Description: Nora Lockshin, Senior Conservator at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, consults on preservation goals with archivists & collection managers throughout the Smithsonian and researches modern materials found in archives including plastics. #Groundbreaker
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="405" caption="Elizabeth Tashjiaan, American painter, 1912-2007, Smithsonian American Art Museum"][/caption]Looking at this photo of artist Elizabeth Tashjian in our new set of portraits of women artists at the Smithsonian Commons on Flickr, it seemed obvious to me that I was looking at a professionally-trained artist, who in fact, won
Description: Frances Glessner Lee crafted the “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” detailing miniature crime scenes (now on exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery)—to train homicide investigators revolutionizing the emerging field of homicide investigation. #Groundbreaker
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: When Dr. Ted Reed became director of the National Zoological Park in 1959, he committed himself to carrying out the zoo’s complete set of mandates that included research, education, and conservation of endangered species. All these came together in a new non-public facility, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, founded in 1975 in Front Royal, Virginia.
Description: You can now download hi-res images of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, sketches, and letters. [via Open Culture and Vincent Van Gogh Museum]Speaking of Van Gogh, the Art Institute of Chicago has recreated the bedroom in his famous painting and it is now for rent on Air BnB. [via Colossal]More enjoyable art browsing brought to you by technology! Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of
Description: Since our move to Smithsonian Institution Support Center, in the fall of 2015, the Archives have been able to work on longer-term projects using the photographic negatives stored in our cold storage vault. One of these projects is systematically scanning the collection of glass plate negatives from the United States National Museum, Division of Graphic Arts Photograph