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Category: Drawings

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Summer Looking Challenge–Touring the Collections with Azure Allure

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

As summer gets into full swing, I’m recalling how much I enjoyed my public library’s summer reading club challenges when my children were younger (shout-out to all the public libraries that run summer reading clubs for children and adults!). One thing I loved about the challenge was the “randomizer” techniques library staff designed to inspire …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

The Art of War: Library of Congress Exhibition Features World War I Artists

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, who co-curated the exhibition with Sara Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts: When exhorted by Charles Dana Gibson to “draw ‘til it hurts!” hundreds of his fellow artists contributed over 1,400 designs, including some 700 posters, to promote the country’s …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Pictures to Go: Viewing Trains as Metaphors

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Travel by train, or what some called the “Iron horse,” dominated other forms of transport in America for nearly fifty years. During this “golden age” of railroads that began in 1865, public fascination with …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

The Rush for Gold

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

The January 1848 chance discovery of gold in northern California rapidly altered the course of America. On this day, August 19, in 1848, word finally reached the East Coast, when the New York Herald published a report of the discovery. By 1849, the rush was on in earnest, leading to the well-known term for gold …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Cartoonists Armed with Pointed Pens

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

In the U.S., editorial cartoonists come in all stripes of the multi-hued American political spectrum. So, it’s not surprising that the points of view expressed in their visual commentary are as varied as their cartooning styles. A recently-opened Library of Congress exhibition, Pointing Their Pens: Herblock and Fellow Cartoonists Confront the Issues, as described in its Overview “offers viewers an …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Masterful Research

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

The following is a guest post by art historian Diane De Grazia, retired chief curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and author of such publications as Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art (2000). An accomplished scholar, Dr. De Grazia served previously as deputy director for the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Sherman Spares Savannah

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

I beg to present you a Christmas Gift, the City of Savannah . . .                       — General Sherman to President Lincoln, telegram, December 22, 1864 One hundred fifty years ago in December 1864, General William T. Sherman and his troops completed their “March to …