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Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Photographing the Golden Gate Bridge is a challenge on many levels – quite literally! Nearly 9,000 feet in length, and rising almost 800 feet into the air, it doesn’t pose easily for the camera. I can only assume from looking at the images of the Golden Gate Bridge in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Ryan Brubacher, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. One of my most favorite rabbit holes to find myself in as a librarian is the deep and wonderful collection of the combined Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), collectively …
Posted in: Architecture, HABS/HAER/HALS, Jewish American History
Posted by: Lara Szypszak
Did you hear? April 30 is International Jazz Day! So I thought I’d search the Prints and Photographs collections to get an idea of what we have to represent the celebrated music genre- that thing we call jazz! The cartoon drawing below epitomizes the exuberance and dynamic feeling of the music! There are many gems …
Posted in: Drawings, Photographs
Posted by: Lara Szypszak
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 …
Posted in: Photographs, Posters
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The calavera, or skull, is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican celebration of the dead that has both Indigenous and Spanish Catholic roots. The Prints and Photographs Division holds a treasure-trove of prints by eminent Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). Posada helped …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Lara Szypszak
September 22 is World Car Free Day, an annual event when participants around the world set aside their car keys and find alternative methods for getting to work. This annual observance goes back to the 1970s, and gained more ground in the 1990s to coincide with the European Union’s “In Town Without My Car” campaign. …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Lara Szypszak
The following is an interview featuring Jan Grenci, Reference Specialist – Posters, Prints and Photographs Division. Many may ask if campaign posters make a difference in political elections. Some of us will stick a sign in our lawn, and others may simply see posters hung in storefront windows. With another election upon us, I turned …
Posted in: Posters, Prints, Visual literacy
Posted by: Julie Stoner
The end of August reminds me of the sweltering hot days I spent as a teenager in band camp, marching back and forth across the black pavement of the high school parking lot, attempting to learn field formations while simultaneously playing only half-remembered music. Though well past my marching days, I still appreciate a well-executed …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One hundred years ago, the city of Tokyo sent Washington, D.C. a gift of friendship that continues to bloom today. Quite literally, in fact! Three thousand flowering cherry trees arrived in D.C. in 1912, and started what has become an annual spring tradition for residents of the D.C. area and thousands of tourists: going to …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs, Prints