Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="194" caption="Painting found in Yale Art Gallery's storage, Attributed to Diego Velázquez, The Education of the Virgin (detail shown), ca. 1617–18. Oil on canvas. Yale University Art Gallery."][/caption] Golly gee—sometimes some pretty incredible things are found in museum storage [via @museumnerd]. I worked peripherally on MIT’s
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="South Beach, Miami, Florida, 2004, Courtesy of the TypArchive: www.typarchive.com."] [/caption] A visual archive of hand-painted and cool old signage [via @leetranlam]. Check out the Smithsonian Libraries’ extensive links to online exhibitions created by libraries and archives. Catch the spirit! The Gospel Music History
Description: [caption id="attachment_4184" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Obama Billboard in Times Square, New York, January 7, 2010, Courtesy of Marvin Heiferman."][/caption] Both the media and Times Square were aflutter recently over a photograph of President Obama used without permission on a huge two-sided billboard in midtown Manhattan to advertise men’s coats.
Description: [caption id="attachment_3065" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Detail of a vinyl advertisement, Chennai, India, 2004, by Preminda Jacob."][/caption] It’s interesting to think about how shrewdly and often free still photography is used to get us to pay to watch motion pictures. Still photographs—often shot by special photographers on sound stages or on location, just
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368" caption="Cybill Shepherd at the "Castle" during the filming of "Chances Are," where she plays an SI curator, 1988, by Jeff Tinsley, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371, Box 5, Negative Number: 88-10752-31. "][/caption] The frequency with which the words “curator” and “curating” pop up continues to
Description: This National Preparedness Month, collections care professionals might consider joining their local Alliance for Response initiative to improve their organizations, practices, and programs.
Description: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Untitled, by Unidentified photographer, c. 1905, Smithsonian Institution Archives"][/caption] In keeping with our summer travel theme, I began to investigate some of the ways in which photographers were first able to travel with their cameras. To give a brief background, the invention of photography in 1839 coincided with
Description: [caption id="attachment_7871" align="alignleft" width="187" caption="A rendering of the AT&T Building, now the SONY Building, in New York, recently purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum from a newly discovered cache of material from the Philip Johnson’s architectural practice. Photo courtesy Capelin Communications.