Top of page
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division. A longer version will appear in On Paper: Journal of the Washington Print Club (Fall 2021). Like poetry, literature, and music—visual art can reflect history, society, politics, and culture in uniquely powerful ways. Artists’ prints typically exist in …
Posted in: Picture This
The following is a guest post by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Popeye, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Panther – some cartoon characters have become both instantly and internationally recognizable, but they didn’t get their start on television or in the movies, but rather on the pages …
Posted in: Picture This
Recently, while preparing to present a virtual orientation offering a sampling of Prints & Photographs Division collections for representations of work, workers and labor themes, I found myself selecting image after image that showed women working in a variety of industrial and office settings (at the same time recognizing that for centuries women have also …
Posted in: Picture This
The ability to select how I will view a hefty set of search results in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog is one of the features I love about the catalog. There are three choices: List, Gallery, and Grid, offered at the upper right of the search results page. The default view is List view. …
Posted in: Picture This
The following is a guest post by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. “Exceptionally rare and believed to be previously unknown,” in the seller’s letter intrigued me. On offer, an 1836 anti-Martin Van Buren woodcut print, depicting Van Buren as a witch and riding the coattails of …
Posted in: Picture This
The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. As we celebrate women’s history this month, we’re heading to the track, the open waters, the rink, the mat, the field, the mountains, and many more areas to highlight women in sports. While there isn’t one set collection to explore …
Posted in: Picture This
As it usually does this time of year, my California born-and-bred spirit has me already looking for signs of spring (the novelty of winter going only so far). And where better place to turn for a little spring — especially when nature won’t oblige — than the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog? But the results …
Posted in: Picture This
The following guest post is by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division In honor of African American History Month, this gathering of extraordinary individual and group portraits by contemporary artists features works that speak of community, family, and the envisioned past, present, and future. Nelson Stevens’s vibrant screenprint called Spirit Sister, …
Posted in: Picture This
This guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division, highlights posters that complement the New York Poster House exhibition “The Letterpress Posters of Amos Kennedy” (October 8, 2020–January 3, 2021), curated by Angelina Lippert. Detroit-based letterpress artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. wields wood type and ink in ways that can …
Posted in: Picture This
We asked reference librarian Jon Eaker, who has spent many years exploring our holdings of military images, to select a couple of favorites to feature in honor of Veterans Day. It’s a tall order to pick out just two, given the thousands of images we hold of members of the armed forces depicted in peacetime …
Posted in: Picture This