This week I have been immersed in the life and work of Jacob Lawrence, one of the best-known artists of the Harlem Renaissance as well as one of America’s foremost modern artists. Lawrence, who got his start painting scenes of…
I am fortunate to live in a house with big, floor-to-ceiling windows. While researching the CFAM collection I often sit by one of these windows, and occasionally steal a glance outside. When I do, I nearly always see some bird…
One of the best resources for those of us who study American art is undoubtedly the Archives of American Art. Founded in 1954 in Detroit, the institution was originally intended to collect microfilm of archival material relating to American art…
Last week I wrote about research I have been doing on two recent acquisitions in CFAM’s Alfond Collection. This week, I’d like to continue with American photographer Andrew Moore’s 2016 Pitt’s Folly, Perry County, AL, from the recent series Blue…
In art history, as in most academic disciplines, we divide ourselves into a dizzying array of subfields, from experts in ancient Greek pottery to Qing-era Chinese painting to Mayan architecture and far beyond. My own expertise is in nineteenth century…
One of the particular strengths of the CFAM collection I have been delighted to discover is in the medium of etching, one of the primary modes of printmaking used by artists since the Renaissance. To make an etching, a very…
For me, one of the great pleasures of museum work is getting to know an individual collection. At institutions like CFAM, which are tied to specific communities of alumni, donors, students, faculty, and local visitors, collections grow organically, reflecting the…
“Change is coming, whether you like it or not.” – Greta Thunberg What change is coming? Climate change and the movements centered around it. As we celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd, an annual event dedicated to environmental protection, here’s…
I would like to begin this week’s post on a bit of a personal note. I live in Southwest Virginia, on the edge of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Since March 30, however, Virginia has been under a stay-at-home order,…
Part 2: A Case of Artistic Friendship: A.F. Tait and J.M. Hart So often we consider artists and their work in a kind of vacuum, seeing them as exemplars of individual genius rather than members of communities. Sure, we might…
Forward written by: Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, CFAM We are happy to introduce new insights into the museum’s American Art Collection. In our latest blog series, American Art Research Fellow Grant Hamming will share the results of his ongoing…
Recently, there has been an explosion of scholarship into the conservation of contemporary works of art. Historically a field limited to traditional art forms, with conservators painstakingly dissolving individual layers of varnish or carefully inpainting a damaged square centimeter of…
For decades, the Hamptons have been a prime spot for summer fun and a location from which artists draw endless inspiration. The New York-based artist Arne Besser (1935-2012) first gained recognition in the art world for his Photorealist paintings of…
This post was written in 2019 and has been edited to update pertinent information. Rina Banerjee’s Her captivity was once someone’s treasure… combines historical objects (a Victorian birdcage, a 19th-century New England table) with elements both natural (gourds, feathers, shells,…
I read somewhere that collections are what museums are; exhibitions, what they do. This makes perfect sense, of course. Except for the comparatively rare kunsthalle (a German word roughly translated to “art gallery” but used in English to mean non-collecting…
