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Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, ca 1492–95

How Renaissance Art Found Its Way to American Museums

We take for granted the Titians and Botticellis that hang in galleries across the U.S., little aware how and why they were acquired.
by Ashley Couto via JSTOR Daily on August 14, 2024
Untitled (Strike), Dox Thrash, c. 1940.

Hard Times

The radical art of the Depression years.
by Rachel Himes via The Nation on November 27, 2023
partner

When Art Fuels Anger, Who Should Prevail?

Controversial artworks are flashpoints when artistic freedom and religious sensitivities collide.
via Retro Report on November 9, 2023
Farmer sits on porch while behind him child stares through window and dust storm envelopes farm.

Working-Class Artists Thrived in the New Deal Era

During the New Deal, mass left movements and government funding spawned a boomlet in working-class art. For once, art wasn’t just the province of the rich.
by Liza Featherstone via Jacobin on October 16, 2023
American blues singer and guitarist Leadbelly performs for a room full of people, 1940.

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.
by Lynne Feeley via The Nation on July 31, 2023
A painting of a Great White Heron eating a fish, by Robert Havell Jr., after Audobon.

Controversies Remind Us of How Complex John James Audubon Always Was

Discovering the naturalist and artist, and the darker trends within.
by Christopher Irmscher via Library of America on August 17, 2022
Wood engraving showing plantation scenes

Value and Its Sources: Slavery and the History of Art

Two new studies ask readers to think expansively about art’s involvement in a broader system of racial capitalism.
by Caitlin Meehye Beach via Art In America on July 20, 2022
John Cage on the quiz show "Lascia o Raddoppia?"

Freedom for Sale

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on July 1, 2021
Painting of the American flag.

Stars, Stripes and Dollars

Michael Prodger on the artists who make huge sums for painting the US flag.
by Michael Prodger via The Critic on November 30, 2020

What Maketh a Man

How queer artist J.C. Leyendecker invented an iconography of twentieth-century American masculinity.
by Tyler Malone via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 10, 2019

Original Catfluencer: How a Victorian Artist’s Feline Fixation Gave Us the Internet Cat

A story of how Louis Wain single handedly made cats adored by Victorian society through to modern day.
by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on May 7, 2019

The Beautiful, Genuine Artistry of Retro Video Games

Amidst so much politics and tribalism, they can provide portals into thoughtfully rendered alternate worlds.
by Addison Del Mastro via The American Conservative on May 18, 2018

Can Art Museums Help Illuminate Early American Connections To Slavery?

New labels at the Worcester Art Museum are drawing attention to the connections between art, slavery, and wealth in early America.
by Sarah E. Bond via Hyperallergic on April 25, 2018
Advertisement for Art War Relief during the First World War

Edith Magonigle and the Art War Relief

Called Art War Relief, members from a group of art societies formed a coalition under the auspices of the American Red Cross.
by Tal Nadan via The New York Public Library on July 20, 2017

Dramatic Courtroom Drawings From Decades of American Trials

The Library of Congress' new exhibition is "Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom illustration."
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on June 9, 2017
Painting "Open Casket" by Dana Schultz

Dana Schutz’s ‘Open Casket’

Should white artists be allowed to depict black suffering?
by Adam Shatz via LRB blog on March 24, 2017
Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Klüver collaborating on an art project

“God Help American Science”: Engineering Theatre and Spectacle

When an event promises you will "hear the body broadcast its sounds," "see without light," and "see dancers float on air,” there’s bound to be disappointment.
by W. Patrick McCray via Patrick McCray on September 7, 2016

A Brief History of the Great American Coloring Book

Where coloring books came from says something about what they are today.
by Phil Edwards via Vox on September 2, 2015
Two paintings of sports: Jean Jacoby's Corner, left, and Rugby. At the 1928 Olympic Art Competitions in Amsterdam, Jacoby won a gold medal for Rugby.

When the Olympics Gave Out Medals for Art

In the modern Olympics’ early days, painters, sculptors, writers and musicians battled for gold, silver and bronze.
by Joseph Stromberg via Smithsonian on July 25, 2012

No Laughing Matter

The evolution of the iconic smiley face and some of its not so happy connotations.
by Jennifer Liese via Cabinet on May 7, 2005
Ella Fitzgerald performing in Paris, 1961

Rare Gift, Rare Grit

Ella Fitzgerald performed above the emotional fray.
by Martha Bayles via The Hedgehog Review on May 23, 2025
Issue of the "Subway Sun" from 1939, advertising an art exhibit..

When “The Subway Sun” Ruled NYC’s Underground

With its signature two-toned design and illustrations, the mock newspaper encouraged polite passenger etiquette and promoted local attractions.
by Maya Pontone via Hyperallergic on May 15, 2025
Magazine ad of raccoons playing computer games.

The Raccoons Who Made Computer Magazine Ads Great

In the 1980s and 1990s, PC Connection built its brand on a campaign starring folksy small-town critters. They’ll still charm your socks off.
by Harry McCracken via Technologizer on April 22, 2025
Detail of landscape painting Villa Menaggio, Lago di Como by Sophia Peabody Hawthorne.

Transcending the Glass Ceiling

Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due.
by Lydia Moland via The American Scholar on March 27, 2025
Alvin Ailey

How to Forget Alvin Ailey

Even as “Edges of Ailey” gathers such intimate documents, it does not make them legible to its visitors.
by Juliana Devaan via Public Books on March 12, 2025
Cartoon of well-dressed arm holding a lit match

The Gilded Age Never Ended

Plutocrats, anarchists, and what Henry James grasped about the romance of revolution.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Mottled photographs of immigrants set against the Statue of Liberty.

The American Dream 100 Years After the National Origins Act

How a clerk on Ellis Island at the dawn of the 20th century documented discrimination through photography, and what that tells us about today’s malaise.
by Yousef O. Bounab via New Lines on February 17, 2025
A drawing of a slave revolt on a ship.

Rare Portraits Reveal the Humanity of the Slaves Who Revolted on the Amistad

William H. Townsend drew the rebels as they stood trial, leaving behind an invaluable record.
by Kate McMahon via The Conversation on February 3, 2025
Belle da Costa Greene.

The Hidden Story of J. P. Morgan’s Librarian

Belle da Costa Greene, a brilliant archivist, buried her own history.
by Hilton Als via The New Yorker on December 16, 2024
A painting of a large camera on a film set, surrounded by green screens.

Casual Viewing

Why Netflix looks like that.
by Will Tavlin via n+1 on December 16, 2024
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