The following is a guest post by Jan Grenci, Reference Specialist for Posters in the Prints and Photographs Division – as well as a long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fan. For almost as long as the game has been played, baseball imagery has been used to advertise a wide variety of products. These items from the Prints …
The following is an interview with Shaunette Payne about some of her varied responsibilities as a Technical Services Technician in the Prints and Photographs Division. Here we discuss her work with the Division’s stereograph cards, circus posters, and offsite collections. Melissa: You and other colleagues in the technical services section are working on a project …
Whenever I leave the urban landscape and go out driving in the country, certain things tend to catch my eye. One particular scene that always makes my head turn is a red barn on a hillside. The pop of color often draws me in. I have always wondered, though: Why red? It turns out, the …
There is a well-known quote by Pablo Picasso, which goes like this: Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. Perhaps these words appeal to me because they touch on the delightful imagination a child possesses, and how freely that creativity is expressed through art with …
The Prints and Photographs Division’s collections include images that evoke every possible emotion. This year’s International Day of Happiness – designated by the United Nations to recognize that “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal” and to help more people meet that goal – felt like a fitting time to take an informal …
The following is a guest post by Jan Grenci, Reference Specialist for Posters, Prints and Photographs Division. Winter is one of my favorite seasons, what with the snow, and the cookies, and the caroling. There are a number of posters in the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division that illustrate some of the things …
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division. When Juan Felipe Herrera was exploring Library of Congress collections to share through his Poet Laureate project El Jardín (The Garden): La Casa de Colores, he was interested to learn what we have by Chicano Movement artists. We …
“The Greatest Show on Earth” closed up shop this past Sunday, May 21, as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus put on its last show. “The Greatest Show on Earth” moniker is a good example of the type of hyperbole circuses have always used in their advertising to lure visitors. The Prints and …
Most of the United States will “spring forward” this weekend, as we enter Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. – which will immediately become 3:00 a.m. – Sunday morning. Many of us have never known a time when we didn’t go through the biannual ritual of springing forward an hour in the spring, and falling …