Blog Search results: african

Tang Dynasty. Tomb guardian. early 700s. Glazed earthenware. Image and data from The Cleveland Museum of Art. CC0 1.0.

Extending our cultural scope and disciplinary reach

We are working to add new collections that extend Artstor’s cultural scope and disciplinary reach. This includes African, African American, and Asian content, and content in disciplines such as social justice and human geography, environmental studies, public health, and natural sciences. New additions centered on this growing diversity include: Barbara Anello: Khmer Sites; Arthur Szyk; Brooklyn Museum; Magnum Photos, and more.

A landmark offering of 500 new images by one of America’s most celebrated political artists during World War II.

Arthur Szyk, Walpurgis Night. New York, 1942. Pen, ink and colored graphite on paper. Image and original data provided by Irvin Ungar.

Arthur Szyk, Ink and Blood (Self-Portrait). New York, 1944. Watercolor and gouache on paper. Image and original data provided by Irvin Ungar.

Scholar and author Irvin Ungar has recently contributed the Arthur Szyk collection to Artstor, consisting of 500 images by acclaimed World War-II era Polish-Jewish artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Łódź, Poland – d. 1951, New Canaan, Connecticut). Below, Ungar and art historian Samantha Lyons, PhD, provide context on the artist’s life and career.

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.

By now you know that Artstor’s Public Collections provide approximately 1.3 million freely accessible images and other materials from library special collections, faculty research, and institutional history materials. The collections are constantly growing, and as we browsed for Latin American content in preparation for Hispanic Heritage Month, we were delighted by what we found. Here are some notable highlights:

Clary. Conferencia Latinoamericana Sobre la Integracion de la Mujer en el Desarollo Economico y Social. 1977. Image and data from Wofford College: The Lindsay Webster Collection of Cuban Posters.

Wofford College: The Lindsay Webster Collection of Cuban Posters
The collection features approximately 350 works created in Cuba from the revolution through the 2000s. Many of the posters focus on Cuba’s efforts to spread messages of the revolution worldwide and to inspire others in the fight against oppression stemming from the legacies of imperialism and colonialism, as well as posters focused on promoting Cuban national pride, conservation, production, and culture.

Dartmouth: Ediciones Vigia Collection
In 1985, a Cuban poet Alfredo Zaldivar and an artist Rolando Estevez established a literary forum for a group of Cuban artists in Matanzas, Cuba and called it Ediciones Vigía. For over twenty years now the goal for these artists has been to create beautiful handmade books. Through all of the social and political shifts, and even a severe paper shortage, the artists have found ways to create works of enormous artistry, imagination, and creativity by using found and recycled materials.

Over the years, educators, librarians, and researchers at all levels, from secondary schools to graduate programs, have shared with us how they use Artstor in their teaching and research. We’ve gathered some of our favorites here, touching on topics as varied as medicine, ethnic studies, women’s studies, and more.

Would you like to share how you use Artstor? Leave a comment and we’ll follow up!

Unknown photographer. Howard University students picket the National Crime Conference, December 1934. Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (Library of Congress)

Washington’s secret city: cultural capital
Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture, Tulane University

Race, identity, and experience in American art
Dr. Jennifer Zarro, Tyler School of Art, Temple University

Honoré Daumier. L’Exposition de 1859: Dire que je vais être…Exposé…1859. Lithograph. Image and data provided by The Phillips Collection.

Missing your favorite museums? Let us reveal them to you remotely. Artstor offers comprehensive coverage of the collections of well over 100 international museums and galleries through various accesses—ranging from fully public, from our community collaborators, as well as Open Artstor collections with works entirely in the public domain—to selections in the Artstor Digital Library that are available to subscribing institutions and their members.

Explore one of our finest museums virtually

Ogata Korin, follower of. Chrysanthemums by a Stream. Late 1700s – early 1800s. One of a pair of folding screens; ink and color on gilded paper. Image and data provided by The Cleveland Museum of Art. CCO 1.0.

In collaboration with The Cleveland Museum of Art and their comprehensive Open Access initiative, Artstor has published an expansive selection of works from this leading repository, freely available to all and with Creative Commons licenses in Open Artstor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. This is part of a new, free initiative to aggregate open museum, library, and archive collections across disciplines on the Artstor platform — already a destination for scholars using visual media. Incorporating more than 10,000 years of history and iconic works from every corner of the globe, this collection includes nearly 29,000 images offering considerable coverage of the museum’s encyclopedic collection — paintings from Nicolas Poussin to Georgia O’Keeffe, precious jewels and scrolls from China, Japanese screens and kimonos, African and Native American ritual attire and objects, pre-Columbian gold, photography, and much more.

Dr. Kelli Morgan, Associate Curator of American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at Newfields introduces us to some of the American gems in the IMA’s collection.

The American collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields (IMA) is an encyclopedic group of brilliant objects that span U.S. history from the Colonial period to the 1970s. The collection is well known for its American Impressionism, modernist painting and sculpture, and of course Indiana’s own Hoosier School. Yet, IMA’s American collection is comprised of such a diverse array of objects that it offers an alternative look at the American canon.

Edward Moran, The Valley in the Sea, 1862. Image and original data provided by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

Robert Scott Duncanson, Loch Long, 1867. Image and original data provided by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

Bob Gore. Woman with gourd, Kwanzaa celebration. 2006. Image and data provided by Bob Gore.

Our thanks to New York photographer Bob Gore, who contributed approximately 300 images from his portfolio to the Artstor Digital Library, documenting diverse expressions of faith across the United States and in the Caribbean region.*

With nearly 2.5 million images making up 300 collections in Artstor–plus hundreds more public collections–where does one begin browsing in Artstor?

Browsing images may not seem like the best way to find an image, especially if you are looking for something specific. However, browsing allows you to serendipitously discover images you might not find with a more focused search. Next time you’re working in Artstor, try some of these techniques and see what you discover: