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Blog Category: Highlights

November 11, 2013

Small Format, Big Style: Images from the Alexander Liberman Photography Archive

Caption: An afternoon at the Libermans’, 1963. Left to right, Lawrence Alloway, Beatrice Leval, Barnett Newman, Alexander Liberman, Sylvia Sleigh, Robert Motherwell, and Annalee Newman. Liberman’s ever-present Leica camera is on the table. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, (2000.R.19). © J. Paul Getty Trust.

Caption: An afternoon at the Libermans’, 1963. Left to right, Lawrence Alloway, Beatrice Leval, Barnett Newman, Alexander Liberman, Sylvia Sleigh, Robert Motherwell, and Annalee Newman. Liberman’s ever-present Leica camera is on the table. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, (2000.R.19). © J. Paul Getty Trust.

by Emmabeth Nanol, library assistant in Special Collections Cataloging at the Getty Research Institute

Co-published with The Iris, the online magazine of the Getty.

The Getty Research Institute recently partnered with the Artstor Digital Library to digitize and make available approximately 1,500 selections from the Alexander Liberman photography archive, from the series “Artists and Personalities.” These selections from the archive, which holds nearly 150,000 items, were inspired by Liberman’s publications, most notably The Artist in His Studio. The images are available now both via Artstor and the GRI’s digital collections.

A prolific photographer since his childhood, Liberman enthusiastically identified with the candid documentary style of the 35mm camera and its grainy aesthetic—almost all of the images in the archive were captured using 35mm. He admired the camera’s journalistic aesthetic, its soft focus, and how it disintegrated background details.

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October 17, 2013

Send in the clowns

Strobridge Lithograph | Barnum & Bailey: 1000 Skits By 50 Original Clowns | 1916 | The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, a division of Florida State University

Strobridge Lithograph | Barnum & Bailey: 1000 Skits By 50 Original Clowns | 1916 | The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, a division of Florida State University | RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY™ image courtesy of Feld Entertainment, Inc. RINGLING BROS.® and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH® are owned and used by permission of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, Inc.

In the Journal of American Folklore, Lucile Hoerr Charles asks a question that doubles as a survey of clowns throughout the world: “What has the stage buffoon of the Chinese in common with the court fool of the Middle Ages in Europe; and with the stage fool in Elizabethan England, magnificently represented in Falstaff; and with the Badin in France, origin of our term badinage; and with the Spanish Bobo or Booby? How does the Narr and Hanswurst in Germany differ from the comic Vidusaka, stock character of the Hindu drama; or from the early Greek clowns depicted on Corinthian vases; or from the ancient Egyptian god Typhon, probably a deified clown, with his heavy, coarse face and protrusive tongue?”

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October 16, 2013

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s “New Forms of 36 Ghosts”

Left: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi | New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts: Sadanobu Threatening a Demon in the Palace at Night | 1889. Right: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi | New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts: The Ferocity of Tametomo Driving Away the Smallpox Demons | 1890.  Scripps College: Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery

Left: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi | New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts: Sadanobu Threatening a Demon in the Palace at Night | 1889. Right: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi | New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts: The Ferocity of Tametomo Driving Away the Smallpox Demons | 1890. Scripps College: Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery | Contact information: Kirk Delman, Registrar, 1030 Columbia Ave, Claremont, CA 91711, Tel: 909-607-3397, Fax: 909-607-4691, kdelman@scrippscollege.edu

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” the main genre of Japanese woodblock printing (and a major source of inspiration for many modernist artists from Europe).

In his last series, New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts, the artist depicts a variety of spirits and magic animals from Japanese folk tales and history. As opposed to the morbidly graphic work that originally brought him fame, horror is mostly suggested in these works. Can you spot the subtle supernatural event in the print below?

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October 11, 2013

Deir Mar Musa: From Byzantine watchtower to monastic compound

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Deir Mar Musa; interior | 11th -13th century |Damascus | Photographer: James J. O’Donnell

Georgetown University’s James J. O’Donnell is contributing images of Deir Mar Musa, a monastic compound north of Damascus, to the Artstor Digital Library. Here, O’Donnell gives us a short history of the site and shares his experience of visiting.

Deir Mar Musa began life as a Byzantine watchtower, served as a medieval hermitage and modern monastery, fell into disrepair and neglect, and was then brought back to life a few years ago as a brave and venturesome monastic community and place for Christian and Muslim Syrians to meet in mutual respect. It has become a different kind of watchtower and monastery in the face of the murderous upheaval all around it.

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September 27, 2013

The Blessing of the Animals: An Artstor Bestiary

Giotto | Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, predella of Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmatta | c. 1295-1300 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y. ; artres.com

Giotto | Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, predella of Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmatta | c. 1295-1300 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y. ; artres.com

October 4 is generally recognized as the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron of the animals, steward of nature, and author of the Canticle of the Creatures.  In a divinely ordained cosmos, Francis considered all elements – sun, moon, and stars, water and fire, and the animals – our sisters and brothers, and he is often depicted and described preaching to the birds, as in Giotto’s panel shown here, 1295-1300.  The cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York famously marks his feast day with the blessing of the animals.  Thousands of creatures, from tortoises to camels, process though the nave, gather in the yard, and are blessed by clergy.  This scene is replayed throughout churches around the globe, a celebration of the beasts that surround us and enhance our lives.

