I live in a smallish college town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, far from the bustling museum and gallery scenes of New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., three places I have lived over the years. Still, D.C. is about four…
I, like many people across the country, have been using YouTube yoga videos to break up my routine and introduce a little more physical activity in my life during these long months of stay-at-home orders. Even as my state of…
Recently in the United States there has been a great outpouring of activism, causing many of us to examine our places in the country and the world. Activism often goes hand-in-hand with artistic production, with professional and amateur artists alike…
During the past months of lockdown, many of us have been spending a lot of time with our beloved pets. If you follow CFAM on social media, you may have seen an image or two of a staff member’s furry…
Over the past weeks, due to the killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, America has been engaged in a national conversation about privilege, bias, and whose voices are heard in our country and its institutions.…
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…
