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Curator's Corner

Fashion and Society: 1700s France

Monday, August 5, 2013 | Karl Cole

I’ve talked about fashion relating to politics. This entry will relate to society at the time of one of the most outlandish periods in fashion: France in the 1750s through 1780s during the reign ...

Curator's Corner

Vacation: Leisure Time in Art

Monday, July 29, 2013 | Karl Cole

Since vacation is on everyone’s mind now that summer is in full swing, let’s just look at works of art that spout vacation, special day off, or festival. And, yes, this can be an art histo ...

Curator's Corner

Sculpture as Jewelry: Liv Blåvarp

Monday, July 22, 2013 | Karl Cole

As you know, I consider artists in any medium to be ARTISTS, not “artisans” or “craftspeople” or “decorative artists.” When one looks at jewelry, even if it has bee ...

Curator's Corner

Nostalgia in American Art

Monday, July 15, 2013 | Karl Cole

I read in the New York Times that up until 1999 “nostalgia” was considered a mental illness. Well, you could have knocked me for a loop with that one. One usually gets warm fuzzies from be ...

Curator's Corner

Recently a royal tomb of the Andean Wari culture was excavated in Peru about 175 miles north of Lima. It contained the mummified bodies of 57 royal women and 6 female servants (assumed sacrificed). Th ...

Curator's Corner

American Originals: Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright

Monday, July 1, 2013 | Karl Cole

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how spotty modernism was in American art in the early 1900s. Since the colonial period, American artists had a tenacious obsession with realism, including the wo ...

Curator's Corner

Furniture conforming to...? Jere Osgood

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 | Karl Cole

Traditionally, furniture was designed to conform to the human body and what was being worn at the time. That’s why we see low side chairs with no arms during the mid-1800s when women were wearin ...

Curator's Corner

Lacquer: Japanese Negoro Ware

Monday, June 17, 2013 | Karl Cole

The art of lacquer has long fascinated me. When I was in an Asian Art seminar in college (decades ago), I learned that ancient Chinese bodies coated in lacquer still had supple skin. Now that’s ...

Curator's Corner

The Windsor Connection

Monday, June 10, 2013 | Karl Cole

My nephew just repainted our kitchen table and chairs. It occurred to me that the chairs are modern day versions of the Windsor chair. Our chairs even have the elegant h-stretcher joining the legs, an ...

Curator's Corner

The Brueghel (Bruegel) Family

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 | Karl Cole

Having ancestry in northern Europe (Switzerland), I naturally gravitated toward Northern Renaissance art in college. I’m particularly fond of Flemish artists, because they reflect a similar unva ...

Curator's Corner

A Unique Design: Maria Benktzon

Wednesday, May 29, 2013 | Karl Cole

In the mid-1900s, Scandinavian artists emerged at the forefront of modernism in all facets of design: architecture, furniture, and the art of household objects. Among them were many women who came up ...

Curator's Corner

You Think You Know Ancient Egypt?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 | Karl Cole

At first glance this small sculpture would lead the viewer to believe that it was firmly within the realm of ancient Egyptian art. It actually belongs to a culture that bordered dynastic Egypt, and tw ...

Curator's Corner

National Jewish American Heritage Month: Helen Frankenthaler

Monday, May 13, 2013 | Karl Cole

As an art historian who grew up in the age of blossoming feminist art movements, one of my major disappointments has always been the significant women artists of previous movements who were not given ...

Curator's Corner

The Simplified Landscape: Warren Rohrer

Monday, May 6, 2013 | Karl Cole

The genre of the simplified (abstracted) landscape has been around a loooonnnnnng time. In particular, I think of the dreamy, suggestive landscapes of Chinese artists from as early as the Song dynasty ...

Curator's Corner

My Mask Mania: Nuna Culture

Monday, April 29, 2013 | Karl Cole

Thanks to Steven Tatum at Virginia Tech for educating me about African masks, an art form I’ve long been fascinated by. The variety of forms and uses boggles my Western European accustomed mind! ...

Curator's Corner

Forgotten Art History: Thomas Gross, Jr.

Monday, April 22, 2013 | Karl Cole

Like women artists, African American artists have been neglected in the major art history survey texts, especially when it comes to pre-emancipation. I am always delighted to have an epiphany about an ...

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Fashion and Society: 1700s France

Vacation: Leisure Time in Art

Sculpture as Jewelry: Liv Blåvarp

Nostalgia in American Art

The Wari: Andean Textile Arts

American Originals: Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright

Furniture conforming to...? Jere Osgood

Lacquer: Japanese Negoro Ware

The Windsor Connection

The Brueghel (Bruegel) Family

A Unique Design: Maria Benktzon

You Think You Know Ancient Egypt?

National Jewish American Heritage Month: Helen Frankenthaler

The Simplified Landscape: Warren Rohrer

My Mask Mania: Nuna Culture

Forgotten Art History: Thomas Gross, Jr.

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