The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Herb Block (aka Herblock) (1909-2001), legendary cartoonist for the Washington Post and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, probably never met Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), but he did admire this artist and his art. He also admired, […]
A recent Picture This blog post aptly titled: Posing (and Solving) Mysteries: Harris & Ewing Photographs Invite Detective Work included a photo that did invite some additional detective work! This leads us to this latest entry in our occasional series, Double Take, where we take a much closer look at images in our collections. My […]
The following is a guest post by Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division. Who is the woman in this photograph? JD Sloan’s portrait offers an aura of mystery while commenting on both the glamour and the tedium of celebrity culture. Country singer Tammy Wynette stands on a dark Opryland stage facing away […]
This guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division, highlights posters that complement the New York Poster House exhibition “The Letterpress Posters of Amos Kennedy” (October 8, 2020–January 3, 2021), curated by Angelina Lippert. Detroit-based letterpress artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. wields wood type and ink in ways that can […]
The following is a guest post by Gillian Mahoney, Technical Services Technician in the Prints & Photographs Division. Are drive-in theaters making a comeback? Because of the current pandemic, many are seeking socially distant yet still sociable activities, and drive-in movie theaters offer a perfect combination. In the 1950s and 60s drive-ins were wildly popular, […]
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints and Photographs Division. I could look at photographs all day long. Contemporary or historical, black-and-white or color, provocative or soothing, portrait or landscape. All kinds of images can draw my interest, and some photos have the power to stop me in my tracks. These […]
We asked reference librarian Jon Eaker, who has spent many years exploring our holdings of military images, to select a couple of favorites to feature in honor of Veterans Day. It’s a tall order to pick out just two, given the thousands of images we hold of members of the armed forces depicted in peacetime […]
On November 7, 1916, nearly four years before the Nineteenth Amendment gave American women the right to vote nationally, Jeannette Rankin was elected to represent Montana in the United States House of Representatives. Images of Rankin in the Prints & Photographs Division’s collections portray her both in her role as congresswoman and as activist for […]
I’m constantly amazed and amused by photographs from the Harris & Ewing Collection and the range in the information that came with them, from the sublimely detailed–full of names and dates–to the barer-than-bare bones: no caption at all. Here’s an example that intrigues me, particularly with the model wagon(?) beside her on the desk. Though […]
This is one in a series of blog posts devoted to highlighting digitized content that has long been available on the Library’s web site and is worth revisiting. The Prints & Photographs Division holds tens of thousands of popular graphic art prints showing every subject imaginable, from military battles to sentimental vignettes, from expansive city […]