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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
A few years ago, I tried out a summer “looking” challenge in an attempt to parallel the clever ideas my local public library uses to encourage summer book club participants to pick out volumes they might not have otherwise sampled (“Summer Looking Challenge–Touring the Collections with Azure Allure“). It’s getting to be that time of …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by exhibition co-curator Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division. Writer James Baldwin observed that “An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian.” The Library of Congress exhibition Art in Action: Herblock and Fellow Artists Respond to Their Times explores the role of artists …
Posted in: News & Events, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Eleven years ago today we posted our first sets of photos in the Flickr Commons, which was created to share treasures from the world’s public archives. Thousands of pictures, views, and comments later, we’re celebrating with a new album of pictures with an “eleven-ish” connection and an invitation to participate in a tagging activity in …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs, Portraits, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
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 …
Posted in: Drawings, Hispanic American History, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Leslie Granillo, a Junior Fellow in the Prints & Photographs Division, Summer 2017 This summer I’ve been lucky enough to work with a wonderful collection of Photochroms. Going through them has been like taking a vacation through Europe, with the added advantage of being able to travel back in …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division and Linda Stiber Morenus, Special Assistant to the Director of Scholarly & Educational Programs and longtime paper conservator. Known for his credo “Art for Art’s Sake,” American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903) was a virtuoso etcher whose …
Posted in: News & Events, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
I find the relationship between words and pictures endlessly intriguing. Sometimes I type a single word into the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog simply to see what variety it turns up. It’s a little like the best parts of opening a gift: full of surprises and meaning. The other day, I was meditating on the …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints
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 …
Posted in: Drawings, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The Great Hall in the Library of Congress Jefferson Building echoes with the hubbub of enthusiastic visitors absorbing the ornate details of its salute to knowledge and creativity. Much as I relish those sights and sounds, on a recent afternoon, I enjoyed dipping into a room just off the Great Hall to contemplate a small, …
Posted in: Architecture, News & Events, Photographs, Prints