Blog Search results: giovanni garcia

Rem Koolhaas, Madelon Vriesendorp, Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis | Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture: The Strip, project Aerial perspective, 1972 |The Museum of Modern Art, Architecture and Design Collection | © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / BEELDRECHT, Hoofddorp, NL

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.

In his four decades as an architect and urbanist, Rem Koolhaas has never wavered in his audacious vision, continuously dreaming up controversial projects such as the Central China Television Headquarters Building in Beijing (composed of two uneven 44-story legs joined at the top by a 13-story angled bridge that precariously juts out over a plaza), or an unrealized proposal for a 1.5-billion-square-foot Waterfront City on an artificial island just off the Persian Gulf in the coast of Dubai.

Alex Katz | Home On the Range, 1948-1949 | Colby College Museum of Art | Art © Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the Artstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; Email: info@vagarights.com.

Alex Katz, one of the most distinctive painters in America, turned 85 years old this week. His style is now immediately recognizable: flat, minimal, large, and—usually—bright. While Katz has tackled a variety of subjects and media in his long career, his work has retained many of the same qualities since his first solo exhibition in 1954, which is why this selection from his student years at Cooper Union proves so fascinating.

These small gouaches on paper from 1948-1949 illustrating popular folk songs offer a glimpse of the artist in development. Many of the elements that would become Katz’s signature style are already in place, but we find unexpected hints of influence by American painters Ben Shahn and Stuart Davis.

Alex Katz | As I Went A-Walking One Fine Summer's Evening, 1948-1949 | Colby College Museum of Art | Art © Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the ARTstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; Email: info@vagarights.com.

Alex Katz | Frankie and Johnny, 1948-1949 | Colby College Museum of Art | Art © Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the ARTstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; Email: info@vagarights.com.

Alex Katz | What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor? , 1948-1949 | Colby College Museum of Art | Art © Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the ARTstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; Email: info@vagarights.com.

Alex Katz | Home On the Range, 1948-1949 | Colby College Museum of Art | Art © Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the ARTstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; Email: info@vagarights.com.

Not long after finishing these works, Katz began painting from life during a summer at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine, adding one more of the key elements that led to his mature work.

These images—from a series of nine gouaches—come to us from the collection of the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. Since 1954, Katz has spent his summers in a 19th-century clapboard farmhouse in neighboring Lincolnville, and he has developed a close relationship with the school, which has devoted a 10,000-square-foot wing to his work, of which they own more than 760 pieces, most of them accessible in the Artstor Digital Library.

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Arnold Genthe | Miss Helen Chamberlain with Buzzer the cat, May 28, 1918 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

“It is told that at the age of four, when I was taken by the nurse to look at my newly arrived brother Hugo, I seriously remarked, ‘I’d like a little kitten better.’ I am fond of dogs, but cats have always meant more to me, and they have been the wise and sympathetic companions of many a solitary hour.”

 –Arnold Genthe, As I Remember (1936)

Arnold Genthe is best remembered for his photos of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and his portraits of notables, from celebrities to politicians. Maybe that list should also include cats.

A self-taught photographer, Genthe opened a portrait studio in San Francisco in the late 1890s. His clientele grew to include personages like silent actress Nance O’Neil, theater legend Sarah Bernhardt, poet Nora May French, and author Jack London. In 1911 Genthe moved to New York City, where he concentrated primarily on portraiture, photographing such towering figures as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and John D. Rockefeller. And all the while, he was photographing cats. Among the more than 1,000 images of Genthe’s photographs in the Library of Congress Collection in the Artstor Digital Library, there are 82 that include cats, usually accompanying women, but occasionally alone. More than half of these feature his beloved cat Buzzer (or perhaps that should be “Buzzers,” as he used that name for four cats).

