides on the inspiring topic of women.
Throughout the months of lockdown our beloved felines have enhanced the quality of our diminished lives, and we, in turn, have come to know them a little better. A tribute to our cats is overdue (recently, we acknowledged our canine companions). My colleagues have generously shared portraits of their best feline friends and we have taken the liberty of juxtaposing them to works represented in Artstor.
Black History Month is observed every February in the United States and Canada, and we’re celebrating by gathering a number of Artstor’s Public Collections about the history and culture of African Americans. These collections are freely available to everyone everywhere, no log-in required!
Shirley Chisholm. Not dated. Copyright: Tuskegee University Archives, 2016.
Tuskegee University’s Civil Rights audio collections
Recordings and photographs of speeches from prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. We also interviewed archivist Dana Chandler, who digitized the original reel-to-reel tapes.
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. Father Time on a Globe; design for a clock. 19th century. Image and data provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0 1.0
Needless to say, 2020 has been a year like no other, and it’s marked everything we did at Artstor. We tried to help institutions and students meet the challenges of remote teaching, released new content — with a strong emphasis on freely accessible Open Artstor collections — and tried to brighten things up on our blog. Here are some of our highlights from a very difficult year and one thing we look forward to next year.
Hans Holbein the Younger. Henry VIII of England. 1536. Oil on oak. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Image and data from Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.
Hans Holbein the Younger. Thomas Cromwell. c. 1532-1533. Oil on oak. Image and data from The Frick Collection.
The Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel presents the Tudor court in arresting, vivid prose1. Nonetheless, the temptation to illustrate Mantel’s account is irresistible given her invocation of the painter “Hans” (the actual historical figure of Hans Holbein the Younger, 1497/8-1543). He appears frequently in her narrative and is her acknowledged muse: Simply put, in the author’s own words: “He [Holbein] peoples the early Tudor court for us.”2 Since Holbein the Younger was so prolific and precise as a portraitist,3 his likenesses provide a visual Who’s Who to Mantel’s narrative. Below, we have coupled some of Holbein’s most penetrating portrayals of the key players with the descriptions of the author.
Sven Torfinn. People wait in line to cast their votes. 2011. On 9th January 2011 Southern Sudan’s people began voting in a referendum on whether to become independent from the North, part of a peace agreement which was signed in 2005. Image and data from Panos Pictures. © Sven Torfinn / Panos Pictures.
As the United States holds its 2020 presidential elections, we rounded up a selection of images that reflect the importance of voting–throughout history and around the world. We encourage you to cast a vote and make your voice heard.
University of Virginia Hospital Operating Amphitheater. 1914. Photoprint. Image and data from Images from the History of Medicine (National Library of Medicine). Public Domain Mark 1.0.
Artstor has published nearly 42,000 images from the U. S. National Library of Medicine’s Images from the History of Medicine, freely available to all for reuse under the Creative Commons Public Domain mark. Open Artstor: Images from the History of Medicine (National Library of Medicine) is part of an initiative to aggregate open museum, library, and archive collections across disciplines on the Artstor platform.
September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month in the U.S. While the name might currently be the focus of some debate, we welcome the reminder to explore and celebrate the vibrant cultures of Mexico, Central and South America, and the Hispanic Caribbean. The Artstor Digital Library offers many collections that specialize in or are substantially devoted to Latin American topics; here is a selection to get you started.
Tabernacle. Mexico, second half of the 18th century. Image and original data provided Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
Not surprisingly, Artstor is strong in collections concentrating on the arts of Latin America, such as Jacqueline Barnitz: Modern Latin American Art (University of Texas at Austin), which features modern art from Mexico and ten other Caribbean, Central, and South American countries; and Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, including colonial, modern, and contemporary Latin American art.