The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Art. The renowned illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) is best known for creating the Gibson Girl, that dazzling paragon of feminine beauty—with a flawless face, steadfast gaze, small-waisted yet voluptuous form, that tall beguiling being who radiated grace no […]
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. If you had to pick just one picture to represent the Battle of Antietam, which would you choose? A photograph of a young girl wearing mourning ribbons and holding a photograph of her father could symbolize the wide-spread and lasting losses […]
Imagine an expanse of hilly countryside. Fill it with with hundreds, perhaps thousands of men, battling to the death. Now put yourself into that scene. Listen to the clash of metal as swords and bayonets meet, the boom of cannons firing, the voices yelling. You’re in danger: there are bullets whizzing by and men dying around […]
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that, in addition to marking the 150th anniversary of key developments in the U.S. Civil War, we are now looking back at an even earlier conflict as the War of 1812 bicentennial launches. Two hundred years to the day have passed since the United States declared war on […]
When each heart gives out its best, Then the talk is full of zest: Light your fire and never fear, Life was made for love and cheer. (Henry Van Dyke, “Inscriptions for a Friend’s House”) When American illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green created a watercolor painting to accompany Henry Van Dyke’s “Inscriptions for a Friend’s House,” […]
Can you imagine the D.C. skyline without the familiar obelisk of the Washington Monument? If Peter Force’s 1837 design had been chosen, it could have been a hollowed-out pyramid. Or what if Memorial Bridge welcomed visitors to the city with looming turrets and towers instead of the low profile it presents today? These possibilities and […]
Thanks to a recent initiative by Library of Congress and National Park Service staff, the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog has grown by nearly 400,000 records. Through a bit of technical wizardry, there is now a record for each digital image in one of our cornerstone collections: the Historic American Buildings Survey/ Historic American Engineering […]
In Railroad Stations: The Buildings That Linked the Nation, David Naylor chronicles the history and stylistic character of one of our nation’s most iconic building types. Prolifically illustrated with images from the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division, the volume is organized by geographic region. In addition to showing the exteriors of many stations, […]
Explore the faces, places and events of the U.S. Civil War in a single online location, using a new feature in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. The “Civil War” category aids research across thousands of images relating to the Civil War that are found in different Prints & Photographs Division collections in a variety […]
The tools of her trade are simple: colored pencils, crayons, pens, and paper. Yet, armed with just these tools artist Marilyn Church has brought to life some of the most dramatic moments in high-profile courtroom trials during the past 36 years. Her work has covered such well-known people as Martha Stewart, J.K. Rowling, Bernard L. Madoff, Jacqueline Onassis, the men […]