Arnold Genthe | Miss Helen Chamberlain with Buzzer the cat, May 28, 1918 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe | Silvester child with Buzzer the cat, March 3, 1913 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe. Miss Natalie Campbell with Buzzer the cat, December 24, 1914. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe |Miss Pell with Buzzer the cat, April 11, 1916 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe | Miss M. Liebert with Buzzer the cat, between 1916 and 1927 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe | Mrs. Bernice Ballard with Buzzer the cat, May 19, 1916 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe | Miss Fay Bainter with Buzzer the cat, 1916 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Arnold Genthe | Buzzer the cat, 1912 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Our slide show is made up of some highlights featuring Buzzer; search the Artstor Digital Library for Genthe and cat to see all of the photographer’s feline friends.

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Arnold Genthe | Buzzer the cat, 1912 | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Left: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres | Self Portrait, 1858 | Galleria degli Uffizi Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com | (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence / ART RESOURCE, N.Y. Right: Eugène Delacroix | Self-Portrait, c. 1837 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com

The rivalry between Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, the two titans of 19^th century French painting, is often seen as embodying the conflict between the era’s tradition-based neoclassicism and non-conformist Romanticism. Writing for the journal Art History, Andrew Carrington Shelton quotes an article from 1832 by an anonymous critic as the first time the dispute was presented:

It’s the battle between antique and modern genius. M. Ingres belongs in many respects to the heroic age of the Greeks; he is perhaps more of a sculptor than a painter; he occupies himself exclusively with line and form, purposefully neglecting animation and colour […] M. Delacroix, in contrast, willfully sacrifices the rigours of drawing to the demands of the drama he depicts; his manner, less chaste and reserved, more ardent and animated, emphasizes the brilliance of colour over the purity of line.

The antagonism seems to have extended into the personal. In 1883, the New York Times featured a surprisingly gossipy account of a party in which the two stars had a confrontation. The famously testy Ingres doesn’t come across too well in the exchange:

After dinner, holding in his hand a cupful of coffee, he brusquely went up to Eugene Delacroix, who was standing by the fire, and said to him: “Drawing, sir, drawing is honesty! Drawing, sir, drawing is honor!” In his agitation the cup of coffee capsized and poured over his shirt and waistcoat. He seized his hat in a fury… “This is too much! I shall go; I will not let myself be insulted any longer.”

After Ingres left, Delacroix showed admirable restraint, speaking of the qualities that made lngres an eminent painter, adding: “Talent is apt to be exclusive: narrowness is often the condition of its existence.”

Left: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres | Self Portrait, 1858 | Galleria degli Uffizi Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com | (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence / ART RESOURCE, N.Y. Right: Eugène Delacroix | Self-Portrait, c. 1837 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com

Eugène Delacroix | Saint George Fighting the Dragon (Perseus Delivering Andromeda; Saint Georges Combattant le Dragon; Persee Delivrant Andromede), 1847 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres | Roger and Angelica, 1819 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com

Eugène Delacroix | Odalisque, c. 1848-1849 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y. artres.com

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres | The Grand Odalisque, 1814 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. artres.com

For this slide show, we searched the Artstor Digital Library for some images that highlighted the formal differences between the two artists. Among the hundreds of choices, we chose these examples from the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives, and the Scala Archives. From viewing the artworks alone, could you have predicted which of these two artists would be more likely to get so agitated at a party that he would spill coffee on himself?

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise Collection | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

The competition for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery at the turn of the fifteenth century was the city’s most prestigious public commission. Seven artists competed by submitting a bronze plaque on the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” to be judged by a committee of thirty-four native-born citizens of Florence. The competition quickly narrowed down to Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi. After Ghiberti won, he unabashedly claimed, “To me was conceded the palm of victory by all the experts and by all my fellow competitors. Universally, they conceded to me the glory, without exception. Everyone felt I had surpassed the others in that time, without a single exception, after great consultation and examination by learned men.”

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402 | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection | This image was provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection | This image was provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection| This image was provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection| This image was provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise Collection | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

De gustibus non est disputandum, but was Ghiberti’s entry so clearly superior? As historian Rona Goffen put it in her excellent book Renaissance Rivals, “The committee’s decision was surely influenced by the fact that Ghiberti’s panel weighed 7 kilos [approx. 15½ lbs] less than Brunelleschi’s, savings in bronze that signified considerable savings of money.” The photographs of the backs of the panels clearly show how Ghiberti saved those 7 kilos.

