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Category: Prints

Color photograph shows open kitchen cupboard with four shelves containing various spices on bottom three shelves and glass dishes on the top shelf. The cabinets and walls are white.

Everything Including the Kitchen Sink

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Many of us spend a considerable amount of time in the kitchen, a space that can serve both a utilitarian and a social function. The Prints & Photographs Division collections provide great images of kitchen spaces that highlight prepared food, architectural elements, and the labor that goes into ensuring our nourishment. The photograph below shows …

Views of Mulberry Street in Little Italy

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

When I come across similar images in the online catalog, it’s hard not to stop and compare them. Sometimes we have multiple copies of an image printed from the same negative, other times we see photographs that were taken seconds apart or from a similar vantage point — and sometimes an image is modified from …

Bicycles: A Lasting Trend in Pictures

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include many images that feature the humble bicycle. This familiar, ingenious transportation technology appears in pictures in multiple formats, including photographs, prints, and drawings, produced across decades. This popular graphic art print showing the scene at the 1883 Bicycle Camp-Exhibition & Tournament in Springfield, Massachusetts gives a sense of …

Rainy Days

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

As one might expect given the season, April has arrived in the nation’s capital with substantial rain showers. Inspired by what I see outside and curious to see what kinds of rainy weather images I could find in the collections, I searched the online catalog. There is no shortage of D.C.-based photographs in the collections. …

Birds-eye view of orange groves, with shadow of mountains just visible in the background.

Pining for Citrus

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

It’s usually right about this time of year when I start pining for warmer weather and fresh, local fruit. This may have something to do with my California roots. My family always had fruit trees, including varieties of orange, such as the one you see below. There were only a few months out of the …

Image shows cased daguerreotype. Red velvet visible on inside of case, and portrait of Christiana Williams Freeman visible in image on right side, inside gold frame.

Ready for Research: Three Photography Archives

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. The extensive photography archives of Ralph Ellison, Robert McNeill, and Bob Adelman are now ready for your attention! We also offer you a new and detailed finding aid to the Tobacco Cards from the Benjamin K. Edwards Collection and more rights-free …

Two hikers climb down a steepslope in alpine landscape, with snow visible on distant peaks and valleys.

Take a Hike!

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

For some, recreation is as much a part of holiday tradition as comfort food and relaxation. Explore images related to hiking in this blog post.

Photo shows large red bard in background, with dozens of bright orange pumplins on green lawn in foreground.

Pumpkins in Pictures

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Every fall, as the weather begins to transition from hot and humid to cool and brisk, my mind turns to happy memories of comforting foods and trips to pumpkin patches from years past. View this post to explore some pumpkin imagery from the collections.

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

Ready for Research: Mission Gráfica/La Raza Collection

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following guest post is by Maggie McCready, Archivist in the Prints & Photographs Division. A collection of nearly 1,200 prints and posters by 265 different artists is now online at the Library of Congress.  This artwork represents 40 years’ worth of culture, printmaking, and protest based in the San Francisco Bay area. Let me …