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September 20, 2013

Upside down world: Rubén Durán on his photographs of Carnaval

Photographer: Rubén Durán | Creole/Fantasy Influence (Carnival in Dominican Republic) | February or March circa 2009-2010 | Cotuí, Dominican Republic | Photograph © HCC Central College - Rubén Durán

Photographer: Rubén Durán | Creole/Fantasy Influence (Carnival in Dominican Republic) | February or March circa 2009-2010 | Cotuí, Dominican Republic | Photograph © HCC Central College – Rubén Durán

Rubén Durán, Senior Web & Video Developer at Houston Community College Central’s Curriculum Innovation Center, was kind enough to give us a little background on his collection of photographs of carnaval, which were recently released in the Artstor Digital Library.

The riotous, rebellious world of carnaval came to life for me when I traveled to my native Dominican Republic to recapture some of my youth. The result is a collection of 550 images now available in the Artstor Digital Library in collaboration with the Houston Community College Central Fine Arts Division. The vibrant colors document the oldest carnaval celebrations in the Americas and I discovered at the Caribbean crossroads, Creole, Spanish, and African cultures blending with the indigenous Taino people to create festivals unlike any others I’ve seen.

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September 13, 2013

A closer look at Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors”

Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors') | 1533 | The National Gallery, London  | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’) | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Ambassadors” of 1533 is well known for its anamorphic image of a skull in the foreground, but upon close perusal, the objects on the table between the two subjects prove just as fascinating.

To start with, the painting memorializes Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend, Georges de Selve, who acted on several occasions as French ambassador to the Republic of Venice, to the Pope in Rome, and to England, Germany, and Spain.

The upper shelf, which is concerned with the the heavens, includes a celestial globe, a portable sundial, and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time, while the lower shelf, which reflects the affairs of the world, holds musical instruments, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic, and a terrestrial globe.

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August 5, 2013

A challenging treasure: the James Dee archives

D. James Dee and his archive

Photographer D. James Dee and his archive

In early June, the New York Times published an article about a massive (and massively intriguing) photography archive. D. James Dee, aka the SoHo Photographer, spent almost 40 years documenting contemporary art in New York City and, upon retiring, was searching for a home for his archive. Dee worked for many galleries such as Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Inc., Paula Cooper Gallery, Holly Solomon Gallery, OK Harris, and artists such as George Segal, Jeff Koons, and many others, in particular during SoHo’s art boom in the 1980s. The archive comprises slides, transparencies, negatives, and digital photographs of approximately 250,000 works of art.

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July 18, 2013

Art in context: installation photography

Rollie McKenna, photographer | Installing the exhibition, "The Graphic Work of Edvard Munch." | February 6, 1957 through March 3, 1957 | Photographic Archive; The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York | © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Bono, Oslo

Rollie McKenna, photographer | Installing the exhibition, “The Graphic Work of Edvard Munch.” | February 6, 1957 through March 3, 1957 | Photographic Archive; The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York | © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Bono, Oslo

If you read a review or article about an interesting museum exhibition you missed you can usually find images of the featured artworks. But have you ever wondered how the works were presented, where they were placed? Which pieces were shown together, and in what order? You’re not alone – exhibition design is central in museology, also known as museum studies, which asks how to present exhibitions that engage and enlighten the viewer. It’s also of interest to curators, art historians, and even artists, who often want to see what effect context has on artworks.

The Artstor Digital Library has tens of thousands of exhibition documentation images ranging from the late 19th century to the present from major American institutions. Some of the photographs, as you can see in this post, even show the artworks being installed. Dig into the collections listed below to find many more gems.

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July 1, 2013

Thoughts on the Pride March, past, present, and future

Larry Qualls | Heritage of Pride March, 30th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots | 27 June, 1999 | New York City, NY | Image and original data provided by Larry Qualls

Larry Qualls | Heritage of Pride March, 30th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots | 27 June, 1999 | New York City, NY | Image and original data provided by Larry Qualls

June is Pride Month, and the month in which New York City’s famous annual Pride March parades down Fifth Avenue towards Christopher Street in front of the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of the historic Stonewall Riots of 1969. As I meander around Greenwich Village days before the event, I pull out my phone and begin taking unsteady shots of the infamous bar’s sign. Under the rather modest pride flags that border the doorframe (and a printout taped to the window that quotes Obama’s much-feted reference to the riots in his second inaugural speech), I consider how perhaps no one would have suspected this somewhat sleepy locale (granted, it was a Tuesday) would have engendered what would become the national push for pride and equality in LGBTQA communities everywhere.

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