Left: Lorenzo Ghiberti | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402. Right: Filippo Brunelleschi | Sacrifice of Isaac; back of panel, 1401-1402 | Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise Collection | these images were provided by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

In 2008, ARTstor supported the comprehensive photographic documentation of the Gates of Paradise in their restored state in collaboration with the Museo dell’ Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. The photographic campaign by photographer Antonio Quattrone documented the newly cleaned bronze panels and frieze elements, as well as Ghiberti and Brunelleschi’s competition panels, now housed in the Museum del Bargello in Florence.

Check out the more than 800 glorious images of the doors, including details and side views, in the Digital Library http://library.artstor.org/library/collection/ghiberti. Feel free to weigh in (ahem) on whether you think Ghiberti’s entry won on esthetic issues alone.

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Burt Glinn | Writer Jack Kerouac reads at Seven Arts Café, New York City, 1959 | Image and original data provided by Magnum Photos, magnumphotos.com | ©Burt Glinn / Magnum Photos

While the 1950s are popularly remembered as a decade of “button down” conformity, the postwar era saw the rise of two groups of American writers and artists who broke with tradition and social norms in an exaltation of unfettered personal expression.

The Beat Generation scandalized the country with their licentious lives and confessional writings. Allen Ginsberg’s rousing poem Howl (1956), Jack Kerouac’s semi-fictional novel On the Road (1957), and William S. Burroughs’s acerbic satire Naked Lunch (1959) spurned materialism, reveled in sexuality, and celebrated the use of illegal drugs. The writers were in turn reviled as “beatniks,” conflating the popular conception of bohemia with juvenile delinquency, another perceived social threat of the times.

Burt Glinn | A back table at The Five Spot. From left to right: sculptor David Smith, painter Helen Frankenthaler (back to camera), art guru Frank O’Hara, painter Larry Rivers, painter Grace Hartigan, unidentified man, sculptor Anita Huffington, and poet Kenneth Koch, New York City, 1957 | Image and original data provided by Magnum Photos, magnumphotos.com | ©Burt Glinn / Magnum Photos

The Abstract Expressionists, a loose group of modern artists that included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman, were breaking boundaries in the visual arts at roughly the same time. While they did not make their equally unconventional personal lives public, their work elicited the same type of shocked reactions from the media and the public as the Beats did, such as Pollock being called “Jack the Dripper” in a famous 1956 article in Time titled “The Wild Ones” (partly in reference to “The Wild One,” a film about motorcycle gangs starring Marlon Brando).

André Derain | Untitled, pg. 16, in the book Pantagruel by François Rabelais, 1943 | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

André Derain | Plaideurs, pg. 70, in the book Pantagruel by François Rabelais, 1943 | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua (better known as simply Pantagruel) was the first in a series of five satirical books by the Franciscan monk and physician François Rabelais chronicling the outrageous adventures of the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel and friends. Published around 1532, Pantagruel is rife with vulgarity, scatological humor, and violence. In spite (or possibly because) of being condemned by the church and deemed obscene by the censors of the Sorbonne, the books proved very popular. In testimony to the author’s continuing influence, Merriam-Webster defines Rabelaisian as “marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature, or bold naturalism.”

Katsukawa Shunsho | The actors Ichikawa Danjuro V as a skeleton, spirit of the renegade monk Seigen… | Edo period, 1783 | The Art Institute of Chicago | Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago

Some blocks in my neighborhood are getting downright spooky – front yards are filling with spider webs and tombstones, and ghosts peek through the bushes. Along with the piles of pumpkins and inevitable candy corn appearing in the supermarket, they are a reminder that Halloween is just around the corner. Americans celebrate Halloween on October 31 by trick-or-treating, displaying jack-o’-lanterns (carved pumpkins) on their porches or windowsills, holding costume parties, and sharing scary stories.

Halloween stems from the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain (roughly, “summer’s end”) held on October 31–November 1, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. The festival was integrated into All Saints Day, a Catholic holiday observed on November 1 to honor saints and martyrs. The evening before All Saints Day was referred to as All Hallows’ Eve, which eventually became Halloween.

Day of the Dead figurine, skeleton dog | 2002 ca. | Mexico | Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

In countries with Roman Catholic heritage, All Saints Day and All Souls Day (November 2) have long been holidays in which people commemorate the departed. The tradition in my native Mexico is known as Día de los Muertos, “Day of the Dead,” and celebrations take place on the first two days of November, when family and friends gather to remember loved ones who have died. Similar to the evolution of Halloween, the celebration conflates the Catholic holidays with an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl, the “Lady of the Dead.” I have fond memories of visiting the cemetery with my family to clean my grandfather’s grave and play with the children of other visiting families. People in Mexico often build altars using brightly decorated sugar skulls, marigolds (popularly known as Flor de Muerto, “Flower of the Dead”), and the favorite foods and beverages of the deceased. I was particularly fond of the sugar skulls; I always tried to bite into them, but they tend to be so hard that I would have to ask my father to break mine with a hammer.

Multiple Carvers | John Sanders; Hannah Saunders, 1694 | Salem, Massachusetts | Image and data From: The Farber Gravestone Collection, American Antiquarian Society

Many Latin American countries hold similar celebrations, with some colorful regional differences:  In Ecuador, the Day of the Dead is observed with ceremonial foods such as colada morada, a spiced fruit porridge, and guagua de pan, a bread shaped like a swaddled infant; in addition to the traditional visits to their ancestors’ gravesites, Guatemalans build and fly giant kites; and in Brazil, Dia de Finados(“Day of the Dead”) is celebrated on November 2.

German School | Dance of Death | 16th century | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To help you celebrate the season, there are thousands of suitably macabre images in the Artstor Digital Library. A great starting point is the Farber Gravestone Collection (American Antiquarian Society), which contains more than 13,500 images of early American grave markers, mostly made prior to 1800. You can also do a search for “Day of the Dead” to find images of calacas, skeleton toys from Mexico. There are also some artists who were great at portraying the dark side: You may be familiar with Henry Fuseli’s famous “Nightmare,” but a simple search of his name leads to several equally scary works, including a different version of the painting and several prints with the same theme; a search for caprichos will lead you to Francisco Goya’s legendary series of prints, rife with witches, demons, and gloomy owls, and a search for Goya witches to a set of his most unsettling paintings and etchings; similarly, search Baldung witches to see a number of the German Renaissance painter Hans Baldung’s ghoulish drawings, or search for his name to see his famous “Death and the Maiden”; and a search for Jose Guadalupe Posada will result in the Mexican artist’s famous “Calaveras,” satirical engravings of skeletons popular during the holiday.

Is this getting a little too dark for you? Try Hine pumpkin to see cheerier photographs by legendary documentary photographer Lewis W. Hine.

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Book of Hours. Use of Rome; Folio #: fol. 072r | 16th century, second quarter | Image and original data provided by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

What are you afraid of? Find something to keep you up at night with this list of our spookiest posts:

• Friday the 13th
• Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s Ghosts
• Danse macabre
• Restless spirits and hungry mouths
• Vanitas: a very literal nature morte
• Send in the clowns
• Holding dolls at arm’s length
• Unwinding mummies

Dorothea Lange | Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940 | George Eastman House

This installment of our Focus series presents an account of the Great Depression illustrated with selections from the numerous collections in the Artstor Digital Library that center on history.

The Great Depression was the longest lasting and most severe period of low general economic activity and unemployment of the 20th century. Lasting approximately a decade, it devastated economies around the world, leaving as much as a third of the population in some countries without jobs, and slashing international trade by more than half.

Berenice Abbott | Wall Street, Looking West from no. 120, 1935-1938 | Museum of the City of New York

The Great Depression was triggered by the Wall Street Crash of October 29, 1929 (also known as “Black Tuesday”). The crash ensued from a speculative boom that began in the late 1920s in which hundreds of thousands of Americans invested in the stock market, many of them with borrowed money. As stocks started to tumble, investors rushed to sell, starting a panic. From Thursday, October 24 to Tuesday, October 29, stocks lost more than $26 billion in value. Prices continued to fall, and banks that had invested large portions of their clients’ savings in the stock market were forced to close, inciting another panic as people across the country rushed to withdraw money, which caused further banks to close. As a result of the crash, businesses had to lay off employees, cutting into consumer spending power, which in turn led to further businesses to fail, creating a severe downward spiral.

Reginald Marsh | Crowd of unemployed, ca. 1932 | Image and original data from: Virga, Vincent, and Curators of the Library of Congress

The situation was exacerbated by the Dust Bowl, a combination of drought and dust storms that decimated farmers. Small farmers typically borrowed money for seed and paid it back after the harvest; when the dust storms damaged the crops, famers went broke. Banks foreclosed on farms, leading to further unemployment and homelessness.

The slump in the American economy curtailed the flow of American investment credits to Europe, which particularly affected Germany and Great Britain, the two countries most deeply indebted to the United States after World War I. Unemployment rose sharply in Germany, reaching 6 million workers by early 1932, and Great Britain’s industrial and export sectors were badly bruised. A domino effect began to upset the rest of Europe’s economies. In an attempt to protect their domestic production, nations imposed tariffs and set quotas on foreign imports, halving the total value of world trade.

In the United States, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to the presidency in late 1932, and he instituted the New Deal: increased government regulation, such as the establishment of the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the passage of the Securities Act of 1933, and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, and massive public-works projects to promote recovery, such as the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration), the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), and the WPA (Works Progress Administration).

Moses Soyer | Artists on WPA, 1935 | Smithsonian American Art Museum | Art (c) Estate of Moses Soyer / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Roosevelt’s efforts brought some relief, but approximately 15 percent of the work force remained unemployed in 1939. It’s commonly agreed that unemployment dropped rapidly in the US after war broke out in Europe thanks to the new jobs in armaments and munitions factories. Recently, Alexander J. Field disputes this assumption, arguing in “A Great Leap Forward” that productive capacity increased during the Great Depression, and that is what led to the post-World War II boom.

–  Giovanni Garcia-Fenech

Artstor Digital Library Collections:

Newman | A monthly check to you, ca. 1935 | Image and original data from: Virga, Vincent, and Curators of the Library of Congress

The Carnegie Arts of the United States documents the history of American art, architecture, visual and material culture; Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (Library of Congress) is a pictorial overview of American history through images from the Library of Congress’ special collections; George Eastman House offers the history of photography, including many key figures from the 1920s and 1930s; Museum of the City of New York features documentation of the built environment of New York City and its changing cultural, political, and social landscape, including more than a thousand photographs from the 1930s; Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has hundreds of works from that period by the legendary artist; The Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection includes hundreds of images by professional and amateur photographers documenting the era; Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection features more than 600 works by American artists, famous and forgotten, from the decade of the Depression; and, similarly, the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, which also includes more than one hundred images by American artists of the period.

Using the Advanced Search function, searches limited to dates between 1929 and 1940 are rich with pertinent materials. Search for “unemployed” to find suitable images from the U.S. and Belgium, Nazi propaganda, and social realist paintings by lesser-known artists; search for “depression” to find hundreds of documentary photographs, images of fashions and architecture of the era, and diagrams of relevant economic statistics; and search for “WPA” for artwork and propaganda posters made for the program.

You can also find dozens of images by characteristic artists of the period such as Reginald Marsh, Ben Shahn, and Thomas Hart Benton, and documentary photographers such as Lewis W. Hine, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Berenice Abbott by searching for their individual names.

Siemens & Halske A.G., Munich, (Manufacturer), Telephone, 1955. Image and data from: The Museum of Modern Art

The initial entry of our new Focus series presents a chronicle of the telephone using some of the numerous collections in the Artstor Digital Library that center on history.